Lucretius Epicurean Friends Reference Edition Version 01

LUCRETIUS

On The
Nature of Things

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Reference Edition

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Lucretius

On The Nature Of Things

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Jolin Adams
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ἡ Νὰ Ψ ᾿ ᾿ ΠΝ ΔΙῚ (ςὐση δ {rr

T. Lucretius CARUS
NATURE of THINGS,
IN SIX BOOKS,

—

ILLUSTRATED With

Proper and Ufeful Nores,

Adorned with Copper-Prarss,

Curioufly EncRAVED

By GUER NJER, and others, _

Carmina fablimis tunc funt peritura Lucreti
Lxitio Terras cum dabit una Dies. Ovip.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

———

LONDON: a
Printed for DanieEL Browne, at the Black Swan
without Temple-Bar.

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PREFACE.

HE only Tranflation in Englith

of this Poem was executed many

Years ago by Mr. Creech: The

World was pleafed with the Per-

formance, and received it with the Applaufe
it deferved ; they faw an Author exceed-
ingly crabbed and abftrufe, delightfully
Opened, fet off with great Learning, and
{weetend with the Charms of Poetry. ΔΆ
Author (as Quntilian allows him) elegant
in his kind, curious and exact in his Images,
happy in difpofing his Matcrials, flowing
even to Satiety in Inftances of a brisk and
ready Wit, pointed in his Satire, fevere in
A 3 Reficctions,

iv

The PREFACE.

Reflections, grave in Precepts, quick and
vivacious in his Difcourfes, and every way
fitted for his bold Attempt.

THESE Excellencies made him extreme-
ly difficult to be followed. The learned
Cafaubon declares it impoflible ; Mr. Eve-
lyn, who tranflated the firft Book, found
it a very difcouraging Task, and left off.
He fays himtelf,

——= Perfuaded that there was rich Ore,

1 boldly launchd, and would new Worlds

explore;

Deep Mines I faw, and Iidden Wealth to
bie

In Rocky Entrails, and Sierra's high.

I faw a fruitful Soil, by none yet trod,

Referv'd for Heroes, or fome Demi-God ;

And urg’d my. bortune on ;

Till rugged Billows, and a dangerous Coaft,

My vent’rous Bark and γα Attempt had
croft ;

When bane unknown Paths, and hard
Accefs

Made me defpond of pre-concezv'd Succefss

1

The PREFACE.

1 turn'd my Prow, ana the Difcovery
made,

But was too weak, too poor hel to
trade, |

Much lefs to make a Conguefi;—~—-

And I believe any one who will be pleafed
to oblige the World with another, and
more Lane Verfion, will be futhciently
convinced of the Difficulty. ©

΄

Tue Matter of this Poem mutt be confeffed.
to be rugged, fubtle,and ftubborn; and every
Compofition of this kind is like a Landfcape,
where craggy Mountains and broken Wallsare
intermixed with fair Meadows and fmooth
Streams. Our Language (as. Sir Henry
Wotton obferves) runs out into Froth and
Bubble, is copious in Complement, and in
Love-Expreflions, but very narrow and
barren in Terms of Art, and Phrafes fuited
to Philofophy ; and thofe Technical Words

we have, move coarfely and cloudily in
Verfe. For thefe Reafons, the Poetical
Tranflation of Lucretius is often more
perplexed'and harfh than the Original ; it is,
in many Places, a wide and rambling Para-

2 phrate ἡ

v1

The PREFACE.

phrafe ; in others Mr. Creech contraéts and
curtailshis Author, and is frequently guilty of
Omiflions for many Lines together, tho his
Numbers flow fweetly as he goes, and
charm you irrefiftibly. This 1s no wonder ;
for the Poet he undertook is not to be con-
fined and fhackled by the Rules of Rhyme ;
his Verfe is neareft, and runs more naturally
intoProfe than any other, ‘fuvenaland Ho-
vaceouly excepted, amongall the Claflicks. I
have endeavoured (becaufe difencumber'd
from the Fetters of Poetry) faithfully to dif-
clofe his Meaning in his own Terms, andto
fhew him whole and intire; Ihave foilowed
the different Readings and Explications of the

bett Expofitors, but whether agreeable to

the Mind of the Author or no, Comparifon
only can difcover.

Anp here I would have it be underftood,
that I tranflate Lucretius only asa Claflick
Writer of the firft Rank, and one of the
Venerable Fathers of Latin Poetry, with-
out thinking myfelf accountable for his
Principles, or juftifying his Syftem; and
whoever apprehends the Defign of this
Work, in any other View, is a Perfon of

| "narrow

The PREFACE.

narrow and ftinted Conceptions; he is a
precife Fanatick in the Republick of Letters,
and a fecret and ignorant Enemy to Human
Learning. It would make ftrange Havock
in the Learned World, if a Tranflator who
renders a Pagan Author, or a Tutor that
explains an old Claflick to his Pupils, fhould
be judged to cultivate and defend all the
Folly and Impiety of the Heathen Mytholo-
gy: This would foon banifh thofe great
Founders of Knowledge and polite Litera-
ture out of all Methods of Education, and
introduce Barbarifm and Ignorance equal to
that of the Goths and Vandals, upon the
Ruins of every thing that is now called
Noble, Generous and Inftructive, by the

wifeftt and the moft fenfible Part of Man-:

kind.

BESIDES, Books that treat of Subjects

naturally fo ob{cure and intricate as are

many of thofe of which Lucretius difputes,
cannot be turned into our Language in fuch
a manner, as by a bare Tranflation only to
make them intelligible to a Reader merely
fonglijo, and that has no Knowledge of the
Languages in which the Originals were com-
: A 4 pofed :

vil

ὉΠῚ

~

The PREFACE.

pofed: for the Terms, tho’ dark and diffs
cult, muft neceffarily’ be retained, and by
Confequence their Force cannot be appre-
hended by Perfons of vulgar Abilities, and
of low Learning.

ὦ But if I fhould ftill fall under Cenfure
for beftowing fo much Time and Labour
upon an impious Poet; upon Lucretzus,
who believes and endeavours to prove the
Mortality and Corporiety of the human
Soul, who denies a future State, and laughs
at Providence, who defends the Atheiftical
Hypothefis of ‘Democritus and Epicurus,
concerning the Indivifible Principles, and
the Nature of Things: In Anfwer to this
heavy Charge, not to mention,. that for the
fame Reafon we ought to banifh from our
Studies the moft celebrated Authors of An-
tiquity, fince their Writings are in many
Places profane, impious, fabulous, falfe and
ridiculous; fo that all our Poets, Orators,
Hiftorians, and Philofophers muft be avoid-
ed and thrownaway as Debauchers of Youth,
and Corrupters of Manners, if their Wri-
tings were once to be tried by the Standard
of Faith, and the Dottrines of Chriftianity -

Not

The PREFACE.

Not to infift upon this, I will boldly ven-
ture to fay, that whatever Propofitions La-
cretzus advances contrary to our Religion
are fo vifibly and notorioufly falfe, and con-
fequently fo eafy to be anf{wered, that they
cannot fhake or ftagger any one’s Faith thar
can give a Reafon for his Belief. What Dan-
ger can any Man apprehend, while he reads
that ridiculous Doérine of the Epicurean
Philofophers, concerning their Atoms, or
minute indivifible Corpufcles, which they
held to be the firft Principles of all Things?
An Opinion fo abfurd, that only to men-
tion it is to confute it. When the Poet
thinks he has fully demonttrated the Corpo-
rality of the Human Soul, and brings no lefs
than fix and twenty Arguments to prove its
Mortality, upon full Confideration they ap-
peat of fo little Force, and fo obvious to be
confuted, that fo far from confounding a
Chriftian’s Faith, no Man, but of ordinary
Capacity, can, upon fo flender and uncon-
vincing Proofs, believe, if he would, that
the Soul dies with the Body; nor are his Ar-
euments, by which he labours to overthrow
the Belief of a Divine Providence, and to

wrelt the Power of Creation out of the
Hands

Th PREFACE.

Hands of Omnipotence, more cogent or
perfuafive. And what Chriftian will not be
pleafed to obferve, that nor even the moft
piercing Wit of Lucretius has been able

_ toadvance any Thing folid againft the Power
of that infinite God whom he adores; ef-

pecially confidering, if any {uch Impieties
could have been defended, he -was certainly
capable of defending them.

Si Pergama dextra
Defi poffent certé hac defenfa furffent.

VIRG.

Nort that we are to fuppofe, that what-
ever Lucretius writ was impious, falfe or
ridiculous; fo far from that, many excel-
lent Things are contained in his Poem, ma-
ny that deferve to be well read and remem-
ber’d by the deft of Chriftians. How excel-
lently does he declaim againft Ambition,
Injufticeand Cruelty? againft Superftition,
and the Fear of Death? againft Avarice,
Luxury, and Luft? and the diforder’d Pat-
fions of the Mind, and difhoncft Pleafures
of the Body? Is he not ever exhorting his
Memmtus to Sobriety, Temperance, Cha-

fity,

Th PREFACE.

ftity, and Magnanimity? Infomuch, that
what Diogenes writes of Epicurus feems
to be true, that he was falfely accufed of
indulging himfelf too much in Pleafure,
and that it wasa mere Calumny to wreft to
a wrong Senfe the Meaning of that Philo-
fopher, and to interpret what he faid of the
Tranquillity of the Mind, as if it had been
fpoken of the fenfual Delights of the Body.
Galen reprefents this Philofopher as a Petr-
fon ef confummate Virtue and Continence,
that exclaimed conftantly againft the Ufe of
Venereal Actions, that neglected the Ad-
vantages of Life, and contemned all Dain-
tinef$ and Exce(fs, in Eating, Drinking and
Apparel, and would often fay, That Bread
and Water in time of Want afforded the
greateft Pleafure. Thus lived Epicurus,
whofe very Name neverthelefs has, for ma-
ny Ages, been ufed as a Proverb, to mark
out an atheiftical, voluptuous Wretch, ad-
dicted to all manner of Senfuality. Thus
too lived his Followers, who neverthelefs
are called impious Libertines, and reprefen-
ted as a Herd of Swine, indulging them-
{elves in Pleafure, and wallowing in all
manner of Impurities. 7
—— Epicuri de grege Porci. Ἠοκ.
| 1

xi

ΧΗ

The PREFACE

I sHALL conclude upon this Occafion,
with the Charatter of Lucretius, and his
excellent Poem, given by ‘Dicnyfius Lambi-
nus,in his Epiftle Dedicatory to Charles IX.
iad moft Chriftian King. :

‘ Tre: Pocm of Dicnis ih tho’ he ad
“vances in it fome Opinions that are repug-
*“nantto our Religion, isneverthelefs-aPoem,

‘nay, anda beautiful noble Poem too, di-

“ ftinguifhed, illuftrated and adorned with all |

‘the Brightnefs of Wit and Fancy. What
‘tho’ Epitanus and Lucretius were impious,
‘are we who read’ them therefore impious
‘too’ How many Affertions are there in
“this Poem that are agreeable to the Opi-
“nions and Maxims of other Philofophers κα
‘How many probable? how many excellent,
‘and almoft Divine? Thefe let us lay hold
‘on, thefe let us feize, thefe let us approve
“οὗ. —— Belides, are we fo credulous as to

᾿ believe, that what Affertions foever all

“manner of Writers have left recorded in
‘their Works, are as true, asif they had been
‘pronounced from the Oracle of Apollo?
‘And fince we »“᾿ ly read many Things that

mare

The PREFACE:

‘are fabulous, incredible and falfe, either to
é give fomeRefpite to our Minds,or to make
“us the more willingly acquiefce in, and the
‘more conftantly to adhere to fuch as are in-
“difputably true, what reafon is there that
‘we fhould contemn Lucretzus, a moft ele-
~*gant and beautiful Poet, the moft polite,
‘and the moft ancient of all the Latin Wri-
“ters, from whom Vzrg7l and Horace have
‘in many Places borrowed. not half, but
_ ‘whole Verfes ? He, when he difputes of the
indivifible Corpufcles or firft Principles of
‘Things, of their Motion, and of their va-
‘rious Figuration, of the Void, of the Ima-
“ges, ortenuiousMembranes that fly off from
‘the Surface of all:Bodies, of the Nature of
‘the Mind and Soul, of the Rifing and Set-
‘ting of the Planets, of the Eclipfe of the
‘Sun and Moon, of the Nature of Light-
‘ning, of the Rainbow, of the Canfes of
‘Difeafes, and of many other Things, is
‘learned, witty, judiciousand. elegant. In
‘the Introductions to his Books, in his Com-
*parifons, in his Examples, in his Difputa-
‘ tions againft the Fear of Death, concerning
“τῆς Inconvenienciesand the Harms of Love;
of Sleep, and of Dreams, he is copious,
| “ « difcreet,

eae

ΧΙ

XIV.

The PREFACE;

‘ difcreet, eloquent, knowing and fablime ;
‘we not only read Homer, but even’get him
“by heart, becaufe under the Veil of Fables,
‘partly obfcene and partly abfurd, he has in
‘amannerincluded the Knowledge of all
“natural and human Things. Shall we not
“then hear Lucretius, who, without the
‘Difguife of Fables, and fuch Trifles, not
‘truly indeed, nor pioufly, but plainly and
‘openly, and as an Epicurean, ingenioully,
‘ wittily and learnedly, and in the moft cor-
‘rect and pureft of Styles, difputes of the
“Principles, and Caufes of Things, of the
‘Univerfe, of the Parts of the World, of a
‘happy Life, and of Things Celeftial and
‘Terreftrial?) And tho’ in many Places he
‘diffents from Plato, tho’ he advances ma-
“ny Affertions that arerepugnant toour Re-
‘ligion, we ought not thercfore to defpife

© and fet at nought thofe Opinions of his, in
‘which not only the ancient Philofophers,

‘but we, whoprofefs Chriftianity, agree with
“him. How admirably docs he difpute of
‘the reftraining of Pleafures, of the bridling
‘of Paflions, and of the attaining Tranquil-
“lity of Mind? How wittily docs he rebuke
‘and confute thofe who affirm that nothing

* can

The PREFACE.

‘can be perceived, and nothing known ? and
‘ who fay that the Senfes are fallacious? How
‘fully he defends the Certainty of Senfe?
‘How beautiful are his ‘Defcriptions? How
‘sraceful, as the Greeks call them, are his
‘Epifodes? How fine are his Defcriptions of
© Colours, of Mirrours, of the Loadftone,
‘and of the Zverni ? How ferious and aw-
* ful are his Exhoxtations to live continently,
“juftly, temperately, and innocently ? What
‘fhall we fay of his ‘Dzé#zon, than which no-
“thing can be faid or imagined more pure,
“more correct, more clear, or more elegant.
“1 make not the leaft Scruple to affirm, that
“in all the Latin Tongue, no Author {peaks
‘ Latin betterthan Lucretius, and that the
*Dittion, neither of Czcero, nor of (αν,
“is more pure.

THe Notes that attend this Tranflation .

are fufficient, I think, to explain the Text
to thofe, who are properly qualified to read
this Work ; and to fuch who are not fo, a
more copious and particulars Comment
could be of no ufe.

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LUCRETIVS.

E have few Materials left from
whence to colle& the proper Cir-

cumftances that relate to the Life |
of Lucretius; we are aflured by his own

Teftimony, that he was a Roman, and born
at Rome: His very Name direéts us to the
noble and ancient Family of the Lucretz1,
which being divided into many Branches,

VoL. 1. ~~ com:

Xvid

Pe

vane

726 Life of Lucretius.

coniprehended under it, the Triczpetinz, the
Conna, the Vefpillones, the Triones, the
Offelli, and the Galli, and gave ta Rome
many Confuls, Tribunes and Pretors, who.
were the great Supports and Ornaments of

the Commonwealth.

He was born, according tothe Chronicle
of Eufebius, about the fecond Year of the
hundred and feventy firft Olympiad, in the
Confulthip of Lucius Licinmius Craffus, and
Quintus Mutius Scevola, about the fix
hundred and fifey eighth Year of Rome,
twelve Years after Czeero. His Name was
Titus Lucretius Carus; Carus was a Ro-
man Surname, of which Ovsd and many
others make mention; but we no. where
find how it came to be given to Lucretzus.
It is net improbable it was conferred upon
him cither on account of his excellent and
fprightly Wit, his Affability and Sweetnefs
of Temper and Manners, or for fome other
tike endearing Qualities, that render‘d him
agreeable to thofe with whom he converfed,
He was fent young to. Athens, where at
that time the Eviewrean Philofophy was in
great Reputation. He ftudied under Zena,
᾿ | β ~ who,

Tbe Life of Lucretius.
who had the DireCtion of the Gardens at
that time, and was the. Honour of the £f7-
curean Sek. Phaedrus was another of his
Maiters, whom Czcero mentions as ἃ Per-
fon of the greateft Humianity. Thefe were
the Preceptors of Lucretius, as they were
likewife of Pomponius Atticus, Mem-
mins, Cafsus, and many-others, who in
that Age render’d themfelves very iluftrious

in the Republick of Kome. How he {pent.

his Time at Athens, how ftudioufly he im-
proved it, let his Poem be Witnefs. That
he fitted himfelf for the beft Company, is
evident by what Cornelius Nepos tellsus of
the great Intimacy between him, Pompo-
nins Atticus, and Memmius: And no
doubt but he was intimate likewife with

Tally and his Brother, who make fuch ho- °

nourable Mention ofhim. If we look into
lis Morals, we may difcover him to bea
Man fuitable to the Epicurean Principles,
diffolyed in Eafe and Pleafure, flying publick
Employments as a Derogation to Wifdem,
and a Difturber of Peace and Quietniefs, and
avoiding thofe diftradting Cares which he
imagined would make Heaven itfelf un-
aly.

ον ve THE

RIK

ix

The Life of LUCRETIUS.

Tue Accounts that remain of this Poet
ftop fhort here, and no more is to be found
concerning him till we come to his Death 5
yet it is difficult to find in what manner he

diced, nor is it much eafier to determine in

what Year of his Life his Death happened.
Some make him die on the very Day Vergil
was born, but this is an ingenious Fiction,
founded only upon this, that Vzrgz/ affumed

the Toga Virilis on the fame Day that Le-
cretius died.

Tue Chronicle of Eufebius obferves,
that he died by his own Hands in the forty
fourth Year of his Age, being made diftraG-
ed by a Philtre, which either his Miftrefs or
his Wife Luczlia (for fo fome call her, tho
without Authority) in a Fit of Jealoufy had
given him; not with a Defign to deprive
him of his Senfes, or to take away his Life,
but only to increafe the Paffion of his Love,
Donatus, or whoever was the Author of —
the Life of Vzrgz/, that goes under his Name,
writes, that he died three Years before, when

Pompey the Great and M. Licinius Craffus
were both of them the fecond time Confuls.

Orhers,

The Life of Lucretius.
Others, who allow that having log his Sen-
fes, he laid violent Hands on his own Life,
yet place his Death in the twenty fixth Year
of his Age, and believe that his Madnefs
proceeded from the Cares and Melancholy

that opprefled him on account of the Βα--

nifhment of hisbeloved Memmius 3 to which
others againadd likewife another Caufe, the
fatal Calamities under which his Country
then laboured. And indeed it is certain,
that Lucretzus,a few Years before his Death,
was an Eye-witnefs of the wild Adminiftra-
tion of Affairs in the Days of Clodius and
Catiline, who gave fuch a Blow to the Re-
publick of Kome, as not long after occa-
fioned its total Subverfion.

Ir is wonderful that this admirable Poem
of Lucretzus fhould be compofed in the
time of his Diftra€tion, His fix Books of his
Eipicurean Philofophy, fays Eufebius, were
written in his’ lucid‘ Intervals, when the
- Strength of Nature had thrown off all the

difturbing Particles, and his Mind, as it is —

obferved of Madmen, was fprightly and vi-
-gorous. Then, in a Poctical Rapture, he
could fly with his Apzcurus beyond the fla-

ming

6?
XS

Exit

The Life of LucrETIUs.

ming Limits of this World, frame and dif.

folve Seas and Heavens in an inftant, and

by fome unnufual Sallies be the ftrongeft
Argument of his own Opinion; for it feems
impoflible that fome Things which he deli-
¥ers fhould proceed from Reafon and Judg-
ment, or from any other Canfe but Chance

and unthinking Fortune.

Arrer his Death, Cicéro, as Eufe-

bius witnefles, revifed and correéted his
Writings. Lambinus contradicts this, but
the Arguments he brings againft the Af

fertion ἯΣ che αι are “iy weak and of
fmalj force.

A NEW
TRANSLATION
| O F
=~. Lucretius Carus,
Gee & Gist:

NATURE of THINGS.

Vou. I. B

ΤΕ
A® Gh U M EN

OF THE

?

- ἘΠῚ ΒΡ 5; ΤΊ ΒΟ Ὁ K
4 a § ν : 4 o>
y a » ἰὸν ah “.

Ucretius has difpofed his Poem in an
excellent Method, and Order fhines through-
out the whole. He begins with an Inveca-

tion to Venus, the common natural Appetite to Pro-
creation, and gives her all her Titles, ας if really
he expected fome Affiftance from ker, He then de-
dicates to Memmius his Books of the Nature of
Things, and endeavours to vindicate his Dottrines
from the Charge of Impiety, and briefly lays down
the Arguments of This and the following Books, He
enters upon his Subjeé?, and labours firenuoufly,
‘That nothing can ‘proceed from nothing, and that
nothing can be reduced intonothing, He proceeds
to prove that there are fome little Bodies which, tho?
imperceptible to the Hye, may be conceiv’d by the
Mind, of which all Beings ave made: To thefe Cor-
pufcles he fubjoins a voia or empty Spase. He-af-
ferts, that there is nothing in Nature befides Body
and Noid; and that all T Lings elfe, fuch as Weight,
Heat, Poverty, War, &c. are no more than cer-
tain Conpuncts or Events, Properties or Accidents
of Body and Space. That thefe βγῇ Principles
are perfetily folid, and by confequence indivisible,
they are Leatts ( for Body cannot be injinitely divided)

and

The ARGUMENT.

and Eternal. He then refutes Heraclitus, who
made Five the Principle of all Things, and others
who laid down that all Things proceeded fram Air,
Earth, or Water. He foews againft Empedocles,
that Things are not compofed of the four Elements.
He contradit?s Anaxagoras ; and, in the laft place,
employs a long Difputation to prove the Univerfe,
which confifts: of Body and Void, to be infinite. He
is very copious in his Arguments againft the Stoicks,
who held a Centre in the infinite Univerfe, down to
which all heavy Things are continually ftriving,
while the light work upward of their own accord;
and defcribes the Opinions of Epicurus with a.great
deal of Eloquence. He banifbes the Antipodes,
and fooths with bis Arguments ‘the Imagination of
Man, which delights to be led away into an Infinite,
and never yet fixed any Bounds to Space, nor will
ever dare to do fa.

ba

7, Lucretia Cart

DE
RERUM NATURA
LIBER PRIMUS.

A

AY” EADUM genetrix, bominum diviimque
voluptas,

Alma Venus, cali fubter labentia figna
Que mare navigerum, que terras frugiferenteis
Concelebras ; per Te quoniam genus omne animantum

Concipitur, vifitque exortum lumina folis : 5
Te, Dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila celi,
Adventumque tuum; tibi fuaveis dedala tellus
Summittit flores, tibi rident equora pontt,
Placatumque nitet diffufo luming ceelum,

Naw

gives her all her Titles ; yet, δὲ the” tame“ine, ance -- τ"
bitter Refle€tions upon the then fafnionable Devotion. He
᾿ς ftyles her Mother of Rome, becaufe the Romans deduced their

Origin from xeas, who was the Son of Venus by Anchifes.
' B 3 ᾿ς when.

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ΟΥ͂, Lucretius Carus,
OF THE
NATUREof THINGS.
THE
FIRST BOOK

ΙΝ OTHER of Rome, Delight of Men 7}, pce

and Gods, Sweet Venus; who withcation ~~
| M vital Power doft fill the Sea bearing
the Ships, the fruitful Earth, all Things beneath
the rolling Signs of Heaven ; for *tis by Thee Crea-
tures of every kindcenceive, rifeinto Life, and view
the Sun’*s bright Beams. Thee Goddefs, Thee
the Winds avoid; the Clouds fly Thee, and thy
Approach ; with various Art the Earth for Thee
affords her {weeteft Flowers ; for Thee the Sea’s
rough Waves put on their Smiles, and the
fmooth Sky fhines with diffufed Light. For

* Lucretius as a Poet conforms to the Rule of his Art, and
begins with an Invocation to Venus, that is the common natu-
ral Appetite to Procreation; which neverthelefs he treats asa
_ Goddefs, as if he really expected Affiftance from her, and
gives her all her Titles; yet, at the fame time, throws out
bitter Refleftions upon the then fafhionable Devotion. He
ftyles her Mother of Rome, becaufe the Romans deduced their
Origin from xeas, who was the Son of Venus by Anchifes.

' 7" B 3 ~ when.

T. Lucretir Lisl

Nam fimul ac fpecies patefatta *ft verna diti, τὸ
Et referata viget genitalis aura FavonI; Ὁ
Aérie primum volucres te, Diva, tuumque
Significant initum percuffe corda tua vi :

Inde fera pecudes perfultant pabula lata,
Et-vrapidos tranant amneis ; ita captalepore, 15
MMecebrifque tuis. omnis natura animantum

Te fequitur cupide, quo quamque inducere pergis:
Denique per maria, ac montets, fluviofque rapaceis,
frundiferafque domos avium, campofque virentets,
Omnibus incutiens blandum per pettore amorem, 2
Efficis, ut cupide generatim fecla propagent.

Que quoniam rerum Naturam (οἷα gubernas,
Nec fine.Te quicquam. dias in luminis oras
Exoritur, neque jit letum, nec amabile quicquam ;
Te fociam fiudeo feribundis verfibus effe, 25
Quos ego de REnuM NaTuRa pangere conor
Memmiadz nofiro: quem tu, Dea, tempore in omni
Omnibus ornatum voluifts excellere rebus.

Quo magis eternum da dittis, Diva, leporem:

Lfice ut inierea fera manera militiai Ε΄

Per

Boox I. Of tha Nature of Thing’.

when the buxom Spring Jeads on the Year, ‘and -

eenial Gales of Wettern Winds blow frefh, un- -

lock’d. from Winter’s Cold, τῆς airy: Birds firft.

feel T:hee Goddefs, and exprefs thy Power; thy.
active Flame ftrikes through their very Come .
And then the favage Beatts, an wanton Play, |
frifk o’er the cheatful Fields, and fwim the rapid ἡ

Streams. So pleafed with thy Sweetnefs, fo

tranfported by thy foft Charms, all living Nature.
ftrives; ,with fharp Defire, to follow Thee her .

Guide, where Thou art pleas’d to lead. In fhort,
thy Power infpiring every Breaft with tender

Love, drives every Creature on with eager Heat,

in Seas, 1n Mountains, and in fwifteft Floods, in

leafy Forefts, and in verdant Plains, to propa-

gate their Kid from Age to Age.

SincE Thou alone dott oovern Nature’ s Laws,

and nothing without Thee can rife to Light, with-
out Thee nothing can look gay or lovely ; I beg

Thee a Companion to my Lays, which, now 1 fing.

f Nature, 1 devote to my dear > Memmius, whom

Thou art ever pleafed, fweet Goddefs, to adorn

with every Grace; for him, kind Deity, infpire
my Song, and give immortal Beauty to my Verfe.

Mean time, the bloody Tumults of the ° War by

ν᾽ This Memmius, to whom Lucretius infcribes his Poem,
travelled with him to Athens, where they ftudied Philofopny
together; he was derived from the noble Family of the Mem-

mii, who claimed their Extraction from the Trojazs. He ar-’

rived at the Dignity of Pretor, and obtained Brthyxia for his
Province, but was foon recalled, being accufed by Cz/ar of
Male-adminiftration. Yet not many Years after his Return to
Rome, he came to be Tribune of the People, and in a litile
time itood Candidate for the Confulfhip ; of which he not on-
ly failed, but being accufed of Bribery, was, tho” Cicero plead-
ed in his Defence, convicted of it, and banifhed into Greece,

where he died in Exile.

_,° The Poet alludes to the diftraéted State of Affairs under
‘the Adminiftration of Clodizs and Catiline, which gave fuch a
Biow to the Republick of Rowe, as occafioned its total Subver-
fion, which happened not long after.

wa : Sea

1y

T. Lucretir® Lis.
Per maria ac terras omneis fopita quiefcamt. =
Nam Tu fola potes tranquilla pace juvare. |
Mortaleis, quoniam bella fera manera Mavors
Armipotens regit, in gremium qui fepe tuun fe
Rejicit, eterno devintlus volnere amoris , 35
Atque ita fufpiciens tereti cervice repifta .
Pafcit amare avidos inhians in te, Dea, vifus :
ἔφη tuo pendet refupini [piritus ore. Ὁ
Flunc tu, Diva, tuo recubantem corpore fanéto
Circumfufa fuper, fuaveis ex ore loquelas 40
Funde, petens placidam Romanis Incluta, pacem.

Nam neque Nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniqua
Poffumus equo animo: neque MemmI clara propaga
Talibus in rebus communi de ffe faluti. β
Quod fupereft, vacuas aureis miki Memmiada, ee te,
Semotum ἃ curis adbibe veram ad rationem, 46

Nec mea dona tibi ftudio difpifia jidelt,

Lnielletia prius quam fint, contempta relinguas.

Nam tibi de fumma Celi ratione, Dedmque,
Differere incipiam, 3 rerum-primordia pandam ; 50.
Unde omneis Natura creet res, auétet, alatque:
κοῦ eadem rurfum Natura perempta refolvat :
Que nos Materiem, δ᾽ Genitalia Corpora rebus
Reddunda in ratione vocare; €9 Semina rerum —
Appellare fuémus, €8 hac eadem ufurpare 55
Corpora Prima, quod ex illis funt omnia primis. ὁ
Omnis enim per fe Diviim natura neceffe*ft
Inmortali evo fumma cum pace freatur,

ne

Semota

te λ

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

- Sea and Land compote, and lay afleep. For
‘Thou alone Mankind with quiet Peace cantt blels;

becaufe *tis Mars Armipotent that rules the bloody
Tumults of the War, and He by everlafting Pains
of Love bound faft, taftes in thy Lap moft .fweer
Repofe, turns back his fmooth long Neck, and
views thy Charms, and greedily fucks Love at
both his Eyes. Supinely as he refts his very Soul
hangs on thy Lips; this God diffolv’d in Eafe, in
the foft Moments when thy heavenly Limbs cling
round him, with melting Eloquence carefs, great
Goddefs, and implore a Peace for Rome.

For neither can I write with chearful Strains,

in Times fo fad; norcan the noble Houfe of Mem- ᾿
minus defert the common Good in ftich Diftrefs of

Things. The Hours you fpare apply with clofe
Attention to my Verfe, and free from Care re-
ceive true Reafon’s Rules; nor thefe my Gifts,
prepared with faithful Pains, reject with Scorn

before they are underftood. ForI begin to write 72ε διδεῖ
of lofty Themes, of Gods, and of the Motions 4 ay

of the Sky, the Rife of Things, how all Things
Nature forms, and how they grow, and to Per-
fection rife, and into what, by the fame Nature’s
Laws, thofe Things refolve and die; which as I
write I call by various Names; fometimes τὶ

Matter, or the firft Principles or Seeds of Things, |

or firft of Bodies, whence all elfe proceed.
“For the whole Nature of the Gods mutt fpend
an Immortality in fofteft Peace, removed from our
Ὺ Affairs,
ἃ Here Lucretius begins his Impiety ; had he contented him-
felf only with deriding the fuperftitious Devotion of the Age
he lived in, and not propofed Principles of Irreligion, drawn
from the Happinefs of the Deity, which he places in fupine
Idlenefs and Eafe, he might have been read with much Satif-
faction, as an excellent Satirift againit the Heathen Worhhip ;
for he feverely {winges the mad Zeal of Men-facrificers, tho”
perhaps he has not produced a true Inftance in Iphigenia ; yet Hi-
: = Py fioty

το ς T. Luer®tiu . ‘bret.
Semota ab noftris rebus, fejuntiaque longe - ᾿
Nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis, . 60

OO EE τ" ὔ«“«““π

Ipfa [εἰς pollens opibus, nibil indiga noftri,
: Nec bene promeritis capitur, nec tangitur ira,
Ore wowbly τ
Thu Hove in terris opprelfa gravi fub Religione,
j Que caput a cel regionibus oftendebat, 65
flare st mb ror idil super afpeciu mortalibus inftans 5
sos ath Op bed, Primum Graius homo mortaleis tollere contra
Eft oculos aufus, primufque obfiftere contra:
Quem nec fama Deiim, nec fulmina, nec minitanti

Humana ante oculos fede cum vita jaceret

Murmure compreffit Celum, fed eo magis acrem 79
Virtutem irritat animi, confringere ut ἀγα
Nature primus portarum clauftra cupiret.

Ergo vivida vis animi pervicit, €P extra

Proceffit longe flammantia menia Mundi ;

Aique oinne immenfium peragravit mente animoque :
Unde refert nobis victor quid poffit oriri, 76
Quid nequeat , finita potefias denique quoique
Quanam fit ratione, atque alte terminus berens.
Quare Relligio pedibus fubjelta vicifim

Odteritur, nos Ἔχ απ: vidloria Cela, SO

— illud

me

Booxl. Of the Nature of Things. 11
Affairs, and feparated by Diftance infinite ; from

Sorrow free, fecure from Danger; in its own

Happinefs fufficient, and nought of ours can

want, is neither pleafed with Good, nor vexed

with Il.

« ΓΝΡΕΕΡ Mankind, in wretched Bondage held,

lay groveling on the ground, galled with the

Yoke of what is called Religion; from the Sky

this Tyrant fhewed her Head, and with grim

Looks hung over us poor Mortals here below ; un-
til a “ Man of Greece with fteady Eyes dared look
‘her in the Face, and firft oppofed her Power. Him
not.the Fame of Gods nor Thunder’s Roar kept

back, nor threatening Tumults of the Sky; but
{till the more they roufed the active Virtue of his

afpiring Soul, as he prefled forward firft to

break thro’ Nature’s fcanty Bounds, His Mind’s
quick Force prevailed ; and fo he paffed by far the
flaming Limits of this World, and wander’d with
his comprehenfive Soul o’er all the migaty Space ;

from thence returned triumphant; told: us what

Things may have a Being, and what cannot; and

how a finite Power is fixed to each, a Bound it

cannot break; and fo Religion, which we feared

before, by him fubdued, we tread upon in turn;

his Conqueft makes us equal to the Gods. |

ftory,both facred and profane, gives us many fad Relations of fuch
Cruelties: but fince he declares that the Defign of his writing
is to free Men from the Fear of that Heavenly Tyrant Provw-
dence, ἄς. he muft be read with fome Caution, tho’ his Ar-
guments, in general, are weak, and, I think, can make but
little Impreffion. : |

© He attempts the Praife of Epicurus of Athens, the Son of
Neocles, who, he fays, firft oppofed himfelf to all thefe Ter-
rors with undaunted Courage; and, by looking into the in-
moft Receffes of Nature, difcovered, as he thought, that all
Things were made without the Care and Workmanhhip of the
Gods, and therefore overthrew the Foundation of ail Reli-
gion.

Bur

2

T. ΤΌ ΘΚΕΤΙΣΙ Liz. 1,

lua in bis rebus vereor, ne forte rearis
Impia te rations inive elementa, viamque
Endogredi feelerts: Quod contra, fepius oling
Relligio pepertt fcelerofa aique impia falta,
Aulide quo patio Triviai virginis aram 85
Lpbianaffai turparunt fanguine fade
Duétores Danaim, delet, prima virorum.,
Cui fimul infula virgineos circumdata comptus
Ex utraque pari malarum parte profufa *ft,
Et meftum fimul ante aras adfare parentem 90
Senfit, <P bune propter ferrum celare minifiros 3
Afpettuque fuo lacrymas effundere civeis :
Mita meiu terram genibus fummiffa petebat :
Nec mifere prodeffe in talt tempore quibat,
Quod Patrio princeps dondrat nomine Regem. 95
Nam fublata viriim manibus tremabundaque ad aras
Deduéta ft, non ut, folenni more facrorum
Perfeéto, poffet claro comitari Etymenao:
Sed cafta incefte nubend: tempore in ipfo
Hoftia concideret mattatu mafia parentis, τοῷ
Exitus ut claffi felix, fauftufque daretur
Tantum Relligiopotuit fuadere malorum.

Tutemet a nobisjam quovis tempore Vatune
Terriloquis vittus dittis defcifcere queres ?
Quippe etenim quam multa tibi jam fingere poffum
Somnia, qua vita rationes vetere poffint, 106
Portunafque tuas ommeis turbare timore.
Et merito: namfi ceriam finem elfe viderent

LES YUMMY Ui

Boox I. Of the Wature of Things.
Bur in thefe Things I fear you will fufpeé& you

are learning impious Rudiments of Reafon, and en-

tring ina Road of Wickednefs. So far from this,

reflect what fad flagitious Deeds Religion has pro-
duced ; by her infpired the Grecian Chiefs, the

ΕἸ of Men, at § Aulis, Diana’s Altar fhameful- 4

ly defiled with [pbigenia’s Blood; her Virgin Hair
a Fillet bound, which hung in equal Length on
either fide her Face; fhe faw her Father, cover’d
with Sorrow, ftand before the Altar ; for pity to
his Grief the butchering Priefts concealed the
Knife; the City at the fight o’erflowed with
Tears; the Virgin, dumb with Fear, fell low
upon her Knees on the hard Earth; in vain the
wretched Princefs in Diftrefs pleaded that ‘fhe firft
gave the honoured Name of Father to the King ;
but hurried off, and dragged by wicked Hands,
fhe trembling ftood before the Altar: Alas! notas
a Virgin, the folemn Forms being duly done, is
drawn with pleafing Force to Hymen’s noble Rites,
but a chafte Maid, juft ripe for nuptial Joy,
falls a fad Victim by a Father’s Hand, only to-bee
a kind propitious Gale for Grecian Ships; fuch
Scenes of Villany Religion could infpire !

Bur ftill I fear your Caution will difpute the.
Maxims I lay down, who all your Life have
trembled at the Poets frightful Tales. Alas! E
could even-now invent fuch Dreams as would
pervert the fteadieft Rules of Reafon, and make
your Fortunes tremble to the Bottom, No won-
der! butif Men were once convinced that Death

* The Sacrifice of Iphigenia is well known ; for in thefe
Notes I fhall give no Account of the common Stories and My-
thology of the Heathens, to be met with in every Dictionary : -
She was offer’d to Diana upon her Altar at Avlis, a Port of
— on the River Euripus, her own Father afliftng at the

ACTUice.

x was

i?

4

taper ate

14

a
ὥ ¢

a

es

T. Luererrity in. Ἔ

Lerumnarum bomines, aliqua ratione valerent
Relligionibus, atque minis obfifiere Vatum: 110
Nunc ratio nulla’ft reftandi, nulla facultas, |
fAiternas quoniam penas in morte timendum.

Ignoratur enim que fit natura animat,
Natafit, an, contra, nafcentibus infinuetur,
Et fimul intereat nobifcum morte dirempta, - 118
An tenebras Orci vifat, vaftasque lacunas,
An pecudes alias divinitus infinuet fe, “4
Ennius uf wofter cecinit, qui primus amano
Detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam,
Per genteis Italas hominum qua clara clueret, .129
ΕΠ praterea tamen effe Acherufia templa
Ennius eternis exponit verfibus, edens:
Quo neque permanent anime, neque corpora noftra s
Sed quedam fimulacra modis pallentia miris:
Unde fili exortam femper-florentis Homeri 125
Commemorat [pectem, lacrumas €8 fundere falfas
Capilffe, 8 rerum naturam expandere ditiis.

Qyapropter bene, cum, Superis de rebus habenda
Nobis eft ratio, Solis Luneque meatus
Qua fant ratione; &5 qua vi queque genantur 130

a

Et

~~

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

was the fure End of all their Pains, they might
with Reafon then refift the Force of all Religion,
and contemn the Threats of Poets, Now we

have no Senfe, no Power, to ftrive againft this

Prejudice, becaufe we fear a Scene of endlefs
Torments after Death,

_ Awp yet the Nature of. the Soul we know not,
whether formed with the Body, or at the Birth
infufed; and then, by Death cut off, fhe perifhes
as Bodies do; or whether fhe defcends to the dark
Caves and dreadful Lakes of Hell; or, after
Death,- infpired with heavenly Inftinct, fhe re-
tires into the Brutes, as our Great ὃ Exmius fung,
who ΠΕ a Crown of Laurel ever green, brought
down from Helicon ; which gained him Fame
through all the Italian Coafts. And yet this Man,
in never-dying Numbers, defcribes the ftately
Palaces of -4Acheron, where nor our Souls or Bo-
dies ever come, but certain Spectres {trange and
wond’rous pale; from whence he tells how " Ho-
mer’s ever celebrated Shade appeared, and how
his Eyes began to fow with briny Tears, as in
immortal Verfe he fung of Nature and her fecret
Laws. |

Wherefore, I fhall not only accurately write of
Things above, as how the’ Sun and Moon their

® A Latin Poet, who lived about a hundred Years before.

Lycretius ; he was a Pythagorean, and held the Doétrine of
the T'ranfmigration of Souls ; he affirmed that the Soul of
Homer was in his Body; but that he might not injure Pluto,
he bequeathed to the infernal Manfions, not the Souls, nor
the Bodies, but the Ghofts, which the Ancients held to be a
third Nature,-of which, together with Body and Soul, the
whole Man confifts. Thefe Spectres and Shadows of the Dead,
appear, or feem to appear, when we are afleep, or awake, or
fick, and terrify our Minds.

_” Exnius uted to fay, that Homer's Ghof appear’d to
him from Hell, and bitterly weeping, difcover’d to him the
Nature of Things ; for which Cicero fufficiently laughs at him,
in his fecond Book of Academich Queftions.

3 Courfes

is

16

T. Lucretit Liz. EL
In terris : tum, cum primis, ratione Jogaci
Unde Anima atque Animi conftet natura, videndums

Et qua res nobis vigilantibus obvia mentets

Terrificet, morbo affectis, omncque fepultis,
Cernere uti videamur eos, audireguie coram, πὴ
Morte abita quorum tellus ampleGitur offa:

Nec me ammi falit, Graiorum objcura reperta
Diffciie snluftrare Latisis verfibus effe,
(Multa novis verbis prafertin cum fit agendum,)
Propter egeftatem lingua, ( rerum novitatent; 140
Sed tua me Virtus tamen, &F fperata voluptas
Suavis Amicitia, quemvts perferre laborem
Suadet, 9 inducit noéteis vigilare ferenas,
Syaerentem diétis quibus, (F quo carmine demum
Clara tue pofim prepandere lumina menti, 148.
Res quibus occultas penitus convifere pofjis.

Hunc igitur terrorem animi, tenebrafque necef

7)

Nou radii Solis, neque lucida tela Diet
Difcutiant, fed Nature [pecies, Ratioque:
Principium bine cujus nobis exordia fumet, 150
NULLAM REM E NIHILO GIGNI DIVINITUS

UNQUAM.

Quippe

Boox IL. Of the Nature of Things. a7

Courfes run, and by what Power Beings in
Earth and Hfeaven are formed, but chiefly
fearch with niceft Care into the Soul and what
} her Nature 1. What ’tis that meets our wake-
ful Eyes, and frights the Mind ; and how, by
Sicknefs or by Sleep oppreffed; we think we
fee, or hear the Voice of thofe who died long:
fince; whofe mould’ring Bones rot in the cold
Embraces of the Grave. pak
I Know “tis hard to explain in Latin Verfe, Te Digz:
the dark and myftic Notions of the Greeks, culty of the
(for 1 have Things to fay require new Words) ”*-
becaufe the Tongue ts poor, the Subject new.
But your Virtue, and the Pleafures I expect
from tender Friendfhip, makes me bear the
Toil, and fpend the filent Night with wake-
ful Eyes, ftudious of Words and Numbers I
fhall ufe, to open to your Minds fuch Scenes.
of Light, which fhew the hidden Qualities of
Things unknown. '
Teste Terrors of the Mind, this Darknefs
then, not the Sun’s Beams, nor the bright
Rays of Day can e’er difpel, but Nature’s
Light and Reafon; Whofe firft of Principles — _
fhall be my Guide: ἢ Nothing was by the Gods Nothing .

of Nothing made. For hence it is that Fear”## stor
Nothing:

‘ He how enters upon his Subject, and lays down this Prin-
ciple, That Nothing is made of Nothing, which he attempts te
prove at large ; he takes notice, that Men had obferv’d many
Effects upon Earth and in the Heavens, and not being able to
difcover the Caufes of them, concluded that the Gods had pro-
duced them out of Nothing ; the Falfity of which he under-
takes to demonttrate, tho’ without Succefs.

C difturbs

.. -4

38

T. LucrerTit Lisa.

Quippe ita formide Mortaleis continet omnets,
Quod multa in Terris fieri, Caloque tuentur,
Quorum operum caufas nulla ratione videre
Poffunt, ac fieri divino Numine rentur. IES
Quas ob res, ubi viderimus, nil poffe creari
De nibilo, tum, quod fequimur, jam reétius inde
Perfpiciemus, 95 unde queat res queque creart,
Et quo queque modo fiant opera fine Divum.
Nam fi de Nihbilo fierent, ex omnibu? rebus 160
Omne genus nafci poffet , nil Semine egeret :
E mare primum homines, ὃ terra poffet orirz
Squammigerum genus, €P volucres; erumpere celo
Jrmenta, atque alie pecudes: genus omne ferarum
Incerto partu culta, ac deferta teneret : 165
Nec fructus iidem arporibus conftare folerent,
Sed mutarentur : ferre omnes omnia poffent.
Quippe, ubi non effent genitalia Corpora quoique,
Qui poffet mater rebus confiftere certa ?
St nunc Seminibus quia certis quidque creatur, 176
Inde enafcitur, atque oras in luminis extt,
Materies ubi ineft cujufque ξ5 Corpora prima :
Mique bac re nequeunt ex omnibus omnia gignut,
Quod certis in rebus ineft fecreta facultas.
Preterea, cur Vere rofam, frumenta Calore, 175
Viteis Autuimno fundi fudante videmus :
Si non, certa [0 quia tempore Semina rerum

-Cum confluxerunt, patefit, quodcunque creatur,

Dum tempeftates adfuni, & vivida tellus

Tuto res teneras effert in luminis oras ὃ 180
Quod fi de Nibilo ferent, fubito exorerentur
Incerto [patio, atque alients partibus anni :

Quippe

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.
difturbs the Mind, that ftrange Events in Earth
and Heaven are feen, whofe Caufes cannot appear
by Reafon’s Eye, and then we fay they were from
Powers Divine. But when we reft convinced
that Nothing can arife from Nothing, then the
Way is clear to our Purfuit; we diftinctly fee
whence every Thing comes into Being, and how
Things are formed without the Help and Trouble
of the Gods. ee 7

'- Ir Thingsproceed frorn Nothing, every Thing
might {pring from any Thing,and want no Seeds
Men from the Sea might firft arife, and Fifh and
Birds break from the Earth, and Herds and tender
Flocks drop from theSky, and every kindof Beaft
fix’d to no certain Place, might find a Being in
Deferts or in cultivated Fields: Nor the tame
Fruiton the fame Trees would grow, but would be
chane’d, and all Things all Things bear. For
had not every Thing its genial Seed, how is it
that every Thing derives its Birth from Caufes
ftillthe fame? But now, fince Things are form’d
from certain Seeds, and firft rife into Light,
where every Being has its Principles and Matter
fitly framed, from hence we fee that all Things
cannot fpring from every Thing, fince each has
certain fecret Properties peculiar to itfelf. Be-
fides, | |

Why do we fee the Rofe adorn the Spring, the
Fruits in Summer, and the fweaty Autumn, pref-
fing the Vine, unlefs the fixed Seeds of Things,
uniting in their proper Times, give Life to Be-
ings, each in its ftated Seafon, while Mother
_ Earth can truft her tender Offspring with Safety

to the Air. But if Things proceed from Nothing,
in a moment they might fpring at Times uncer-
tain, at Quarters of the. Year unfit, and there

o_o — would

19

20.

T. Lucretir Lik. i

Duippe ubi nulla forent primordia, quae genitali ©
Concilio poffent arceri tempore iniquo.

Nec porro Augendis rebus Spatio foret ufus 185
Seminis ad coitum, ὃ Nibilo fi crefcere poffent.
Nam fierent juvenes fubito ex infantibu? parvis:

E terraque exorta repente arbufta falirent.

Quorum nil fieri manifeftum ft, omnia quando
Paullatim crefcunt (ut par eft) Semine certo: 190
Crefcendoque genus fervant, ut nofcere pofis
Quaeque fua de Materia grandefeere, alique.

Huc accedit uti fine certis tmbribus anni
Latificos nequeat fatus fummittere tellus :

Nec porro fecreta cibo natura animantum 108
Propagare genus pofit, vitamque tueri: ᾿
Ut potius multis communia corpora rebus

Multa putes effe, ut verbis Elementa videmus,
Quam fine Principiis ullam rem exiftere poffe.

Denique cur Homines tantos natura parare 20@
Non potuit, pedibus qui pontum per vada poffent
Tranfire, 5 magnos manibus divellere montets,
Multaque vivendo vitaha vincere fecla:

Si non Materies quia rebus reddita certa *ft
Gignundis ὃ qua confiat quid poffit oriri ὃ 205
Nix igitur fieri de NiLo poffe fatendum *f :
Semine quando opus eft rebus, quo queque create
Aeris in teneras poffint proferrier auras.

Poftremo quoniam Incultis preftare videmus —
Culta.loca, 8 manibus meliores reddere fetus : 210
Efe videlicet in terris Primordia rerum,

Que nos, fecundas vertentes vomere glebas,
Terraique folum fubigentes, cimus ad ortus.

Quod

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

would. be no proper Seeds, whofekindly Influence _
might check their Growth at Seafons that would

kill them-in the Bud. |
Acarn, if Things could fpring from Nought,

what need of Time for Bodies to fulfil their’

Growth by Acceffion of new Matter ? An Infant
then might inftantly become a Youth, and Trees
ftart up in full Perfection from the Earth, But
*tis not fo, ’tis plain; for Things, we know, grow
by degrees from certain Seeds, and {till as they
grow keep their Kind; and thus you find each
Being rifes into Bulk, and thrives from Seed and
Matter proper to itfelf,

Nor likewife can the Earth produce her Fruits
to chear the Heart, unlefs with timely Showers
impregnated ; nor can Creatures, bleffed with
Life, deprived of Food, e’er propagate their
Kind, or favé their ownsLives; and fo you fafer
fay that certain fixed Principles belong to certain
Things, as Letters form our Words, than that
from Nothing any Thing can rife, :

FurTHER3 whence is it that Nature cannot
fhew Men fo gigantick as on foot to wade through
Seas, or with their Hands totearup migthy Hills, or
to furpafs the common Bounds of Life, by many
Ages, but that certain Seeds are fixed to all
Things, whence they muft arife? And fo we
_ muft confefs that Nothing fprings from Nothing,
fince each Kind mutt firft proceed from Seed, the
Principle whence every Creature derives its Life,
and feels the gentle Air.
_, Bestpes, becaufe we find the Earth, improved
by Care, exceeds the uncultivated Soil, and by
our Labour offers richer Fruits, we fay that in the
Earth the Seeds of Things lie ftill, which, by
turning up the fruitful Clods, by Ploughing, and,
by breaking of the Ground, we force to {pring ;

| C 3 but

21

22

T. Lucretir = Lia. I.
Quod fi nulla forent, noftro fine queque labore
Sponte μια multo fleri meltora videres. 215
luc qccedit, uti quicque in fua Corporarurfum |
Diffolvat Natura, neque ad Nibilum interimat res.
Nam, fi ἢ quid mortale é cunttis partibus effet,
Ex otulis res queque repente erepta periret s
Nulla vi forei ufus enim, qlee partibus ejus 220
Difcidium parere, {SF nexus exfolvere poffet.
At nunc, eterno quia conftant Semine quaque,
Donec vis obit, que res diverberet iff,
Aut intus penetret per inania, dt iffolvarque,
Nullius exttium patitur Natura videri. 225

Praterea, quaecungue wetr fate amovet alas, d
61 penitus perimit confumens Materiem omnett,
Unde animale genus generatim in lumina vite
Redducit Venus ? aut reddullum dedala tellus
Unde alt, atque auget, generatin pabula prabens £.
Unde mare ingénui i fontes, externaque longé 231

Flumina fuppeditant 2 unde ether fidera paftit ὃ

Omnia .

Book I. Of the Nature of Things. 23

but then, if no fuch Seeds lay there, * the Fruits,
without our Labour, svould of their own accord
_ improve, and of themfelves prevent our Care.

App here, that Nature does diffoive all Bodies yy, ,4,,,;-
into their Principles again; nor can reduce Things dilation.
into Nothing. ᾿

! For if every Being was liable to Deaththrough
all its Subftance, fnatch’d from our Eyes, it would
directly perifh ; noneed of Violence to make a
Breach in all its Parts, and loofe the vital Bands,
But now fince Things are formed from eternal]
Seeds, Nature wills that nothing be deftroyed, un-
leis fome Force prevails, which beats with Blows
its outward Form ; or pierces through the Pores -
with fubtile Art, and fo diffolves the Frame.

Brsipes, fuch Things as are removed by Age,
if Time deftroys them quite in all their Parts,
whence does the Power of Love reftore to Light
the feveral Race of Beings ? Whence the Earth,
with niceft Art, does nourifh them when born,
and makes them grow, and feeds with proper
Food each in its Kind?) Whence do the bcounte-
ous Springs, and Rivers, with their wandring

Streams from far, fupply the Sea? ™ The Air

:

Kk That is, what can hinder Plants that are produced from
Nothing, from improving and growingevery Year more fair
and fruitful of their own accord ?

1Tf Things were mortal in all their Parts, there would be no
need of Violence to diffolve them; but as every ‘Thing would
be produced and appear on afudden without the Endeavour or
Force of any other Thing, fo without the Force or Violence
of any other Thing likewife every Thing would perifh, not
by a Diffolution of its Parts, but withdrawine from our Eyes,
would vanifh away ina moment, and thusrefo: - into Nothing ;
for the Reafon why Force is requifite to diffolve every Thing,
is becaufe it confifts of Seeds that remain after its Diffolution.

m Tt was the Doétrine of the Epicureans, that the Sun and
Stars were Fires, that were nourifhed and kept alive by Va-
pours and Exhalations that rife from the Earth and Sea.

C 4 whence

"

24.
»

ς: se

T. Lucreritr Lis. ¥.

Omnia enim debet, mortali Corpore que funt,

Infinita etas confumfe, anteatta, diefque.

Quod βίῃ co fpatio, atque anteatia etate fuere, 235

E quibus hec Rerum confiftit Summa refellas Ὁ

Immortali fun naturd pradita certé,

Haud igitur poffunt ad Nilum queque reverti.
Denique res omneis eadem vis caufaque volgo

Conficeret, nifi Materies etern a teneret 24@

Inter fe nexas minus aut magis endopedite.

Tattus enim lethi fatis effet caufa profecio: |

Quippe, ubi nulla forent eterno Corpore, eorum

Contextum vis deberet diffolvere quaque.

At nunc, inter fe quia nexus principiorum 545

Diffuniles conftant, eternaque materies eft,

Incolumi remanent res corpore, dum fatis acris

Vis obeat pro texture cujufque reperta.

Haud igitur redit ad Nibilum res ulla, fed omnes
Difeidio redeunt in corpora materiat, 250
Poftremo pereunt imbres, ubi eos pater Aither

ta gremium matris Terrai ‘ precipitavit.

Mt nitide furguut fruges, ramique vire/cunt
Arboribuss crefeunt ipfe, fetuque gravantur :
Hine alitur porto nofirum ΠΣ atque ferarum :
Hinc betas urbeis pueris flore: re videmus, 256
Frundiferajque novis avibus canere undique fylvas,
Hine-feffe pecudes pingues per pabula lata

Corpora deponunt, & candens latieus bumor
Oberibus inanat diftentis + ; hinc nova proles 260
Artubus infirenis teneras lafcevaper berbas

Ludit, la&te mera menteis percuffa novellas.

,
:
|

}

Boox I. Of ihe Nature of Things.

whence feed the Stars? For that vaft Tract of
Time already paft had long ago confumed ‘Things
that were form’d from mortal Seed ; but if thofe

Bodies which compofe this Univer of Things

were ftill fupplied through all that Space and
Periods of Time that pafe’d Jong fince, they
furely. muft confift of an immortal “Nature, and
from Death fecure, can never into Nothing fall.
Acaty, the fame Violence would every where
deftroy all Beings, if the eternal Power of Mat-
ter did not hold: faft their clofe compacted Frame
in Bonds more ftrong or weak; a fingle Touch
would furely be the Caufe of Deaths; for Things
form’d out of mortal Seed by any Force muft pe-

τῆι, and their Frame be quite diffolv’d; but
‘now, becaufe the Union of the Seeds of Bodies

differs, which confift of Matter eternal in its Na-
ture, every Being is fafe from Danger till fome
proper Force, pr roportioned to its Texture, makes
the Affayltr. So Nothing can return to Nothing ;
every [hing refolves by Separation of its Parts in-
to its Principles from whence it fprung.
Lastuy, the Rains that Father 7¢er pours

into the Womb of Mother Earth do feem to pe- |

rifh there, but ftrait fair Fruits {pring up; the
Boughs grow green upon the Trees, their Limbs
increafe, and bend beneath a Load of Fruit ;
hence all the living Race of Men and Beafts are
fed, our gallant Cities filled with Youth, our
leafy Woods refound with Songs of Birds new
flede’d ; the weary Flocks grown fat repofe their
Bodies on the fertile Plains, while the white milky
Humour from their Dugs diftended flows ; and
hence their fprightly Young, in wanton Play,
frifk with their tender ion o’er the foft Grafs,
chearing their little Hearts with the pure Milk ;

and

25

26

T.Lucretiu Lis. f

Haud igitur penitus pereunt quecunque videntur :
Quando aliud ex alio reficit Natura, nec ullam
Rem gigni patitur, nifi morie adjutam aliena. 265

Nune age, res quoniam docui non poffe creari
De Nibilo, neque ttente genitas ad Nil revocar? 3
Ne qua forte tamen ceptes diffidere diéiis,

Quod nequeunt oculis rerum Primordia ceryi ;
Accipe preterea, que Corpora Tuie neceffe*/ 270
Confiteare effe inrebus, nec poffe vidert.

Principio, VENTI vis verberat incita poniunp,
Ingenteifque ruit naveis, &S nubila differt ;
Interdum rapido percurrens turbine campos
Arboribus magnis flernit, monteifque fupremos 275
Silvifragis vexat flabris : ita perfurtt acri
Cum fremitu, fevitque minact murmure pontus.
Sunt igitur VENT nimirum corpora ceca,

Que mare, que terras, que denique nubila cals
Verrunt, ac fubito vexantia turbine raptant. 280
Nec ratione fluunt alia, flragemque propagant,

Ae cum mollis aque fertur natura repente

Flumine abundanti, quod largis imbribus auget |
Montibus ex altis magnus decurfus aquaz:

Fragmina conjictens fyluarum, arbuftaque tota 5

Nee

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

and therefore Things we fee do not entirely die 5
© Nature itill renews one Being by another, nor
does fhe fuffer one Thing ‘to be, unlefs fupplied
with Matter from fomething elfe that was diffol-
yed before.

Anp now, fince I have taught that Nothing
can proceed from Nothing, nor can Things once
form’d to Nothing be reduced, ® left you by chance
fhould doubt my Reafons, fince the Seeds of
Things cannot be feen with naked Eyes; hear
further, that there are Seeds of Bodies (and you
mutt confefs there are) impervious to the Sight.

And firft, the raging Force of Winds does
lafh the Sea, o’erthrow vaft Ships, and chafe the
Clouds ; fometimes they {cour the Plains with fu-
rious Storms, and fpread them o’er with talleit
Trees, and vex the lofty Hills with Blafts that
rend the Woods,- And fo they blufter with a
dreadful Sound, and roar with threatening Noifes
through the Air. Thefe Winds are therefore
Bodies to the Eye unfeen, which fcour the Sea,
the Lands, the Clouds, and tofs them, thus tor-
mented, with their Blafts. They att the fame,
and fpread Deftruction round as a ftill Stream,
increafed by fudden Rain, and fwell?d by Tor-
rents pouring from the Hills, the Effect of driv-
ing Showers, is born along, rending the Limbs
of Trees, and then whole Woods: Nor can the

" He concludes that Nothing returns to Nothing, fince Na-
ture produces one Thing out of another, and never any Thing
new, but makes ufe of the Matter of another ‘Thing that had
been diffolved before.

° Left Memmius thould diftruft the Validity of the Argu-
ments he has produced to eftablifh his Atoms, becaufe the firft
Principles of ‘Things are, by reafon of their Exility, imper-
ceptible to the Senfe, he brings feveral Inftances of corporeal
Subftances, to which no Man denies an Exiftence, tho’ they
are invulible to the Eye. -ν

ftrongelt

27

28

-Strataque jam volgi pedibus detrita viarum

T. Lucretit Lis. I.

Nec validi poffunt pontes venientes aquaz 286
Vim fubitam tolerare : ita magno turbidus imbri
Molibus incurrens validis cum viribus anmis,

Dat fonitu magno ftragem ; volvitque [ub undis
Grandia faxa, ruit qua quidquid fluctibus οὐαὶ,

Sic igitur debent Vent quoque flamina ferrt :

Qua, veluti validum flumen, cum procubuere
Quamlibet in partem, trudunt res ante, ruuntque
Impetibus crebris; interdum vertice torto
Corripiunt, rapidoque rotantia turbine. portant.295
Quare etiam atque etiam funt VENTI Corporaceca:
Quandoquidem faétis ac moribus, emula magnis
Amunibus inveniuntur, aperto Corpore quz funt.
Tum porro varios rerum fentimus ODORES,
Nec tamen ad nareis venienteis cernimus uUnquam :
Nes calidos Fistus tuimur, nec FR1GoRA qui-
2214} 301
Ufurpare ocults, nec Voces cernere fuemus ;

Que tamen omnia Corporea conftare neceffe *ft

Natura: quoniam fenfus impellere poffunt.
‘TANGERE ENIM ET TANGI, NISI CORPUS,
NULLA POTEST RES. 305
Denique fluttifrago fufpenfe in littore Veftes
Tvefcunt, eedem difpanje in Sole ferefcunt ,
At neque quo patio perfederit humor aquai
Vifu *ft nec rurfum quo patito fugerit eftu

in parvas igttur parteis difpergitur Humor, 310

Quas ocul nulla poffunt ratione videre,
Quin etiam multis Solis redeuntibus annis

“Annulus in digito fubtertenuatur habendo :
δ} οά cafus lapidem cavat : uncus aratri

Ferreus oceulté decrefcit Vomer in arvis :

a2

Saxes confpicimus; Lum Dortas propter abena

RY gna

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.
ftrongeft Bridges bear the Force, fo fudden, of
the rufhing Flood; the Stream, made mad by
‘ hafty Rains, beats on the Damms with Force im-
_ petuous, fwells through the Breach with horrid
Noife, and rolls the maffy Stones under its Waves,
and breaks what {tops its Tide. Juft fo the
Hurricanes of Wind drive on which way they
point their Blafts, like mighty Floods, force all
before them, beat with frequent Strokes; fome-
times they {natch with rapid Turns, and whirl
Things as they roll in Eddies through the Air.
Thefe Winds, ’tis plain, are Bodies ftillunfeen, fince
by their furious Blafts they rival in their Force the
largeft Streams, which Bodies are we own.

Bestpes, we feel the various Smells of Things,
but can’t difcern how they affect the Nofe; nor
can we fee the raging Heat, nor with our Eyes
perceive the Cold, nor can we fee a Voice; all
which by Nature are of Bodies form’d, becaufe
they make Impreffion on the Senfe, for nothing,
but Body canbe touch’d, ortouch, -

AcaAin, a Garment hung up nigh the Shore,
That breaks the Waves, grows wet, and, tothe Sun
_ expanded, dries ; yet no one ever faw how the
moift Vapour fix’d, or how again it fled before
the Heat; the watery Drops muft be diffolv’d
into {mall Parts too fubtle to be at all difcover'’d
by the Eye.

But further, after many circling Years, a Ring
upon the Finger wearsaway, the Fall of dropping
Water hollows Stones, the crooked Plough-fhare,
tho’ of Iron, -waftes in the Fields infenfibly by
Ute; wefee the Streets, paved with hard Stones,
worn out by frequent ‘Tread of Paffengers ; Ρ the

» He means the Images of the Tutelar or Guardian Gods,
whofe Right Hand, whoever came into the City or went out
of it, was ufed to kifs, box ominis causa, for good ot fake,

razen

29

9"

ΓΙ τιὶ | Bam I,

Signa manus dextras oftendunt attenuari
Spe falutantum taltu, preterque meantum :
Hee igitur minui, cum fint detrita videmus ; 320
Sed quae Corpora decedant in tempore quoque,
Invida praclufit fpeciem Natura videndi.

Poftremo, quecunque Dies, Naturaque rebus
Paullatim tribuit, moderatim crefcere cogens,
Nulla poteft oculorum acies contenta tueri; 524
Nec porro quecunque evo, macieque fenefcunt :
Nec mare quae impendent vefco fale Saxa perefas
Quid quoque admittant in tempore, cernere poffis.
Corporibus ἐσεῖς igitur Natura gerit res.

Nec tamen undique Corporea flipata tenentur 330

‘Omnia natura, namque eft in rebus INANE.

Quod tibi cogniffe in multis erit utile rebus:
Nec finet erraniem dubitare, &S querere femper
De Summa rerum, & nofiris diffidere dicts ;
Quapropter locus eft intacius, INANE, vacanfque.
Quod fi non effet, nulla ratione moveri 336
Res poffent ; namque officium, quod Corports extat,
Officere, atque obftare, id in omni tempore adeffet
Omnibus : Haud igitur quidquam procedere poffets
Principium quoniam cedendi nulla daret res. 340
At nune per maria, ac terras, fublimaque cali;
Mulia modis multis varia ratione moveri
Cernimus ante oculos ; que, fi non effet INANE,
Non tam follicito motu privata carerent ;
Quam genita omnino nulla ratione fuiffent: 345
Undique Materies quoniam ftipata quief[et.

.

4 τ Preterea

21

brazen Statues nigh the Gates fhew their Right
Hands made Iefs by many a Kifs of thofe who
_ worfhip, or who pafs along. Thefe Things we
fee fhew lefs and lefs, and wear; but what a
Share of Matter every time is brufhed off, Nature
in Envy tous, has not indulg’d the Faculty to fee.

Lastty, what every Day and Nature do
beftow on Beings, to make them grow by juft
Decrees, not the moft piercing Eye could ever
find, nor yet the Particles that fly and waite by
Age or by Decay ; nor can you fee by what. de-
srees the Rocks are eaten through by the corrod-
ing Salt of dafhing Waves: Thus Nature works
by Bodies not difcern’d.

Anp yet all Beings are not form’d of clofe and There muft
folid Parts ; in Things there is a Void, which 1η 4/4.
your Searches into Nature wil! be of ufe to know.
This will preferve your wand’ring Mind from
Doubt, prevent your conftant Toilby judging right.
of Nature’s Laws, and make my Words believ’d.

WHEREFORE there is a Place we call 4 4 Void,
an empty Space intangibie, or elfe no Bodies could
be moved, or ftir; the Quality all Bodies have to
{top and to oppofe does never fail, fo that to move
would be in vain to try, no Body firft by yielding
would give way. But now we fee before our Eyes,
that Things move various ways in Seas, in Earth,
and inthe Heaven above; but were no Void, they
would not be depriv’d of that Activity of Motion
only, but would not beat all; for Matter wedg’d
and crouded clofe on every fide had ever been at reft.

Ἢ If there were no Void interfperfed in Things, all Things
would be crouded to fuch a degree, that not only nothing in
the whole Univerfe could be moved from its Place, but it
would be even impoffibie to give a Reafon, and explain how
any thing can be generated, becaufe a local Motion is abfo-
lutely neceflary for the Generation of all Things, and without
a Void there can be no Motion whatever.

BESIDES,

δ T. Lucrerir ‘Lue. I.
Preterea quamvis Solidae res effe putentur,

Hinc tamen effe licet Raro cum corpore cernas :
In faxis, ac foeluncis permanat Aquarum
Ligquidus humor, &8 uberibus flent omnia guttis :356
Diffupat in corpus fefe Cibus omne animantum :
Crefeunt Arbufta, &8 fetus in tempore fundunt,
Quod Cibus in totas ufque ab radicibus imis
Per truncos; act per ramos diffunditur omneis :
Inter fepta meant Voces, 5. claufa domorum 366
Tranfvolitant : rigidum permanat Frigus ad offa,

| Quod, nifiINAnia fint, qua poffent Corpora queque
LIranfire, baud ulla feri ratione videres.

Denique cur alias aliis prefiare videmus
Pondere res rebus, nibilo majore figura? 360
Nam, fi tantundem ft in Lane glomere, quantum
_ Corporis in Plumbo *jt, tantundem pendere par eft ς

Corporis officium eft quoniam premere omnia deorfum ¢
Contra autem natura manet fine pondere INANIS.
Ergo quod Magnum "ft eque, Leviufque videtur,
Nimirum plus effe fibi declarat INaNIS: —-.366
At contra Gravius plus in fe Corporis effe
Dedicat, & multé Vacui minus intus babere.
Eft igitur nimirum id, quod ratione fagact
Querimus, admiftum rebus quod Inane vocamus.

Wud

Book I, Of the Nature of Things.

- Brsipes * though Things’ appear of folid
Parts compofed, yet you will find-‘them, in fome
meafure, form’d of Bodies that are rare : the 11-
quid Moifture of the Water {weats through Rocks
and Stones, and all Things weep with Drops a-
buhdant; the Food that every Creature eats, difs
perfes through the Body ; the Trees increafe and
grow, and in due Seafon fhew their Fruit ; be-
caufe the Juice is from. the lower Roots fpread
through the Trunk, and over all the Boughs.
Sounds pafs through ftrong Partitions, and fly

quick through Walls of Houfes, and the piercing Ὁ

Cold ftrikes through the very Bones; but were
no Void, no empty Space, that Bodies e’er fhould
pafs, you’d finda Thing impoffible to prove.
Acain, * why do we fee fonte Things exceed
others in Weight, tho’ of an equal Size? For if
as much of Body went to form a Ball of Wooll,
_ as made a Ball of Lead, their Weight would be
the fame; for the Quality of Body 1s to prefs
downward: but a perfect Void by Nature has
no Weight; fo that a Body of equal Size,
but lighter in its Weight, proves it has more of
empty Space. So again, the heavier Body has
more of folid Parts *tis plain; and has within it
lefs of Void. And this is doubtlefs what with
Reaion’s fearching Eye we look for, mixed with
Things, we call it Spage.

τ Some Bodies, he obferves, pierce and diftil through Things

that feem to be moft folid, as Water through Stones, which ,

could never be, were there not between the Particles of thefe
es fome void Spaces, through which thefe Bodies might
pa{s.

Z It is hard to conceive why two Bodies of the fame Shape
and Size fhould weigh one more than the other, except the one
had more of Body, to which Weight is natural, and the other
more of Void, which has no Weight at all,

Vou], D | Bur

33

34

T. Lucreril Liz. I,

Iiludin bis rebus, ne te deducere vero

Poffit, quod quidam fingunt, precurrere cogor 3

Cedere Squamigeris latices nitentibus aiunt,

Et liquidas aperive vias 5 quia poft loca Pifces

Linquant, quo poffint cedentes confluere unde, 378

Sic alias quogue res inter fe polfe mover,

Et mutare locum, quamvis fint omnia plena:

Scilicet id falfa totum ratione receptum ft.

Nam qué Squamigeri poterunt procedere tandem,

Ni [patium dederint latices? concedere porro 480

Quo poterunt unde, cum pifces ire nequibunt ὃ

Aut igitur motu privandum ft corpora queque 5

Aut effe adinifium dicendum ft rebus INANE 5

Unde initium primum capiat res queque movendi.
Poftremo duo de concurfu Corpora lata, 488

Si cita diffiliant, nempe acr omne neceffe °ft,

Inter corpora quod fuvat, pofidat INANE.

Is porro, quamvis circum celerantibus auris

Confluat, haud poterit tamen uno tempore totum

Complere fpatium: Nam primum quemque neceffe *ft

Occupet ille locum, deinde omnia poffideantur. 39%

Quod fi forte aliquis, cum Corpora diffiluere,

Tum putat id fieri, quia fe condenfeat aér,

Errat,; nam Vacuum tum fit, quod non fuit antes

Li repletur item, Vacuum quod confiitit ante: 395

Nee

—

Boox I. Ofzhe Nature of Things. 35

But Iam forc’d to ftep before, and an{fwer

what fome pretend, left you fhould be feduced

ftom Truth: t They fay the Waters yield to Fifh

making their way, and ope their liquid Paths ;

for when the Fifh have left a Space, that inftant

thither the yielding Waters circling flow. By

the fame Rule, all Beings may be moved among

themfelves, and change their former Place, though

all Things fhould be full: but this, ’tis plam, 1s

falfe throughout; for how could Fifh advance

at all, unlefs the Waters gave them way? And

whither fhould the Waves retire, if the Fifh did

not move, and leave a Space behind ? So that

all Bodies muft.be deprived of Motion, or you

muft fay a Voidis mixed with every Thing from
whence each Being firft derives a Power to move.

Lastiy", if two broad Bodies meet, and in-
{tantly are feparated again, the Air muft needs
fill up the Void that is between; but this Air,
though it fhould hurry with its fwifteft Powers,
it cannot all at once fill up the Space, thefe Bodies
will difclofe at parting ; firft the neareft Part will
be filled up, and then the more remote, until the
whole be full.

Tr one fhould fay, when théfe flat Bodies meet
the Air iscondens°’d, but when they part the Air
is rarified, *tis a Miftake; for then there mutt
be Void where there was none before, and that
Void that was before muft now be full; in fuch a

. t The Water could not give way unlefs there was an empty
Place for it to retiré to; and therefore there muft be a Void
mix’d with Bodies, or there could be no Motion at all.

If two fmooth broad Bodies meet, arid are parted of a
fudden, a Void will be caufed by their Diffolution;. for all
Matter muft have been driven away by thofe two Bodies, and
therefore the Space that opens between them, as they part,
will be void of all Body. |

D2 Cafe,

36

T. Lucretir Liz.

Nec tali ratione poteft denferier aér,

Nec, fijam pofet, fine Inant poffet, opinor,

Se ipfe in fe trahere, &F parteis conducere in unum 5

Qua propter, quamvis caufando multa moreris,

Εἰ in rebus INANE tamen fateare neceffe’ft. 400
Multaque praterea tibi poljum commemorande

Argumenta, fidem diétis, conradere noftris :

Verum animo fatis bec veftisia parva fagaci

Sunt, per qua poffis cognofcere celera Tute: —

Namque Canes ut montivage perfepe ferat 405

Naribus inveniunt intettas frunde quietes,

Cum femel infirterunt vefitgia certa vial:

Sic alid ex alio per te Tute ipfe videre

Talibus in rebus poteris, cecafque latebras

LInfinuare omneis, &3 Verum protrabere inde: 419
Quod fi pigraris, paullumve abfcefferis ab re,

Hoc tibi de plano poffum promittere, ΜΙ ἘΜ Με:

U/que adeo largos bauftus de fontibu? magnis

Lingua meo fuavis ditt de peciore fundet,

Ut verear, ne tarda prius per membra Senedius AVS

Serpat, & in Nobis Vitat claufira refolvat,

Qitam tibi de quavis una re verfibus omnis

Argumentorum fit copia miffa per aureis.

Sed nunc jam repetam ceptum pertexere dittis :
Omnis, ut eft, igitur, per fe, Natura, duabus 420

Confiftit rebus, nam Corpora funt, & INanz,

flac in quo βία funt, & qua diverfa moventur :

Corpus enim per fe communis deliquat effe

Senfus ; quo nifi prima fides fundata vakelit,

Elaud erit occultis de rebus quo referentes Los

Confirmare animi quicquam ratione queamus.

Tum porro Locus, ac Spatium, quod INANE vocamius,

Si nullum foret, baud ufquam fita Corpora poffent

Efe, neque omnino quaquam diverfa meare ;

Ld quod jam fuperatibi paullo oftendimus ante: 430

_ Preteree

Book I. Of the Nature of Things. 37
Cafe, the Air can’t be condens’d ; and if it could,
it can’t without a Void contract itfelf, and fo
reduce its Parts into a clofer Space: Wherefore,
perplex the Matter as you pleafe, you muft con-.
tefs in Things there 1s a Void.

I covtp by many Arguments confirm this
Syftem of a Void, and fix. your Faith to what I
fay; burt thefe {mall Tracks I have drawn, to fuch
a fearching Mind, wil] be enough; the reft you
may find out without a Guide. For as ftaunch
Ffounds, once put upon the Foot, will by the
Nofe foon roufe the Mountain Game from their
thick Covers; fo you,. in Things like thefe, will
one Thing by another trace, will hunt for ‘Truth
in every dark Reeefs, and draw her thence.

‘Burt if you doubt, or in the leaft object towhat -
I fay, 1 freely promife this, my Memmius, my.
tuneful Tongue fhall, from the mighty Store that
fills my Heart, pour out fuch plenteous Draughts
from the deep Springs, that tardy Age I fear will
firft creep through my Limbs, and quite break
down the Gates of Life, before Ican explain in
Verfe the many Arguments that give a Light to
one Particular. But now 1 fhall. So on to finith
regularly whatI begun. τ.

Au Nature Perce in itfelf confidered, 18 ¢7,,.. 3,
one of thefe, is Body or is Space; in which all norhing be-
Things are placed, and from whence th € various/é des Body
Metions of all Beings fpring. That there is Bo- “141 οἷά.
dy common Senfe will fhew, this asa fundamen-
tal Truth muft be allowed, or there is nothing we
can fix ascertain in our Perfuit of hidden Tings,
by which to find the Truth, or prove it when
*tis found. Then if there were no Place or Space,
we call it Void, Bodies could have no wherg to
be, nor could they move atall, as we have fully
proved to ΠῚ before.

2 BESIDES,

&

38

T. Lucretizt Lis.l.

Preterea nibil eft, quod poffis dicere ab omni
Corpore /ejunctum, fecretumque effe ab INANI:
Quod quaft tertia fit rerum natura reperta.

Nam quodcunque erit, effe aliquid debebit id ipfum
Augmine vel grandi, vel parvo denique dum fit, 435
Cui fi Tactus erit quamvis levis, exiguafque,
Corporum augebit numerum, fummamque fequetur 3
Sin Intaétile erit, nulla de parte quod ullam

Rem probibere queat per fe tranfire meaniem ;
Scilicet hoe id erit Vacuum, quod Inane vocamus. 440

Praterea per fe quodcunque erit, aut faciet quid,

Aut aliis fungi debebit agentibus ipfum ;

Aut erit ut poffint in eo res effe, gerique:

Lt facere &S fungi fine CORPORE nulla potefi res:

Nec prebere locum porro, nifi Inane, Vacanfque 445

Ergo preter Inanz, & Corpora, éertia per fe

Nulla poteft rerum in numero natura relinqui 5

Nec, qua fub fenfus cadat ullo tempore noftros,

Nec, ratione animi quam quifquaim poffit apifci.

Nam quecunque cluent, aut his Conyuncr a dua-
bus | 450

Rebus ea invenies; aut borum Event a videbis.

Conjunttum ft id, quod nunquam fine pernicialt

Difcidio potis eft fejungi, feque gregari :

Pondus uti faxis, Calor ignibu’?, Liquor aquai,

Tatius Corporibus cunctis, Inta&tus Inani. 455.

Servitium contra, Libertas, Divitieque, ¥

Paupertas, Bellum, Concordia, cetera, quorunt .

Adventu manet incolumis natura, abituque, |

flac foliti fumus, ut par et, EVENT a vocare.

Tempus

D

HOOK Ι. Of the Vature of Tain ὁ"

Besipes, there is Nothing you can ftrictly
fay, It neither Body is nor Void, which you may
call a third Degree of Things diftinét from thefe.
For every Being muft in Quantity: be more or lefs;
and if it canbe touch’d, tho’? ne’er fo {mall or

light, it muft be Body, ‘and fo efteemed 5 ΓΕ.

it can’t be touch’d, and has not in itfelf a Power
to {top the Courfe of other Bodies as they pals,
this 1s the Vozd we call an empty Space.

Acatin, *whatever Is muft either act itfelf, or
be by other Agents acted on; or muft be fome-
what in which other Bodies muft have a Place and
move ; but Nothing without Body can act, or be
acted on; and where can this be done, but in a
Vacuum or empty Space? Therefore, befide what
Body is or Space, no third Degree in Nature can
be found, Nothing that ever can affeét our Senfe,
or by the Power of Thought can be conceiv’d,
All other Things youll find effential Conjuntts,
or elfe the Events or Accidents of thefe. 1 call
effential Conjunct, what’s fo joined to a ‘Thing
that it cannot, without fatal Violence, be forced
or parted from j it; fuch 15 Weight to Stones, to
Fire Heat, Moifture to the Sea, Touch to all
Bodies, and not to be touch’d effential 1s to Void;
but, on the contrary, Bondage, Liberty, Riches,
Poverty, War, Concord, or the like, which not
affect the Nature of the Thing, but when they
come or when they go, the Thing remains en-
tire; thefe, as *tis fit we fhould, we call Events.

ὡ Nothing exifts but Body and Void ; for whatever is, ei-
ther has a Power of acting on another, or may fuffer from an-
other: that is, it muit be fibjedt either to Action or Paffion,
and that muft ὯΝ Δ Body ; : or it muft be that in which T hings
are contained, and in which they are made and moved, and
that is the Void.

D 4 ¥ TIME

39

4.0

T. Lucrerit Liz. [.

Tempus stem per fe non eft, fed Rebus ab ipfis 460
Coufequitur fenfus, tranfactum quid ft in evo,
Tum que Res infiet ; quid porro deinde fequatur:
Nec per fe quemquam Lumpus fentire fatendu’ft
Semotum abrerum motu, placidaque quiete.

Denique Tyndaridern raptam, belloque fubattas 46 5
Trojugenas genteis cum dicunt effe, videndu “ff, ὁ
Ne forte hac per fe, cogant nos, effe fateri:
Quando ca fecla bominum, quorum bec eventa fuere
Irrevocabilis abjtulerit jam preterita «145.
Namque alind Rebus, aliud regionibus ipfis 470.
EVENTUM dict poterit, quodcungue erit acium.

Denique Materies fi rerum nulla fuiffet,

Nec Locus, ac Spatium, res in quo queque geruntur y
Nunquam Tyndaridis forme conflatus amore

Ignis Alexandri Phrygio fub pectore glifcens 475
Clara, accendiffet ri certamina belli :

Nec clam durateus Trojams Pergama parte
Inflammaffet equus nolurno Grajugenarum 9
Perfpicere ut ρος Res Gefias funditus omnets,

Non ita, uti Corpus, per fe conftare nec effe: 480
Nec ratione cluere eadem, qua conftat INANE;

Sed

Boox 1. Of the Nature of Things.

Y Time likewife of itfeif is Nothing; our
Senfe collects from Things themfelves what
has been done long fince, the Thing that prefent
is, and what’sto come. For no one, we mutt
own, eer thought of Time diftinct from Things
in Motion or at Reif,

For when the Poets fing of * Helen’s Rape,
or of the Trojan State fubdued by War, we mutt
not fay that thefe Things do exift now in them-
felves, fince Time, irrevocably paft, has long-
fince fwept away that Race of Men that were
the Caufe of thoie Events; for every Act is either
properly the Event of ‘Things, or of the Places
where thofe Things are done.

FuRTHER, If Things were not of Matter
form’d, were there no Place or Space where
Things might act, the Fire that burn?d in Paris?
Heart, blown up by Love of He/en’s Beauty, had
never rais’d the famous Contelts of a cruel Wars
nor had the Wooden Horfe fet Trey on fire, dif
charging from his Belly in the Night the armed
Greeks : from whence you plainly feé that AGions
do not of themielves fubfift, as Bodies do, nor
are in Nature fuch as isa Void, but rather are

7 Pythagoras, Heraclitus and others believed, that Time

was a Body; but Lucretius calls it an Event, attributed to
Things by the Mind or Thought only, according as they are
gonceived to perfevere πὶ the State in which they are, cr to
ceafe from it, and to preferve a longer or fhorter Exiftence,
and to have it, or to have had it, or tobe to have it. Epicu-
rus, becaufe he faw that Time is nothing befides Body and
Void, afferted, that it does not exift of itfelf, nor as a Con-
junct or Event, but as the chief Event of Events; he taught,
that it exifts not in Reality, but only in the Mind, and there-
fore may properly be called a Being of the Underitanding.

_ 5 The Rape of Helen, and the Deftrution of Troy, are not
at this time, nor do exift in themfelves as Eody and Void dp,
but are, as it were, the Events of ‘Things, of Perfons, or of
Places, for the ‘Time pait has carried off thofe Men of whom

thofe Attions are Events, μ᾿

Gore :

ALY

42

T. Lucretitr Lis. 1.

Sed magis ut merito pofis EVENT A vocare

Corporis, atque Loct, res in quo queque gerantur.
Corpora funt porro partim Primordia rerum,

Partim Concilio que conftant principiorum. 485

Sed que funt rerum Primordia, nulla poteft vis

Stringere; wam Solido vincunt ea corpora demum :

Et fi difficile effe videtur credere quicquam

In rebus Solido reperiri corpore poffe ; -

Tranfit enim Fulmen celi per fepta domorum, 490

Clamor ut, ac Voces: Perrum candefeit in igne:

Diffiliuntque fero ferventia Saxa vapore:

Conlabefattatus rigor Auri folvitur eftu:

Tum glacies ZL ris famma devitia liquefcit :

Permanat calor Argentum, penetraleque frigus 495

Quando utrumque, manu retinentes pocula rite,

Senfimus infufo lympharum rore fuperne:

Ufque adeo in rebus Solidi nibil effe videtur.

Sed quia vera tamen ratio, naturaque rerum

Cogit, ades, paucis dum verfibus expediamus, 500

ΕΠ ea, que Solido atque eterno corpore conftent,

Semina que rerum, Primordiaque effe docemus:
Unde omnis Rerum nunc confiet Summa creata.
Principio quoniam duplex natura duarum
Diffimilis rerum longe conftare reperta ft 505
Corporis atque Loci, res in quo queque geruntur 5
ἘΠ utramque fibi per fe, puramque neceffe*f :
Nam quacungque vacat Spatium, quod Inane vocamus 3
Corpus e4 non eft: qud porro cunque tenet fe
Corpus, ea vacuum nequaquam confiat Inane. 510
Sunt igitur Solida, ac fine Inani Corpora prima.

Praeterea

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things. 43
more juftly called the Events of Body, and of

Space, where Things are carried on,

Lastuiy, Bodies are either the firft Seeds of
Things, or formed by the uniting of thofe Seeds.
The fimple Seeds of Things no Force can
{train, their folid Parts will never be fubdued.
Tho’ it is dificult, I own, to think that any
Thing in Nature can be found perfeétly folid ; for
Heaven’s Thunder paffes through the Walls of
Houfes, juft as Sound or Words; Iron inthe Fire
erows hot, and burning Stones fly into pieces by
the raging Heat; the Stiffnefs of the Gold 1s
Joofed by Fire, and made to run; the hard
and folid Brafs, fubdued by Flames, diffolves ;
the Heat and piercing Cold paffes through Sii-
ver; both of thefe we find, as in our Hand we ©
hold a Cup, and at the Top pour Water hot or
cold: fo nothing wholly folid feems to be found
in Nature. But becaufe Reafon and the fixed
State of Things oblige me, hear, Ibeg, while in
few Verfes we evince, that there are Beings that
confift of folid and everlafting Matter which we
call the Seeds, and the firft Principles of Things,
from whence the whole of Things begin to be.

Awon, firft, becaule we Ond two Sorts of The Seeds
Things unlike in Nature, in themfelves diftin&, #7 Soéd.
Body and Space, *tis necefiary each flould be en-
tire, and feparate in itfelf; for where there isa
Space which we call Void, there Nothing is of
Body; fo where Body is, there Nothing is of
empty Space: and therefore fuch Things there
are as Solids and firft Seeds, which Nothing in
them can admit of Void.

* He comes now to difpute more at large concerning Bodies,
which he divides info Simple and Compound, and aflerts, that
Simple Bodies, or the Principles of the Compounds, are moit

folid, perfettly full, and contain no Void; tho’ he allows this
4s very hard to conceive.

I BESIDES,

44

ς Tt. Lucretil LATS, te

Preterea quoniam genitis inrebus Inane °ft,

-Materiem circum Soltdam conftare neceffe *ft :

Nec res ulla poteft vera ratione probari

Corpore Inane fuo celare aique intus babere, 515
Si non, quod cobibet, Solidum conftare relinquas.

Id porro nibil effe poteft, nifi Materiai

Concilium, quod Inane queat rerum cobibere.
Materies igitur Solido que corpore sonftat,

Life eterna poteft, cum cetera diffoluantur. 620

Tum porro fi nil effet, quod Inane vacaret,

Omne foret Solidum 3 nift contra corpora ceca
Effent, que loca complerent, quecunque tenerent :
Omne, quod eft, Spatium vacuum confiaret Inane.
Alternis igitur nimirum Corpus Inani 525
Diftiniu?ft, quoniam nec Plenum naviter extat ;
Nec porro Vacuum: funt ergo corpora caca,

Que Spatium Pleno point diftinguere Tnane.

Flac neque diffolut plagis extrinfecis iffa
Poffunt: nec porro penitus penetrata retexiz 530
Nec ratione queunt alia tentata labare:

14 quod jam fupera tibi paullo oftendimus ante,

Nam neque conlidi fine Inani poffe videtur

Quicquam, nec frangi, nec findi in bina fecando:

Nec capere bumorem, neque item manadbile frigus,

Nec penetralem ignem, quibus omnia conficiuntur,

Et quam quaeque magiscobibet res intus Inane, 539

Tam magis his rebus penitis tentata labafcit.

Ergo, fi Solida, ac fine Inani Corpora prima

Sunt, ita uti docui, fint hec Atterna neceffe’ft. 540
Preterea, nift Materies Ze terna furffet,

Antebac

Ὁ

Book I. Of che Nature of Things. 46

Besipes ; becaufe in all created Things there
is a Void, ’tis neceffary fome folid Matter fhould
ftill include this Yotd; nor can you prove, by any
Rule of Reafon, that any Thing contains within
it felf an empty Space, unlefs you will allow what
holds it in is perfect folid; and this is Nothing
elfe but the clofe Union of firft Seeds, which bind
and do confine within themfelves this Yozd. Mat-
ter therefore compofed of folid Parts eternal is,
when all Things elfe mutft die.

FurTHER, if there was no fuch Thing as we
call Void, every Thing would-be folid; then
again, unlefs there were fome Things folid to All
up the Space they hold, all would be empty
Space. Body from Space therefore is in itfelf di-
ftinct; forall is neither full, nor is all Yoid; and
therefore there are folid Seeds which make a Dif-
ference between Full and Space. ‘

Tuese folid Seeds by no Force from without
can be diffolved, nor can they be deftroyed by be-
ing pierced within, nor made to yield by any other
Means, as proved before. For Nothing can be brui-
fedwithouta/ozd, or broken or by Force be cleft in
two, or receive Moifture, or the piercing Cold,
or. fearching Fire which all Things elfe deftroys.
And the more of Void the folid Seeds confine, the 726 Seeds
fooner when they are ftruck will they diffolve, af
and fall to pieces*; therefore, if thefe firft Seeds”””
are folid, free from Void, they, as I faid, muft
be eternal, and from Death fecure.

Acatn, if Matter had not been eternal, ‘long

before

᾿ς ΡΒ Having afferted the Solidity of his Atoms, he proves they

are eternal ; for Solids are perfeCtly full, contain no Void, and

therefore are not fubject to Diffolution, or to a Separation and
Divifibility of Parts.

© If the firft Seeds of Things were diffolved, they would

fall into Nothing ; for there are no Principles, prior to thefirft,
into

46

Ti Bienetie ΤΕΡΕ. Ἐ,

Antehac ad Nihilum penitus res queque rediffent ;
De Nibiloque renata forent quecunque videmus.
At quoniam fupera docui Niu poffe creari
De Nibilo, neque quod genitu’/t ad Nilrevocari: 545
Effe immoriali Primordia corpore debent, .
Diffolvr quo queque [upremo tempore poffint 9
Maieries ut fuppeditet rebus reparandis.
Sunt igitur Solida Primordia fimplicitate,
Nec ratione queunt alia fervata per cvum 550
Ex infinite jam tempore res reparare.

Denique, fi nullam finem Natura pardffet

, Frangendis rebus, jam Corpora materiai

U/que redatia forent, evo frangente priore,

Ut nihil ex illis a-certo tentpore poffet 553
Conceptum, fummum atatis pervadere florem:
Nam quidvis citins diffolvi poffe videmus,

Quam rurfus refict. Quapropter longa diez

Infinite etas anteatti temporis omnis

Quod fregiffet adbuc, difturbans, diffoluenfque, 560

Id nunquam reliquo reparari tempore poffet :

At nunc nimirum frangendi reddita finis

Certa manet : quoniam refici rem quamquevidemus,
Lt finita fimul generatim tempora rebus

Siare, quibus poffint evi contingere florem. δ65

Fate

Book I. Of the Nature of Things.

before now all Beings had return’d to Nothing, and
each Being we behold again had been reftored from
Nothing; but, as before I proved, Nothing from
Nothing can be made, and what was once in
Being can ne’erto Nothing be reduced ; it fol-
lows, thofe firft Seeds muft be compofed of Prin-
ciples immortal, into which at laft each Being
muft diffolve, and thence fupply an everlafting
Stock of Matter to repair the Things decay’d.
Thefe firft Seeds therefore are folid and fimple,
elfe they could not Jaft entire through Ages paft
and infinite, torepair Beings perifhed and diffolv’d.

Bur ΠῚ], ¢if Nature had prefix’d no Bounds
in breaking Things to pieces, the Parts of Matter,
broken by every paffing Age, had been reduced
fo {mall, thas Nothing could of them be form’d
that would in any time become mature; for
Things we fee much fooner are diffolv’d than are
again reftored; and therefore what an infinite
Tract of Ages paft has broken, and feparated
and diffolv’d, in future Time can never be re-
paired ; fo that certain Bounds of breaking and
dividing muft be fet, becaufe we fee each Being is
repaired, and ftated Times are fixed to every

Thing in which it feels the Flower of its Age.

into which they can be refolved; and thus the Things that are
daily born would arife from Nothing; it muft therefore be al-
lowed either that the Seeds are eternal, or that Things pro-
ceed from Nothing, which the Philofophers held as the grea-
το Abfurdity.

ὁ The Seeds of Things are of a fixed Magnitude, and in-
diffoluble ; for had they been broken and wafted for fo vaft a
“ταδὶ of Time as is already paft, they would have been redu-
ced into Parts fo extremely {mall, that they could never in any
Length of Years, and therefore not ina few, be re-united and

rade up again into one Mais,

AnD

47

48

ΤΙ. Lives Part Lusk

Huc accedit, uti Solidifima materiat
Corpora cum confiant, poffint tamen omnia reddi
Mollia, que fant, Aér, Aqua, Terra; Vapores,
Quo patio fant, S qua vi cunque genantur,
“ἀρ δι quoniam fimul eft in rebus Inane. 570
At contra, fi Mollia fint Primordia rerum;
Unde queant validi filices, ferrumque creart;
Non poterit ratioreddi. Nam funditus omnis
Principio fundamenti Natura carebit.
Sunt igitur Solida pollentia fimplicitate, 575
Quorum condenfo magis omnia concilatu
Ar ttari poffunt, validafque oftendere vireis.

Denique jam guoniam generatim reddita finis
Crefcendi rebus conftat, vitamque tuendi,
Et quid queque queant per federa Naturai, 580
Quid porro nequeant fancitum quandoquidem exftat :
Nec commutatur quicquam, quin omnia conftant,
ἔγημε adeo, varie volucres ut in ordine cuntie
Oftendant maculas generaleis corpori ineffe :
Immutabile materie quoque corpus babere 58 δ᾽
Debent nimirum. Nam fi Primordia rerum
Commutari aliqua poffent ratione revilta,
Incertum quoque jam conftet, quid poffit oriri,
Quid nequeat , finita poteftas denique quoigue
Quanam fii vatione, atque alté terminus bereat;59°

Nee

Bool. Of the Mature of Things. 49

Anp yet, © though the firft Seeds of Things Wtence
are folid, all Beings that are compounded, fuch as?7oceceds
Air and Water, Earth and Fire, maybe foft, 5/7:
(however made, or by what Power form’d) and -
from them be produced, becaufe there is a Void
‘ftill mix’d with Things; and, on the contrary;
if thefe firft Seeds were foft, what Reafon can
there be affign’d whence hatdned Flints and Iron
could be form’d, for Nature would want the
proper Principles to work upon; and therefore
thefe firft Seeds muft fimple-Solids be, by whofe
Union clofe and compact all Things are bound
up firm, and fo difplay their Strength and hardy
Force.

Acatn, * becaufe each Being in its Kind has
certain Bounds prefix’d to its Increafe; and to the
Prefervation of its Life, and fince by Nature’s
Laws it is ordained to each how far their Powers
to actornotextend; fince Nothing changes, and
every Thing goes on as it began, each Kind of
Birds, moft fteady in their Courfe, fhew .the
fame Colours painted on their Wings, the Prin-.
¢iplesof Matter whence they {pring mutt be fix’d
and unchangeable ; if the Seeds of Things could
change by any Means, ’twould be unknown
what could be form’d, what not; by what
Means every Being is limited, and ftops fhort
within the Bounds it cannot break ; nor could

© Soft Bodies may be compounded οὗ folid Seeds by the In-
termixture of Void; but it the Seeds were foft, how hard
Bodies fhould be made from them is impoftible to conceive.

f How could Animals carry always upon them the diftin-
guifhing Marks of their feveral Kinds, if they were not formed
of Principles nct liable to Change or Diffolution? If the Seeds
could be changed or diffoived, neither Men nor any other
Animals would retain their ufual Shapes ; fome would enjoy a
prodigious Strength and Length of Days, while others of the
fame Kind would be puny and fhort-lived. We fhould fee
frequently white Crows, and fometimes black Swans.

οι,» Ι. Ἧ, the

| T. Lucretii - Lind
Nec toties poffent generatim fecla referre
Naturam, motus, viétum, morefque parentum.
Tum porro, quoniam extremum cujufquecacumen ;
Corporis eft aliquod, noftri quod cernere fenfus

Fam nequeunt, id nimirum fine partibus exftat, 595

Et Minima conftat natura, nec fuit unquam

Per fe fecretum, neque pofthac effe valebit :

Alterius quoniam eft ipfum pars, primaque, &F ima:
Inde alia, atque ale fimiles ex ordine partes
Agmine condenfo naturam Corporis explent. 600
Que quoniam per fe nequeunt conftare neceffe °ft

Herere, ut nequeant ulla ratione revelli.

Sunt igitur Solida Primordia fimplicitate ;

Qua minimis ftipata coherent partibus arte.

Non ex ullorum conventu conciliata, - δος
Sed magis eterna pollentia Simplicitate :

Unde neque avelli quicquam, neque diminui jam
Concedit Natura refervans femina rebus.

Praterea, nifi erit Minimum, Parviffima queque
Corpora confiabunt ex partibus Infinitis ; 616
Quippe ubi dimidie partis pars femper habebit
Dimidiam partem, nec res perfiniet ulla:

Ergé rerum inter fummam, minimamque qui efcit ὃ

\

Non

I. Of the Nature of Things.

the Courfe of Time tn every Age, the Nature,
Motion, Diet, and the Manners of the old Sire
imprefs upon the Young. |
Besipes, ® becaufe the utmoft Point or the
Extreme of every Body fomething is the Eye
cannot difcern,; it ts not made of Parts, but is in
Natute what we call the Leaf ; which ne’er ex-
Hts of itfelf, divided from Body, nor ever can,
becaufe it is the very Firft and Laft of fomething
elfe. For ’tis by heaping up fuch Parts as thefe,
one by another, that complete the Being of every
Body. Since then they can’t fubfift apart, and
feparate, they muft needs ftick clofe, nor be di-
vided by the utmoft Force. ‘Fhefe Seeds there-
fore are in their Nature folid, and fimple, form’d
of fmalleft Parts bound clofe ; nét tied together
by united Seeds ‘of various Kinds, but in them-

felves entire, eternally unmix’d and pure, from’:

which Nature wilt fuffer Nothing: to be forced or
leffened, referving. them as firft Seeds, to form
and to repair thofe Things that die.

“tg

eX

Acain, ἢ fuppofe there was no Leaf, the 4oms:

{malleft Bodies muft be compofed of Parts bound-
[εἰς and infinite; the Half of every Being muft
then contain another Half, fo there would be no
End of ftill dividing ; and where would be the
Difference between the {malleftand the largeft Bo-

ὃ Every Seed is of neceffity fimple and indiffoluble, becaufe
it confifts of Parts even the leaft that can be conceived, and
which no Art or Strength can disjoin, becaufe no Art or
Strength can reduce into Nothing ; for Nothing goes into
Nothing.

Ὁ The firft Seeds are eternal and not to be diffolved, not be-
caufe they are deftitute of Parts, but becaufe they are folid,:
and therefore cannot be broken in pieces, nor divided by the
greateft Force. ‘Thefe Parts have no Parts, and are purely
Mathematical ; for unlefs fuch Leafs are allowed, there would
be no Inequality between the greateft and the fmalleft Things,
becaufe either of them would contain infinite Parts alike; and
thus both of them would be infinite, which is abfurd.

kK 2 dies ?

T, Lucreris Lis. 1

Non erit ut diftent: nam quamvis funditus omnis
Summa fit tnfinita, tamen Parviffima que funi, 615
Ex Infinitis canjtabunt partibus eque,
Quoi quoniam ratio reclamat vera, negatque
Credere pofje animum, vittus fateare neceffe ft,
Effe ea que nullis jam predita partibus exftent,.
Et Minima conftent natura. Que quoniam funt, 620
Tila quoque effe tibi Solida, atque Aterna fatendum.

Denique ni Minimas in parteis cuntia refolui ἢ
Cogere confuéfet rerum Natura creatrix,
Fam nibil ex illis eadem reparare valeret :
Propterea quia, que multis funt partibus audla, 625
No poffunt ea, que debet Genitalis babere
Materies, varios Connexus, Pondera, Plagas,
Concurfus, Motus, per que res queque geruntur.

Porro, fi nulla’ft frangendis reddita finis
Corporibus, tamen ex eterno tempore quedam 6598
Nunc etiam fuperare neceffe ft Corpora rebus, ΄
Que nondum clueant ullo tentata periclo:
At quoniam fragili natura predita conftant,
Difcrepat eternum tempus potuiffe manere
Tnnumerabilibus plagis vexata per evum. 635

Quapropter, qui Materiem rerum effe putdrunt
lenem, atque ex ignt Summam conjiftere folo

Magnopere

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

dies? None in the leaft ; for though thé whole be
intirely infinite, yet Bodies that are {malleft would
contain wei Parts alike, which, fince true
Reafon exclaims againft, nor will Chien: the Mind
to give affent, you muft, convinced, profefs that
τάς are Bodies which are void of Parts, and are

by Nature Leaff; fince fuch there are, you mult

admit them Solid and Eternal.

Lastiy, iif Nature, Parent of Things, had
not compelled all Things that perith then to be
refolv’d into Leaf Parts, fhe could from them
repair Nothing that dies; for Bodies that. are
form’d of various Parts can never be endued with
Properties, which the firft Seeds of Things ought
to poffefs, as Union, Weight, and Force, A-
ereement, Motion, by which all Things ak.

ΑΝ yet, * fuppofe that Nature had allowed
no End to Bodies being divided, yet fome Bo-
dies from Eternity mutt have been, which by no

Force could ever be fubdued. But Bodies that
are form’d of brittle Seeds, and to be broken;

could not have remained for Ages infinite, vexed
as they have béen with endlefs Blows, but muft
have been diffolv’d.

WHEREFORE, thofe Sages A wt have thought
that Fire is the firft Principle of Things, tial
from that‘alone the whole is ‘form’d, do oe Ἢ

1 If N nee oat d not - Jeffen even to the minuteft Mites, the
Matter of which Things: are formed would be unff to underga
thofe Changes, and receive thofe Figures, to which it mult ve
expofed; for if thofe minute Bodies were formed of feveral
Parts, and contained within them any Void, they would not
be “αν with an equal Weight, or uniform Motion ; and
therefore could neverbe united ‘together.

k If there were no Sclids which could not be diffolv-
ed, where can we find thofe Bodies that from Eternity have re-
mained unbroken ? for frail Atoms, that for fo long a Tract of
Time have been expofed to infinite Strokes and Glows, mult of
neceihity have been diffoived.

ye err

53

ee

T. Lucretir Lis. Ἐ

“Magnopere a vera lapft ratione videntur.

HERACTITUS 2711 quorum dux prelia primus,
Clarus ob obfcuram linguam magis inter inaneis, 6 40
Quamde graveis inter Graios, qui vera requirunt.
Onnia enim Stolidi magis admirantur, amantque
Inverfis que fub verbis latitantia cernunt :

Veraque conjfituunt, que belle tangere poffunt
Aureis, &8 lepido que funt fucata fonore. 645
Nam cur tam varie res poffent effe, requiro, —

Ex vero fi funt Igni, puroque create ?

Nil prodeffet enim calidum denferier Ignem,

Nec rarefieri, fi partes Ignis eandem

Naturam, quam totus habet fuper Ignis, haberent.

Acrior Ardor enim conductis paytibus effet: 65%

Languidior porro disjectis, difque fupatis.

Amplius boc fieri nibil eft, quod poffe rearis

oi alibus in caufi is, nedum variantia rerum

Tanta queat denfis varifque ex Ignibus effe. 655
Atque Hi fi faciant, admiftum rebus Inane ;

Denferi poterunt Ignes, rarique relingui Σ᾿ ;

Sed, quia multa fibi cernunt contraria, muffant,

Et fugitant in rebus Inane relinguere purum, EP,

Ardua dum metuunt, amittunt vera viai: 660

Nec rurfum cernunt exempto.rebus Inant,

Omnia denferi, fierique ex omnibus unum

᾿ς | : Corpus,

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things. 55

err from the true Rule of Reafon. The Cham- <gain/
pion of thefe, " Heraclitus, enters firft the Lifts, "τὰ
more famed for dark Expreffion among empty ~
Greeks, than with the Wife, who fearch for
Truth; for none but Fools admire, and love
what they fee couch’d in Words abftrufe ; .and
that they take for Truth which quaintly moves
the Ear, and painted o’er affects by witty Jing-
_ ling of the Sound.

or how fuch various Beings could arife, I afk,
if form’d from pure and rea] Fire? To fay, ™that
the hot Fire is now condens’d, and fometimes rari-
fied, would noughtavail; the feveral Parts mutt ftill
retain the Nature of Fire, the fame which the Fire -
had when whole; the Heat would be more fierce,
the Parts condens’d, more languid when divided
and made rare, ‘There’s nothing more than this
you can derive from Caufes fuch as thefe, much
lefs fo great Variety of Things can be produced
from Fire or Flame, condenfed or made rare.

InpEED, would they admit in Things a Void,
Fire then might becondens’d orrarified ; but This,
becaufeitcontradicts their Schemes,they murmurat,
and willallow in Thingsno empty Space: So, while
they fear to grant this difficult Truth, they lofe
the Way that’s right, nor dothey fee, by not al-
lowing there'is in Things-a Void, all Bodies
would be denfe, and out of all one only would be
~ 1 He taught, that all Things are made of Fire, and re-
folv’d again into Fire; and tho’ the Poet fingles out this Phi-
lofopher, he takes it for granted, that his Arguments conclude
as ftrongly againft others ; fince whatever oppofes this Doc-
frine of Fire, will equally hold good againft the Air, or any
other oi the Elements. ~ , |

™ Heraclitus afferted, that Fire, by being condenfed, grows
moilt, and fo becomes Air ; and the Air, by Compreffion, be-
comes Water; which Water, by Condenfation, 15 turned into

Earth : But this is not proved ; for the mare the Fire is condenfed,
the more it is Fire, and the Rarifaction is nothing to the pur-

Fete : for sarify Fire as much as you will, it will itill be Fire.
| 4, made,

AT) Duersti: Lis. I
Corpus, nil ab fe quod poffit sittere raptim,
Asfifer Ignis uti lumen jacit, atque vaporem :
Ut videas non é fiipatis partibus effe. 665
Quod fi forte ulla credunt ratione poteffe |
Lgneis in cou fiingui, mutareque corpus 3
Scilicet ex ulla facere id fi parte reparcent,
Occidet.ad Nibiluim nimirum funditus Ardor
Omnis, 9 ex Nibilo fient quecunque creantur, 670
Nam quodcunque [ες mutatum finibus exit,
Continuo hoc mors eft illius, quod fuit ante ς
Proinde aliquid fuperare neceffe ’/t incolume olli,
Ne tibi ves redeant ad Nilum funditus omnes,
De Nibiloque renata virefcat copia rerum. 675
Nunc igitur, quoniam certiffima corpora quedam
Sunt, que confervani naturam femper eandem,
Quorum abitu, aut aditu, mutatogue ordine, mutant
Naturam res, 85 convertunt corpora [δὴ
Scire licet non effe bec Igneacorpora rerum. 680
Nil referret enim quedam decedere, abire,
Atque alia attribui, mutavique ordine quedam,
Si tamen Ardoris naturam cunéia tenerent. Ὁ
Ignis enim foret. omnimodis, quodcunque crearent.
Verum, ut opinor, ita "ft: Sunt quedam Corpora,
quorum | | 685

a

Conc “7 [5

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.
made, which could by force emit Nothing without
it felf, as the hot Fire emits both Light and Heat,
which fhews it 15 not compofed of crouded Parts,
without:a Void.

But if they think, that " Fire in all its Parts
may be extinguifh’d, and fo its Body change; if
they infiit that This may once be done, then the
whole Fire muft be refolv’d to Nothing, and
Things new-form from Nothing mutt arife;
for whatfoever is chang’d, and breaks the Bounds
of its firft Nature, dies, and is no more what firft
it was: fome Seeds of Beings therefore muft ftill
remain whole and unhurt, left Things to No-
thing fhould perfectly return; and. then revive,
and fhould again from Nothing be reftored.

BuT now, fince there remain fome certain
Seeds that keep their Nature ftill the fame,
whofe Abfence or their Prefence, and their
Change of Order change the Nature of compound
Bodies, you muft not think that thefe ° firft Seeds
are fiery; if they were, what would it fignify
what Seeds are abfent, or what retire, what o-
thers take their place, how others may their
Rank and Order change, fince All would ftill be
in their Nature Fire, and Beings form’d fronr
Them muft wholly be of Fire? But, as I think,
the Cafe is thus: Some certain Seeds there are by

Ὁ If Fire be a fimple and uncompounded Thing, of which
all Things are made, it cannot change without totally perifh-
ing; a compound Body may change, and affume another
State, bat a Body uncompounded, if it lofes its firft Nature,
entirely dies.

© The μη Seeds are not fiery in their own Nature; if they
were, neither adding, detracting, nor tranfpofing them, would
fisnify nothing to produce any Effect: for if the Nature of
Fire fill continued fafe, nothing but Fire can be made of it.
He fays further, that certain Corpuicles, whofe Form cannot
be perceived by Senfe, are the firit Principles of Things, frora
whofe meeting and uniting in various Manners, Fire and all
Things elfe are produced,

3 whofe

57

»

T. Lucretit Lie. I.

Concurfus, Motus, Ordo, Pofitura, Figure,
Efficiunt Ignes, mutatogue ordine mutant —
Naturam, neque funt Igni fimulata, neque ulle¢
Preterea reit, que corpora mittere poffit
Senfibus, ξ5 noftros adjetiu tangere taétus. 690
Dicere porro Ignem res omneis effe, neque ullam
Rem veram in numero rerum conftare, nift Icnem,
Quod facit Hic Ipem, perdelirum effe videtur.
Nam contra Senfus ab Senfibus ipfe repugnat :
Et labefattat eos, unde omnia credita pendent: 695
Unde hic cognitus ef ipft, quem nominat Ignem.
Credit enim Senfus Ignem cognofcere vere,
Cetera non credit, nibilo que clara minus funt:
Quod mibi cum vanum, tum delirum effe videtur.
Quo referemus enim? Quid nebis certius ipfis 700
Senfibus effe poteft, quo vera ae falfa notemus ὃ
Praterea, quare quifquam magis Omnia tollat,
Et velit Ardoris naturam linquere folam,
Quam neget effe Ignis, Summam tamen effe reline
quat ?

. Aqua videtur enim dementia dicere utrumque. 705

Quapropter qui Materiem rerum effe putdrunt
Tenem, atque ex Ioni Summam confiftere peffe:
Et qui principium gignundis Aira rebus
Conftituére: aut Humorem quincunque putdrunt
fing cre res plum per fe ΠΧ creare 710

Omnia
7

Book I. Of the Nature of Things.

whofe Concuffion, Motion, Order, Site, and Fi-
gure, Fire is form’d ; and when their Order 1s
chang’d, they change the Nature of this Fires
but thefe firft Seeds have nothing fiery in them-

felves, nor of fucha Nature are they, as to fend.
forth Bodies to be perceiv’d by Senfe, or be the.

Object of our Touch,

ΠΡ Awp now to fay that every Thing is Fire,
that no true Thing in Nature does exift but Fire,
as this Man does, is Madnefs all, he contradicts
his Senfes by his Senfe, and overthrows thofe
Tefts of. Truth by which all Things are known:
For.’tis by Them we know that Thing which he

calls Fire, and this Senfe concludes, it truly
knows the Nature of this Fire; but then all other

Things it will deny, which equally are true.
This 15 to mea vain and foolifh Way to judge;
for to what fhall we apply?) And what can be
more fure than are our Senfes to us, by which we
fully know Falfhood and Truth?

BrstpEs, why any one fhould all Things elfe
difclaim, and only Fire allow, or fay there’s no
fuch Thing as Fire, and all Things elfe allow,
either of thefe is vain, and equal Madnefs to be-
lieve.

WHEREFORE, ?thofe Sages whocontend that
Fire is the firft Principle, and that of Fire all
Things confift, and thofe who make the Air the
firft Seeds of Bodies, and fuch who fay the Wa-
ter is the fole Caufe of Beings, or that the Earth

Ὁ Heraclitus confeffes, he knows Fire by the Help of his
Senfes ; Lucretius urges, that by his Senfes he difcovers other
‘Things befides Fire. The Philofopher never denied, but that
other Things befides Fire appeared, but he would not allow
them to be ; the Poet infifts, that other T nings befides Fire
truly are, and that the Senfes evidently difcover them to, be.

1 Herachtus held, that Fire, Anaximenes Milefius, that
Air, Thales \ilefius, that Water, and Pherecydes, that Earth
was the firft Principle of ali Things.

all

59

60

TOR CSREES “Ets. I.

Omnia, ES an rerum naturas vertier omnes :
Magnoperé avero longéque erraffe videntur.

Adde etiam qui conduplicant primordia rerum,
Aéra jungentes Igni, Terramque Liquori :
Et qui Quatuor ex rebus poffe omnia rentur, 918
Ex Igni, Terra, atque Anima procrefcere, Im-

bri:
Quorum Acragantinus cum primis EMPEDOCLES
oft : |

Infula quem Triquetris terrarum geffit in oris:
Quam fluitans circum magnis amfractibus equor
Lonium glaucis afpergit virus ab undis : 720
Anguftoque fretu rapidum mare dividit undis
Italie terrai oras ἃ finibus ejus :
Hic eff vata Charybdis, &S hic tnea minantur
Murmura flammarum rurfum fe conligere iras,
Faucibus eruptos iterum ut vis evomat igneis; 725
Ad celumque ferat flammai fulgura rurfum:
Que cum magna modis multis miranda videtur
Gentibus humanis regio, vifendaque fertur,
Rebus opima bonis, multa munita virim vi:
ΝῊ tamen hoc habuiffe Viro preclarius in fe, 730
Nec fantium magis, SP mirum, carumque videtur.
Carmina quin etiam divini pectoris ejus
Vociferantur, &S exponunt preclara reperta;
Ut vix humana videatur flirpe creatus.

Hic tamen, 55 fupera, quos diximus, inferiores
Partibus egregié multis, multoque minores, "δῷ
Quanquam multa bene, ac diviniths imvententes

LK

Boox I. Of the Nature of | Things. δι

all Things creates, and can infufe itfelf into the
Nature of all Things, do ftrangely err, and wan-
der wide from Truth.

Anp fo do thofe who double the firft Elements TAizgs are
of Things, and to produce all Beings, join the?” =
Air to Fire, the Earth to Water, or believe thar 7 7" ‘
from all Four all Beings are produced, and {pring )
from Air, and Water, Earth and Fire, ,

Tue Chief of thefe we rank * Empedocles of Empedo-
Agrigentum, born in Sicily, the Ifland famed for cles.
its three Promontories, whofe Sides the Jonian
Sea flows all around, with mighty Windings,
from whofe Coafts the Sea, by a narrow Frith,
divides the Bounds of Jfa/y. Here is the fierce
Charybdis, here A£tna roars, and threatens loud
to fuck in Flames of Vengeance, with greater
Force to belch them out again, burft from his
Jaws, and throw the flafhing Fire high as the
Sky. This IMand, tho’ renown’d by Men for
many Things, and worth their Sight, rich inthe
_beft Advantages of Life, by mighty Men defen-
ded, yet produced Nothing more glorious than
this One great Man, Nothing more venerable,
admired, and dear. Befides his Verfe, that from his
Soul Divine flows fweetly, fo clearly proves, and fo
explains the noble Secrets he has found, he feems
{carce born of Human Race, but from the Gods.

Yet He, with others of inferior Note we
named before, remarkably, by great Degrees, and
much below him, tho’ thefe have fucceeded well
in their Search, and many Things have found as if

τ The Son of Meton, born at Agrigentum in Sicily, who
taught that all Things were formed of the four Elements, Fire,
Water, Air, and Earth. Whatever Lucretizs objetts againft
his Doctrine, will conclude likewife againft thofe who hold,
that Things are produced from two or three Elements only ;
for if four cannot be thought fufficient, much lefs will a fewer
Number fuffice.

infpired,

2

T. Lucretir Lis. f.
Ex adyto tanquam cordis refponfa dedére
Sanétitis, ὃ multo certa vatione magis, quam
Pythia, que tripode ex Phaebi, lauroque profatur 3
Principits tamen in rerum fecere ruinas, 741
Et graviter Magni magno cecidere ibi cafu:

Primum, quod motus, exempto rebus Inant, |
Conftituunt, δ res molleis, rarafque relinguunt,
Ara, Solem, Ignem, Terras, Animalia, Fruges: 7453
Nec tamen adimifcent in eorum corpus Inane.

Deinde quod omnino finem non effe fecandis
Corporibus faciunt, neque paufam flare fragort ;
Nec prorfum in rebus Minimum confiftere quicquam :
Cum videamus id extremum cujufque cacumen 750
Effe quod ad fenfus noftros Minimum effe videtur :

Gomicerve

Boox |. Of the Nature of Things.

infpired, and iave pronounced their Oracles
(from the moft clofe Receffes of their Souls) much
more Divine, and founded more on Reafon than
Pythia, facred Prophetefs, from Tripod, or from
Apoilo’s Laurel ever fpoke. Yet they have made
fad Havock, when they fearch into the Principles

of Things, and fell with this Great Man’s Μ|-

takes together with Him.

Anpb firft, * becaufe, denying there 1s Vozd in
Bodies; they admit of Motion, and allow that
Things are foft or rare; as the Air, the Sun, the
Fire, the Earth, the Creatures, Fruits, and yet
will mix no empty Space in the Contexture of
Bodies that are form’d.

Anp then they fet no Bounds to Bodies being
divided, nor will admit an End to Blows that
break their Frame; nor will they grant that fuch
a Thing as Lea is found in Bodies, when we
plainly fee that every Being has a Part, a Point
that utmoft lies, and obvious to our Senfe, which
is the Leaft of all ; and thence conclude, that ut-

$ He objects againft the Philofophers, firft, that they admit
of Motion, of Rarenefs and Softnefs, and yet deny a Void.
Secondly, that they affert all Bodies to be infinitely divifible,
which he oppofes. ‘Thirdly, that their firft Seeds are foft, and

confequently fubject to change ; and if they could change, .

they muft be annihilated: but he has proved before, that No-
thing proceeds or returns to Nothing. Fourthly, that the E-
lements they fet up are contrary to one another, and therefore
will mutually deftroy one another, at leaft they can never unite
in the Compofition of Bodies. He obferves, fifthly, that if
they fay the Elements lofe their Nature, when they are changed
into ‘Things, and that Things are again changed into them, in
this Cafe he fays,“the Elements are not more properly the
Principles of ‘Things, than Things are the Principles of tae H-
lements. If they fay the Elements ftill retain their Nature,
he infifts, that Nothing of one Species, and of one Name,
could then be produced, but only a certain rude and. undigeited
Mafs of Fire, Air, Earth, and Water ; as of the Things of
Gold, Silver, Tin, and Brafs, Nothing can ever be made but
a Heap of Gold, Silver, Tin, and Brats.

moft

63

T. Lucretir Lis. I.

Conjicere ut poffis ex boc, quod cernere non quis,

Extremum quod babent, Minimum confiftere rebus.
Hue accedit item, quod jam primordia rerum

Mollia confiituunt, que nos nativa videmus 756

Effe, 85 mortal cum corpore funditus , αἰαὶ

Debeat ad Nihilum jam rerum Summa reverti,

De Nibiloque renata virefcere copia rerum :

Quorum utrumgque quid a vero jam diftet, habebas.

Deinde inimica modis multis funt, atque venena

Ipfafibi inter fe: Quare aut congreffa peribunt, 761

Autita diffugient, ut tempefiate coorta,

Fulmina diffugere, atque Imbrets Ventofque videmus.

Denique Quatuor ex rebus fi cunéta creantur,

Atque in eas rurfumres omnia difolvuntur, 65

Qui magis illa queunt rerum Primordia dict,

Quam contrares illorum, retroque putari ὃ

Alternis gignuntur enim, mutantque colorem,

Et totam inter fe naturam tempore ab omni:

Sin ita forte putas, Ignis, Terréque coire 770

Corpus, 85 Aérias auras, Roremque liquorum,

INil in concilio naturam ut mutet eorum:

Nulla tibi ex illis poterit res effe creata,

Non Animans, non Exanimo quid corpore, ut Arbos:

Quippe fuam quidque in cetuvariantis acervi ᾿ 775

Naturam oftendet, miftufque videbitur Aér

Cum Terra fimul, atque Ardor cum Rore manere:

At Primordia gignundis in rebus oportet

Naturam Clandeftinam, cecamque adbibere,

Emineat nequid, quod contra pugnet © obftet, 780

Quo minis effe queat proprié, quodcunque creatur. |

Quin

Boox I. Of the ΤΥ. of Things.

moft Point is that fame Leaf in Things too fmall
to be difcover’d by the Sight.

Besrtpes, thefe Men make their Principles of
‘Things confift of foft Seeds, which we fee are
born, and altogether mortal in their Frame; if
fo, the whole of Things muft have return’d to
Nothing, and be again from thence reftored ;
how diftant both from Truth you have heard be-
fore.

Awnp then fuch Seeds are many times at war
among themfelves, and Poifon to each other,
and fo will perifh in the Attack, or fly fcatter’d,
as ina Tempeft we obferve the Thunder, and
the Showers and Wind difperfe.

Last iy, if all Things from four Elements
are form’d, and into them are finally diffolv’d,
why fhould they rather the firft Principles of
Things be called, than Things the Principles of
them? For they are produced alternately, are
ever changing their Form and their whole Na-
ture mutually into each other ; but if by chance
you think the Bedy of the Fire and Earth is join-
ed, that Air is joined to Water, and thus uni-
ted, each Element preferves its Nature {till en-
tire; Nothing from Seeds like thefe could have
been form’d, not Men, nor Things inanimate,
as Trees: For every Element in this various Heap
of Matter, ever changing, would difplay its pro-
per Nature ftill; you’d fee the Air mix’d with
the Earth, and Fire with Water joined. But
the firft Principles whence Things are form’d
fhould be in Nature clofe and undifcern’d, that
Nothing might appear, which fhould oppofe or
jar, and thus prevent the compound Body from
being uniform, and make it confift of Parts diffi-
milar, confufed and void.

Vou. I. Ἐ BESIDES,

65

66

Ly Le Wie τ Lipa:

Quin etiam repetunt ἃ calo, atque ignibus ejus
Et primum faciunt Ignem fe vertere in Auras
Aeris: hine Imbrem gigni, Terramque creari

Ex Imbri, retroque a Terra cuntta reverti, 785

Hlumorem primum, poft Acra, deinde Calorem :
Nec ceflare hac inter fe mutare, meare
De Calo ad Terram, de Terra ad Sidera Mundi :
Quod facere haud ullo debent primordia patio.
Immutabile enim quiddam fuperare neceffe "3 790
Ne res ad Nibilum rediganiur funditus omnes.
Naim quodcunque fuis mutatum jinibus exit,
Continuo boc mors eft illius, quod fuit ante,
Quapropter, quoniam que paullo diximus ante,
In commutatum veniunt, confiare neceffe’?f— 705
Ex aliis ea, que nequeant convertier unquam :
Ne tibt res redeant ad Nibilum funditus omnes.
Quin potins tali natura predita quedam
Corpora conftituas, Ignem fi forte crearint,
Poffe eadem demptis paucis, paucifque tributis, 800
Ordine mutato, δ motu, facere Aeris auras :
Si¢ alias aliis rebus mutarier omneis.

At manifefia palam res indicat, inquis, in auras
Aeris ὃ Terra res omnes crefcere, alique s

Lt

Booxl. Of the Nature of Things. 67

Besipest, Philofophers like Thefe derive their
Tranfmutation from Celeftial Fire; and firft,
they make this Fire to change to Air, from Air
is Water form’d, the Earth from Water; and
then-again, from Earth thefe Elements return,
firft Water, then the Air, and lJaft the Fire,
Nor do thefe conftant Changes ever ceafe among
themfelves, but ftill proceed from Heaven to
Farth, from Earth to Stars, that light the
World. But the firft Seeds of Things muft by
no means be thus difpofed; fomething 1mmu-
table muft needs remain, left Things fhould ut-
terly to Nothing be reduced: For whatfoever
fuffers a Change, by pafling o’er the Bounds of
its firft Nature, dies, and is no more what it frit
was. Thofe Elements therefore, which, as we
faid above, admit of Change, muft needs confift
of other Seeds which never can change at all, left
Things fhould utterly to Nothing be reduced:
Then rather fay, there are fome certain Principles
in Nature which are the Seeds of Fire, fuppofe,
and fome of thefe being taken away, or elie by
adding more, by changing of their Order or their
Motion, they compofe the Air,andfo all other Be-
ings may be produced by Changes fuch as Thefe.

« BuT you fay, that common Fact does clear-
ly thew, that all Things grow, -and rife into the

| ahs Air,

t Empedocles and his Followers taught, that the Elements
are continually preying upon andrcbbing one another ; butthe
Poet urges, that if the Principles change, they will fll into
Nothing; and therefore, fince they allow the Elements are
chang’d, they cannet be the firft Principles of Things: For
Nothing comes from Nothing, and therefore, there muft be
an immutable Matter, which being varieufly moved, produ-
ced now Fire, now Air, now Earth, now Water.

He raifes an ObjeCtion, that Plantsand all Animals grow,
and are nourifhed by the four Elements ; and therefore are faid
to be the Principles of all Things: but he replies, that they

i 2 ‘ are

68

,ὖ Lucrerit Lis Κὶ

Et nifi tempeftas indulget tempore faufto, 805
Imbribus, 85 tabe nimborum arbufta vacillant.
Solque fua pro parte fovet, tribuitque calorem: ἡ
Crefcere non poffunt Fruges, Arbufta, Animantes.
Scilicet : €F nifi nos Cibus aridus, €8 tener Humor
Adjuvei, amiffo jam corpore, vita quoque omnis 810
Onnibus ὃ nervis atque offibus exfolvatur :
Adjutamur enim dubio procul, atque alimur nos
Certis ab rebus, ceriis alia atque alie res.
Nimirum quia multa modis communia muliis
Multarum rerum in rebus Primordia mifta 8ϑι5
Sunt, ideo variis varie res rebus aluntur.
Atque eadem magni refert Primordia fepe
Cum quibus, €8 quali pofitura contineantur :
Et quos inter fe dent motus, accipiantque.
Namque eadem Calum, Mare, Lerras, Flumina,
Solen 820
Conftituunt ; eadem Fruges, Arbufta, Animanteis :
Vernm aliis, alioque modo commifta moventur.
Quin etiam palfim noftris in Verfibus ipfis
Multa Elementa vides multis communia verbis :
Cum tamen inter fe Verfus, ac verba neceffe "ft 825
Conpfiteare 5 re, 9 fonitu diftare fonanti:
Tantum Elementa queunt permutato ordine folo:
At rerum que funt Primordia, plura adbibere
Polfunt, unde queant varie res queque creari.

Nune

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

Air, and are fupported by the Earth; and unlefs
the Seafon, in happy Time, indulges Rain, and
fhakes the Trees ‘with driving Showers, unlefs the
Sun, on his Part, cherifhes and gives his Heat,
nor Fruits, nor Trees, nor Creatures could in-
creafe. ’Tis true, but thefe are not firft Seeds;

and we likewife, unlefs dry Food and kindly Juice:

preferve our Bodies, they muft perifh, and every
Spark of Life, out of our Nerves and Bones,
muft be extinct. We are upheld, no doubt, and
nourifhed by certain Means; and other Things
are ftaid by certain others; for many common
Principles of many Things are mix’d in each.
And therefore, the various kind of Things we
find fupported in a different manner; but yet it
much concerns with what, and in what Order,
thefe firft Seeds unite, and what Motion they
give and take among themfelves; for the fame
Seeds compofe Heaven, Earth, the Sea, the Ri-

vers, and the Sun, the fame compofe the Crea- .

tures, Fruits, and Trees, they differ only as they
are moved by others, and as their Mixture dif-
fers in themfelves. —

So, in thefe Lines of mine, the many Letters
you fee are common to the Make and Forin of
many Words; and yet, you mutt confefs, the
Verfes and the Words are much unlike in Senfe
and Sound: Such is the Force of Letters, by
Change of Order only. But the firft Seeds of
Things being more, muft needs admit of Changes
more different ; from whence proceeds that great
Variety of Things we fee produced.

areno more the Principles than Wine, Wheat, and other Things,
by which we fupport Life; for Things that nourifh are not
therefore Principles, but Thofe from which they receive a
Contexture, which makes them fit Nourifhment for Things.

F 2 ᾿ Now,

69

70

T. Lucretil Lis fd.

Nunc &S Anaxacor® fcrutemur Homeome-
viam, 830

Quam Greci memorant, nec nofira dicere lingua
Concedit nobis patrii fermonis egeftas:
Sed tamen ipfam rem facile "ft exponere verbis,
Principium rerum quam dicit Homeomeriam :
Offa videlicet ὃ pauxillis atque minutis 835
Ofibu?: fic 9 de paunillis atque minutis |
Vifceribus Vifcus gigui: Sanguenque creari,
Sanguinis inter fe multis coéuntibu? guttis ς
Lx Aurique putat micis confiftere poffe
Aurum: 9 de Terris Terram concrefcere parvis :
Tenibus ex Ignem: Humorem ex Humoribus effe: 841
Cetera confimili jingit ratione, putatque.

Nec tamen effe ulla parte ἘΜ in rebus Inane
Concedit, neque corporibus jinem effe fecandis :
Quare in utvaque mibi pariter ratione videtur, 845
Errare, aique \u11, fupera quos diximus ante.

Adde quod imbecilla nimis Primordia fingit,

St Primordia funt, fimili que predita conftant
Natura, atque ipfe res funt 5 equéque laborant,
Et pereunt, neque ab exitiores ulla refrenat: 8 50
Nam quid in oppreff: valida durabit eorum,

2 .

Us

Book I. Of the Nature of Things. 71

Now, let us inquire into the * Hommwomery ot 4gainft A-
¥ Anaxagoras, the Greeks {fo call it, but the Po- P*4gors:
verty of the Latin Tongue will not allow us to
exprefs it; but yet, by a fhort Periphratis, we
can explain that Thing which he calls Homeome-
vy, and makes the Principle of Bodies. For in-
{ftance, Bones proceed from {mall and little
Bones, and Flefh is made of {mall and little Bits
of Flefh ; and Blood is form’d of many Drops of
Blood flowing together; and Gold, he thinks,
confifts of little Grains of Gold; and Earth
grows firm by Particles of Earth; Fire is made
of Fire; Water from Water fprings; and all
Things elfe, he thinks, from Caufes fuch as
Thefe arife. ;

Anp yet this Man in no Cafe will allow in
Things a Void, nor that there is an End to Bo-
dies being divided : He equally miftakes in both;
and fo do thofe Sages {poken of before.

BESIDES 7, the Seeds he chofe are much too
weak, if of the fame frail Nature they confift, as
do the Things themfelves, they equally fall to
decay, and perifh, nothing hinders them from
Death: For which of thefe can Jong hold out a-
eainft the fierce Jaws of Death, and fo efcape

x Homeomery fignifies a Likenefs of Parts; we call Homazo-
meries thofe ‘Things whofe minuteit Parts have the Name of
the Whole, as Stones, Gold, Blood, ὅθε.

¥ ‘This Philofopher held the Matter of which all ‘Things are
produced to be infinite, and made it confift of very minuté Par-
ticles, exactly like one another, confufed at firft, but. reduced
afterwards into Order by the Divine Mind. ‘Things he af-
ferted were formed of fimilar Parts, as Bones of little Bones,
Blood of Drops of Blood, €é¥c.

2 If like ‘Things confift of like, and the Principles are ex-
actly of the fame Nature with the Compounds, it follows that
they are both equally liable to perifh; for certainly no Reafon
_ can be given, why a {mal! Part of Flefh fhould not be equally
obnoxious to Corruption as a greater.

- F 4 Deftruction,

T. LucretTit ἥν» ἢ

Ut mortem effugiat lethi fub dentibus ipfis ὃ
Ignis? an Humor? an Aura? quid horum? San-
guen? an Offa?
Nil, ut opinor, ubi ex equo res funditus omnis
Tam mortalis erit, quam que manifefia videmus 855
Ex ocults noftris aliqua vi vitta perire.
At neque recidere ad Nibilum res poffe, neque autem
Crefcere de Nibilo, teftor res ante probatas:
Preierea guoniam Cibus auget corpus alitque :
Scire licet, nobis Venas, 95 Sanguen, ξ5 Offa, 860
Et Nervos alienigenis ex partibus effe :
Sive Cibos omnecis comimifto corpore dicent
Effe, 89 habere in fe Nervorum corpora parva,
Offaque, δ omnino Venas, parteifque Cruoris ;
Fiet, uti Cibus omnis 5) aridus, (S Liquor ipfe, 865
Ex alienigenis rebus conftare putetur,
Ofibus, €F Nervis, Venifque, &F Sanguine mifto,
Preterea quecunque ὃ Terra corpora crefcunt 5
Si funt in Terris, Terras conftare neceffe “ft
Ex alienigenis, que Terris exoriuntur. | 8470
Transfer itent, totidem verbis utare licebit :
In Lignis fi flamma latet, fumufque, cinifque :
Ex alienigenis confiftant Ligna neceffe °/t
Linguitur bie tenuts latitandi copia all :
fa guod ANAXAGORAS fibi fumit, ut omnibus omnets
Res putet immiftas rebus latitare: fedillud 876
Lapparerve units, cujus fi πὲ pluria mifta,

oa ~~ Gee ee

Pe τ

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

Deftruction, crufhed between his very Teeth ?
Can Fire ? Can Air? Can Water? Which of thefe?
Can Blood? CanBones? In my Opinion none. Ald
Things in Nature then would equally be liable to
Death, as are fuch Things we fee before our
Eyes by any Force deftroy’d. But this, I think,
is fully proved before, that Nothing can fall to
Nothing, or from Nothing rife.

BesipEs, * fince Food increafes and fupports

the Body, then we know the Veins, the Blood,

the Bones, confift of heterogeneous and Parts
diffimilar, as does our Food. But if they fay all
Food confifts of Parts various and mixed, and in
itfelf contains the littl Strings of Nerves and
Bones, and all the Veins and Parts of Blood,
then all dry Meat and Drink muft needs con-
ΠΗ of Parts difimilar, of Bones, of Nerves, of
Veins, and mingled Blood.

FurTuHeER, if all Things which grow from
the Earth are inthe Earth contain’d, the Earth
muft then confift of Parts diffimilar, as do. thofe
Things which from the Earth arife. Now change
the Theme, but keep the Terms the fame; in
Wood if Flame and Smoke, and Afhes lay con-
ceal’d, then Wood muft needs confift of Parts of
different Frame.

But here a thin Evafion feems to fhake this
Argument a little; and Anaxagoras himfelf makes
ufe of it: he thinks all Things are mixed with

all Things and lie hid, but that one Thing only

4 The Body is fupported by feveral Sorts of Food, which
plainly confifts of diffimilar Parts ; and therefore the Parts of
our Body confift of diffimilar likewife: for the feveral Parts of
it, the Bones, the Veins, the Nerves, are nourifhed with dif-
ferent and diffimilar Aliments. If it be pretended, that thofe
Aliments contain fome Particles of Bones, Nerves, €%c. it
follows thatthere is not in thofe Bodies that Homaomery ima-
gined by Azaxagoras.

a appears,

73

γι

T. ΠΤΟΚῈ ΤῊΣ Lie. I.

Et magis in promptu, primaque in fronte locata:
Quod tamen a vera longe ratione repulfum *ft.
Conveniebat enim Fruges quoque fepe minutas, 880
Robore cum faxi franguntur, mittere fignum
Sanguinis, aut aliim nofiro quae corpore aluntur :
Cum lapidi lapidem terimus, manare cruorem,
Confimili ratione Herbas quoque fepe decebat,

Et laticis dulceis guttas, fimilique fapore 885
Mittere, lanigere quali funt ubera laftis :

Scilicet €9 Glebis terrarum fepe friatis

_ Herbarum genera, & fruges, frondeifque videri,

Difpertita, atque in Terris latitare minute :

Poftremo, in Lignis cinerem fumumque videri, 890

Cum prefratia forent, igneifque latere minutos,

Quorum nil fieri quoniam manifefta docet 7ε..

Scire licet non effe in rebus res tia miftas :

Verum femina multimodis immifta latere

Multarum rerum in rebus communia debent. 8095
At fepe in magnis fit montibus, inquis, ut altis

Arboribus vicina cacumina fumma terantur

Inter fe, validis facere id cogentibus Auftris,

Donec fullerunt flamma fulgore coorto:

Scilicet: €F non eft lignis tamen infitus Ignis, 900

Verum Semina funt Ardoris multa, terendo

Que cum confluxere, creant incendia fylvis.

Quod fi tanta foret fylvis abfcondita flamma,

Non poffent ullum tempus celarier Ignes :

Conficerent volgo fyluas, drbufia cremarent. 95

Fain

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

appears, of which it moft abounds, and on the
Surface lies; but this Reply is vain, and wide

from Truth; for then the little Grains of Corn,

when ground, would fhew fome Signs of Blood,
or of fome other Parts which form our Bodies;
and when we wear the Stones, the Blood would
flow. By the like Reafon Herbs would fweat
{weet Drops of Liquor, fo delightful to the Tafte,
as flow from Dugs of woolly Sheep, and Clods
of crumbled Earth would fhew the various Kinds
of Fruits and Herbs, and Leaves diftinét and hid
in fmalleft Particles within the Earth; And then,
in Wood divided, might be feen conceal’d Athes
and Smoke, and {malleft Parts of Fire. But fince
Experience f{hews Nothing of this appears, we
-muit conclude there? sno fuch Mixture as This in
Things; but fay, that common Seeds of many

Things in various Order join’d, are m1x’d in eve- |

ry Thing, and lie conceal’d.

But oft, > you fay, upon the Mountain Tops,
the Heads of lofty Trees that grow together are
by the violent Blafts of forcing Winds, fo rubb’d
by clofe Collifion, that they foon are all on fire,
and Flames fhine out. ’Tistrue, and yet there’s
no actual Fire within the Wood, but many Seeds
of Fire, which by hard Rubbing unite, and fo
the Wood isall in flames. .For if fo much of
Fire had lain concealed within the Wood, this
Fire would have appeared immediately, and fo
confumed the Wood intirely, and burnt its Root
Branches to the ground, |

b He fays, there is not any Fire in the Tree itfeif, but that
the Seeds of Firé, or the Molecule of the Atoms, being dif-
pofed in a certain and new Order, and dafhing with Violence
againit one another, exhibit and produce the Species of Fire.
If there were actually Fire in Woods and Forefts of Trees, it
would certainly fhew its Strength, and make a wide De-
ftruction,

You

75

76

T. Lucretat ‘Lis. I.

Famne vides igitur, paullo quod diximus ante,
Permagui referre eadem Primordia fepe
Cum quibus, tS quali pofitura contineantur,
Et quos inter fe dent motus, accipiantque ;
Atque eadem paullo inter fe mutata creare 910
Ieneis é Lignis, quo patto Verba quoque ipfa
Inter fe paullo mutatis funt elementis,

Cum Licna, aique lenzs diftincta voce notemus.
Denique jam quecunque in vebus cernis apertis,
Si fieri non poffe putas, quin Materiai QI5

C orpora confimili natura predita fingas,
Hac ratione tibi pereunt Primordia rerum:
Fiet uti rif tremulo concuffa cachinnent,
Et lacrymis falfis humectent ora, genafque
Nunc age, quod fupereft, cognofce, (© clarius audi.
Nec me animi fallit quam fint obfcura, fed acri 921

Percuffit thyrfo Laudis [pes magna Meum cor,

Et fimul incuffit fuavem mi in pectus amorem
Mufarum : quo nunc inftinctus, mente vigentz
Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante 925
Trita folo: juvat integros accedere fontets,

Atque haurire: juvatque novos decerpere flores:
Infignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam,

Unde prius nulli velarint tempora Mufe :

Primitm quod magnis doceo de rebus, © aréiis 9 30
RELLIGIONUM amimos nodis exfolvere pergo :
Deinde quod obfcura de re tam lucida pango
Carmina, Mufeo contingens cunéia lepore,

id

Boox I. Of the LVature of Things.

You fee therefore of what Concern it is, as we
obferv’d before, with what firft Principles thofe
Seeds are joined, and in what Order placed, and
what the Motions are they give and take among
themfelves, and how, the Seeds remaining ever
the fame, but yet their Order changed, produce
a Fire from Wood : juft as we write Iguis and
Lignum, tho’ quite different Words, they are
yet compofed of Letters much the fame. -

Last Ly, if Things moft obvious to the Senfe,
youthink, cannot be form’d, unlefs you make
their Seeds confift of Principles the fame in Na-
ture, thofe Principles would be deitroy’d ; γου
fee fome Seeds would “ fhake their little Sides
with Laughing, fome bedew their Face with
Tears.

Now, what remains obferve, attend me clofe;
I know my Theme is dark, but the great Love
of Praife pricks on my Heart with fharpeft Spurs,
and ftrikes my Soul at once with fweet Defire of
the moft tuneful Nine; by this urged on, my
Mind in Rapture, I haunt the Mufes Seats, of
difficult Accefs, and yet untrod; I love to ap-
proach the pureft Springs, and thence to draw
Jarge Draughts. I love to crop frefh Flowers,
and make a nobie Garland for my Head ; from
thence, where yet the Mufes never bound ano-
ther’s Temples with a Crown like mine. And
firft, I write of lofty Things, and ftrive to free
the Mind from the fevereft Bonds of what Men
call Religion ; then my Verfe I frame [0 clear, al-
tho? my Theme be dark; feafoning my Lines
with the Poetic Sweets of Fancy, and Reafon

© Some late Philofophers feem at leaft to favour this opinion
of Azaxagoras, when they affert, that thefe Affections do in-
deed, infome fort, przexift in the Elements, tho’ not in the
fame manner as in Man, ὌΝ
juftifies

77

T. Lucretit Lised

Id quoque enim non ab ulla ratione videtur :
Sed veluti Pueris abfinthia tetra medentes 925
Cum dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum
Contingunt mellis dulci flavoque liquores
Ut Puerorum etas improvida ludificetur
Labrorum tenus, interea perpotet amarum
Abfinthi laticem, deceptaque non capiatur, 940
Sed potins tal: fatto recreata valefcat :
Sic ego nunc, quoniam hec Ratio plerumque videtur
Triftior effe, quibus non eft tractata, retroque
Voleus abborret ab hac, volui tibi fuaviloquenti
Carmine Pierio Rationem exponere nofiram, 945
Et quafi Mufo dulci contingere melle,
Si tibi forté animum talt ratione tenere
Verfibus in noftris poffem, dum perfpicis omnen
Naturamrerum, qua conftet compta firura.

Sed quoniam docui, Solidifima Materiat 950
Corpora perpetuo volitare invitla per evum
Nunc age Summai ecquenam fit finis eorum,
Neene fit, evolvamus: item, quod Inane repertum ft
Seu locus, ac fpatium, res in quo queque genantur, |
Pervideamus utrum finitum funditus OMNE 955
Conftet, an Immenfum pateat vel ad ufque profundum?

OmMNE quodeft, igitur, nulla regione viarum
Finitum “ft: namque Extremum debebat habere.
Extremum porro nullius poffe videtur
Effe, nif ultra fit quod finiat, ut videatur, 960
Quo non longins hac fenfus natura fequatur.

Nune

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

juftifies the Method. For as the Phyficians, when
they would prevail on Children to take down a

bitter Draught of Wormwood, firft tinge the

Edges of the Cup, that fo the Childrens unfuf-
_ pecting Age may be deceiv’d, at leaft their Lips,

and take the bitter Juice, thus harmlefly betrayed,
but not abufed, they have their Health reitored:
So I, becaufe this Syftem feems fevere and harth,
to fuch who have not yet difcern’d its Truth,
and the common Herd are utterly averfe to this
Philofophy, I thought it fit to fhew thefe ngid
Principles in Verfe fmooth and alluring, and
tinge them, as it were, with fweet Poetic Ho-
ney, thus to charm thy Mind with my foft Num-
bers, till you view the Nature of All Things
clearly, and perceive the Figure and the Order
they difplay.

But fince I taught the Principles of Matter
are folid, are eternal, ever-moving, nor are de-
{troy’d ; now, come, let us enquire, whether
they have an End, or are by Nature infinite :
and fince we have found a Void or Place, or Space
in which all Things are mov’d, let us now fee
whether the Univerfe, made up of Void and Bo-

dy, be circumfcrib’d, or does to a profound Im-

menfity extend.

Turis ὁ A, therefore, does not admit of

Bounds; for if it did, then it mutt have fome-

thing Extreme: Now, no Extreme can be, un-—

lefs it lies beyond thofe Things whofe Bounds,
or whofe Extreme it is, from whence they may
be feen, and beyond which our Faculty of Sight
can reach no further. Now fince we muft own,

d Whatever is finite has an Extreme, but whatever has an
Extreme may be feen by what is without or beyond it. Now
the Univerfe, or the All, is not feen by any Thing that is be-
yond it; therefore the Univerfe has no Extreme.

that

v9

80 T. Lucreti Li. I.

Nuac extra Summam quomam ni bil effe fatendum ft ,
Non habet Exiremum: caret ergo fine, modoque :
Nec refert quibus affifias regionibus ejus, |
U/que adeo quem quifque locum poffidit, inomneis 965
Tantundem partets infinitum Omne relinguit.
Preterea, fijam finitum conftituatur
Omne quod eft fpatium, ft quis procurrat ad oras
Ultimus extremas, jaciatque volatile telum,
14 validis utriim contortum viribus ire 970
Quo fuerit miffum mavis, longéque volare, |
An probibere aliquid cenfes, obftareque poffe ὃ
Alterutrum fatearis enim, fummafque neceffe "ft,
Quorum utrumque tibi effugium precludit, 5. Omne
Copgit ut exempta concedas fine patere. 97 5a
Nam five eft aliquid, quod probibeat, offictatque
Quo minu’ quo miffum *ft veniat, finique locet fe,
Sive foras fertur, non eft ea fini? profecto.
Foc patio fequar, atque oras ubicunque locaris
Extremas, queram quid Telo denique flat. 980
Fiet uti nufquam poffit confifiere finis :
Effugiumque fuge prolatet copia femper.
Praterea fpatium Summai totius onme
Undique fi tnclufum certis confifteret oris,

Finitumque

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

that nought can be beyond the 41, this 4// has
therefore no Extreme, it has no End, no Bounds;
nor does it fignify what Spot of this great All
you ftand upon; for on what Part foever you are
Ἔχ’ ἃ, you have a wide and infinite Space around
you every way.
Burt if this wide Extent of Space be finite and
-circumicrib’d, Jet a Man ftand upon the utmoft
Verge, and from thence throw a* Dart, whether
you choofe this Dart, with mighty Force thus
caft, fhould reach the Mark defign’d, and -fly
{wift on, or whether you think that fomething

fhould hinder or oppofe its Flight, and one of |

_thefe you muft confefs; now either way you are
caught, and can’t efcape: You are forc’d toown
this All hes wide extended without Bounds. For
whether there be formething that does hinder and
{top its Fight, fo that it cannot reach the Mark
defign’a, and there reft ftill and fx’d; or whe-

ther it flies forward, there this End you cannot
fix: for if it ftops, then fomething mutt le be-
yond the utmoft Verge; and if it fies, there isa
Space beyond the extremeft Brink. And thus I
follow clofe; and wherefoe’er you place the ex-
tremeft Bounds, | ftill demand what comes. of
your Dart? So that no Bounds can any where be
fixed, but Space immenfe will always give a
Paffagé to its Flight.

Brsipes, were this ///’s extended Space fhut
up by certain Bounds on every Side, and was by

© Suppofe the Univerfe be finite, and let a Man be placed

on the extremeft Verge of it; and ftrive to throw a Dart, ei-

ther the Dart will fly forward, or fomething will top it; if it

flies forward, there isa Space beyond the extremeft Brink ; if

it be ftopt by any Thing, there muft be Something without
the utmofi Part.

WOOL, I. | G Nature

83

T. LucretTir Lisl.

Finitumque foret, jam copia Materiat 985
Undique ponderibus folidis conflixet ad Imum ς
Nec res ulla geni fub celi tegmine poffet :
Nec foret omnino Calum, neque lumina Sols:
Quippe ubi materies omnis cumulata jaceret
Ex infinite jam tempore fubfidendo 990
At nunc nimirum requies data Principiorum
Corporibus nulla’ft: gita nil eft funditus Imum, -
Quo quafi confluere, €S fedes ubi ponere poffint 9
Senper 85 affiduo motu res queque genuntur
Partibus in cunttis, eternaque fuppeditantur 995
Ex Infinito cita corpora Materiat.

Poftremo ante oculos rem res fimire videtur,
Aer diffepit Colleis, atque Acra Montes ;
Terra Mare, & contra Mare Terras terminat om-—

eis.

Omne quidem vero nihil eft quod finiat extra: 1000
Eft igitur natura loci, fpatiumque profund., |
Quod neque clara fuo percurrere fiumina curfu
Perpetuo poffint evi labentia tract :
Nec provfum facere, ut reftet minus ire, meando:
Ufque adeo paffim patet ingens copia rebus, 1005
Finibus exemptis in cuncias undique parteis.

Ipfa

Boox L Of the Nature of Things. 83

Nature finite, then this * Mats of Matter, prefs’d
by its folid Weight, had lone ere now funk to
athe loweft Place, and therefore Nothing under
oe Vault of Heaven could have a Being, nor
ould there be Heavens at all, or the Sun’s Light.
Fot then the Seeds of Things that had been fink-
ing from all Eternity, would in Confufion lie on
Heaps ; but now the Principles of Bodies having
no Reft at all, are ever moving, becaufe there’s
no fuch Thing as loweft Place, to which they m:iy
defcend, no fix’d Abode where they fhould reff;
but Things are ever carried by Motion never- ἐπε.
Ing, through every Part of this vaft All, froin
whence the attive Seeds of Things arife, and are
eternally. fupplied.

FuRTHER#®, we fee one Thing bounds
in another; the ‘Ais bounds in the Hills, the
Hills the Air, the Earth {huts up the Sea, and
then again the Sea furrounds the Earth; but this
Great 4] Nothing exterior to it felf can bind.
For the Nature of this Place, this empty Space,
As fuch, that Rivers of the fwiftett S Stream, were
they to run for Ages infinite, with a perpetual
Current, could not ran thro: uoh it, Origver tay
their running prove they had lefs of their Courfe
to run; fo vaitly wide this mighty Space of
Things extended lies on all Sides, every way,
without all Bounds,

Ὁ ΤΕ the Univerfe were inite, in that finite Space there
would be fome loweft Place, to which Matter that by its nata-
ral Gravity had been finking from ail Eternity, would have
funk down and refted. And thus it would have ἜΡΡΕΙ ned long
ago, that the univerfal Matter having reached the /we/
Place, would from that Time have generated Nothing ; for
N othing can proceed from Seeds that are at Ref.
& There can be Nothing exterior to the Univerfe that can

be its Bound, fince that very Thing that is exterior to it is a
Part of it; for the Univerfe contains 4// that is.

G 2 | ) Br-

Ἔν Lucretia ‘Ling

Ipfa modum porro fibi rerum Summa parare
Ne poffit, Natura tenet: quia Corpus Inani,
Et quod Inane autem?ft, jiniri Corpore cogit: .
Ut fic alternis Infinita omnia reddat. 1010
Aut etiam, alierutrum nifi terminet alterum eorum,
Simplice natura {8 pateat tantum Immoderatum:
Nec Mare, nec Tellus, nec Cali lucida templa,
Nec Mortale genus, nec Diviim corpora (πηδῶ
Exiguum poffent horat fiftere tempus. 1015
Nam difpulfa fuo de cetu Materiat
Copia ferretur magnum per Inane foluta.
Sive adeo potius nunguam concreta credffet
Ullam rem, quoniam cogi disjecta nequiffet.
Nam certé neque confilio primordia rerum 102@
Ordine fe queque, atque fagaci mente locarunt 9

err”

. ν᾽ ᾿

οοκῖ. Of the IVature of Things.

Bestpes", the Laws of Nature do provide;
that this Univerfe of Things will not admit of
Limits to itfelf, becaufe Body is Bound to Void,

and Veid a Bound to Body; and by this mutual
‘Termination it is, that this great 41] becomes
Immenfe ; for were not each a Bound unto the
other, were Body not a Limit fet to Void, the
Void would be infinite, and all finite Bodies
would be diffolv’d, and fo nor Sea, nor Earth,
nor the bright Heavens, nor mortal Race of Men,
‘nor facred Bodies of the Gods could be one Mo-
ment of an Hour; for the Seeds of Bodies being
difunited in themfelves, would fly, and quite dif-
folv’d, be carried through the Void; or rather,
being never joined, had form’d no Being ; for
once jicatter’d through this Space, they could
not be compelled to join again.

For certainly ‘the Principles of Things could

never range themfelves in Form or Order, by

Counfel, or by Wifdom of the Mind, nor any —

_ 8 This Argument is allowed to be very intricate, and hard
to be explained; he feems to mean that Body and Void mu-
tually bind each othe:, and that an Immenfity-muft needs pro-
ceec from the mutual Termination; becaufe neither of them,
that 1s, neither Body nor Void, can be the laft, but whatever
has ne Part that can be the Leaf or extremeft, that indeed is
infinite.

1 The Stoicts held the World to be a rational Creature, and
to confift of Heaven and Earth, as of Soal and Ecdy. The
Fleavens, they faid, were the fame tothe whole, as lteafon is
Ὁ Man, and the Stars were the Eyes of the Worid. He de-
rides this Opinion, and teaches, that after a Length of Time
all T"hings were produced by 2 fortuitows Concourfe of thefe
indivifible Bodies, which after ftriking, joftling and crouding
one another in the infinite Void, perhaps for many Myriads
of Ages, after all pofible Configurations, Changes, Poitures,
Succeflicns and Agitations, happened at Jait to tall into this
goodly Fabrick of the Univerie. This is the Syitem of Epi-
¢urus concerning the firft Beginning of Things, which com-
mon Senfe {ufficiently overthrows.

G 3 Com-

ὃς

86

T. Lucretrii Lie. I.

Nee quos queque darent motus pepigere profetto :
Sed quia multintodis, multis, mutata, per Omne . |
Ex injnito vexantur percita plagis,

Oinne genus motus, (S ca@ius experiunda, 1025
Tandem deveniunt in taleis difpofituras,

Qualibus bec rebus confiftit Summa creata: ᾿

Li mulios etiam magnos fervata per anos,
Ut femel in motus conjetla’ft convenienteis,
ζεῖ, ut largis avidum Mare fluminis undis 1030
Tntegrent Amnes, &8 Solis Terra vapore ‘
Fota novet fetus, fummiffaque gens animantum
Floreat, €8 vivant labentes Attheris ignes.
Quod nullo facerent patto, nifi Materiai
Ex Infinito fuboriri copia poffet, 1025
Unde amifja folent reparari in tempore quoque.
Nam εἰμ privata cibo Natura animantum
Diffluit amittens corpus, fic omnia debent
Diffolvi, ρα ac defecit fuppeditare :
Materies recta regione averfa viai. 1040
Nec Plage poffent extrinfecis undique Summam —
Confervare omuem, quecungue °ft conciliata,
Cudere enim crebro poffunt, partemque morart,
Dum veniani alia, ac fupplert Summa queatur.

- Interdum

- ὠ

I. Of the Nature of Things. 87

Compact make how each fhould move; but being
_chane’d in various Forms, and {truck with many
Blows, they are driven through this Vozd for ma-

ny Ages, and having try’d all Kinds of Motion,

and of Union, they at lengh by chance are fo dif-
pofed, to frame thofe Bodies of which this Uni-
verfe of Things confifts. And * thefe Seeds once
thrown into convenient Motions, and keeping in
the fame for many Ages, is the true Caufe that

Rivers, witha large Supply of Waters from their

Streams, fill up the greedy Sea, and the Earth,

fupported by the Sun’s Heat, renews the Fruits,

and the Race of living Creatures flourifh, and the
rolling Stars of Heaven are kept alive; all which
could never be, if from this infinite Mafs a Sup-
ply of Seeds fow’d not, from whence decaying

Things might rife, and live, and be from Age

to Age repaired.

For as the Animal Creation, deprived of
Food, muft perifh, and their Bodies be quite de-
ftroy’d, fo Things muft be diffolv’d as foon as
Matter, turning from its Courfe, fails to afford
Supply, and fave the whole.

Nor, as fome may object, can ' outward Biows
on all Sides given, preferve this All of Things we
fee compounded, from falling into pieces :- They
may indeed beat thick, and {tay fome Part, tll o-
ther Atoms come, and fo fupply the Univerfe.

_* After this accidental Coition of the Seeds, they never
(varied from their original and flated Moticns;- and fo the
Frame of the Univerfe is preferved.

! He means that finite Atoms cannot always, and at every
Moment of Time, mutually ftrike one another ; and when
they do, they muft fometimes rebound, and thus give Time
and Room for the Principles of the Compounds which affect
to be in continual Motion, to break the Chain of their Con-
texture, and to fly away from one another.

G 4 | But

$8

T. Lucrerir Lr,
Interdum refilire tamen coguntur, &8 una 1045
Priacipus rerum fpatium, tempufque fugaz
Largiri, ut poffint a cetu libera ferri.
Quare etiam atque etiam fuboriri multa neceffe *ft.
Et tamen ut Plage quoque poffint fuppetere ipfe,
Infinite opus oft vis undique Materiai, 1050

llud in bis rebus longe fuge credere, Memmi,

In mecium Summe (quod dicunt) omnia nit,
Alque ideo Mundi naturam fare fine ullis
Litibus externis, neque quoquam poffe refolvi
Summa atque Ima, quod in Medium fint omnia nixa,
(lpfum fi quicquam poffe in fe fiftere credis: 1055
Et que pondera funt fub Terris omnia furfum
Nitier, in Terraque retro requiefcere pifta:
Ut per aquas que nunc rerum fimulacra videmus : )
Et fimili ratione Animalia fubtw? vagari τοῦο
Contendunt, neque poffe é Terris in loca Cek
Recidere inferiora magis, quam corpora noftra
Sponte fua poifint in Celi templa volare :
Lilt cum videant Solem, nos Sidera noé#is
Cernere, &S alternis nobifcum tempora Cel 1065
Dividere, & noties parileis agitare, die/que.

Sed

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

’ But oft they are compelled to bound, and leap

back, and fo afford the Seeds both Time and
Place to fly away, and thus to get their former
Liberty again. Therefore, ’tis fit that many
Seeds fhould ftill arife, from Time to Time, for
a Supply; and that thefe Blows might never
ceafe to beat, the Force of Matter mutt be onal}
Sides infinite.

In thefe Enquiries fee that you avoid, my Mem-
mius™, to believe with fome that fay, all Bodies
ftrive to reach the middle Place of this great ///,
and fo the Nature of the World ftands fix’d, not
{truck at all by outward Blows; nor can the up-
per or the lower Parts be {fcatter’d any way a-
broad, fince all Things by Nature to the Centre
tend (as if you could believe thatany Thing could
ftay and reft upon itfelf, that heavy Bodies tend
upwards, and fix their Reft upon the Surface of
the Earth oppofite to us, juft as we fee the Images
of Bodies fhew themfelves in Water.) By the
fame Reafon they contend, that Creatures walk
underneath, as we above; nor can they fall into
the Regions of the Air below, than can our Bo-
dies naturally fly upwards towards Heaven ; and
when they fee the Sun, we view the Stars of
Night, and fo by turns they fhare with us the
Seafons of the Heavens, and with us fti!l divide
the Nights and Days.

m Fle refutes the Opinion, that the Univerfe has a Centre,
to which all Things tend by their natural Gravity. He fays,
there can be no Middle, becaufe the Void is infinite; but what
is infinite has neither Beginning nor End, and therefore no
Middle. And grant there wasa Centre, yet no Reafon can
be given why heavy Bodies fhould ftop in the middle Part of

the Void, when a Void gives way to heavy Bodies equally in_

every Part of it.

Bur

89

|

Co

TT. LucRETI! Lie. I,

Sed vanus Stolidis bec omnia finnerit error,
Arsplexi quod babent perverse prima viat,
Nam Medium nibil effe poteft, ubi Inane, locufque
Infinita: neque omnino, fi jam Medium fit, 1070
Pofit ibt quicquam bac potius confiftere caufa,
Quam quavis alia longe regione manere.
Omnis enim locus, ac [patiuim, quod Inane vocamus,

Per Medium, per non Medium coucedat oporiet
2

ΖΕ φηῖς ponderibus, motus quacunque feruntur.1075
Nec quifquam locus eff, quo Corpora cum venere,
Ponderis amiffa vi pofint flare in Inani :

Nec quod Inane autem ft, illis fubjifere debet,
Quin, fua quod natura petit, concedere pergat.
Haudigitur poffunt tali ratione teneri 1080
Res inconcilio, Medii cuppedine viéte :

Preteréa quoque jam.non omnia corpora fingunt
In Medium niti, fed Terrarum, atque Liquorum,
Humorem ponti, magnifque ὃ montibus Undas,

Et quafi Terveno que corpore contineantur: 1085
At contra tenues exponunt Aerts auras,
Et calidos fimul a Medio digferrier Igneis,

Aique

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

Burt vain Miftake hath form?d this Scheme for
Fools, who judge perverfly of the Seeds of
Things. For there can be no Middle, where
there is a Void or Space that’s infinite; or if there
was, can Bodies, for this Reafon, rather ftop
their Courfe in this Medium, than take up their
Abode in any Partof Space that’s further off.
For Place, or empty Space, which we call Void,
muft equally give way to heavy Movements
through a Medium, or through none, which
way foe’er their Motions tend ; nor is there any
Place where Bodies, when they come, throw off
their Weight, and ftand fix’d in a Void, and
take their Reft. Nor can a Void fupport the
Weight of Bodies, but muft by its own Nature
{till give way. It follows then, that Things are
not preferv’d, or held together by this means, as
if they fondly ftrove to reach a middle Space.

BesipeEs, all Bodies, they pretend, do not in-
cline towards the Centre, but thofe of Earth and
Water, the Sea, and Rivers rolling from the Hills,
and thofe that are compofed of "earthy Parts,
But the thin Air, they fay, and the hot Fire are
carried upwards from the Middle; and hence it
is the Sky 15 fpangled every way with Stars, and

_ ® Thofe who fuppofe a Centre, affert, that the Particles of
the Earth and Water only tend thither ; but he anfwers, if
fome earthly Particles did not rife upwards likewife, how could
Animals be nourifh’d? How could Trees and all manner
of Plants grow? He fays, they pretend that certain folid
Heavens inclofe thofe light Particles that rife from the
Centre, are roll’d round all Things, and hold them in ; for if
thefe Particles were not ftopt, they would immediately fly
through the immenfe Void, and the Heavens and the Earth
would be diffolved, and fall to pieces ; for where any Part of
the World begins to fail, the Whole will foon be diffolved.
He recites thefe Opinions as Abfurdities, and thinks by fo do-
ing he confutes them. :

the

οἱ

92

TeLucretrm Liz I.

Atque ideo totum circumtremere thera fignis,
Et Solis fammam per celi cerula pafti,

Quod calor a Medio fugiens ibi colligat igneis. 1090
(Quippe etiam vefci ὃ Terra mortaha fatla:

Nee prorfum arboribus fummos frundefcere ramos
Polfe, nift a terris paullatim cuique cibatum

Terra det) at fupra circum tegere omnia Calum
Ne volucrum ritu flammarum, menia Mundi 1095
Diffugiant fubite magnum per Inane foluta,

Et ne cetera confimili ratione fequantur :

Neve ruant cali tonitralia templa fuperie,

Lerrague fe pedibus raptim fubducat, &F omnes

Later perimifias terre, celique ruinas 1100
Corpora folventes, abeant per Inane profundum,
Temporis ut puntto nibil exftet relliquiarum,

| Defertum preter Spatium, (8 Primordia ceca.

Nam quacunque prius de parti corpora céffe
Conftitucs, bec rebus erit parsjanua lethi: 1105
Hac [eturba foras dab:it omnis Materiat.

Hec fi pernofces, parva perfunttus opella,
{Nangque alid ex alio clare[cei) non tibi ceca
Nox iter eripiet, quin ultima Naturat
Pervideas, ita Res accendent lumina Rebus. 1110

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

the Sun’s Flame in his celeitial Courfe is fed, be-
caufe the Fire flying from the Centre, there binds
up all its Heat; (fo from the Earth all mortal
Things are fed, nor’can the Trees adorn their
lofty Heads with Leaves, unlefs the Earth to
every Kind affords its due Support.) They fay,
a fort of Heavenly Canopy above covers the
whole, and holds itin; left the ° World’s Walls,
their Parts being all diffolv’d, fhould inftantly be
fcatter’d through the Void, like {wifteft Flames,
and all Things be o’erwhelm’d in this great
Ruin; left the thundering Vaults of Heaven
fhould tumble from above, and Earth fhould
fail our trembling Feet, and the whole Race of
Men, their Bodies broken and diffolv’d, fhould
wander through the boundlefs Void, amidft thefe
mingled ‘Ruins of the Earth and Heavens; and

in a Moment nothing would be left but defart .

empty Space, and fentelefs Seeds. For in what-

ever Part you will fuppofe the Seeds to feparate, -

here will ,be the Gate of Death to Bodies; for
Matter through the Breach will ruth abroad,
and prefs with mighty Force.

Ir This you throughly know, and little Pains
will ferve (for one Thing by another you?ll ex-
plain) no more fhall Darknefs interrupt your
Way, but you fhall view the utmoft Depths of
Nature ; for Things will fhew themfelves by mu-
tual Light.

° He means the whole Circumference of the Heavens,
which, like Walls, inclofe and furround the World.

The END of the FIRST BOOK,

93

THE

ARG UMEN T

Or ΤῊΣ
SECOND BOOK.

crabbed, and therefore be adorned it with
Poetical Defcriptions and Precepts of Mo-

rality in the Beginning and Ending of his Books.
In this Book be treats of the Motions and Figures
of bis Atoms, and introduces bis Subjeti with the
Praifé of that Philofophy which Epicurus taught,
and.which be calls, The Doétrine of the Wf.
This he recommends to bis Memmuus, as what
«11 alleviate all his Care, and deliver the Mind
from Anxiety and Fear. Then he difputes about
the Properties and Qualities of his Seeds or Atoms,
the firft of which is Motion. That Seeds do move,
is demonftrated from the Generation of Things, but
their Motion is downwards ; for all Seeds are bea-
vy: But when folid Seeds meet, they mujt of nece/-
fity rebound every way from one another. Thus
fome Seeds happen to unite and join together, and
thofe whofe Union is moft compat, compofe Taings
that are hardand denfe, but the Seeds whofe Con-
nexion is more loofe, make thofe that are foft and
rare. But fome Seeds never unite, but like the
Particles of Duft we fee inthe Beams of the Sun,
are with perpetual Motion carried through the
Void, and inceffantly firike, and drive up and down
other

Q UR Poet made choice of a Subje& naturally

.

The ARGUMENT.

oiber Atoms and Themfelves. He then explains the
Swiftne/s of the Seeds that tend downwards; and,
after bis ufual Manner, feverely falls upon thofe
who confe/s @ divine and ruling Providence. He
obferves that the Seeds, as they tend downwards,
decline a little from a firait Line, for unlefs they
did fo, Nothing at all, at leaft no free Agent, could
ever be produced. He foews that the Seeds ftill keep
the fame Motion in which they have moved from all
Eternity; and that no Man fhould diftruft this
Opinion, becaufe he cannot difcover this Motion by
his Sight, fince the very Seeds themfelves cannot be
perceived. Figure is the fecond Quality or Property
of Seeds, and be proves that all Seeds are not of the
fame Figure, but that fome are round, fome fquare,
fome finooth, fome rough, fome hooked, &c. And
he foews at large, what Pigures compofe bitter Bo-
dies, what fweet, what bard, what foft; that
this Variety of Figures is not infinite, but that Seeds
of the fame Figure are infinite, that is, the Round
are infinite, the Square infinite, &c. He obferves,
that Things are not compofed of Seeds of the fame
Figure, and proves by many Arguments, that com-
pound Bodies contaiz Seeds of different Figures ,
Seeds, he fays, have none of thofe Qualities which
ave call fenfible, as Colour, Tafte, Heat, Cold, &c.
and that they are not endowed with Senfe, tho’ co-
loured, favory, bot, cold, and fenfible Things are
conipofed of them. Lafily, that thefe infinite Seeds
frying up and down through the infinite Void, com-
pofe infinite Worlds, and that thefe Worlds are fome-
times increafed in Bulk by the Seeds that drop down
out of the infinite Space, and fometimes diminifbed
and diffolved, becaufe the Seeds get loofe and fly a-
way from them into the infinite Space likewife; in the
fame Manner as Plants and Animals are born, in-
creafe in Growth, wax old, and at length die.

T. Lucretit

95

7. Lucretia Cari

DE
RERUM NATURA

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Z. Lucretius Carus,

+. OF THE
NATUREof THINGS.
δ THE

SECOND BOOK.

FNS pleafant, when a Tempeft drives the
δ Waves, in the wide Sea, to view the.
fad Diftrefs of others from the Land;

‘not that the Pleafure is fo fweet that others fuf-
fer, but the Joy is this, to look upon the Ills
from which yourfelf are free. It likewife gives
- delight to view the bloody Conflicts of a War, in
Battle ranged overall the Plains, without a Share
of Danger to yourfelf: But nothing is more
{weet, than to attain the ferene tho’ lofty Heights
of true* Philofophy, well fortified with Learning
of the Wife, and thence look down on others,

a The Poet introduces his Subjeét with the Praife of that
Philofophy taught by Epicurus; and intending in this Book
to treat of the Motions and Figures, and other Qualities of his
Atoms, he relaxes the wearied Mind of his Mesmmius, by
forewarning him of the Dangers and Calamities of others, and
to allure him to the Study of that Philofophy which he calls
The Dottrine of the Wife.

Vou. IL. H and

nl 4

Ν

T. Lucrerii Lis. ἘΠ
Dejpicere unde queas Alios, pyfi mgue Videre

Errare, atque viam palantets querere Vite, τὸ
Certare ingenio, contendere nobvilitate,

No&teis atque dies niti praeftante labore

Ad fummas emergere opes, rerumque potirz:

O miferas hominum menteis! 6 peciora ceca!
Qualibus in tenebris vite, quantifque periclis 15
Degitur boc evi, quodcunque °jt! nonne videre
Nil aliud fibi Naturam latrare, nifi ut, cum
Corpore fejunétus dolor abfit, mente fruatur
Fucundo fenfu, cura femota, metuque !

Ergo corpoream ad naturam pauca videmus 20
Effe opus omnine, que demant quemque i
Delicias quogue uti multas fubjternere poffint,
Gratius interdum neque Natura ipfa requirit.

Si non aurea funt juvenum fimulacra per edeis
Lampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris, 25

‘Lumina nociurnis epulis ut fuppeditentur,

Nec domus argento fulget, auroque renidet 5
Nec citharis reboant laqueata aurataque templa :
Attamen inter fe profirati in gramine moll
Propter aque rivum, fub ramis arboris alia, 20
Non magnis opibus gucundée Corpora curant:
Prefertim cum tempeftas arridet, €9 anni
Tempora confpergunt viridanteis floribus herbas,
Nec calide citius decedunt corpore febres,
Textilibus fi in pitturis, oftroque rubenti 85
Fadtaris, quan fi plebeia in vefie cubandu ae
Quapropter quoniam nil nofiro in corpore Gaze

Proft-

Boox II. Of the Mature of Things. 99

and behold Mankind wandering and roving eve-
ry way, to find a Path to Happinefs 5 they ftrive
for Wit, contend for Nobility, labour Nights
and Days, with anxious Care, for Heaps of
Wealth, and to be Minifters of State.

O wretched are τῆς Thoughts of Men! How
blind their Souls! In what dark Roads they grope
their way, in what Diftrefs is this Life fpent,
fhort as itis! Don’t you fee Nature requires no
more, than, the Body free from Pain, fhe may
enjoy the Mind eafy and chearful, remov’d from
Care and Fear?

Awnop then we find a littie will fuffice the
Nature of our Bodies, and take off every Pain ;
nay, will afford much Pleafure, and Nature
wifhes for nothing more defirable than this.
What tho’ no > Golden Images of Boys, holding gp, yaniry
forth blazing Torches in their Hands, to light ofa jé-
the Midnight Revels of the Great, adorn thy 4ary
Houfe? What tho’ thy Rooms fhine not with 8
Silver, nor are overlaid with Gold, nor do thy
arched gilded Roofs rebound with the ftrong
Notes of Mufick? Yet we find Men fweetly in-
dulge their Bodies, as they lie together. on the
foft and tender Grafs, hard by a River’s Side,
under the Boughs of fome high Tree, without a
Fleap of Wealth ; chiefly when the Spring fmiles, .
and the Seafon of -the Year fprinkles the verdant —
Herbs weth flowery Pride. Nor will a burning
Fever fooner leave the Body, when you are tof-
fed in Cloaths embroidered on Beds of blufhing
Purple, than when you lie in coarfeft Blankets.
Since Riches then afford no Comfort to our Bo-

» The Golden Statues ufed in the Houfes of Perfons ae Qua-
lity, inftead of Sconces and Candlefticks in their Entertain-

ments by Night, ,
' Η 2 dies,

100

T. Lucretit | Γ,18. ἢ].

Proficiunt, neque Nobvilitas, neque Gloria regni:
Quod fupereft, animo quoque nil prodeffe putandum:
Si non forte tuas Legiones per loca campi 40
Fervere cum videas belli fimulacra cientets :
Fervere cum videas Claffem, latéque vagari,
His tibi tumrebus timefatte Relligiones
Effugiunt animo pavide, mortifque timores :
Tum Vacuum pectus linquunt, curaque folutum. 45
Quod fi ridicula bec, ludibriaque effe videmus,
Re veraque Metus hominum, Cureque fequaces,
Nec metuunt fonitus armorum, nec fera tela :
Audatterque inter Reges, rerumque Potenteis
Verfaniur, neque fulgorem reverentur_abauro, 5°
Nec clarum veftis [plendorem purpureai :
Quid dubitas, quin omne fit hoc rationis egeftas,
Omnis cm in tenebris prafertim vita laboret 2
Nam veluti Pueri trepidant, atque omnia cecis
In Tenebris metuunt: fic nos in Luce timemus 55
Interdum nibilo que funt metuenda magis, quam
Que Pueri in Tenebris pavitant, finguntque futura.
Lune igitur terrorem animi, tenebrafque neceffe ᾽(
Non Radii folis, neque lucida tela diet
Difcutiant, fed Nature fpecies, Ratiogue. 60
Nunc age, quo mote GENITALIA Materiai
CoRPORA 765 varias gignant, genita/que refolvant,
Lt qua vi facere id cogantur, queve fit ollis

Reddita

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things.

dies, nor Noblenefs, nor the Glory of Ambition,
“tis plain you are to think they do the Mind no
good. It, when you behold your furious Le-
gions embattled o’er the Plains, waging mock
War, or when you view your Navy ftand eager
to engage, or bear away o’er the wide Sea, if
{truck with Sights like thefe, your fearful Super-
ftitions, and the Dread of Death, forfake your
Mind, and leave your Breaft ferene, and free
from Care, *twerefomething, But if thefe Things
are vain and all Grimace, and the truth is, that
nor the Fears of Men, nor following Cares fly
from the Sound of Arms or cruel Darts, but
boldly force their way among the Kings and
Mighty of the Earth; nor do they Homage pay
to fhining Gold, nor the gay Splendor of a pur-
ple Robe. Do you doubt but all this Stuff 1s
want of Senfe, and all our Life is groping in the
dark ? :

For as “ Boys tremble and fear every thing in
the dark Night, fo we, in open Day, fear
Things as vain, and little to be feared, as thofe
that Children quake at in the dark, and fancy
making towafds them. This Terror of the
Mind, this Darknefs then, not the Sun’s Beams,
nor the bright Rays of Day can {catter, but the
Light of Nature and the Rules of Reafon.

Bu T now, come on, remember you attend,
while I explain by what Motion the Genial Seeds
of Matter produce the various Kinds of Bodies,
and diffolve them when produced, and by what
Force compelled they act, and what Celerity of

¢ As Children dread every thing in the dark, fo Men are
terrified witha Belief of Providence and of Punifhments after
Death, which, according to Epicurus, are but the Day-Dreams

of a crazy Mind,
Π 54 Motion

τοῖ

ΤΟΣ

T, Lucretrit Lie. I.

Reddita Mobilitas inagnum per Inane meandt,
Expediam: Tu te dittis prebere memento. 65
Nam certé non inter fe fiipata cobaeret
Materies, quoniam minui rem quamque videmus,
Et queft longinquo fluere omnia cernimus evo ;
Lx oculifque vetuftatem fubducere nofiris :
Cine tamen incolumuis videatur Summa manere, “0
Propterea quia, que decedunt Corpora cuique,
Unde abeunt, minuunt : quo venere, augmine donant:
Lila fenefcere, at bec contra florefeere cogunt.
Nec remorantur ibi: fie rerum Summa novatur
Semper, (SF inter fe mortales mutua vivunt. a5
Augefcunt alie gentes, alice minnuntur :
Inque brevi [patio mutantur fecla animantum :
Et, quafi Curfores, vitat lampada tradunt.
‘Si ceflare putas rerum Primordia poffe,
Ceffandoque novos rerum progignere Motus: δὼ
Avius avera longe vatione vagaris. |

Nan,

Ο.
ἊΣ

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things. 1

Motion they poffefs, to force their way thro’ all
the mighty Void.

For certain it 15) that no ἃ Seeds of Matter 72ε Mo-
ftick clofe and unmov’d among themfelves ; for “95 οὗ the
we fee every thing grows lefs, and perceive all’ “”
Things wear away by a long Tract of Time, and
old Age removes them quite from our Sight.
And yet the Mafs of Things ftill remains fafe and
entire; and for this Reafon, becaufe the Par-
ticles of Matter which fall off, leffen the Bodies
from whence they fall, -but add to thofe to which
they join. Thefe they force to decay : thofce, on
the contrary, they increafe: Nor do they remain
in this Pofture. And thus the Univerfe of
Things is continually renewing; Generations fuc-
ceed one another, one Kind of Animal increafes,
another waftes away ; and in a {ποῖ time. the liv-
ing Creation is entirely changed, and, like * Ra-
cers, delivers the Lamp of Life to thofe that are
behind.’

Bur if you think the Seeds of Things can be
at reft, and, being themfelves unmov’d, can give
Motion to Bodies, you wander wildly from the
‘Way of true Reafon. For fince all the Seeds of

¢ He proves there is Motion from the Growth and Decreafe
of Things ; for Things grow, becaufe fome Particles of Mat-
ter fly, andadhere to them, and Things decreafe, becaufe fome
minute Principles lofe their hold and fy away ; and this can-
not be done without Miction.

© He alludes to certain Games celebrated at Athens in ho-
nour of Vulcan, in which the Racers carried Torches in theis
_ Hands, and ftrove who fhould firt: reach the Goal, with his
Torch- not extinguifhed. In this Conteft, he whofe Torch
was extinguifhed, yielded the Victory to him who came next
after him; and he, in like manner, to the third: And there
fore, as the Runner whofe Torch went out yielded the Victo
ry to the Follower, fo aliving Thing, when its Light of Life
15 extinguifhed, gives up to another living Thing, as it were,

its Lamp of Life.
ΕΗ 4 Things

1LO4.

T. Lucretir Lie. If.

Nam, quoniam per Inane vagantur, cuntia neceffeft
Aut Gravitate fua ferri Primordia rerum,

Aut itiu forte alterius : nam cita fuperné

Obvia cum flinere, fit, ut diverfa repente 85.
Diffliant: neque enim nirum, Duriffima que fint,
Ponderibus folidis, neque quicquam ἃ tergis obftet.

Et quo jaftari magis omaia Materiai
Corpora pervideas, reminifcere Totius imum
Nil effe in Summa: neque babere ubi Corpora

prima 90
Confifiant : quoniam Spatium fine fine, modoque ᾽ς
Immenfumque patere in cuntias undique parteis,
Pluribus ofiendi, 85 certa ratione probatu’ ft.

Quod quoniam conftat, nimirum nulla quies eft
Reddita Corporibus primis per Inane profunduim: 95
Sed magis affiduo, varioque exercita motu,

Partim intervallis magnis conflitia refultant :

Pars etiam brevibus fpatiis nexantur ab Iétu.

Et quecunque magis condenfo conciliatu,

Exiguis intervailis connexa refuliant, 100

Indupedita

“4

Boox II. Of the Nature of Things. 105

Things are rambling through the Void, they
muft neceffarily be born along either by their
own natural Gravity, or by the outward Stroke
of fomething elfe; for when thefe Seeds tending
downwards meet with others, they muft all fly
off, and rebound a different way, and no won-
der, fince they are hard Bodies, and of folid
Weight; nor is there any thing behind to ftop
the Motion: But, that you may perceive more
plainly how all the Seeds of Matter are tofled a-
bout, you mutt recollect, that there isnofuch thing
in the Univerfe as the Lowe/t Place, where the
firft Seeds may remain fixed, becaufe 1 have
fhewn fully, and proved by certain Reafon, that
Space is without End, without Bounds immenfe,
and lies extended every way.

Tuis being plain, there can be no Reft poffibly .
allowed to thefe firft Seeds, for ever wandering
through the empty Void; but being toffed about
with conftant and different Motion, and ftriking-
acainft other Bodies ὅ, fome rebound to a great
Diftance, others fly off, but not fo far; fuch of
them as rebound but for a fmall Diftance, their
Contexture being more clofe, and being hinder’d.

f The Seeds being folid are therefore heavy, and heavy
Things tend downwards, and in their Defcent lighting upon
Bodies that are either at reft, or move more flowly than them-
felves, they muft neceffarily rebound; and this is the Caufe of
the afcending Motion, which is violent, the other is natural,
and both are neceflary to the Generation and Diffolution of
Things.

6 Since the Seeds are in continual Motion, and itrike and
rebound, this Rebounding is made to unequal Dittances ; thofe
Seeds that rebound to a lefs Diftance, and are toffed in a nar-
rower Space, compofe hard Bodies, as Iron and Stone; and
{uch as rebound to a greater Diitance, and wander in a wider
Space, compofe Bodies that are foft and rare, fuch as Air
and Fire,

by

106

T. Lucretr Lie. Ik
Indupedita fuis perplexis ipfa figuris ;
Hae validas Saxi radices, &F fera Ferri.
Corpora confittuunt, {8 cetera de genere horum
Paucula: Que porro magnum per Inane.vagantur,
Et cita diffiliunt longe, longéque recur fant 105
In magnis intervallis : bec Aéra rarun
Sufficiunt nobis, &S {plendida lumina Solis.

Multaque praeterea magnum per Inane vagantur,
Concilis rerum que {μπὲ rejelia, nec ufquam
Confociare etiam motus potuere recepia : 110
Cujus, uti memoro, rei fimulacrum, &8 imago
Ante oculos femper nobis verfatur, &8 inftat.
Coxtemplator enim, cum Solts lumina cunque
Lafertim fundunt radios per opaca domorum :
Multa minuta modis multis per Inane videbis : 115
Corpora mifceri radiorum lumine tn ipfo:

Lt velut eterno certamine pretia, pugnafque

Edere turmatim certantia: nec dare paufam,
Concilits, 9 difcidits exercita crebris :

Conjicere ut pofis ex boc, Primordiarerum, 120
Quale fit, in magnojattari femper Inani,
Duntaxat rerum magnarum parva poteft res
Exemplare dare, & vefligia notitiaz,

Hoc etiam magis bec animum te advertere par eft
Corpora, qua in Solis radiis turbare videntur 125
Quod tales turbe motus quoque Materiai
Significant clandeftinos, caecofque fubeffe.

Multa videbis enim plagisibt percita ca@cts

Cominuiare viam, retrogue vepulfa reverts

Nune bic, nunc illuc,in cuntlas denique partes. 130
Scilicet

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things.

by their natural Twinings, thefe compofe the fo-
lid Roots of Rocks, and the hard Bodies of Iron,
and a few other Things of the fame Nature;
but fuch as wander widely through the Vozd, and
moved by the Blow, fly further off, and rebound

to greater Diftances; thefe compofe the thin Air, |

and the Sun’s brighter Light.
BrsipEs, there are many Seeds keep wander-

ing through the Void, that are refufed all Union,

with other Seeds, nor could ever be admitted to
join their Motion to any thing elfe. An Inftance
or Reprefentation of this, as I conceive, is always
at hand, and vifibly before our Eyes.’ When
the Sun’s Light fhoots its Rays through a narrow
Chink into a darkned Room, you fhall fee a
thoufand little Atoms dance a thoufand ways
through the empty Space, and mingle in the very
Raysof Light, engaging, asit were, in endlefs
War, drawing up their little Troops, never tak-
ing breath, but meeting and exercifing their ho-
{tile Fury with conftant Blows. And hence you
may collect, in what Manner the Principles of
Things are toffed in thisempty Void ; fo {mall an
Inftance will give you an Example of thefe ex-
traordinary Motions, and open a Way-to your
Knowledge of greater Events,

But here it is fit you fhould apply yourfelf
more clofely to obferve thefe Bodies which feem
fo difturbed in the Sun’s Beams ; for it appears
by thefe Diforders, that there are certain fecret
Principles of Motion in the Seeds themfelves,
tho’ invifible to us; for fome of thefe Motes
you will fee ftruck by fecret Blows, and forc’d
to change their Courfe, fometimes driven back,
then again returning, now this, now that, and
every other way ; and this Variety of Motion is

certainly

107

108

T. Lucrerir Lis. Il.

Scilicet bic ἃ Principiis eff omnibus error.
Prima moventur énim per fe Primordia rerum

Inde ea, que parvo funt Corpora conciliatu,

Et quaft proxima funt ad vireis Principiorum,

Iitibus illorum σοῖς impulfa cientur : 136

Ipfaque, quae porro paullo majora, laceffunt.

Sic ἃ Principiis afcendit motus, ©& exit

Paullatim noftros ad fenfus, ut moveantur

Illa quoque, in Solis que lumine cernere quimus 5

Nec quibus id faciant Plagis apparet aperté. 140
Nunc, que Mobilitas fit reddita Materiai

Corportbus, paucis licet binc cognofcere, MEMMI.

Primum Aurora novo cum fpargit lumine terras,

Et varie volucres nemora avia pervolitantes,

Aéra per tenerum liquidis loca vocibus opplent: 145

Quam fubito foleat Sol ortus tempore tali ,

Conveftire fua perfundens omnia luce,

Onmibus in promptu, manifeftumque effe videmus.

At Vapor is, quem Sol mittit, lumenque ferenum,

Non per Inane meat vacuum, quo tardiis ire 150

Cogitur, aérias quafi cum diverberet undas :

Neg

Boox Il. Of rhe Mature of Things.

certainly in the® very Seeds; for the Principles
of Things firft move of themfelves, then com-
pound Bodies that are of the leaft Size, and ap-
proach neareft, as it were, to the Exility of the
firft Seeds, are by them ftruck with Blows un-
feen, and put into Motion, and thefe again
{trike thofe that are fomething larger; fo from
firft Seeds all Motion ftill goes on, till at length
it becomes fenfible to us; and thus we fee how
thofe Motes that play in the Sun’s Beams are
moved, tho’ the Blows by which they are driven
about do not fo plainly appear to us.

109

Anp now, my Memmius, you may in brief, χρρϑαυΐ-
from the following Inftance, collect how rapid 1s 2efs of the

the Motion of the firft Seeds; for when the
Morning fpreads the Earth with rifing Light,
and {weet Variety of Birds frequent the Woods,
and fill each Grove with moft delightful Notes
through the foft Air, every one perceives, and
the Thing we fee is plain, how fuddenly, and in
a moment, the rifing Sun covers the World, and
fhines with inftant Light. But that Vapour,
that glittering Ray, which the Sun fends forth,
does not pafs through meer empty ' Space, and
therefore is forced to move flower, as it has the
refifting Air to part and divide as it goes; nor

h Since all Bodies will keep the fame Line, unlefs they are
diverted by fome outward Violence, or by the Preffure of their
own interior Weight, it follows that fome Motions of the
Seeds, tho’ invifible to the Eye, agitate thofe Motes or little
Bodies, and drive them about in that manner ; for he infifts,
that all Motion that is obferv’d in Things is in the Seeds
themfelves.

1 The Heat of the Sun paffes through the Air, which is full
of Atoms and other Bodies, as Winds and Exhaiations, which
hinder the Courfe of his Rays; and the Corpufcles of Light
pafs not through the whole Air in an inftant of Time; nor
{ingly one by one, but conglobed and intangled in oneanother,
which mult hinder the Swittnefs of their Motion.

3 are

Seeds.

Imo T. Lucretit Lire. Il.

Nec fingillatim corpufcula queéque Vaporis,

Sed complexa meant inter fe, conque globata.
Dyapropter fimul inter fe retrabuntur, ξ5 extra
Oficiuntur, uti cogantur tardins ire. 155
At, qua funt folide Primordia fmplicitate,

Cum per Inane meant Vacuum, nec res remoratur
Ulla foris, atque ipfa fuis ὃ partibus unum,

Unum in quem cepere locum connixa feruntur :
Deveni ninirum precellere Mobilitate, 160
Lt multo citius ferri, quam lumina Solis:
Multiplexque loci fpatium tranfcurrere eodem
‘Tempore, quo Solis pervoleant fuleura celum :
Nam neque confilio debent tardata morari,

Nec perfcrutari Primordia fingula queque, τόρ
Ut videant, qua quidque geratur cum ratione.

At quidam contra bec, ἰόν πὶ Materjai
Naturam non poffe Detim fine numine rentur
Tantopere humanis rationibus, ac moderatis
Tempora mutare annorum, frugefque creare: 170

᾿ _ Wee

_—
| 2.

-

ook II. Of the Nature of Things.
are the Principles that compofe this Ray fimple
firft Seeds, but certain little globular Bodies made
up of thefe firft Seeds, that pafs thro? the Air ;
and thefe firfe Seeds being agitated by various
Motions, thefe little Bodies which are form’d of
them are retarded by different Motions within
themfelves, and are likewife hinder’d from with-
out by other Bodies, and fo are obliged to move
the flower. |

But Seeds that are folid and fimple in their
Nature, when they pafs through a pure Void,
having, nothing to {top them from without, ‘and
being’ one, and uncompounded thro’ all their
Parts, are carried at once, by an inftant Force,
to the Point to which they firft fet out. Such
Seeds muft exceed the Rays of the Sun in their
Motion, and becarried on with much more Ce-
Jerity ; they muft pierce through longer Traéts
of Space in the fame Time in which the Sun-
Beams pafs through the Air; for thefe Seeds
cannot agree together by Defign, to move flow-
ly, nor ftop in the Air to fearch into Particulars,

and be fatisfied for what Reafon their feveral Mo-

tions are thus carried on and difpofed.

_ Bur fome object to this, Fools as they are,
and conceive that * imple Matter cannot of it
felf, without the Affiftance of the Gods, act fo
agreeably to the Advantage and Convenience of
Mankind, as to change the Seafons of the Year,

~

k He moft ridiculoufly infifts, that Matter, rude as it was,
did make this World without Art or Defign ; that Pleafure is

the Guide and Life of Man, that all Things are govern’d by .

her, and that the World nor any ‘Thing elfe was made for
the Ufe of Man; and then promifes in another Place to fhew,
that the Frame of this World is fo ill contrived, that it would
be a Scandal to the Gods to charge them with the Creation of

it.

2 ἴο

TIF

112

T. Lucretrim Lis. If

Nec jam cetera, mortaleis que fuadet adire,

Tpfaque deducit dux vite Dia VotupTas,

Ut res per Veneris blanditim fecla propagent,
Ne genus occidat Humanum: Quorum omuia caufa
Confiztuiffe Deos fingunt, fed in omnibw? rebus 175
Masgnopere avera lapfi ratione videntur,
Nam quamvis rerum ignorem Primordia que fint,
Hoc tamen ex ipfis Celi rationibus aufim
Confirmare, aliifque ex rebus reddere multis,
Nequaquam nobis Divinitis effe creatam 180
Naturam mundi, que tanta’ft predita culpa:
Que tibi pofterits, MEMMI, faciemus aperta;
Nunc id quod fupereft de Motibus expediemus.
Nunc locus eft (ut opinor) in his illud quoque rebus
Conjirmare Tibi, nullam rem poffe fua vi 185
Corpoream furfum ferrt, furfumque meare.
Ne tibi dent in eo Plammarum corpora fraudem:
Surfus enim vorfus gignuntur, 9. augmina fumunt :
Et furfum nitide Fruges, Arbuftaque crefcunt,
Pondera quantum in fe "ft, cum deorfum cunéia fe-
raniur. 196
Nec cum fubjiliunt Ignes ad tefta domorum,
ΕἸ celeri flamma deguftant tigna, trabei/que, |
Sponte [μὰ facere id, finevt fubigente, putandu ft:

Quod genus, énoftro cum miffus corpore Sanguis

ΚΕ» εξ

! δ
Booxll. Of the Nature of Things. 112
to produce the Fruits, and do other Things
which Pleafure, (the Deity and great Guide of
‘Life,) perfuades Men to value and efteem. It
‘could not induce us to propagate our Race, by

the Blandifhments of tender Love, left the Spe-

cies of Mankind fhould be extinét, for whofe

fake they pretend the Gods made all the Beings

of the Worlds but all Conceits like thefe fall
greatly from the Dittates of true Reafon: for

tho? I were entirely ignorant of the Rife of
Things, yet from the very Nature of the Hea-

vens, and the Frame of many other Bodies, I dare
affirm and infift, that the Nature of the World

was by no means created by the Gods upon our
account, it is fo very faulty and imperfect, which,

my Memmius, I fhall hereafter fully explain.

But now let us explain what remains to be faid

of Motion. w

. Awpv here, I think, is the proper Place to 4! Things
prove to you, that no* Being can be carried Up cen bg
wards, or afcend by any innate Virtue of itsown, |
left by obferving the Tendency of Flame, you
fhould be led into a Miftake. For Flame, you
know, is born upwards, as well when it begins

to blaze, as when it is increafed by Fuel ;. fo the
tender Corn and lofty Trees grow upwards. Nor

when the Flames afpire, and reach the Tops of
Houfes, and catch the Rafters and the Beams

with a fierce Blaze, are you to fuppofe they de

this by voluntary Motion, and not compelled by
Force. ’Tis the fame when the Blood gufhes

® He had faid before, that the Seeds tend downwards ; and

to the Objection that Fire moves upwards, he anfwers, that

Plants and Trees rife upwards likewife, by reafon of the dri-

ving Force which breaks out of the Earth, and compels them

to grow by Afcent. The ambient Air drives the Flames up-

τῷ and makes it yield toan Element more denfe than it
Ἢ |

Vou. Ι. I from

LIA 7 T. Lucreti Drs. OL

Emicat exfultans alte, [pargitque cruorem, 195
Nonne vides etiam, quanta vi Tigna Trabeifque
Refpuat humor Aqua? nam quam mag? merfimus
altum ;
Direia, SF magna vi multi prefimus egre 5
Tam cupide furfum revoniut magts, aique remittt,
Plus ut parte foras emergant, exfiliantque. 200
Nec tamen bec, quantu "ft in fe, dubttamus, opinor,
Quin vacuum per Inane deorfum cuntta ferantur.
Sic igitur debent Fiamma quoque poffe per auras
Aris expreffe furfum fuccedere 5 quanquam
Pondera, quantum in fe "ft, deorfim deducere pug-
nent : 205
Noéluruafque faces Celt fublime volanteis
Noune vides longos flammarum ducere tractus,

ει in quafcunque dedit partets Natura meatum ὃ .
Now cadere in terram Stellas, &8 Sidera cernts 2
Sol etiam fummo de vertive diffupat omnets 210

Ardovem in parteis, θ᾽ lumine conferit arva:
In tervas igitur quoque Solis vergitur ardor.
Tranfoerfofgue volare per imbres Fulmina cernis :
Nune hinc, nunc illine abrupti nubibus [gues
Concurfant, cadit in terras vis Flammea volgo. 215.
ΟΠ μά in his queque Te rebus cognofcere avemus :
Corpora cum deorfum refium per Inane feruntur,
Ponderibus propriis incerto tempore feries

Facer tifque

.

Boox I. Of the Neture of Things. | tf

from a Vein, it fpouts bounding upwards, and
fprinkles all about the purple Stream. Don’t you
obferve likewife;-with what Force the Water
throws up the Beams and Pofts of Wood? The

more we plunge them in, and prefs them down

with all our Might, the more forcibly the Stream
{pews them upwards, and fends them back ; fo:
that they rife, and leap up at leaft half their
thicknefs above the Water. And yet I think,
we make no queftion that all Things, .as they
pais through empty Void, are earricd naturally
down below. So likewife the Flame rifes up-
wards, being forcibly prefled through the Arr,
tho’ its Weight, by its natural Gravity, endea-
vours to defcend. Don’t you fee the nightly Me-
teors of the Sky flying aloft, and drawing after
them long Trains of Flame, which way foever
Nature yields a Paflage? Don’t you fee alfo
the ὦ Stars and fiery Vapours fall downwards up-
on the Earth? The Sun too fcatters from the
Tops of Heaven his Beams all round, and fows
the Fields with Light: Its Rays therefore are
downwards fent to us below, You fee the Light-
ning through oppofing Showers fly ailabout ; the
Fires burft from Clouds, now here now there en-
gage, at length the burning Vapour falls down
upon the Ground.

I ῬΈΒΙΒΕ you would attend clofely upon this
Subject, and obferve that Bodies,. when they are
carried downwards through the Void in a ftrait
Line, do at fome time or other, but at no fix’d
and determinate Time; and in fome Parts of the
Void \ikewife, but not in any one certain and de-

! The Stars never fall, but he means a fat; oily, and ful-
phurous Exhalation, which kindles in the Air, and falls to the
ground in a purple-colour’d Jelly.

I 3 terminate

“ἃ

ἊΣ
ΑἹ

T. Lucretm . . Bis. oe

Incertifque locis [patio decedere paullum:
Tantim quod Momen mutatum dicere pofis. 220°
Quod nifi Declinare folerent, omnia deorfum, ‘
Imbris uti gutte, caderent per Inane profundum: —
Nec foret Offenfus natus, nec Plaga creata
Principis: ia nil unquam Natura creaffet. ?
Quod fi forte aliquis credit Graviora poteffe 22 5
Corpora, quo citins rectum per Inane feruntur, ἢ
Incidere é fupero Levioribus, atque ita Plagas
Gignere, quae poffint genitaleis reddere motus:
Avius ἃ vera longé ratione recedit.
Nam per Aquas quecunque cadunt, atque Aéra de-
orfum : 230
Hac pro ponderibus cafus celerare neceffe ᾽Π, |

Propterea,

“Book I. Of the Nature of Things. 117

terminate Place of it, decline a little from the
direct Line by their own Strength and Power; [ὁ
neverthelefs, that the direct Motion can be faid
to be chang’d the leaft that can be imagined,
™ Tf the Seeds did not decline in their Defcent,
they would all fal] downwards through the empty
Void, like Drops of Rain; there would be no
Blow, no Stroke given by the Seeds overtaking
one another, and by confequence Nature could
fever have produced any Thing:

Burt if any one fhould fuppofe, that the hea-
vier Seeds, as they are carried by a fwift Motion
through the Void ina ftrait Line, might over-
take, and fall from above upon the lighter, and
fo occafion thofe Strokes which produce a genial
Motion by which Things are formed, he is en-
tirely out of the way, and wanders from the Rule
of true Reafon. ® Indeed, whatfoever falls down-
ward through the Water, or through the Air,
muft neceflarily have its Speed haftened in pro-

m If the Seeds defcended through the Void ina dire& Line,
and with equal Swiftnefs, they could never mect nor overtake
cone another ; and therefore he infifts upon this Declination of
Motion, otherwife his Atoms could never have met, and con-
fequently there could have been no Generation whatever ; and
from this Declaration proceed the Conjunétiors, Unions, and
Adhefions of the Atoms to one another and among themfelves,
by which the World was made, and all Things contained
in it,

Ὁ He fays, that all Seeds are hurried through the Void with
equal Swiftnefs ; he grants that the Medium through which
they pafs, may haften or retard their Motion, and that Bodies
of the fame Matter, but different in Weight, when they falt
through Water or Air, are not equally {wift, which is falfe;
but he will have the Motion to be the iwifter, the more einp-
ty the Place is thro’? which the Bodies move ; fo that where
sthe Space is moft void and empty, there the Motion is most
{wift ; and be there ever fo many Motions or Things moving
in that Space, they are all of the like Swiftne(s.

I 3 portion

115

T. Dbeereti Lip. Ii,

Propterea, quia corpus Aqua, naturaque tenuis

Aeris haud poffunt aque rem quamque morart:

Sed citits cedunt Gravioribus exfuperata.

At contra nulli de nulla parte, neque ullo 235%

Tempore Inane poteft Vacuum fubjiftere reit,

Quin, fua quod natura petit, concedere pergat.

Onmia quapropter debent per Inane quietum

Ab jue ἢ ponder ibus non equis concita frre.

Haxudigitur poterunt Levioribus incidere unquom 240

Ex fupero Graviora, neque Idius gignere per fe,

Qui varient motus, per quos Natura genat res.
Quare etiam aique etiam paullum clinare ne~ .

ceffe 1} |

Corpora, nec piits gta yunimitin, ne fngere motus

Obliguos videamur, €9 id res verarefutet. 246

Namque hoc in prompix, manifefiumque effevidemus :

Pondera, quantunr in fe °jt, non poffe Obliqua mear, ι

Ex fupero cum precipitant, quod cernere poffis.

Sed nibil omnino reéla regione viai |

Declinave, quis eft, qui poffit cernere, fefe2 250
Denique fi femper motus connechilur omnis,

ἘΣ vetere exoritur femper novus ordine certo,

Nec Declinando faciunt Primordia motus

Principium quoddam, quod Fati fadera rumpat,

Ex infinito ne caufam caufa fequatur :

Libera

Book Il. Of the Nature of Things.

portion to its Weight ; and for this Reafon, be-
caufe the Body of the Water, and the thin Na-
ture of the Air, cannot equally delay the Pro-
. grefs of every thing that is to pafs through it,
but mutt be obliged to give way fooneit to heavy
Bodies. But, on the contrary, mere empty
Space cannot oppofe the Paflage of any thing in
any manner; but muft, as its Nature requires,
continue for ever to give way: Therefore 4}}
Things mutt be carried with equal Force through
a Void that cannot refift, tho’ their feveral
Weights be unequal; fothat the heavier Bodies
can never fall from above upon the lighter, nor
occafion thofe Blows which may- change their
Motions, and by which all Things are naturaily
produced.

Ir follows then,that the Seeds doevery now and
then decline a little from a direct Line in their
Defcent, tho’ the leaft that can be imagined, left
we fhould think their Motion were oblique,
which the Nature of the Thing refutes. For we
fee this is plain and obvious, that Bodies by their
natural Gravity do not obliquely defcend, when
they fall fwiftly from~’above through a Void,
which you may difcover by your Eyes. But
that Nothing declines in its Defcent, ever fo little

from a direct Line, who 1s fo fharp-fighted as το.

diftinguith ὃ

Besipes, were all Motion of the Seeds uni-
form, and in a ftrait Line, did one fucceed ano-
ther in an exact and regular Order, did not
the Seeds, by their declining, occafion certain

Motions, as a Sort of Principle, to break the.

‘Bonds of Fate, and prevent a Neceflity of
Acting, and exclude a fix’d and eternal Suc-
I 4 ceffion.

\

119

120

T. Lucretit Lrs. Ii,

Libera per terras unde bec animantibus extat,

Unde eft bec (inquan) fatis avolfa Voluntas,

Per quam progrecimur, quo ducit quemque voluptas?
Declinamus item motus, nec tempore certo,

Nec regione loci certa, fed ubi ipfa tulit Mens. 260°
Nam dubio procul his rebus fua cuique Voluntas
Principium dat: €8 hinc motus per membra rigantur.
Nonne vides etiam patefattis tempore puntio
Carceribus, non poffe tamer prorumpere Equorum
Vim cupidam tam defubito, quam Mens avet ipfa ?

‘Omnis enim totum per Corpus materiai 266

Copia conguiri aebet, concita per artus

Omneis, ut fiudium Mentis connexa fequatur :

Ut videas initum motus ἃ Corde creart,

Ex Animique voluniate id procedere primum: 270
Inde dari porro per totum Corpus, & artus:

Nec fimile*ft, utcumimpulfi procedimus ifftt,
Yiribus alterius magnis, magnoque coacite,

Nawe

Boox II. Of the Nature of Things.

ceffion of Caufes, which deftroy all°Liberty ; whence
comes that Free-will, whence comes It, I fay, fofen-
fibly obferv’d inal] Creatures of the World, who act
as they pleafe, wholly refcued from the Power of

Fate and Neceflity? That Will by which weare —

moved which way foever our Inclination leads us?
We likewife forbear to move, not at any particu-
Jar Time, nor at any certain Place, but when and
where our Mind pleafes ; and without doubt, the
Will is the Principle that determines thefe Mo-
tions, and from whence all Motion is conveyed
tothe Limbs. Don’t you obferve, when the Bar-
riers of the Lifts are thrown open of a fudden,
the eager Defire of the Horfes cannot ftart to the
_ Race with that Celerity as their Mind requires?
Becaufe the Spirits or Particles of Matter that
maintain the Courfe, muft be got together from
all Parts of the Body, and ftirr’d thro’ every
Limb, and fitly united, that they may readily
follow the eager Defire of the Mind. You fee
then, the Beginning of Motion rifes in the Heart,
proceeds then by means of the Will, and 18
—_ diffufed thro’ every ‘Limb, over the whole
3ody. |

But the Cafe is otherwife, when we act as we
are compelled by Force, by the prevailing Power
and the great Violence of another; for then we

© Every one perceives a Liberty in himfelf, and with Rea-
fon concludes, that the fame Freedom is in other Animals,
who we fee vary their Motions as they lift, and live as they
pleafe. We find, that when we are compelled to act by any
outward Force, there is fomething within us that refiits that
Compulfion ; that we perceive a great Difference within us,
when we act by our own Will, and when we are compelled.
There can be nothing of this Liberty inthe Seeds themfelves 5
at must therefore be imputed to the Declination of the Atoms:
- ἃ diret Motion of them would deftroy all our Free-

Mm. :

5 fee)

a

ae

he dk

X22

4

T. Lucrerit Lire. ν΄

Nam tum materiam totius Corporis omnem
Perfpicuu "ft nobis invitis ire, rapique, 275
Donicum eam refrenavit per membra Voluntas.
Famne vides igitur, quamquam vis extera multos
Pellit, €P invitos cogit procedere fepe,
Precipiteifquerapit, tamen effe in peciore noftre
Quiddam, quod contra pugnare, obftareque poffit, 280
Cujus ad arbitrium quoque copia materiat

Cogitur interdum flecti per memobra, per artus,

Et projecta refrenatur, retroque refidit.

Quare in Seminibus quoque idem fateare neceffe "ft,
Effe aliam preter Plagas, €# Pondera caufam 285
Motibus, unde bec eft nobis innata potefas :

De Nibilo quoniam fieri Nil poffe videimus.

Pondus eniu probibet, ne Plagis omnia fant,
Externa quafi vi, fed ne Mens ipfa neceffun
FnteRtinum habeat cunétis in rebus agendis; 290
Et devitia quaft cogatur ferre, patique:

Jd facit exiguum CLINAMEN Principiorum

Nec regione loci certa, nec tempore certo.

Neg

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

feel plainly, that the whole Weight of our Body
moves, and is urged on again{t our Confent, till
our Will reftrains the Motion through all our
Limbs. Don’t you fee now, that though an
outward Force drives us on, and often compels
us-to proceed again{ft our Will, and hurries us

headlong, yet there is fomething in the Heart .

that refifts and f{trives againft that Compulfion, at
whofe Command the Spirits or Particles of Mat-
- ter are forced through the Nerves into the feveral
Limbs and Members, and are curbed likewife
by the fame Nerves, and obliged to retire back-
wards.

WHEREFORE ?, you mult needs confefs there
is fomething elfe befide Stroke and Weight,which
is the Caufe of thofe Mctions from whence this
innate Power of our Will proceeds. We fee
Nothing can arife from Nothing; for Weight,
which is natural to Bodies, hinders us to con-
clude, that all Things are moved by Stroke or
outward Force; and left the Mind fhould feem
to act by fome neceffary Impulfe within itfelf,
(that is, by Motion that proceeds from Weight)
and overpower’d, be compelled, as it were, to
bear and fuffer, this is occafioned by ever {0 little
a Declination of the Seeds, which however is
done at no certain or determinate Time or

Place.

P This Freedom of Will cannot proceed from Stroke ; for
Motion by Stroke is an outward Force, which is contrary to
Liberty ; and Weight, tho’ it be an inward Principle of Mo-
tion, yet fince it tends downwards, and inthe fame manner, is
gn Enemy to Liberty likewife : Therefore Declination, which
18 neither made at any certain Time, nor in any certain Place,
avoids that Neceflity of which both Weight and Stroke are
the Caufe, and unlinks the Chain of Deftiny.

Nor

123

a24 | T. Lucrerit hrs! ΤΕ
Nec fiipata magis fuit unquam Materiai
Copia, nec porrd majoribus intervallis. 208
Nain neque adaugefcit quicquam, neque deperit inde.
Quapropter quo nunc in motu Principiorum
Corpora funt, in eodem anteatta etate fuere,
Et pofthac femper fimili ratione ferentur ;
Et que confuerunt gigni, gignentur eadeim 300
Conditione : ξϑ᾽ erunt, ξϑ᾽ crefcent, inmque valebunt,
Quantum cuique datum *ft per federa Naturai,
Nec reruin Suinmam commutare ulla poteft vis.
Nam neque quo pofit genus ullum Materiai
Pijugere ex Omni, quicquay "ft, neque rurfits, in
Oimne 208
Unde coorta queat nova vis irrumpere, SF Omnem
Naturam rerum mutare, &F vertere motus,
Illud in bis rebus, non sft mirabile, quare
Omnia cum rerum Primordia fint in motu,
Summa tamen fumma videatur flare quiete, 310
Praterquam fi quid proprio dat corpore motus.
Omnis enina longe noftris ab fenfibus infra
PrimoruM #atura jacet: quapropter ubi illa
Cernere jam nequeas, motus quoque furpere deben£:

Prefertinme

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things.
Nor was ἃ the Mafs of Matter ever more clofe
or more loofe, nor did the Number of Seeds
ever increafe or diminifh; and therefore the
fame Courfe in which the Seeds move now, the
fame Motion they had for the time paft, and
they will be carried on hereafter in the very fame
manner; and the Things that have been hither-
to produced, fhall be formed again in the fame
way; they fhall come into Being, grow, and ar-
rive at Perfection, as far as the Laws of their re-
{pective Natures will admit: For this Univerfe
of Things no Force can change ; neither is there
any Place into which the leaft Particle of Matter
may fly off from the whole Mafs; nor is there a
Place from whence any new Seeds .may break in
upon this “||, and fo change the Nature of
_ Things, and diforder their Motions.
Tueke is Nothing wonderful in this, that

when all the" Principles of Things are in con-.

tinual Motion, the Whole fhould at the fame time
feem to be at perfect Reft, tho’ every particular
Body hasa fort of Motion peculiar to itfelf; for
the Nature of firft Seeds is fo fubtil, that they
lie far beyond the Reach of our Senfe; and
therefore, fince you cannot perceive them by the
Eye, their Motions are much lefs to be difcern’d ;

. > Ἢ

4. He had taught, that the Seeds are not liable to Change;
now he afferts, that the univerfal Mafs of Matter can nei-
ther increafe nor diminifh, that the Motions of the Seeds are
immutable, and therefore, that whatever has been produced
heretofore, the fame may be produced now.

© If it fhould be objected againft this perpetual Motion of
the Atoms, that the All or Univerfe appears quiet, and feems
buried in a profound Tranquillity ; he fays, that the Motions
of theSeeds muft needs be imperceptible, fince the Seeds them-
felves are invifible to the fharpeft Sight; and adds, that the

Motion even of fenfible Things, cannot be perceiv’dat a great
Diftance.

efpetially,

125.

1 26

T. Lucretit Lr. If,

Prefertim cium, que poffimus cernere, celent = 315
Spe tamen motus [patio diducta locorun,
Nam fepe in colli tondentes pabula leta
Lanigere reptant Pecudes, quo quamque vocantes
Invitant berbe gemmantes rore recents :
Lit fatiatt Agni ludunt, blandéque conifednt: 326
Omnia que nobis longé confufa videntur, 7
Et veluti in viridi candor confiftere colli.
Praterea magne Legiones cum loca curfa
Camporum complent, belli fimulacra cientes ὁ
Lit circumvolitant Equites, mediofque repente 324
Tramttunt valido quatientes impeté campos :
Fulgur ibi ad Calum fe tollit, totaque circunt.
Lire renidefcit Tellus, fubterque viritm vi
Excitur pedibus fonitus, clamoreque Moxtes
L&i vejeciant voces ad Sidera mundi : 39. 8
Et tamen eft quidam locus altis mionitibus, unde,
Stare videtur, 5 in campis confiftere Fulgur,

Nunc age jam deinceps cunétarum exordiarerums
Qualia fint, (8 quam longeé diftantia formis, i
Percipe,multigenis quamfint variata FIGURIS !335
Non qued multa parum fimili fint predita forma,
Sed guia non volgo paria omnibus omnia conftant,

Neg

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things. 124
efpecially, as we obferve many Things are απ |
cover’d to us by our Sight, whofe Motions we
cannot perceive, by being placed at a remote Di+:
{tance from us, For oft the woolly Flock upon
a Hill wander about, and crop the tender Grafs,
where-e’er the fweet Herbs crowned with pearly
Dew invite; the Lambs, their Bellies full, wan-
tonly play, and try their tender Horns: All this
to us ftanding far off, appears confufed, and like
a fteady White fpread o’er the Green. And
thus a mighty Army fills the-Plain, and moves
about,‘ and acts a real Fight; the Horfe fcour
o’er the Field, and wheel at once, and in the
Centre charge, and thake the Ground with migh-
ty Force; the Blaze of Arms darts up to Hea-
ven, all the Earth around glitters with brazen
Shields, and groans beneath the Feet of Men en-
raged ; the neighbouring Hills, ftruck with the
Noife, rebound it to the Skies; yet place yourfelf
upon a Mountain-top, to view this wild Confu-
fion, and you’d think it was a fixed and fteady
Light that filled the Plain.

N ow learn at length the * Form of thefe frft
Seeds, thefe Principles of Things, how widely
different is their Shape, of what Variety of Fi-
eure their Frame confifts; for tho’ many are en-
dowed with a Form not much unlike, yet all are
far from being of the fame Figure. And no

* He makes his Atoms of different Figures, not that their
Shape is difcernible by the Eye, any more than their Magni-
tude; but becaufe their different Figuration may be proved
by many Arguments: he fays, in any Things whatever the
greater their Number 15, the greater for the moft partis the
Variety of their Figures. He argues further for the different
Figures of his Atoms, fromthe various Shapes and Figures of
all natural Things compofed of them; and fhews this different
Figuration not only in all kind of Things taken collectively,
but even in the Individuals of the fame kind,

wonder 3

128

T. Lucretit Lis. Ef,
Nee ἤει nam cum fit eorun Copia tanta,
Ut neque finis (uti docui) neque Summa fit ulla:

Debent nimirum non omnibus omnia prorfum 340

ΕΠ: pari filo, fimilique affecia Figura.
Preterea genus Humanum, muteque natantes
Squammigeriim Pecndes, & lata Arbufta, Feraque,
Et varie Volucres, letantia qua loca aquarum
Concelebvant circum ripas, fontei/que, lacufque: 34.5
Et que pervolgant nemora avia pervolitantes :
Horum unum quodvis generatim fumere perge,
Invenies tamen inter fe difiare Figuris.
Nec ratione alia Proles cognofcere Mairem,
Nec Mater poffet Prolem: quod poffe videmus, 35@
Nec. minits atque homines tnter fe nota cluere.
Nam fepe ante Deiim vitulus delubra decora
Turicremas propter matiatus concidit ards,
Sanguinis exfpirans calidum de pettore flumen,
At Mater virideis faltus orbata peragrans, 355
Linquit bumi pedibus veftigia prefa bifulcis,
Omiia convifens oculis loca, fi queat ufquam
Confpicere amiffum Fetum: completque querelis
Frundiferum nemus adfiftens 5. &F crebra revifit
Ad fiabulum, defiderio perfixa Fuvenct : 260
Nec tener falices, atque herbe rore vigentes,
Fluminaque ulia queunt fummis labentia ripis,
Obleare animum, fubitamque avertere curam :
Nec Vitulorum alia fpecies per pabula leta
Derivare queunt ali, curaque levare: 365
Ujque adeo quiddam proprium, notumgue requirit.
Praterea teneri tremulis cum vocibus Hedi
Cornigeras norunt Matres, Agnique petulci
Balantum ©

Boox I. Of the Nature of Things.

wonder ; for fince (as I have faid) their Number
is fo great, that no End, no Bound is tobe fet to
them, they ought, for ahc fame Reafon, to be
all of a digtrent Contexture, and not fathioned
alike of the fame Form.

Besipzs, confider well Mankind, the fealy
Fry of Gilent Fifh that fwim the Flood, the ver-

dant Trees, wild Beafts, the various kind of |

Birds, fuch as flock about the Banks of pleafant
Streams, the Fountains and the Lakes, and thofe
who frequent the thick Covers of the Woods,

confider all thefe in their feveral Kinds, and you
will find them all confift of Forms different a-
mong themfelves. ΓΤ by nothing elfe the ten-
der Young knows its own Dam, cael thus the
Dam diftinguifhes her Young; thus we fee each
Creature knows i its own Kind, no lefs than Men,
and fo unite together. For oft before the oilded
Temples of the Gods, a young Heifer falls a
flain Victim befide the Altar flaming with In-
cenfe, and breathes from her Fleart a reeking
Simca ot Blood... The, Datm,, robbed, of her
Young, beats o’er the Fields, and leaves the

Marks of her divided dhe? om upon the preffed
Grafs, and fearches every Place with careful Eyes

to find her Young fhe loft ; then ftops, and fills
the branched Woods ia her Complaints, and

oft returns back to her Stall, diftra&ted with the
Love of her dear Young; no more the tender
Willows, or the Herbs ὌΡΕΙ with Dew, nor

can the running Streams within full Banks divert
her Mind, or turn away her Care; nor can a

thoufand other Heifers, as they play wantonly
o’er the Grafs, take off her Eye, or eafe the Pain

fhe feels; fo plain it is the fearches for her own,
for what fhe knows full well. And thus the tender

» Kids find by their Bleat their horned Dams, .and

P Ole. K {9

129

T. LucretTirt Lis. ἮΙ

Balantum pecudes : ita, quod natura repofcit,

Ad {μα quifque fere decurrunt ubera lactis. 370
Poftremo quodvis Frumentum, non tamen omne

Quodque fuo in genere inter fe fimile effe videbis,

Quin intercurrat quedam difiantia formis,

Concharumaue genus patili vatione videmus

Pingere telluris gremium, qua mollibus undis 375

Littoris inceurvi bibulam pavit Aiquor arenam, |
Quare etiam aique etiam fimili ratione neceffe *ft,
Natura quoniam conflant, neque facia manu funt,
Unius ad certam formam Primordia rerum, |
Diffimili inter fe quedam volitare Figura. 485
Perfacile’ft jam animi ratione exfolvere nobis,
Duare Fulmineus multo penetrahor ignis,
Duan nofter fluat ὃ Tedis terreftribus ortus, |
Dicere enim polis caleftem PuLMINIS Zgnem
Subtilem magis ὃ parvis conftare figuris: 385
Atque ideo tranfire foramina, que nequit iguis
Nofter hic ἃ Lignis ortus, Tedaque creatus,
‘Preterea Lumen per cornu tranfit: at Imber
Refpuitur: Quare? Nift Luminis illa minora
Corpora funt, quam de quibus eft liquor Almus-
Aquarum : 390
Et quamvis fubito per colum Vina videmus
Perfluere, at contra tardum cunéiatur Olivum ;
Aut quia nimirum mazoribus eft Elementss,
Aut magis hamatis inter fe, perque plicatss,
Aiqueideo fit uti non tam deduéia repente 205
Inter fe poffint Primordia fingula queque
Singula per cujufque foramina permanare,
Huc accedit, uti Mellis Lattifque liquores
Fucundo fenfu lingue tractentur in ore;
At contra tetra Abfinthi naiura, ferique 400
Centauri fado pertorquent ora fapore :

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things.

fo the fporting Lambs know their own Flocks,
and, as by Nature taught, each haftes to the full
Dug of its own Dam.

OpsERVE again, the various Sorts of Corn,
you'll find each Grain, tho’ in Kind the fame;
not fo much alike; but there will be a Difference
in their Figure; and fo a great Variety of Shells,
we fee, paints the Earth’s Lap, where the Sea’s
gentle Waves feed the moift Sand along the
winding Shore. And thus, by Parity of Rea-
fon, it muft follow, that the firft Seeds of Things,
as they are formed by Nature, not made by Art
in any certatn Figure, muft fly about in Shapes
various and different among themfelves,

°Tis eafy for us now to unfold the Difficulty,
why the Flame of Lightning is much more pe-
Netrating than our common Fire raifed from Fuet
here below. You may give this Reafon; that
the fubtil; celeftial Fire of Lightning confifts of
Particles much fmaller; and fo paffes through
Pores, which our Fire; made from Tow or
Wood, cannot. |

Besipes, Light; we perceive; finds a way
through Horn, but Water does not; becaufe the
Principles of Light are fmaller, than thofe of
which Water is compofed. So we fee: Wine
pafies {wiftly through a Strainer ; on the contrary;
heavy Oil moves flowly through, either becaufe
it is made up of larger Seeds, or its Principles are
more hooked and entangled among themfelves :
and thus it happens, that the feveral Particles
cannot be fo foon feparated from one another, fo
as to flow through the little Holes with the
fame Eafe. Thus it is, that Honey and Milk
pals in the Mouth with a pleafing Senfation over
the Tongue; on the contrary, the bitter Juice of
Wormwood and fharp Centaury torment the Palate

ik 2 with

131

T. LucretTit Lis. If.

Ut facilé agnofcas é levibus, atque rotundis
Effe ea, que fenfus jucundeé tangere poffunt :
At contra qué amara, atque a/pera cunque videntur,
Hac magis hamatis inter fe nexa teneri ; 405
Proptereaque folere vias refcindere noftris
Seufilus, introituque fuo perrumpere corpus. ἡ
Oniia poftremo Bona fenfibus, §8 Mala taétu,
Diftinth inter fe pugnant perfetta Figura:
Ne tu forte putes Serra ftridentis acerbum 410
Florvrorem conftare elementis levibus eque
Ac Mufea mele, per chordas Organici que
Mobilibus digitis expergefatia figurant : :
Neu fimili penetrare putes Primordia forma ὦ
In nareis hominum, cum tetra Cadavera torrent, 415
Et cum Scena croco Cilict perfufa recens eft,
Araque Pancheos exbalat propter odores :
Neve bonos rerum fimili conftare Colores
Semine conftituas, oculos qui pafcere poffunt, :
Lt qui compungunt acienr, lacrymareque cogunt: 420
Aut foeda fpecie tetri, turpefque videntur.
Omnis enim fenfus que mulcet caufa, juvatque,
Hlaud fine Principiali aliquo levore creata ft:

_ At contra, quecungue molefta, atque afpera conftat,

Non aliquo fine Materie {qualore reperta *ft. 425
Sunt etiam qua jam nec Levia jure putantur

Effe, neque omnino flexis mucronibus Unca:

Sed magis Angululis paullum proftantibus, €P qua

|
Titilare

Book Il. Of the Nature of Things.

with a loathfome Tafte. From whence you col-
left eafily, that thofe Things which agreeably af-
fect the Senfe, are compofed of Particles f{mooth
and round ; and -fuch again that feem rough and
bitter, are bound together by Parts more hooked,
and clofer twined; and therefore, they tear the
way to our Senfes, and wound the Body as they
enter through the Skin. In fhort, fuch Things
as are agreeable to our Senfes, and thofe that are
rough and unpleafant to the Touch, are oppofite,
and formed of a Figure very different from one
another ; left you fhould think perhaps, that
the grating Sound of the whetting of a Saw,

was made of Parts equally fmooth, without the
foft Notes of a Lute, which the Mufician forms

upon the Strings, awaked, as it were, by the
gentle Strokes of his Fingers.

Nor are you to fuppofe, that the Seeds are of
the fame Form which itrike upon our Nerves of
Smell, when a filthy Carcafe is burning, or when
the Stage is frefh-fprinkled with Cilician Saffron,
orthe Altar fweetens the Air with the Odour of
Arabian Incente.

ΑΝ fo in Colours, you muft not imagine
fuch as are agreeable, and delight our Eyes, are
compofed of the fame fafhioned Seeds with thofe
which prick our Senfe, and force us to weep, or
feem dark or ugly, and fhocking in appearance
to us; for whatever pleafes and delights our
Senfe, cannot be compofed but of fmooth Par-

ticles; and, onthe contrary, Things that are.

hurtful and harfh, cannot be formed without
Seeds that are filthy and difagreeable.

THERE are other Seeds likewife, which you
cannot properly call {moorth, nor are altogether
hooked, with their Points bent, but are τ:
fhaped with {mall Angles, a etl jutting out, and

te. 3 may

I

a

v

3

a:

4

VY. Lucreri Lis, ἢ,
Titillare magis fenfus, quan Ledere poffunt :
Facula jam quo de genere */t, Inuleque fapores. 430
Denique jam calidos Ieneis, gelidamque Pruinam,
Τρ dentata modo compungere fenfus
Corperis, indicio nobis eft Tadius uterque.
Tactus enm, Tatius (pro Divim numina fanéta !)
Corporis eft fenfus, vel cumres Extera fefe 435
Infinuat, vel cum ledit, que incorpore nata “ft,
Aut juvat egrediens genitalets per Veneris ress

. Aut ex Offenfu cum turbant Corpore in ipfo

Semina, confunduntque inter fe concita fenfum : °
Ut fi forte manu quamvis jam Corporis ipfe 440
Lute tibi partem ferias, eque experiare.
Quapropter longé formas diiare neceffe *ft,
Principiis, varios que poffint edere fenfus.

Denique, que nobis Durata ac Spiffa videntur,
Fac magzis bamatis inter fefe effe neceffe?f, 448
Et quai ramofis alte compatha teneri,

In quo jam genere in primis Adamantina faxa,
Prima acie conftant, ittus contemunere fueta, |

Et validi Silices, ac duri robora Ferrt,

Eraque, que claufiris refiantia vociferantur. 459

\

Mla

Boox II. Of the Nature of Things.

may be faid rather to tickle than to hurt theSenfe ;
fuch is the «δοιὰ Tafte of the fweet Sauce made
of the Lees of Wine, or the fweet Sauce made of
the fweetifh-bitter Root of Elecampane. Latftly,
that * burning Heat, or freezing Cold, being for-
med of Seeds of different Figures, do affect the
Body with different Senfation, our Touch 15 Evi-
dence fufficient to evince. |

435

For Touch, the Touch (bleffed be the Gods Toxeh
above!) is a Senfe of the Body, either when wae iti.

forhething from without enters through the Pores,
or fomething from within hurts us, as it forces
its way out, or pleafes, as the Effect of Venery
tickles as it paffes through, or when the Seeds,
by ftriking again{t each other, raife a Tumult in
the Body, and in that Agitation confound the
Senfe ; and this you may foon experience, if you
ftrike yourfelf in any Part with a Blow of your
Hand. It is neceffary therefore, that the Prin-
ciples of Things fhould confift of Figures very
different in themfelves, fince they affect the
Senfes in fo different a manner.

FurRTHER, thofe Things which appear to us
hard and thick, muft neceffarily be joined toge-
ther by Particles more hooked among themfelves,
and be held clofe by branched Seeds. In the
firft Rank of thefe, you are to place the Rocks
of Adamant, that defy the Force of Blows, and
folid Flints, and the Strength of hard Iron, and
brazen Hinges, that creak under the Weight of

t The Fecula and the Enulz were two Sauces of the Ro-
mans; the one wasacid, made ofthe Lees of Wine; the o-
ther {weet, made of the fweetifh bitter Root of the Herb Inula,
Hlecampane.

« It was the Opinion pf Epicurus, that the Seeds of Fire,
fince they pricked the Senfe, had fome prominent Angles ;
and that the Seeds of Cold had a Trigonical or Pyramidal Fi-
cure, thatis, their Figure confifted of four triangular Faces.

K 4 their

136

4 Lucretiz Lita. If,

ila autem debent ex Levibus atque Rotundis
Life magis, fluido que corpore Liguida conftant :
Nec retinentur enim inter fe glomeramina quaque,
Et procurfus item in proclive volubilis extat.
Omnia poftremo que punéto tempore cernis 455
Diffugere, ut Fumum, Nebulas, Flammafque necef-
27
fe u>
Si minis omnibu’ funt ὁ Levibus atque Rotundis,
Mi non efje tamen perplexis indupedita,
Puingere uti poffint corpus, penetrareque faxa:
Nec tanen herere inter fe, quod quifgue videmus 460
Sentibus effe datum: Facile ut cognofcere poffis
Non é Perplexis, fed Acutis effe Elementis.
Sed quod Amara vides eadem qua fluvidaconfiant,
Suder uti Maris eft, minime id mirabile habendum.

Nam quod fuvicum eft, ὃ Levibus atque Rotundis

Eft, at Levibus, atque Rotundis mifta doloris 466
Corpora; nec tamen bec retinert Hamata neceffe*f?
Scilicet effe globofa, tamen cum Squalida conftent,
Provolvi fimul ut poffint, &F ledere ferfus.

Et quo mifta putes magis afpera levibus effe 470
Principiis, unde?ft Nepiuni corpus acerbum :
Eft ratio fecernunai, feorfumque videndas.
Humor duleit ubz per terras crebrius ident
Percolatur, ut in foveam fuat, ac manfuefcat.
Linguit enim fupra tetrt Primordia virt 475

A pera,

>

Boox If. Of che Nature of Things. — τ]

their Gates. But Liquids that confift of Auid
Bodies, muft be formed of Seeds more fmooth
and round ; for their globular Particles are not
intangled among themfelves, and their flowing
Motion rolls on forward with the greater Eafe.

Burt, laftly, all fuch Things which you ob-
ferve inftantly to fcatter, and fly away as Smoke,
Clouds, and Flame, if they do not confift alto-
gether of Particles that are f{mooth and round, yet
neither are they formed of hooked Seeds, ‘and
therefore may pierce through Bodies, and pene-
trate into Stones; nor do their Particles never-
thelefs ftick mutually to one another, as we ob-
ferve the Particles of Thorns doy From thence
you may eafily conclude, that they are not com-
pofed of hooked or intangled, but of acute Prin-
ciples.

But becaufe you fee the fame Things are bit- The Sea-
ter and fluid) asthe Sea-water, are you to won- water
der in the leaft at this; For what is fluid, is for-#@¢ aad.
med of Principles that are {mooth and round ; Bit ὼ
with thefe fmooth and round Seeds, are mixed.

others that are fharp, and give pain; Yet there
is no Neceffity, that thefe fharp Seeds fhould be
hooked and twined together; it is fufficient, that
they be globous as well as rough, that they may
pe qual lifted to flow along in their proper Courfe, ©
as well as to hurt the Senfe,

Anp that you may the fooner believe, that
thefe fharp Seeds are mixed with thofe that are
{mooth, from whence the Body of the Sea be-
comes fait, the way is to: feparate them, and
confider them diftingt; for the Sea-water grows
{weet by aad often philter’d through the Earth,
and fo fills the Ditches, where it becomes foft :
for it leaves behind the pungent Seeds of the

- rough

T. Lucretil Lis. IL

Afpera, quo magis in terris herefcere poffunt.
Quod gquoniam docui, pergam connectere rem, que

Et hoc apta fidem ducit: Primordia rerum

Finita variare FIGURARUM ratione.

Quod fi non ita fit,rurfum jam Semina quedam 480

Effe infinito debebunt corporis auctu.

Namque in eadem una cujufcujus brevitate

Corporis, inter fe mulium variare Figure

Non poffunt : Fac enim minimis ὃ partibus effe
‘Corpora prima tribus, vel paullo pluribus auge; 485
Nempe ubi eas parteis unius Corporis omneis,

Summa atque ima locans, tranfmutans dextera levis,
Omnimadis expertus eris, quam quifque det ordo
Formai {peciem totius Corporis eus:

Quod fupereft, fi forte voles variare figuras, 400
Addendum parteis alias erit: inde fequetur
Adjimili ratione alias, ut poftulet ordo,

Si tu forte voles etiam variare figuras.

Ergo format novitatene corporis augmen

Subfequitur:

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things. 139

rough Salt, which are more inclined to ftick as
they pafs along, than thofe Particles that are glo-
bular and {mooth.

Tus being proved, I fhall here join another papier of
Obfervation, which juftly derives its Credit from Figures f-
what is explained before: That the * Seeds of 7.
Things vary their Figure not without End, but
after a finite Manner. If it were not fo, fome
Seeds, by an infinite Increafe of their Parts, would
be of an immenfe Size ; for in fo {mall a Body as
an Atom confifts of, the Figures have not room
to change often among themfelves: Suppofe, if
you will, thefe Atoms or firft Seeds confift of
{malleft Parts, three fippofe, or a few more, if
you pleafe ; now, by. varying thefe feveral Parts
of one Atom or Seed into all poffible Shapes, pla-+
cing the Uppermoft below, or turning the Right
to the Left, you will find the feveral Figures that
every Change will give this Seed in all its Parts:
But if you would ¥ change its Figure ftill further,
you muft add new Parts to it; and, by the fame
Reafon, you muft ftill add more, if you full
think of changing its Figure into more Shapes,
fo that the Body muft increafe in proportion as
every new Figure appears; and therefore, you

* He has proved, that the Atomsvary in their Figure, and
in their Bienefs too; now he afferts, that this Variety is not
infinite: For to make an infinite Variety of Figures, the Mafs
of fome of the Seeds muft of neceility be immenfely great,
fince an immenfe Magnitude only is capabie of an immente
Variety of Figure ; but take an Atom, and turn and tranfpoie
every way the Parts that can be conceived init, and you wil
find only a finite Variety of Figures in 10 imail a Body.

Y The Parts of δὴν finite Magnitude may be tranipofed io
many ways, that no new Way shall remain to change the Po-
{ition from what it nad been in before; otherwile ticre wouid
be {till new and new Parts, even to an Infinity ; and then the
Magnitude might be infinite, which an Atom can never be,
it being too little even to be feen. |

cannot

140

+ eee Lip. @.

Subfequitur: quare non eft ut credere pofis, 495
Effe infimtis diftantia femina formis,

Ne quedam cogas immani maximitate

Effe, fupra quod jam docui, non poffe probari.

Jam tibi Barbarice veftes, Melibeaque fulgens
Purpura Theffalico concharum tinéta colore, &
Aurea Pavonum ridenti imbuta lepore, 501
Secla novo rerum fuperata colore jacerent :

Et contemptus odor Myrrhe, Mellifque fapores,
Εἰ Cycnea mele, Phebeaque dedala chordis
Carmina confimilt ratione oppreffa filerent. 505

Namque aliis aliud prefiantius exoreretur.

Cedere item retro poffent in deteriores
Omnia fic parteis, ut diximus in meliores :
Namque aliis aliud retro quoque tertius effet
Naribus, Auribus, atqueOculis, Orifque fapori, 510

Qye. quoniam non funt in rebus reddita, certa 9
Finis utringue tenet Summam: Fateare neceffe ft
Materiam quoque finitis differre Figuris.

Denique, ab Ignibus, ad gelidas hiemifque Pruinas
Finitu °ft, retroque pari ratione remenfu fe. 515
Finit enim Calor, ac Frigus, mediique Tepores

inter

Boox ll. Of the Nature of Things.

cannot conceive, that the Seeds fhould be diftin-
oulfhed by an infinite Variety of Forms, unlefs
you admit that they are likewife infinite in Mag-
nitude, which, as I faid above, is impoffible to
be proved.

Bestpes; * the embroider’d Vefts of 4a, the
bright * Melibean Purple, dipt in the Blood of
the Theffalian Shell-fifh, and the golden Brood of
Peacocks, gliftering saith their gaudy Plumes,

would lie undiftinguithed, being exceeded by o-
ae Things of greater Luftre ; ‘and the Smelt of
Myrrh, and the Tafte of Honey, would be de-
fpifed, and the Singing of the Swan, and the
nobleft Verfe fung to fweet Mufick would, by
the fame Rule, be outdone, and ceafe to pleafe ;
for fome other Things might arife more agreeable
than thefe. ©

ΑΝΡ as fome Things, we obferve, may ad-

vance into greater Perfection, fo others likewife

may decline, and grow worfe; for one Thing
may fucceed another ftill more difagreeable to the
Nofe, the Ears, the Eyes, and Tafte. But fince
this does not appear in the Nature of Things,
fince there is a certain Boundary to what 1s def?
and wor/t, we are obliged to own, that Matter
1s -diverfified by Shapes that are finite, and within
fixed Bounds, |

Lastiy, from Fire, to the piercing Cold of
Winter, a Point. is fet; and fo, from Cold to
Heat, they are both intenfe: For Heat and Cold
are the Extremes, the middle Warmth lies between

% Jf you allow a Variety of Seeds even to Infinity, the out-
ward Quilities of natural ‘Things would never be fixed or de-
termined ; they might ftili be diverfified by anew Ficuration,
.that there might arte a Better than the Be! t, and a Worfe than
the Wortft.

ἃ Melibea wasa City of Thefaly, famous for Purple.

41

14:2

T. Lucretitr. Lis. If,

Inter utrumque jacent, explentes ordine Summaim.

Erzo finita diftant ratione creata,

Ancipiti quoniam mucrone utringue notantur,
Hine Flammis, illine rigidis infeffa Pruimis. 520
Quod quoniam docui, pergam connettere rem, qua
Ex boc apta fidem ducit: Primordia rerumt,
Inter fe Simili que funt perfetia figura, |
Tufinita cluere: etenim diftantia cum fit
Formarum finita, neceffe*/t, que Similes fit, 525
Effe Infinitas : aut fummam Materiai
Finitam conftare i id quod non effe probavi.
Quod quoniam docui, nunc fuaviloquis, age, paucis
Verfibus oftendam, corpufcula Materiai
Ex infinito fummam rerum ufque tenere, 530
Undique protelo Plagarum continuato. |
Namquod rara vides magis effe animalia quedait,
Fecundamque minus Naturam cernis in illis;
At regione, locoque alio, terrifgue remotis
Multa licet genereefjein eo, numerumque repleri. 535
Sicuti Quadrupedum cum primis effe videmus
In genere anguimanos Elefantos, India quorum
Millibus ὁ multis vallo munitur eburno,
Ut penitus nequeat peneirari , tanta ferarum
Vis eft, quarum nus perpauca exempla videmus. 540
Sed tamen id quogue uti conceaam, quam libet, ero
Unica res quedam nativo corpore Sola,

Cui

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things. 142
both, and thus orderly fills up the Whole. This
Warmth therefore is diftant equally from both
Extremes, and is confined by Bounds on both

fides, kept in on this by Fleat, on that by {mart-

ing Cold.

"THIS being proved, °I fhall here join another seeds of
Obfervation; which juftly derives its Credit from every
what is explained before : This is, that the Seeds " τ’ a
of Things that are alike, and perfectly of the "
fame Figure, are in Number infinite; for tho?
the Variety of their Figures be only finite, yet
the Seeds themfelves, that are alike in Nature,

uft needs be infinite 5 otherwife, the whole of
Matter mutt be finite, which I have fully proved
is not.

Tuus having cleared the way, I fhall now
fhew, in fhort but fweeteft Numbers, that the
Seeds of Matter are infinite, and hold together
the whole of Things, by conftant Force of Blows,
on every fide. |

For though you obferve fome Species of Ani-
mals are lefs common, and Nature feems lefs
fruitful in their Production, yet in other Coun-
tries, in other Places, and in Lands more remote,
you meet with many Creatures of that kind, and
more in Number ; for you obferve the Elephant,
Chief of Beafts, wreathing his lith Probofcis like
a Snake: How many Thoufands of them India
breeds, which fortify her witha Wallof Ivoryimpe-
netrable,notto be forced,tho’ we fee but few atRome.
But grant, if you pleafe, there was only one fingle
Creature of a particular kind in Nature, whofe

x.

» The different Figures of his Atoms he has proved to be
finite, but the Sceds of a like Figure, he contends, are inf-
nite; for if the Atoms contained under cach Sort were finite in
Number, there could be no Infinity of Atoms in the Oni-:
verte.
dike

OW

144

-T. Lucretit “Lis. I.
Cui fimilis toto terrarum non fit in orbe : |
Iufinita tamen nift erit vis Materiai,

Unde ea progigni poffit concepta, creari 545
Non poterit : neque quod fupereft, procrefcere, alique.
Quippe etenim fumant oculi, finita per Omne

Corpora jaétari unius genitalia reii ; 3
Unde, ubi, qua οἱ, & quo patto congreffa coibunt
Materia tanto in pelago, turbaque alienae 550
Non (ut opinor) habent rationem conciliandi :

Sed quafi naufragiis magnis multifgue coortis,
Disgettare folet magnum mare tranfira, guberna,
Antennas, proram, malos, tonfafque natantets,
Per terrarum omnets oras fluitantia aplufira, 555
Ut videantur, &8 indicium mortalibus edant,

Infidi maris infidias, vireifque, dolumque

Ut vitare velint, neve ullo tempore credant,
Subdola cum ridet placidi pellacia ponti :

St¢ tibt fi finita femel Primordia quedam 550
Confiitues, evum debebunt [para per omne
Digeciare aftus diverfi Materia: :

Nunquam in concilium ut poffint compulfa coire:
Nec remorari in concilio, nec crefcere adauéta.
Quorum utrumque pala fierimanifefia docetres,565
Et res progigni, €F genitas procrefcere poffe : |

Efe igitur genere in quovis Primordia rerum
‘Lnfinita palam “fi, unde omnia fuppeditantur.

»

: | | Nec

BooxIl. Of the Nature of Things. 145

Jike was not to be found throughout the World,
yet unlefs the Seeds of which it was formed were
in Number infinite, it could never come into Be-
ing, or, when once made, could it increafe, or
be {upported.
For, fancy you fee the finite Seeds of any Bo-
_dytoffed about through the infinite Space, whence,
where, by what Force, by what Defign, could
they meet and unite in that wide Ocean of Mat-
ter, in that ftrange Confufion? They have no
Reafon, I fuppofe, to direét them to this Union.
But, as in dreadful Wrecks, when many Ships
are loft, the troubled Sea fcatters abroad the Seats,
the Sterns, the Sail-yards, the Prows, the Matts,
the floating Oars, the Flags fwimming about ail
the Shores, that they may be feen, and forewarn
poor Mortals to fly, and at no time to truft the
Treachery, the Power, and the Deceit of that un-
faithful Element, even when the perfidious Flat-
tery of her fmooth Face fmiles upon them ; fo, if
you allow the firft Seeds of Things to be iinite,
the various Agitation of Matter muft for ever
tofs them about, fcatter’d as they are, fo that
they could never be forced to unite; or, if. they
could, could they preferve that Unton, or admit
of any Increafe? And yerthe Nature of Things
evidently proves, that Beings are produced, and,
when produced, increafe ; and therefore, “ the
Principles of Things, in every kind, *tis piain,
are infinite, and by them all Beings are formed
and fupported.

© The Notion of the Infinity of the Atoms is the greateft
Abfurdity ; for infinite Atoms muft fill all the Parts of Space,
(and can-be nothing but a vaft Heap of dull movelefs Matter
co-extended with it. How then could the World be made?
How thefe various Alterations of Bodies, all which proceed
from Motion, be produced?

Vou. I; L Now

146

TL. Lvuenstit 1,18.15
Nec fuperare queunt motus utique Exitiales
Perpetuo, neque in eternum fepelire falutem; 57@
Nec porro rerum Genitales Auétificique
Motus perpetuc poffunt fervare creata.
Sie equo geritur certamine Principiorum
Ex infinito contratium tempore bellum’:
Nunc hinc, nunc illine fuperant vitaha rerum, 575
Et fuperantur item , mifcetur Funere Vagor,
Dueus pueri tollunt vifentes lumints oras :

Nec nox ulla diem, neque notiem aurora fecuta “ft,

Que non audierit mifios Vagitibus egris

Ploratus, mortis comites, 95. funerisatri. 580
Illud in his obfignatum quoque rebus habere

Convenit, 5 memori mandatum mente tenere:

Nil effe, in promptu, quorum natura tenetur,

Quod genere ex uno confifiat Principiorum :

Nec quicquaim, quod non permifio Semine confiet; 585
Et quam quicque magis multas, vis pofidet in fe,
Atque potefiates, ita pluria Principiorum

In fefe genera, ac varias docet effe figuras.

Principia

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things.

~ 4@Nor do thofe Motions that are fatal and de-
eve to Beings, always prevail, and caufe a Dil-
folution never to be recover’d ; nor, onthe contra-
ry, do thofe Motions by which Beings are formed
and increafed, always preferve Things when they
are produced, but aperpetual War hasbeen forever
carried on, with equal Succefs, between the Prin-
ciples of Things ; one while the vital Seeds pre-
vail, and now again they are routed, and beaten
out of the Field: The Cries of Infant Beings,
which they fend out as foon as they fee the Light,
are mingled with the Funeral of others that are
departed ; noris there a Night that follows the
Day, nor a Morning which fucceeds the Night,
that does not hear the Groans, the Attendants of
Death, and fad Obfequies, mingled with the ten-
der Laments of new-born Babes rifing into Be-
ing.

?Tis proper likewife, that in this Place you
fix it as an eftablifhed Truth, and imprefs it
deeply upon your Mind *, that there is no Being
to be found in Nature, that confifts aitogether of
Principles of one kind, nor is there any thing
that is not made up of mingled Seeds; and the
more Powers and Faculties any Being is endued
with, the more it appears to be formed of va-
rious Sorts of Seeds, that differ in Figure among
themfelves.

ἃ If the Seeds ofa like Figure were finite, the ‘Things com-
poied of thofe finite Seeds, when once diffolv’d, could never
be reftored, the Generation and Growth of ‘Things would be
in vain expected.

© The various Qualities of Things proceed from the Vaniety
of the Seeds, which muft neceffarily likewife produce a Vartie-
ty of Contexture. His firft Argument he brings from the
Earth, ς |

L2 ‘AND

147

148

T. Lucretit Lis. ΠῚ

Principio, Tellus habet in fe Corpora prima,
Unde Mare immenfum volventes flumina fontes 590
Affidué venovent: habet, Ines unde criantur.

Nam multis fuccenfa locis ardent fola terra ;
Exinuis vero furit ignibus impetus Atine.

Tui porro nitidas fruges, ζῶ Meo leta
Gentibus humanis bavct unde extollere pofft. 595
Unde etiam fluidas Frondets, &f Pabula leta
Afontivago generi polit prabere firarum.

Qyare magna Detim mater, materque ferarum,
kit nofiri genetrix Haze diffa’fi Corporis una.
Flanc veteres Gratiim dolti cecinere Potte 600
Sublinem in curru bijugos agitare leones :
Acris in {patio magna pendere docentes
Tellurem, neque poffe in Terra fiftcre Terram.
Adjunxere Feras, quia quamvis effera proles
Officits debet molliri vitia parentum.
Muralique caput fumnum cinxere Corona:
Lximits munita locis quod fuftinet Urbeis :
Quo nunc infigni per manus predita terras
Elorrifice fertur divine Matris imago.
flanc varie gentes antiquo more facrorum 610
Lazam vocitant matrem, Phrygia/que catervas
Dant comites, quia primim ex illis finibus edunt
Per terrarum orbem Pruges cepiffe creari.

Gallos attribuunt, quia numen qui violarint
Mairis, ingrati Genitoribus inventi fint, 616

605

Significare

Ps oox IT. Of the Nature of Things.

Anp firft, the Earth contains within herfelf
firft Principles, from whence the Fountains, flow-
ing with their Streams, do conftantly fupply the
mighty Sea: She holds likewife within her Womb
the Seeds of Fire; we fee in many Places how
dhe burns, how ina rages with diftinguifhed
Flames, She likewife has the Seeds from whence
fhe forms {weet Fruits, and pleafant Trees, for
Men ; from whence fhe does afford the tender
Shrubs and verdant Grafs to javage Beafts that
wander on the Hills.

. Tuererore, this Earth alone is called f great
Mother of the Gods, Parent of Beafts, and of
the human Race. Of her the learned Grecian
Bards of old have feigned, that in her Chariot,
as fhe rides aloft, fhe drives a Pair of Lions hars
neffed, toteach, that in the fpacious Air hangs
the vaft Mafs of Earth, without a lower Earth to
prop itup. Thefe Beafts they yoked, to thew

that Youth, altho’ by Nature wild, yet, foftned -

by the Parents tender Care, grows tame. Her
Head they compafs with a Mural Crown, be-
caufe, in Places itrongly fortified, fhe bears up
Cities ; and in this Pomp adorned, the Image of
this facred Mother is born with dread Solemnity
through all the World. Her, after the ancient
Ufe of holy Rites, the different Nations cal} Mo-
ther of Mount 144, and give her for Attendants
a Train of Phrygian Dames, becaufe in Pérygia
Corn was firft raifed, and thence was featter’d
over all the -Earth. They ferve her by Eunuch
Priefts, to fhew, that thofe who violate the facre

Character of their Mother, or are found undutiful

to their Parents from whence they fprung, fhould

f He takes occafion to explain the Ceremonies obferved in
the Myfteries of Gybele, Mother of Gods, which are to be
met with in every DiGionary.

Ι, 2 be

v

4

O T. Lucreti Lis. If,

Significare volunt indiguos effe putandos,

Vivam progeniem qui in oras lumints edant.
Tympana tenta tonant palnis, 5 Cymbala circum
Concava, raucifoncque minantur Cornua cant,
Et Phrygio fimulat numero cava Tibia menteis, 029
Telaque preporiant violenti figna furorts,

Tugratos animos, atque impia petiora volgt
Conterrere metu que poffint numine Dive.

Ergo cim primum magnas invetia per urbeis
Munificat tacita Mortaleis muta falute: 625
Lure atque Argento fiernunt iter omne viarum
Larsifica flipe ditantes, ningunique rofarum
Floribus, umbrantes Matrem, comitumque catervas.
Hic armata manus (Curetas nomine Grait
Quosmemorant Phrygios) inter fe forte catenas 630
Ludunt, in numerumque exfultant fanguine lett, &
Terrificas capituim quatientes numine criftas,
Ditleos referunt Curetas: Qui Fovis illum
Vagitum in Creta quondam occultaffe feruntur,

Cui pueri circum puerum pernice chorea 655
Armati in numerum pulfarent eribus era, ἡ
Ne Saturnus cum malis mandaret adeptus,

Le ternumque daret Matri fub peétore volnus »

Proptered

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things.

be thought unworthy to raife a living Offspring
to fucceed them. With their Hands they beat
Joudly upon Drums well-braced; the hollow
Cymbals all about, and Horns with their hoarfe
Noife, threaten dreadfully around her, ® the Pipe,
with Phrygian Airs, mads their very Souls; and
they carry Arms, the Signs of their diftracted
Rage, to terrify the ftubborn Minds and impi-
ous Hearts of the Vulgar, with a Fear and Reve-
rence of this great Deity.

WueEn therefore fhe is carried in Proceffion,
through the great Towns, and, dumb as fhe is,
filently beftows ἢ Fiealth upon her Votaries, they
featter Brafs and Silver in all the Way fhe paffes,
enriching her with profufe Oblations; they fhower
down the Flowers of Rofes, and fo cover the
great Mother, and the whole Train of her At-
tendants. Her an armed Troop (the Greeks call
them the Phrygian Curetes) leap abcut, with a
Chain through their Hands, and wanton in the
Blood they have drawn, dance to exact Time,
and, full of the Goddefs, fhake their dreadfuf
Crefts upon their Heads. They reprefent the
Difiean Curetes, who are faid formerly to have
drowned the Infant-cries of Jupiter in Crete;
when the young Priefts, all armed, ftruck their
brazen Bucklers together, as they danced nimbly
round the Boy, left Saturn fhould feize upon him,
and devour him, and, by that means, wound his
Mother to the Heart, with a Grief never to be

5 The Phrygian Mufick was a fort of Enthufiaftick Harmo-
ny that raifed the Paffions of the Mind, and {welled the Soul
to Rage and Fury.

h Vhis is a fharp Invective of the Poet’s; a rough unpo-
lifhed Stone, not given to tattle, muft needs do a world of
Good; She never faid a word of the Benefits fhe beftowed.

: L 4 forgotten :

151.

[52

TY. ΘΑ ΕΣ ΤΠ

Propterea Magnam armati Matrem comitantur :
Aut quia fignipcant Divam predicere, ut armis, 640
Ac virtute velint Patriam defendere terram :
Prafidicque parent, decorique Parentibus effe.
Que bene, E eximié quamvis difpifta ferantur,
Longe funt tamen ἃ vera ratione repulfa.
Omnis enim per fe Diviim natura neceffe *ft- 645
Immortali avo fumma cum pace fruatur,
cemota a noftris rebus, fejunttaque longe. :
Nam privata dolore omni, privata perichs,
Lpfa Jus pollens opibus, nibil indiga noftri,
Nec bene promeritis capitur, nec tangitur ira. 650
Terra quidem vero caret omni tempore Senfu :
Sed quia muliarum potitur Primordia rerum,
Multa modis multis effert in lumina folis.
Hic fiquis Mare Nepiunaum, Cereremque vocare
Conjtituet Fruges, &8 Bacchi nomine abuti 655
NMavolt, quam Laticis proprium proferre vocamen :
Concedamus ut hic tervarum dithitet Orbem
Effe Detim Matrem, dumre non fit tamen apse.
Sepe itaque ex uno tondentes gramina campo
Lanigera pecudes€S equorum duellica proles, 660
Bucerieque greges fub eodem tegmine cel,
Ex unoque fitim fedantes flumine aquat,
Diffimili vivunt fpecie, retinentque parentum
Naturam, (mores generatim queque rmitantur :

&

» ϑ Tanta

Boox Ii. Of the Nature of Things.

forgotten: For this Reafon, an armed Train ac-
company the great Mother; or εἰς the Goddels
fignifies, that they fhould preferve their native
Country by their Arms and Valour, and be a
Proteétion and Honour to their Parents.

Sucu Fancies, tho’ well and wittily contrived,
yet are far removed from Truth and right Rea-
fon; for the whole Nature of the Gods muft
fpend an Immortality in fofteft Peace, removed
from our Affairs, and feparated by Diftance infl-
nite; from Sorrow free, fecure from Danger, in
its own Happinefs fuficient, and nought of οὔτ᾽
can want ; 1s neither pleafed with Good, nor vex-
ed with ΠῚ. |

Tue Earth ts indeed at all times void of real
Senfe; but as it contains within itfelf the firtt
Seeds of many Things, it produces them into
Being after various Manners ; fo, if any one here
refoilves to call the Sea by the Name of Neptume,
and Corn by the Title of Ceres, and chufes rather
to abufe the Name of Bacchus, than to fpeak the
proper Appellation of Wine, fucha one, we al-
low, may ftyle this Globe of Earth the Mother
of the Gods, when really fhe is no fuch thing.

> Burt to return; we fee the woolly Sheep, the
warlike Breed ot Horfes, and horned Bulls, living
-under the fame Covert of the Sky, grazing toge-
ther in the fame Field, and quenching their Thirit
in the fame Streamof Water; yet theyare each of
a different Species, and retain the Nature of their
Sires, and every Kind imitates the Di{pofitions
of the Race from wiience theycame; fo diiferent

i Since fo many Sorts of Animals are fed by the fame Herbs,
and drink of the fame Water, the Herbs and Water mutt
contain feveral Sorts of Principles, to make them proper Nou-
rathment for each fort.

1s

133

1 54.

T. Lucrettii Lie. If,

Tanta *ft in quovis genere Herbe Materiai 665
Difimilis ratio: tanta "Π in Flumine quoque. |
jaim vero quamvis animantem ex omnibus unam
Offa, Cruor, Venez, Calor, Humor, Vifcera, Nervi

Confrituunt, que funt porro diftantia longé
Difimili verfecta figura Principiorum. 670
Tum porro quecunque Loni flammata cremantur ;
δὴ nil preterea, tamen ex fe ea corpora tradunt,
Unde Ignem jacere, &S Lumen fummittere poffunt :
Scintillafque agere, ac late differre Favillam.
Cetera confimili mentis ratione peragrans, 675
Invenies intus multarum Semina rerum
Corpore celare, 9 varias cobibere Figuras.
Deniquemulta vides, quibus eft Odor, &8 Sapor una
Reddita funt cum Odore , imprinus pleraque dona,
Relligione animum turpi cum tangere parto. 680
Hae igitur varits debent conftare Figuris :
Nidor enim penetrat, qua Suecus non it in artus s
Succus item feorfum, 55 rerum Sapor infinuatur
Senfibus, ui nofcas primis differre fizuris.
Diffimiles igitur Forme glomeramenin unum 685
Conveniunt : Et res permifio Semine conftant.
Quin etiam paffim nofiris in verfibus ipfs
Mulia Elementa vides multis communia verbis 3
Cam tamen inter fe Verfus, ac Verba neceffe "1
Confiteare alia ex aliis conftare Elementis: 690

Now

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things.

is the Nature of the Seeds in every Herb, fo various

are the Principles of the Water in every Stream.
Now tho’ Blood, Bones, Veins, Heat, Moi-

fture, Bowels, Nerves, go to the Formation of

every Animal; yet of what Variety of Figures,

widely different in themfelves, do their Seeds.

confift?

Amp then * all Bodies that are combultible,
and burnt by Fire, if they agree in nothing elfe,
yet difcharge from themfelves fuch Parts, by
which they fpread about their Flame and Light ;
from whence they raife Sparkles, and fcatter their
Embers all abroad. Soif you examine other things
by the fame Rule, you will find Seeds of different

kind lie concealed in all Bodies within, and fhew ~

themfelves of a different Figure.

LastTLy, you obferve many Things that emit.

both Smell and ‘fafte, efpecially thofe Victims
you offer when your Mind ts religioufly moved
for fomething you have unjuftly acquired. Thefe
Senfations, therefore, muft be raifed by Seeds of
different Figure; for Smell pierces through Pcres
where Tafte can find no Paflage: The Juice
likewife, and the Tafte of Things, affect the
' Senfe by proper Organs, to convince that their.
Seeds vary in their Figure. Principles therefore
of various Shape, make up every particular Mats,
and ‘Things in general are compofed οἵ mingled

Seeds; for, in thefe Verfesof mine, you may alk.

along obferve, that many Letters are common to
many Words, and yet you muft cenfefs, that
fome Verfes and fome Words confit of very dif-
ferent Letters ; not becaufe the Number of Let-
k All combuftible Matter is refolved into Fire, Light,
Smoke, and Afhes ; and we may believe, that the Diffolation
is not made into any Thing, but what was actually contained
gn the Thing diffolv’d: And therefore, incombuttible Things,
here lie hid thofe different Kinds of Seeds, of which Fire,
Light, Smoke, and Ashes coniift,

ters

155

156

%. Lucretm Liz. I.

Non quod multa parum communis Littera currat,
Aut nulla inter fe duo fint ex omnibus ifdem :
Sed quia noi volgo paria omnibus omnia conftant.
Sic altis in rebus item communia multa,
Multarum rerum cum fint Primordia longé 695
Difimili tamen inter fe confiftere fumma
Poffunt : ut meritd ex aliis conftare ferantur
flumanum genus, ac Fruges, Arbuftaque lata.

| WNec tamen omnimodis conneéti poffe putandu °ft
Ounia: nam volgo fieri Portenta videres, 700
Semiferas Hominum fpecies exiftere; €F altos
Interdum Ramos egigni corpore vivo:
Multaque connetti Terreftria membra Marinis.
Tuin flammam tetro {piranteis ore Chimeras
Pafcere Naturam per terras ommiparentets. 905
Quorum nil feri manifefiu ft: omnia quando
Seminivus certis certa genetrice creata
Confervare genus crefcentia poffe videmus.

Scilicet 1d ceria fieri vatione neceffe°ft ;

Nam fua cuique Cibis ex omnibus intus in artus 710
Corpora difcedunt : Connexaque convenienteis
Efficiunt motus : At contra aliena videmus
Rejicere in terras Naturam: Multaque cecis
Corporibus fugiunt é corpore percita plagis,
Que neque connelti cuiguam potuere, neque intra 715

ὑ
Ὰ

Vitaleis

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things.

ters are few, or no two Words are formed of the
fame Letters, but becaufe every Verfe and every
Word is compofed of Letters altogether different.
So, tho’ the fame Principles are common to ma-
ny Things, yet the Things may remain very dif-
ferent among themfelves; and it may properly
enough be faid, that Men, and Fruits, and plea-
fant Trees are made up of different Seeds.

YET we are not to fuppofe, that’ All Seeds
of whatever Figure, do mutually unite to the
Production of Beings; for then you would ob-
ferve Montters fpringing up every day, Creatures
half Man, half Horfe, the lofty Boughs of Trees
growing out of aliving Body, and the Limbs of
Land-Animais joined to the Bodies of Fifh, and
Nature forming every where out of the Earth (the
Mother of all Things) Chimeras from their
dreadful Mouths breathing out Flames; but ’tis
plain, nothing of this happens, fince we fee all
Things are formed from certain Seeds, and re-
gular Principles, and preferve their Kind as they
crow up and increafe. ?

_. Nor indeed canit, by the fixed Rules of Reafon,
be otherwife; for, out of the feveral Sorts of
Food, the Particles of that which is proper to
every Animal, defcend into the Limbs, and there
united, produce the Motions fuitable to that Ani-
mal; but, on the contrary, thofe Particles of
Food that are deftructive, fome of them, we find,
Nature throws off through open Pafiages, others
are, infenfibly to us, forced out of the Body
through the Pores, fuch as would admit of no

1 Tho’ many Seedsare common to many Things, yet each
Thing requires a certain Order and Difpofition of Union, and
Affociation of the Seeds that compofe it ; and when the Thing
15 diffolved, the congruous Atoms mutually withdraw from the
yecongruous.

Ε Union

157

158

T, -Lucrerit Lis. I,

Vitaleis motus confentire, atque animari.

Sed ne forte putes animalia (οἷα teneri
Legibus his: Eadem ratio res terminat omneis.
Nam veluti tota natura diffimiles funt
Inter fe genite res queque, ita quamque neceffe "1
Diffimili confiare feura Principiorum ; 72%
Non quod multa parvum fimili fint predita forma:

‘Sed quia non volo paria omnibus omnia conftent.

Semina citm porro diftent, differre neceffe */t
Intervalla, Vias, Connexus, Pondera, Plagas, 725
Concurfus, Motus: que non Animalia folim
Corpora feyuncunt, fed Terras, ac Mare totum
Secernunt, Calumque a Terris ome retentant.

Nunc age, ditta meo dulci quefita labore
Percipe: ne forte bec Albis ex Alba rearis 730
Principtis effe, ante oculos que Gandida ceriis :
Aut ea, que Nigrant, Nigro de Semine nata :
Neve alium quemvis que funt induta colorem,
Propterea gerere bune credas, quod Materiai
Corpora confimils fint ejus tinéta colore. 738
Nullus enim Color eft omnino Materiai
Corporibus, neque par rebus, neque denique difpar.

In que corpora fi nullus tii forte videtur
Poffe animi injectus fieri, procul avius erras:

Nam cum Cacigeni, Solis qui lumina nunquam 740

ADeneres

Boox Il. Of the Mature of Things.
Union with others, nor agree to promote the vi-
tal Motions and Purpofes of Life. |

But left you fhould think, that living Crea-
tures only are bound by thefe Laws, the fame
Reafon holds with regard toall other Beings; for
as all Bodies are in their Nature different in them-
felves, fo it is neceffary that each fhould confift of
Principles of a different Figure, not but that mas
ny Seeds are the fame in Shape, but they do, not
all agree in Form perfedtly alike.

Since then the Seedsdiffer, it is neceffary that
their Intervals,their Courfes, Connexions, Weights,
Strokes, Concuffions, Motions, fhould differ
likewife ; Properties, that not only make a Di-
{tinction between Animals, but divide the
Farth and the Sea, and preferve the Heavens fe-
parate from the Earth, and fecure all Things
from being confufedly mingled together,

Now, come on, attend to Rules which Ihave
found, by a Labour very delightful to my felf ;
leit you fhould think thofe Bodies that appear
white to your Eyes, are compofed of white Seeds,
or fuch as fhew black, are formed of black ; or
what Colour foever a Thing wears, you fhould
conclude the Caufe of it to be, that the Seeds of
which it 15 made are ftrained with the fame Co-

_lour: For the Principles of Matter are ™ void of
all Colour, both lke or unlike what appears up-
on the Bodies they produce.

Ir you fhould chanceto think, that the Mind
cannot poflibly form an Idea of Seeds without
Colour, you are under a ftrange Miftake; for
Perfons born blind, who never faw the Light of

m Hie means, that the Atoms have no Colour whatéver,
like or unlike thofe that we difcover on the Surface of con-
crete Bodies. ᾿
| the

159

160

Ἔ, πεῖ liz. IB

Afpexere, tamen cognofcant corpora Tati, ,
Ex ineunte evo nullo contingia colore:
Scire licet ments quoque nofire Corpora poffe

Verti in notitiam nullo circumlita fuco. ‘
Denique nos ipfi cecis quecunque tenebris 745.
Zangimus, baud ullo fentimus tintta Colore. .

Quod quoniam vinco fiert, nunc effe docebo.
Omnis enim Color omiino mutatur in omnets:
Quod facere haud ullo debent Primordia paéte,
Immutabile enim quiddam fuperare neceffe Μὲ , 750
Ne res ad Nibilum redigantur funditus omnes.
Nam quodcunque fuis mutatum finibus exit,
Continuo hoc mors eft illtus, quod fuit ante.
Proinde Colore cave contingas Semina rerum:
Ne tibi res redeant ad Nilum funditus omnes. 955
Praterea, fi nulla Coloris Principits eft :

Reddita natura, at variis funt predita Formis;
Ε quibus omnigenos gignunt variantque Colores.

(Praterea magni quod refert Semina queque

Cum quibus 95. quali pofitura contineantur, 760
Et quos inter fe dent motus, accipianique : }

Perfacilé extempld rationem reddere poffis,

Cur ea, que Nigro fuerint paullo ante Colore, ος

Marinoreo

Boox II. Of che Nature of Things.
the Sun, yet difcover Bodies by the Touch, as if

they had no manner of Colour belonging to them.
So that Seeds imbued with no Colour, can offer
themfelves to our Mind, and be conceived by us.

And befides, the Things we touch in the dark.
Night, we diftinguifh without any regard to the

Colour they may ctherwife appear in. |
Trat. Seeds may be void of Colour I have

fhewed ; I fhall now prove that they actually are
fo. ®Nowevery Colour may be changed one in-

to another; but.the Principles of Things will by

no means admit of Change, there neceflarily

muft be fomething that remains immutable, left

all Things fhould be utterly reduced to Nothing;
for whatfoever is changed, and breaks the Bounds

of its firft Nature, inftantly dies, and 1s no more

what firft it was. Be cautious therefore, how

you ftain the Seeds of Things with Colour, left

all Things fhould recur to Nothing,. and be ut-

terly deftroyed.

BesipEs, tho’ Nature beftows no Colour up-
on Seeds, ὃ yet they are endued with different Pi-
gures, from whence they form and vary the Co-
Jours of every kind which fhew upon them. (For
It is of great Concern whatSeeds unite with others,
In what Pofition they are preferved, and what.
Motions they give and receive among them-
felves;) and thus you may readily account, why

Things that juft before appeared black, fhould

ἈΞ All Colour is liable to Change, but the Seeds of Things
are immutable, otherwife all Things would fall into Nothing.
If Colour were intrinfically in the Seeds, the Secds would be
mutable ; for all Colour is mutable.

_.°. There isno Neceflity that the Seeds fhould be imbued
with: Colours ; for allow them a Variety of Figures, and,

from the different Order, Site, and Difpefition of them, Co-
Jours will proceed.

VoL. M fuddenly

168

162

T. Lucret# Lie. Il.

/

Marmoreo fieri poffint Candore repente :
Ut Mare, cum magni commorunt A: quora venti, 765
Vertitur in canos candenti marmore fiuctus.
Dicere enim poffis Nigrum, quod fepe videmus,
Materies ubi permifta’ ft illius, 8 ordo
Principiis mutatus, &9 addita, demptaque quaedam,
Continud id fieri ut Candensvideatur, ξδ Album:770
Quod fi Ceruleis conftarent Aiquora ponti '
Seminibus, nullo poffint Albefcere paéto.
Nam quocunque modo perturbes, Cerula que fint
Nunquam in Marmoreum poffunt migrare Colorem.

Sin alto, atque alio funt Semina tinéta colore, 775
Que Maris eficiunt unum purumque Nitorem:
Ut fepe ex alits Pormis, variifque Figuris
Lfficitur quiddam Quadratum, uneque figure :
Conveniebat, uti in Quadrato cernimus effe
Diffimileis formas ; ita cernere in Aiquore ponti 750
Aut alioin quovis uno purogue Nitore,
Difiimilets longe inter fe, variofque colores.

Praterea, nihil officiunt, obftantque Figure
Diffimiles, quo Quadratum minis omne fit extra :

Alt varii rerum impediunt, probibentque Colores,
Quo minits effe uno poffit res tota Nitore. 786
Tum porro, que ducit 8 inlicit, ut tribuamus
Principiis rerum nonnunquam, caufa, Colores,
Occidit, ex Albis quoniam non Alba creantur :

‘Nec

BooxIl. Of the Nature of Things.
fuddenly look white. As the Sea, when the
rough Winds enrage the Waters, grows white
with foaming Waves. So you may fay of what
commonly appears black to us, when the Seeds
of which it is formed are mingled, and their Or-
der changed, when fome new Seeds are added,
and fome old ones are removed, the direct Con-
fequence is, that its Colour is changed, and ap-
pears white, But if the Water of the Sea con-
fitted effentially of blue Particles, 1t could by no
means change into a white Colours difturb the
Order of the Seeds how you would, the Prin-
ciples that are blue could never pafs into a white,

Bur if you fay, that the Seeds which make
the Sea look of one umform White, are ftained
with different Colours, as a perfeét Square that
is of one Figure, is made up of feveral Bodies
that are of feveral Figures, then it would follow,
that as we perfectly fee the diffimilar Figures
which the Square contains within it, fo we might
difcover in the Water of the Sea, or in any other
Body of one fimple Colour, the mixt and dif-
ferent Colours from which that fimple Colour
proceeds. | ?

® Bestpes; the diffimilar Figures that go to
make up a Square, do by no means hinder, that
the Surface of the Body fhould appear fquare ; but
amixt Variety of Colours will for ever prevent,
that the Surface of any Body fhould appear οἵ
oné fixed and uniform Coiour,.

ΑΝ» then, the very Reafon that would incline
tis fometimes to impute Colours to Seeds, is by
this means deftroyed; for, in this Cafe, white

P Bodies of a different Figure may unite into another dif-
ferent Figure, as Triangles into aSquare; but the fame can-

not be {4:4 of Colours, for different Colours can never com-,

pofe one fimple Colour. '
'ἽΜ 2 Bodies

163

164.

T. ΤΙ ΠΪΘΚΕῈ ΤΙ Lis. IL,

Necque Nigracluent, de Nigris: fed Variis de. 790
Quippe etenim multo prochiviits exorientur
Candida de nullo, quam de Nigrante colore;

Aut alio quovis qui contra pugnet, && obftet.
Preaterea, quoniam nequeunt fine Luce Colores
Effe, neque in Lucem exiftunt Primordiarerum: 795

Scire licet quam fint nullo velata Colore.
Qualis enim cacis poterit Color effe tenebris,

Lumine qui mutatur in ipfo, propterea quod

Kecta aut obliqua percuffus Luce refulget ?
Pluma Columbarum quo paéto in Sole videtur : 800
Qua fita cervices circum, collumque coronat:
Namque alias fit uti rubro fit clara Pyropo:
Interdum quodam fenfu fit, uti videatur
Inter Caruleum virideis mifcere Smaragdos.
Caudaque. Pavonis, larga cum Luce repleta ft, 805
Confimili mutat ratione obverfa Colores.
Qui, quoniam quodam gignuntur Luminis itu,
Scilicet id fine eo fieri non poffe putandu °ft.

Et quoniam plage quoddam genus excipit in fe
Pupula, cum fentire Colorem dicitur Album, . 810

Alque

4

ἐ.. Il. Of the Nature of Things.
Bodies are not produced from white, nor black
from black, but from Seeds of various Colours.
Now a White would much fooner proceed from
Seeds of no Colour at all, than from fuch as are
black, or any other oppofite Colour whatfoever.
Besipes, 3 fince Colours cannot appear with-
out Light, and fince the Seeds of T’hings cannot
appear in the Light, you may thence conclude,
that they are cover’d with no Colours at all; for
how can any Colour fhew it felf in the dark,
which furround inthe Light itfelf, as it is differ-
ently ftruck either with a direct or oblique Ray
of Light? Afterthis manner the Plumes of Doves,
which grow about their Neck, and are an Orna-
ment to it, fhew.themfelves in the Sun. In one
Pofition they appear red like a fiery Carbuncle;
inanother Light, the Greennefs of the Emerald 1s
mingled with a Sky-blue. So likewife the Tail
of the Peacock, all filled with Light, changes
its Colours, as the Rays ftrike directly or ob-
liquely upon it. Since therefore Colours are pro-
duced only by the Strokes of Light,. we cannot
fuppofe they can poffibly exift without 1t.

r Anp fince the Eye receives within it felf one

Sort of Stroke when it is {aid to perceive a white

4 Colour is nothing but Light, reflected from the Surface
of an opacous Body ; and therefore in dark Places, where no
Rays of Light enter, and out of whichnone are reflected,
there is no fuch Thing as Colours: And therefore the Colours
which appear in Things when the Light returns, are produced
from the Light itfelf, according to the Difpofitions the ‘T’hings
have to receive, reflect, refract, and convey it to the Eyes.

© There is no Occafion for the Seeds to have any Colours ;
for allow that they are of different Figures, and difpofed in
different Manners; and from thence will arife various Images,

by which they will varioufly ftrike the Eyes, and itir up dif-

ferent Motions in the Organs.

M32. Colour,

105

166 T. Lucretir Lis. Il,

Atque.aliud porro, Nigrum cum, €P cetera, fentit,
Nec refert ea, que@ tangis, quo forte Colore
Pradita fint, veruin quali magis apta Figura:

Scire licet, nil Principiis opus effe Colores: ‘j
Sed variis Forimis varianteis edere taus. S15
Preaterea, qioniam non certis certa figuris

ΕΠ natura Coloris, &P omnia Principiorum
Formamenta queunt in quovis effe Nitore :
Cur ea, que conftant ex illis, non pariter funt
Omnigenis perfufa C oloribus ingenere omni? 820
Conveniebat enim Corvos quoque fepe volantets
Ex albis album pennts jatkare colorent,
Et nigros fiert nigro de femine Cycnos,
Aut alioquovis uno, varioque colore. 824 Γ
| Quinetians quanto in parieis res queeque minutas —
Diftrabitur magis, hoc magis eft ut cernere pofis
Evanefcere paullatin, ftinguique Colorem:
Ut fit ubi in parvas parteis difcerpitur Aurum,
Purpura, Peniceufque color clarifimu’ multe, :
Filatim cum αἰ γαίης difperditur onmis: alle 30

| Nofere ut bine poffis, prius omnem efflare Colorenz

'

Particulas, quam difcedant ad Semina rerum. .
Pofirento quoniam non omnia Corpora vocem
Mittere concedis, neque Odorem: propterea fil,

‘

Β οοκ II. Of the Nature of Things.

Colour, and another contrary one, when it views
an Object of a black or any other Colour ; and fince
it is of no moment, by what Colour any thing you
touch is diftinguifhed, but rather of what pecu-
liar Shape and Figure it is, you may conélude,
there is no manner of Occation that Seeds fhould
be ftained with any Colours, but that they fhould
caufe that Variety of Touch, by the various Fi-
eures with which they are indued. |

Besipes, fince there are no certain Colours
peculiar to certain Figures, and fince Seeds of
any Figure may be of any Colour, whence is it
that Bodies that confit of fuch Seeds, are not in}
their feveral kinds imbued with all forts of Co-
Jours? It would be common to fee Crows, as
they fly about, caft a white Colour from their
white Feathers, and black Swans might be pro-
duced from black Seeds, or be of any other one
or,more Colours, as their Seeds chance to be di-
ftinguifhed. «t

FurTHER, the moreany Body is broken into
{mall Parts, the more you may perceive its Co-
lour languifhes by degrees, and dies away ; this is
the Cafe of Gold, when it is divided into thin
Shavings, its Luftre is extinguifhed, and the
Purple Dye, by much the richeft, when it 15
drawn out Thread by Thread, is quite loft;
hence you may infer, that the Particles of Bo-
dies difcharee themfelves of all Colour, before
they come to be as {mall as Seeds. .

AGAIN, ‘ fince you allow that all Bodies do
‘Not emit Sound and Smell, and therefore youdo

* The Senfes, he fays, are the [οἷς Judges of the Qualities
of Things; and therefore, fince we allow there are Bodies,
which the Noftrils cannot fmell, and that thofe which the Ear
cannot hear have no Sound, why fhould not we allow that
Bodies, which the Eyes cannot perceive, have no Colours ?

M 4 not

Ty

168

T. Lucretir - Lis. I
Ut non omnibus attribuas Sonitus, &S Odores: 835
Sic, Ocults quoniam non ommia cernere quimus,
Scire licet, quedam tam confiare orba Colore,
Quam fine Odore ullo quedam, Sonituque remota:
Nec minis bec animum cognofcere poffe fagacem,
Quam que funt αἰ rebus privata, notifque. 840
Sed ne forte putes (οἷο fpoliata Colore
Corpora prima manere: Etiam fecreta Teporis
Sunt, ac Frigoris omnino, calidique Vaporis:
Et fonitu fterila, €F Succojejuna feruntur :
Nec jaciunt ullum proprio de corpore Odorem. 845
‘Sicut Amaracini blandum, Statteque liquorem,
Et Nardi florum, neétar qui naribus halaut,
Cum facere inftituas : cumprimis querere par éft,
Quoad licet, ac potis es reperire, inolentis Oivi
Naturam, nullam que mittat Naribus auram : 850
Quam minime ut poffit miftos in corpore Odores,
Concoctofque, fuo contactos perdere viro. ;
Propterea demum debent Primordia rerum

Nou adbibere Juum gignundis rebus Odorem,
Nec Sonttum, quoniam nihil ab fe mittere poffunt :
Ne fimili ratione Saporem denique quemquam, 856
Nec Frigus, neque item calidum, tepidumque Vapo-

rein, ὃ |
Cetera, que cum ita funt tandem, ut mortalia confient,
Molli Lenta, Fragofa Putri, Cava corpore raro,
Omnia funt ἃ Principiis fejunéta neceffe’ft, 86ο
Immortalia fi volumus fubjungere rebus

΄

Fundamenta,

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things. 169
ot attribute Sound and Smell to every Body; fo,

nce we cannot difcover every thing by our Eyes,

you may conclude, there are fome Bodies as much

void of Colour, as there are others without Smel!

or Sound ; and a judicious Mind can as properly:

form a Notion of fuch Bodies void of Colour,

as it can of others that are without Smell or

Sound, or any other Qualities whatfoever.

“Bort left you fhould conceive the firft Seeds gee,
are void only of Colour, you muft know ¢ that eve xe
they are without Warmth, are altogether free <¢e/es.
from Cold or Heat, they emit no Cound, are
without Moifture, nor do they fend out any Smell
from their feveral Bodies; fo whea you propofe |
to compound a pleafant Ointment of fweer Iiar-
joram, Myrrh, and Flowers of Spikenard, that,
fend out the richeit Odour to the Nofe, the firit
thing you are to do 15 to chufe, as far as lies in
your power, an Oil that has no Smell, that it
may, as little as poffible, infect and corrupt thofe
{weet Ingredients, being mix’d and digefted with
them, with its native Ranknefs, :

. Lastiy, the Seeds do not beftow any Smell
upon the Bodies they produce, nor any Sound, -
for they can exhale nothing from themfelves ;
and, for the fame Reafon, they can communi- .
cate no Tafte, nor Cold, nor any Vapour hot or
warm. You muft feparate all Qualities from the
Seeds, that render them-hable to Diffolution,
fuch as vifcous, brittle, hollow, which proceed
irom Qualities that are foft, putrid, and -rare,
the Seeds muit have nothing of thefe Properties
if you would fix them upon an eternal Founda-
tion, upon which alone depends the Security of

* His Atoms are not only void of Colour, but of all other
Qualities, as Smell, Cold, Heat, &c. and titis is proved to
ὃς true by modern Experiments,

Beings,

FI Lucreril ire. ΤῸ

Fundamenta, quibus nitatur fumma falutis :
Ne tibi res redeant ad Nilum funditus omnes.

Nunc ea, qua. Sentire videmus cunque neceffe *ft
Ex Infenfilibus tamen omnia confiteare 865
Principiis confiare: neque id manifefta refutant,
Nec contra pugnant, in promptu cognita quae funt :
Sed magis ipfa manu ducunt, &8 credere cogunt,

Ex Infenfilibus, quod dico, Animalia gigni.

Quippe videre licet, vivos exifiere Vermets 870
Stercore de tetro, putrorem cum fibi natla ft
Intempeftivis ex imbribus humida tellus:

Preterea cunttas itidem res vertere fefe.

Vertunt fe Fluvii, Frondes, §8 Pabula leta

In Pecudes : vertunt Pecudes in Corpora noftra 875

Naturam, €8 noftro de Corpore fepe Ferarum
Augefcunt vires, &F corpora Penuipotentum.
Lirgo omneis natura cibos in corpora viva
Vertit, ὃ bine Senfus animantum procreat omnets s
Nou alia longe vatione, atque arida ligna 880
Explicat in flammas, ۩ in igneis omnia verfat.
Jamne vides igitur, magnt Primordia rerum
Referre in quali fint ordine queque locata,
Et comnufia quibus dent motus, accipiantque ὃ
Tum porro quid id eff, animum quod percutit
tpfum ὃ 8:85
Quod movet ? &F varios fenfus expromere cogit,
Ex Infenfilibus, ne credas Senfile gigni ?

Nimirum

§

-

Boox Il. Of che Nature of Things. 171

Beings, left all Things fhould fall to Nothing,

and perifh beyond Recovery.

~ Now farther, *thofe Beings we fee indued Sexfble
with Senfe, you. muft needs own are produced /r7m Seeds
from infenfible Seeds ; nor is there any thing we a J
perceive by common Experience, which refutes

or oppofes this Opinion, Every thing rather ἡ
leads us on, and compels us to believe that Ani-

mals, I fay, proceed from Principles that are

void of Senfe; for we obferve living Worms

come into Being from ftinking Dung, when the
Earth, moiftned by unfeafonable Showers, grows

putrid and rotten.

BesipEs, Beings of ali kinds undergo continual
Changes ; the Waters, the Leaves, and the {weet
Grafs turn themfelves into Beafts; the Beafts
convert their Nature into Human Bodies; and
the Bodies of wild Beafts and Birds increafe and
grow ftrong by thefe Bodies of our’s. Nature.
therefore changes all Sorts of Food into living
Bodies; and hence fhe forms the Senfes of all
Creatures, much after the fame manner as fhe
quickens dry Wood into Fire, and fets every
thing in a blaze. You fee now it is of the ut-
moft Importance, in what Order thefe firft Seeds
are ranged, and, when mingled together, what
Motions they give, and receive among them~
felves. ee 4

Bur tell me, what is it that lays a Force upon
your Mind? What moves you? What drives
you into another Opinion, that you fhould not
believe a Thing fenfible can be formed from in-
fenfible Seeds ? Perhaps you obferve that Stones,

“ He undertakes to prove, that Things of Senfe can fpring
from fenfelefs Seeds, and that there is no Seed of any fuperiour
Principle to Matter, but a fit Combination of Atoms can

Think, Will, and Remember. .Philofophical Nonfenfe !
| I a“ and

172 as, ἃ δ πα Pt Lis. I.

Nimirum, Lapides, ξ9 Ligna, & Terra quéd una

Muifta, tamen nequeunt vitalem reddere Senfum.
illud in bis igttur feedus meminiffe decebit, 890

Non ex omnibus omnino, quecungue creant res,

Senfilia extemplo, &S Senfus me dicere gigni :

Sea magni referre, ea primum quantula conftent,

- Senfile que faciunt, &S qua fint predita Forma,
Motibus; Ordinibus,Pofituris denique que fint : 895
Quarum nil rerum in Lignis, Glebifque videmus, —
Et tamen hec cum funt quaft putrefatta per imbrets,
Vermiculos pariunt, quia Corpora materiai
Antiguis ex Ordinibus permota nova re, -
Conciliantur ita, ut debent Animalia gigni. 900

Deinde ex Senfilibus cum-Senfile poffe creari
Confiituunt, porro ex alits fentire fuetis ;
Mollia tum faciunt: nam Senfus jungitur omnis
Vifeeribus, Nervis, Venis, quacunque videmus
Mollia mortali confiftere corpore creta. 905
Sed tamen efto jam poffe bec Atterna manere:
Nempe tamen debent aut Senfum partis habvere,

Aut

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things.

and Wood, and Earth, when mingled together,

can produce no Creature indued with Senfe; _

* but you will do well to remember, upon this
Occafion, that I did not fay Things fenfible, or
Senfe, could inftantly proceed from all Seeds in
general, which go to the Production of Beings,
but that it was of great Confequence, of what
Size the Seeds are that ereate a Being of Senfe,
with what Figures, Motions, Order, and Pofition
they are diftinguifhed : Nothing of which we ob-
ferve in Wood, or Clods of Earth: Yet thefe,
when they are made rotten by Moifture, produce
Worms, becaufe the Particles of Matter being
changed from their former Courfe by fome new
Caufe, are fo united and difpofed, that living
Creatures are formed, and creep into Being.

Brsipes, thofe who contend thatafenfible Being
may be raifed from fenfible Seeds, (and this you
are taught by fome Philofophers) muft needs al-
low thofe Seeds to be foft; for all Senfe is joined
to Bowels, Nerves, and Veins, all which, we
know, are foft, and confequently liable to Change
and Diffolution, |

Y But grant their Seeds to be eternal, yet if
they are fenfible, each Seed muft be indued with
Senfe, either as a Part or a whole, and be like a

* He confeffes, that infenfible Things, unlefs they have a
certain Figure and Magnitude, and are agitated in a due Mo-
tion, and difpofed in a certain Order, never compofe fenfible
Things ; but let all Things neceflary and requifite be allowed
them, and then an Animal may be produced from the moft
infenfible of all ‘Things.

¥ Let us fuppofe thefe fenfible, as Plato and Anaxagoras
will have them to be, and foft Principles of ‘Things to be eter-
nal, and not fubject to Diffolution, yet they cannot be faid to
be fenfible as Parts, becaufe feparated Parts have no Senfe;
nor as Wholes, becaufe they then would be a certain Kind of
Animals, and therefore mortal and corruptible.

complete

173

174

T. Lucretrt Lis. I,

Aut fimilia totis Animalibus effe putari.
At nequeant per fe Partes fentire, nec effe.
Namque aliiim Sen[us membrorum refpuit omnium :
Nec Manus a nobis potis eft fecreta, neque ulla 91%
Corporis omuino fenfum pars fola tenere.
Linguitur, ut totis Animalibus adfimulentur ;
Vitali ut poffint confentire undique Senfu.
Dut poterunt igitur rerum primordia diti, 915
Et lethi vitare vias, Animalia cum fint,
Mique Animalibw fint mortalibus una, eademque ?

Quod tamen ut pofint: ab cutu conciliogue,
Nil facient, preter volgum, turbamque Animantums
Scilicet ut nequeant Honunes, Armenta, Fereque ;
Inter fefe ullam rem gignere conveniendo 921
Per Veneris res, extra Homines, Armenta, Ferafque,

Quod fi forte fuum dimittunt corpore fenfum,
Atque alium capiunt : quid opus fuit attribui, quod
Detrabitur ? Tum preterea, (quod fugimus ante,)
Quatinus in Pullos animaleis vertier Ova 926
Cernimus Alituum, Vermeifque effervere, terram
Intempefiivos cum putror cepit ob imbreis :
Scire licet gigni poffe ex non Senfibu’? Senfus.

Quod fi forte aliquis dicet, duntaxat oriri 930
Poffe ex non Senfu Senfus, fed mobilitate
Ante aliqua tanquam partum, quam proditur extra

Huic

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things.

complete Animal of itfelf; butno fingle Part can
perceive or exift of itfelf, for each Part requires
an Union with the other Parts, to make it ca-
pable of Senfe, nor can the Hand feel any more,
or any other Part retain its Senfe, when fepara-
ted from the Body. Thefe Seeds therefore muft
be perfeét Animals, and fo unite together in a
vital Senfibility ; but how then can theie Seeds be
faid to be eternal, and fecure from Death, when
they have the Nature of Animals, and are one
and the fame with them in all Refpects, and
therefore are mortal, and muft die?

But allow thefe Seeds to be fenfible and incor-
ruptible too, yet, by their Union and Agree-
ment, they can produce nothing but Animals
and Things fenfible ; that is, Mankind, and Cat-
tle, and wild Beafts, can produce nothing but
Men, and Cattle, and wild Beafts. [iiow then
could Things infenfible, as Trees, Metals, have
a Being? | |

Ir you fay thefe Seeds, in mingling together,
lofe their own proper Senfe, and affume another,
what need you impute any Senfe at all to them,
when they muft lofe it again? Befides,as we have
proved before, fince we perceive the ἔρος of
Birds are changed into living Young, and that
_ Worms break out of the Earth, when it is made
rotten by unfeafonable Showers, we may con-
clude, that Things fenfible may arife from infen-
fible Seeds,

175

Ir any one will affert here, that Senfe indeed No Senje

may proceed from infenfible Seeds, by a Sort of 2

Change made in the Seeds, by virtue of the
Thing that generates, 2 before the Animal is
5 formed,

* The Principles, feparately taken, are incapable of
Change, and the Senfe of no Animal can be produced, before
the

efore the
mimas.

T. Lucretit bia Il.

Huic fatis ilud erit planum facere, atque probare,
Nou fieri partum, nift concilio ante coatio :
Nec commutari quicquam fine conctliatu 935
Primorum, ut nequeunt ullius corporis effe
Senfus ante ipfam genitam naturam Animantis.
Nimirum quia Materies disjeéta tenetur
Mere, Fluminibus, Terris, Flammaque creaiis:
Nec congrefja modo vitaleis convenienti 940
Contulit inter fe motus, quibus omnituentes
Accenft Senfus animantem quamque tuentur.

Preterea quamvis Animantem grandior iéius, ,
Quam patitur natura, repente adfligit, SP omneis
Corporis, atque animi pergit confundere Senfus. 945
Diffolvuntur enim poftture Principiorum
Et penitits motus vitales impediuntur,
Donec Materies omnes concuffa per artus,
Vitales Anime nodos ὃ corpore folvit,
Difperfamque foras per caulas ejecit omueis. 950
Nam quid preterea facere ittum poffe reamur
Oblatum, nifi difcutere, ac diffolvere quaque ?

Lit quoque, uti foleant minus oblato acriter itu
Relliquie motus vitalis vincere fepe,
Vincere, &9 ingenteis plage fedare tumultus, 955

.
—_ an»

Ligue

Boox II. Of the Nature of Things.

formed, it will be fufficient plainly to fhew him,
hat no Animal can be formed but by an Union
r{t of the Seeds, nor can any thing be changed
but by Agreement of the Seeds, fo ‘that there can
be no firch thing as Senfe in any Body, before
Ἶ é Animal is completely formed : and for this
Reafon, becaufe the Seeds lie {cattered in the
Air, the Water, the Earth, the Fire; nor have
hey yet united together, aftera proper manner,
into any vital Motions, by which the Senfes of
any sinimal may be produced, in order to guide
and preferve it.

Besipes, * a Blow falling upon any Animal,
heavier than its Nature can endure, immediately
torments it, and confounds all its Senfes both of
Body and Mind ; for the Connexion of the Seeds
is diffolved, and the vital Motions are wholly
obftructed, till the Force of the Blow being g agi-
tated violently through the Limbs, diffolves the vi-
tal Ties of the Soul from the Body, and compels
her, featter’>d and broken to pieces, to fly out
through every Pore: For what can we conceive
to be the Effect of fuch a Stroke, but to feparate
and diffolve the Seeds that'were united before.?

Awop then it happens, when the Blow falls
with lefs Violence, that the Remains of vital
Motion often get the better, they recover and
calm the great Diforders of the Blow, and recall

the Animal is perfected ; becaufe Senfe requires fuch an Agree-
ment of vital Motions, as we fhould in vain expect in the
Seeds of Things, which fly confufedly fcatter’d up and down
in the Air, the Earth, the Water, and Fire.

᾿ He appeals to Experience, for a violent Stroke, which
only diffolves the Texture and Connexion of the little Bodies
of which the Animal conjiiits, takes away all manner of Senfe ;
if the Stroke be weaker, the Animal may be reftored to its
proper State, after fome {mall Difcompofure of the little Bo-
dies, the Difpofition to vital Motion ftill having the upper
hand, and not being quite broken and diffolved.

OL, 1, N every

177

178

T. Lucreril Lis. Ii.

Tngue fuos quicquid rurfus revocare meatus,

Et quaft jam lethi dominantem in corpore motum

Difcutere, ac pene amiffos accendere Senfus.

Nam, quare potius lethi jam limine ab ipfo |

Ad vitam poffint conletta mente reverii, 960

Quam quo decurfun prope jam fiet, ire, ξ9 abire 9
Preterca, quoniam dolor eft ubt Materiaz

Corpora vi quadam per vifcera viva, per arius

Sollicitata furs trepidant in fedibus intus :

Ingue locum quando remigrant, fit blanda Voluptas:

Scire licet, nullo Primordia poffe dolore 966

Tentari: nullamque Voluptatem capere ex fe:

Quandoquidem non funt ex ullis Principiorum

Csrporibus, quorum Motus novitate laborent:

Aut aliquem frusium capiant Dulcedinis alme. 979

Haud igitur debent effe ullo pradita fenju.
Denique, uti polfint featire Animalia queque,

Principiis fi etiam jt Senfus tribuendus eorum:

Quid? Genus humanum propritim de quibu’ fa-

tum " 2

Scilicet ξ5 rifu tremulo concuffa cachinnant, © 975

Et lacrymis fpargunt rorantibus ora, genafque,

Multaque de rerum miftura dicere callent,

Et fibi proporro qua fint primordia querunt.

Quandequidem

Boox II. Of the Nature of Things. E79

every thing again into its proper Channel, they
refcue the Body, asit were, from the Jaws of
Death, and give new Life to the Senfes that
were almoft deftroyed; elfe why fhould Crea-
tures rather return to Life from the very Gates
of Death with new Spirits, than when they were
jut entring in, proceed on, and utterly perifh?

- FurTuHer, ’fince we feel Pain when the Seeds
are fhaken from their natural State and Situation
within, and are difordered through all the Bowels
and Limbs by any outward Force, and when they
return again into their proper Place, a quiet
Pleafure immediately fucceeds, you may con-
clude, that fimple Seeds cannot be tormented
with Pain, nor of themfelves be affected with
Pleafure ; becaufe they do not confift of Prin-
ciples or other Seeds, by whofe violent Motions
they may be difturbed, or be delighted with any
Pleafure they can give; and therefore they can- |
not poffibly be indued with any Senfe at all.

. Acatn, ‘if, inorder to produce Creatures with
Senfe, Senfe mutit be imputed to the Seeds from
whence they are formed, of what Principles,
T pray, is the human Race properly compofed ?
Of fuch, no doubt, as laugh, and fhake their
little Sides, fuch as bedew their Face and Cheeks
with flowing Tears, fuch as can wifely talk
how Things are mixed, and fuch as fearch of

what firft Principles themfelves are formed ;

Ὁ The Principles of Things are fimple, nor can their Parts

be driven from the State in which they are, nor reftored into

the fame State again; and therefore, being not to be affected
With Pleafure or Pain, they mutt be deftitute of ail Senfe.

¢ If Things, becaufe they are fenfible, muft {pring from fen-

fible Seeds, ‘then Men who laugh, weep, &e¢. muft be formed

of Seeds that laugh, weep, &'c. Iflaughing, weeping, and

wife Things can be made cf Seeds that neither laugn, weep,

nor are wife, why fhould not fenfible Things proceed from

Seeds that are wholly infenfible?
IN for

180

T. LucreETII Lie. Il.

Quandoquidem totis mortalibus adfimulata
Ipfa quoque ex aliis debent conftare elementis,; 980
Znde alia ex aliis, nufquam confiftere ut aufis.
Duippe fequar, quodcunque Loqui, Ridereque dices,
Et Sapere, ex aliis eadem bec factentibus, ut fit.
Qyod fi delira hec, furiofaque cernimus effe:
Et ridere poteft ex non ridentibu’ faczus, 985
Et fapere, &F dottis rationem reddere dictis,
Non ex Seminibus fapientibus, atque difertis :
Qui minus effe queani ea, que Sentire videmus
Seminibus permifta carentibus undique Senfu ?
Denique culeftt fumus omnes femine oriundi: 990
Omnibus ille idem Pater eft, unde alma liquenteis
Humorum guttas Mater cum Terra recepit,
Feta parit nitidas fruges, arbuftaque leta,
Et genus humanum, €8 parit omnia fecla ferarum,
Pabula cum prabet, quibus omnes corpora paf-
Cunt, 995
Et dulcem ducunt vitam, prolemque propagant.
Quapropter merito Maternum nomen adepta *f.
Cedit item retro de Terra quod fuit ante,
In terras: & quod miffum °ft ex Aetheris oris,

Id rurfum Celi rellatum templa receptant : 5. 1009

Nec fie interimit morsres, ut Materiai
Corpora conficiat, fed cetum difupat ollis :

litle

:

Book II. Οὗ the Nature of Ti pings.

for all Things that enjoy the Faculties of perfect
Animals, muft confift of other Seeds like them,
and thefe muft arife from others; and thus the
Progreffion would be infinite. I urge further,
whatever you obferve to fpeak, to laugh, to be
wife, muft proceed from other Seeds that can
perform thefame; but if this be ridiculous and
downright Madnefs, and Things that can laugh,
can {pring from Seeds that never finile, and the
Wife, that learnedly difpute, are produced from
foolifh Seeds and ftupid, what hinders, that fen-
fible Things may not as well be formed from
Seeds without any manner of Senfe at all?
Lastiy, ὁ we all fpring from A®therial
Seed; we have all one common Parent; when
the kind Earth, our Mother, receives the quic-
kening Drops of Moifiure from above, fhe
eonceives and brings forth fhining Fruits, and
pleafant Trees, the human Race, and ail the
Race of Beafts; fhe yields them proper Focd
on which they feed, and lead a pleafant Life,
and propagate their Kind, and therefore has
fhe juftly gained the Name of Mother. The
Parts that firft from Earth arofe, return to Earth
again; what defcended from the Sky, thofe Parts
brought back again the Heavens receive; nor
does Death fo put an end to Beings, as to de-
{troy the very Seeds of them, but only difunites
ὦ He recapitulates his former Arguments ; the Earth be-
comes fruitful by the Showers, and produces Corn, Grafs, &’c.
by which fenfible Things are nourifhed; but the Heavens,
from whence the Showers fall, are infenfible, the Showers are
infenfible, and the Earth no more fenfble than they. When
Animals are diffolv’d, Part of them fies back to Heaven, Part
returns to Earth, inienfible Things both of them. ‘The Par-
ticles that at one time are whoily deftitute of Senfe, being
difpofed ina new Order, become fenfible at another ; and
fenfible Things, when that Order of the Seeds is changed,
grow itupid, and lofe their whole Power of Senfe anc Perception.
: N3 them,

τὸς

182 T. LucrerTil Lips. if,

Inde aliis aliud conjungit, &P efficit, onrnes

Res πὲ convertant formas, mutentque colores,

Et capiant Senfus, 89 puntto tempore reddant : 1005

Ut nofcas referre, eadem Primordia reruns

Cun quibus, &S quali pofitura contineantur.

Lit quos inter fe dent motus, accipiantque :

(Neve putes eterna penes refidere potelfe

Corpora prima, quod in fummis futtare videmus

Rebus, &8 interdum nafci, fubitoque perire:) 1011

Quin etiam refert noferis in Verfibus 1975. |

Cum guibus, 5 quali fint ordine qu.eque locata.

Namque eadem Calum, Mare, Terras, Flumina,
Solem

Significant; eadem Pruges, Arbufia, Animanteis :

Si non omnia fint, at multo maxima pars eff 1016

Confimilis: Verium pofitura difcrepitant bee.

Ste ipfis in γόης item jam Materiat,

Intervalla, Via, Conuexus, Pondera, Plaga,

Concur fus, Motus, Ordo, Pofitura, Figure 1020

Cum permutantur, mutari Res quoque debent.

Nune animum nobis adbibe veram ad rationem.
Nain tibi vebementer nova res molitur ad aureis
Actidere, 8 nova fe:[pecies oftendere rerum.

Sed neque tam facilis res ulla “jt, quin ea primum
Difficilis magis ad credendum conftet : ttemque 1026
Nil adeo magnum, nec tam muirabile quicquam
Principio, quod non minuant mirarier omnes
Paullatim ; ut Celi clarum purumque colorem,
Quengque in fe cobibent palantia fidera, pafim, 1030
Lunaque, & folis preclara luce nitorem :

SIN
;

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things. 182
them, then makes new Combinations, and is the
Caufe that all Things vary their Forms, and
change tneir Colours, become fenfible, and in a
‘moment lofe all their Scnfe again. You may
know from hence,-of what Importance if is,
‘with what the firt Seeds of Things are A
and in what Pofiticn they are Com ἔνε andl
what are the feveral Motions they give and tak
among themfelves; and from hence you may
rconclude, that thefe ἅτ Seeds are not the leds e-
ternal, becaufe you perceive them floating, as it
were, upon the Surface of Bodies, and fabjeét to
change, tobe born, and die. It sof lke Con-
cern, with what the feveral Letters are joined
in thefe Verfes of mine, and in what Order each
of them 15 difpofed; for the fame Letters make
up the Words to fienify the Heaven, the Sea, te
arth, the Rivers, the Sun; the fame exprefs

the Fruits, the Trees, the Creatures; if they
are not all, yet by much the Greater Part are a-
likey but they differ in their Situation: fo like-
wife in Bodies, when the Intervals of tne Seeds,
their Courfes, Connexions, Weighis, Strokes,
Union, Motions, Order, Pofition, “Figure, when
thefe are changed, the Things themielves mutt
be changed lil kewile.

Now, apply your Mind clofely to the Docu- ajay,
ments of true Reafon, for a new Scheme cf Phi- Worlds.
Jofophy preties earneftly for your Attention, a
new Scene of Things difplays it felf before you.;
yet there 15 nothing “fo obvious, but may at frit
View feem difficult to be believed, and there 1 15
nothing fo prodigious and wonderful at firft, that
Men do not by degrees ceafe to admire : for fee
the bright and pure Colour of the Sky, poffeficd
on every fide by wandering Stars, δ της
‘Moon’s Splendor, and the Sun’s clorious Light,

N 4 thefe,

184

T. Lucretit Li B. 1],

Omma que finunc primiim mortalibus adfint,

Ex improvifo ceu fint objeéta repente :

Quid magis his rebus poterat mirabile dici,

Aut minus ante quod auderent fore credere gentes ?

Nib ut opinor, ita bec fpecies miranda fuiffet ; 1036

Quom tibi jam nemo felfus fatiate videndi

Sufpicere in celi dignatur lucida templa :

Define quapropter novitate exterritus ipfa

Lixfpuere ex animorationem: fed magisacri 1040

Fudicio perpende, &, fi tibi vera videtur,

Dede manus: aut, fi falfa eft, accingere contra.
Quarit enim ratione Animus, cum fumma loct fit

Iifinita foris bec extra menia mundi ;

Quid fit ibt porro, quo profpicere ufque velit mens,

Atque anini jactus liber quo pervolet ipfe. 1046

; Prine cipio, nobis in cunttas undique partets

Et latere ex ulroqile, infra, Juperaque, per Omne

Nulla */t finis, (uti docui) res ipfaque per fe

Vociferaiur, S&S elucet natura Profundi. 1050

Nulla jam patio verifimile effe putandum "ft

Undique cum vor fus [patiuin vacet infinitum,

Seminaque innumero numero, fummaque profunda

Multimodis volitent eterno percita motu :

Hlunc unum Terrarum orbem, Caluimque creatum :

Nil agere illa foris tot corpora Materiaz, 1056

Cum prafertim bic fit natura faltus, 8 ipfa ἢ

Sponté

Boox Ii. Of she Mature of Things.

thefe, if they now firft fhone to mortal Eyes, and
fuddenly prefented to our View, what could more
wonderful appear than thefe? and what beforecould
Men lefs prefume to expect? Nothing furely, fo
furprizing would the Sight have been 3 but now,
quite tired and cloyed with the Profpect, none
of us vouchfafes, fo much as to caft our Eyes
upwards towards the bright Temples of the Sky ;
therefore do not be frightened, and conecive an A-
verfion to an Opinion, becaufe of its Novelty : but
fearch it rather witha more piercing Judgment, if
if appears true to you, embrace it, if fallc, fet
yourfelf againtt it,

Now, Ἵ fhould be glad to know, fince, with-
out the Walls of this “World, the vifible. Hea

‘vens, there lies an © infinite Space, what 15 con-

tained there: ‘This the Mind defires eagerly to
fearch into, and, by its own Vigour, to range
over freely, and without obftruction.

Anp firit, fince there is no Bound to Space in
any Part of it, on no Side of it, neither above
or below, as Ἰ have proved, and the Thing it
{elf proclaims it, and the very Nature of Space
confirms it; we are not to fuppofe, (fince this
Space is infinitely extended every way, and the
Seeds innumerable fly about this mighty Void in
various manners, urged on by an eternal Mo-
tion) that this one Globe of Earth, and the vi-
fible He ees only were created, and that fo ma-
ny Seeds of Matter that lie beyond do nothing ;
efpecially fince this World was made naturally,
and without Defign, and the Seeds of Things of

© Lucretius infifts, that there is an infinite Void, and that an
Infinity of Seeds are flying up and down in it, but all thofe

Seeds did not unite to produce this World of our’s; and there-
fore why fhould not fome Atoms, in other Parts of this infinite

- Void, compofe other Frames very like or ualike this World

that we inhabit? Efpecially fince Nature atts the fame through-
out, ‘and exercifes the fame Power through all Space ?

their

τὸς

186

T. Lucretit “03, Ὁ

‘ponte fia forte offenfando femina rerum
Multimodis, temeré, incafsim, frufircque, ccatta
Tandem cooluerint ea, que conjetla repente 1060
Magnarum rerum jierent exordia femper,

Terrai, Maris, & Celi, generifque Animantum.
Quare etiam atque etiam taleis fateare neceffe ?ft
Effe alios alibi congreffus materiai,
Qualis hic eft, avido complexu quem tenet mals,
Wb teres, cum Materies eft multa parata: 1066
Cum Locus eft prefto: nec res, nec caufa moratur
Ulla: geni debent nimirum, 55. confieri res.
Nune {8 Seminibus fi tanta’ft copia, quantam
Lnumerare etas animantum non queat omnis: 1070
Vifque eadem, 8 natura manet, que Semina rerum
Compicere in loca queque queat, fimili ratione,
Mique buc funt conjecia : Neceffe’/t confiteare
Effe altos aliis Tervarum in partibus orbeis,
Et varias Flominum genteis, {3 Saecla Ferarum.
Flue accedit, ut in Summa res nulla fit una, 1076
Unica que gignatur, 8 unica, folaque crefcat :
Quin cujufque fient fecli, permultaque eodem
dint genere : in primis animalibus indice mente.
Invenies fic montivagum genus effe Ferarum, 1080
Sic Hominum genitam prolem, fic denique mutas ὦ
Squamigerum pecudes, €F corpora cunéta Volantum.

QDuapropter

Book IY. Of the Mature of Things.

theirownaccord juftling together by Variety of Ma-
- tions, rafhly fometimes, in vain often, andtono pur-
pofe, at length fuddeniy agreed and united, and
became the Beginning of mighty Productions, of
the Earth, the Sea, and the Heavens, and the
whole Animal Creaticn. Wherefore it needs
muft be allowed, there were in many other pla-
ces Agreements and Unions of the Seeds of the
fame Nature with this World of our’s, furroun-
ded as it is with the faft Embraces of the Hea-
yens above. ᾿

| Besipes; fince there 1s a large Stock of Mat-
ter ready, and a Place iuitabie, nor.is there any
Thing or Caufe to hinder and delay, Things
muft neceffarily ke produced, and come into Be-

ing. Now, fince there is fo great a Plenty of

Seeds, that all the Ages of [Vien would not be ~

{ufficient to number them, and the fame Power,
he fame Natur ins, thatcandifpofe the Seeds
the fame Nature remains, thatcandifpofe the Seeds
of Things in any other Place, by the fame Rule as
they united in this World of our’s, we mutt
needs confefs, that there are other Worlds in o-
ther Parts of the Univerfe, poffeffed by other

kind of Inhabitants, both of Men and Beafts.
: App tothis, thatin the Univerfe there isno Species
that has but one of afort, that is produced alone, that
remains fingle, and grows up by itfelf, but whatever
Species Things are of, thereare many more Indivi-
duals of the fame kind. This you may oblerve tn
the Animal Creation, this you will find to be the
State of the wild Beafts, of the Human Race, of
the filent ih, and of the whole Brood of Birds. * By
f There muft be more Suns, more Earths than one, becaufe
the Earth, the Heavens, &¥c. are equally fubje& to perith
with other compound Bodies; for the Pahiiclophers againift
whom Lucretius difputes, afferted, that the Reaion why the
feveral Kinds of Animals contain many of each Kind, is, be-

caufe the Individuals die.

I the

~

187

188

T. Lucrertit Lis. ἢ],

Quapropter Calum fimili ratione fatendum ft,

Terramque, &F Solem, Lunam, Mare, cetera, que
funt, ΦῪ

Non effe unica, fed numero magis innumerali, 1085

Quandoquidem vite depagtus terminus alté

Tam manet bis, € tam nativo hec corpore conftant,

Quam genus omne, quod his generatim rebus abun-
dat,

Que bene cognita fr teneas: Natura videtur
Libera continud Dominis privata fuperbis, 1090
Ipfa fua per fe [ponte omnia Dits agere expers.
Nam (prob fantia Detim tranquilla peftora pace,
Que placidum degunt evum, vitamque ferenam! )
Quis regere Immenfi ὃ ummam, quis habere Profundi
Indu manu validas potis eft moderanter habenas ὃ
Quis pariter Calos omnes convertere ὃ EF ommeis
Ignibus etberiis terras fuffire feraceis ? 1097
Omnibus inque locts effe omni tempore prefto ὃ
Nubibus ut tenebras faciat calique ferena
Concutiat fonitu? tum fulmina mittat, & edeis
Sape (μᾶς difturbet, “ in deferta recedens 1101
Seeviat exercens telum, quod fepe nocenteis
Preterit, exanimatque indignos, inque merenteis ὃ

Multaque

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things.

the fame Reafon you muft own, that the Hea-
vens, the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, the Sea,

and all other Beings that are, do not exift fingly,

but are rather innumerable in their kind; for
every one of thefe have a proper Limit fixed to
their Beings, and are equally bound by the gene-
ral Laws of Nature, with all thofe whofe Species
include a numerous Train of Individuals under
them.

Tuese Things, if you rightly apprehend, Na-
ture will appear freein her Operations, * wholly
from under the Power of domineering: Deities,

and to act all Things voluntarily, and of herfelf,

without the Affiftance of Gods. For (O the un-
difturbed Bofoms of the Powers above, bleffed
with facred Peace! how they live in everlafting
Eafe, a Life void of Care!) Who can rule this
infinite Univerfe? Who has the Power to hold
the mighty Reins of Government in his Hands
over this whole Mafs ? Who likewife can turn
about all thefe Heavens? and chertth all thefe
fruitful Globes of Earth with celeftial Heat ?
Who can be prefent at all Times, and in all Pla-
ces? ‘To darken the World with Clouds, to
fhake the vaft Expanfion of the ferene Heavens
with Noife; to dart the Thunder, and often
overturn his own Temples, to fly into the
Wildernefs, and furioufly brandifh that fiery Bolt,
which often paffes by the Guilty, and ftrikes
dead the Innocent and Undeferving ὃ

e He now falls foul upon Omnipotence and Divine Provi-
dence, and could not believe that the Nature of the Gods
were fufhciently powerful to govern the Affairs of the Uni-
verfe ; Chance, he infifts, is the (οἷς DireCtor of all, becaufe
he obferv'd, that the Wirtucus and Good frequently fuffer,
when the Wicked profper,

BESIDES,

189

BQO

T. Docreri Ere. ΤΙ,

Multaque poft Mundi tempus geiitale, diemque
Primigenum Maris, & Terre, Solifque coortum,
Addita corpora funt extrinfeciis, addita circum 1106
Semina, que magnum jaculando contult OMNE :
Unde Mare, 9 Terra poffent augefcere: &F unde
Adpareret [patium Cali domus, aliaque telia
Tolleret a terris procul; 9 confurgeret Aer. 1110
Nam (μα cuigue locis ex omnibus oninia plagis
Corpora diftribuuntur, 5 ad fua fecla recedunt :
Humor ad Humorem, Terreno corpore Terra
Crefcit,; &3 Ignemignes procudunt, Etheraque Ai+

ther :

Donicum ad extremum crefcendi perfica fnem 1118
Omnia perduxit rerum Natura creatrix :
Ut fit, ubi nibilojam plus eft, qued datur intra -
Vitaleis venas, quam quod fluit, atque recedit :
Omnibus his etas debet confiftere rebus:
His Natura fuis refrenat viribus autlum, 1120

Nam, quecungue vides bilaro grandefcere adauciu,
Paullatimque gradus etatis fcandere adulta :
Plura fibi adfumunt, quam de fe corpora mittunt,
Dui facile in venas cibus onmus diditur : (F dum
Non ita funt laté difper{a, utmulta remittant: 1125

Et

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things.

Ion

Besipes, after this World was formed, and The World
the Birth-day of the Sea, the Earth, and the Sun ὌΞ
ν8 over, there were many Particles of Matter ad-""" °°

ded to them from without, many Seeds were γα τ᾿

ceived every way, which the infinite Mafs or Uni-

nd the Earth grew more {trong and vigorous ;
“from whence the Manfions of the Heavens were
enlarged, and raifed their lofty Arches higher
from the Earth, and new Air was produced :
for from ἢ all the Parts of the Univerfe the pro-
per Seeds are diftributed, and retire feverally in

all Places to their proper Kinds; the Watery to

the Water, the Earth increafes by earthy Par-
ticles, the Fiery produce Fire, the Airy Air, till
Nature, the Parent and Perfectrefs of all Things,
improves all Beings, to the utmoft Extent of
Growth they are capable of. This comes to
pafs, when no more is received into'the vital Paf-
fages, than what is perfpired, and flies off; then
itis, that the Growth of the Creature is at a full

ftand, and Nature reftrains it from further In-

creafe,
For whatever Creature you obferve to thrive

and grow lively and large, and by degrees climb.

ip to a mature Age, receives more Particles into
it felf than it emits, becaufe all the Nourifhment
is eafily diftributed into the Veins, and there
confined, and the Particles are not fo widely

{eatter’>d, as in any Proportion to fly off, and fo

h The infinite Univerfe fupplies Seeds which the World re-
ceives, and they duly joining with it, becomes more ftrong
and vigorous. When it emits as many Seeds as it receives, it

’ isat a itand, neither increafes nor decreafes ; but when more
Seeds fly away than it receives, then it decays, and draws to

anend. ‘Ihe Reafon of the Growth and Decay of Animals
is the fame,

receive

verfe conitantly difchare’d ; from whence the Sea

YT. Luegetir ἘΝῚ, If

E t plus difpendi factant, quan vefcitur etas,

Nam certée fluere, ac decedere corpora rebus

Multa, manus dandum ft: fed plura accedere ἐσ.
bent,

Doiticum olefcendi fummum tetigere cacumen.

Inde minutalim vireis, 5 robur adultum 1136

Frangit, & in partem pejorem liquitur etas,

QDuippe etenim quanio eft res amplior, augmine demto,

Et quo latior eft, in cunctas undique parteis

Pluria οὸ difpergit, 8 ἃ fe corpora mittit :

Nec facile in venas cibus omnis diditur eij: τὰ a

Nec fatis et, pro quam largos exeftuat eftus,

Unde queat tantum fuboriri ac fuppeditare,
Quantum opus eft: &P quod fatis eft, Natura novare,
Sure igitur pereunt, cumrarefacta fiuendo

Sunt ; 855 cum externis fuccumbunt omnia plagis: 1140
Quandoquidem grandi cibus avo denique defit :

Nec tuditantia rem ceflant extrinfecns ullam
Corpora conficere, & plagis infefta domare.

Sic igitur magni quoque circum menia mundi

Expugnata dabunt labem, putreifque ruinas. 1145.

Omnia debet enim cibus integrare novando:

Nequicquam, quoniam nec vene perpetiuitur

Quod fatis eft, neque quantum opus eft, natura mi*
niftrat. |

Famque adeo affetta ᾽ etas, effwtaque tellus

Vix animalia parva creat, que cuntia créavit 1150

Sacla, deditque ferarum ingentia corpora partu.

Haud

7

a [Ἐπ ian Ge amenen a ----- -- +
NSrmerly a lufty Race, and brought forth
fuch prodigious Bodies of wild Beafts. For Ican-

i The World, he concludes, grows old; the Earth, he
fays, produced formerly all Animals and Fruits of her own
accord ; but now, we find, fhe is paft her Teeming-tme,
and therefore it muft be allowed fhe grows old.

) VOL. J, ' O not

- προσ, =
—-—- = στ τον —— τον

= ——
a
=== οτατος
Se ee ee
ata ae

WEEE:

WA

Ν

Yes

“2,

'

receive a Lofs fafter than they are fupplied. For we
mutt allow that many Particles certainly fly of fiom
Bodies, but many others ought to be coming on,
till the Thing arrives to its utmoft Pitch of Buik.
Then, by degrees, its Strength and Maturity of

Vigour decays, its Age melts away and diffolves ;

| for “the larger any Bodyis, the greater it isin Size,
when its Growth is over, it waftes the more

"4:

into the Veins, or Nature fufficient to renew and
fupply thofe Effluvia it throws off in fuch Abun-
dance, in proportion as the Defect and the Lofs
ΒΕ τς. The Animal therefore muft neceffarily
derifh, when it ismadethin by continual Perfpira-
on at Things muft at length fall by conttant
Strokes from without ; ; for ‘the Supplies from
Food muft fail in Old Age, nor do Bodies from
without ever ceafe to batter and break to pieces
11 ‘Things with Strokes not to be refitted.

umble down by continual Attacks, and fall to
Ruins ; it is Nourifhment that preferves Things in
ing by conftant Supplies, but’tisall το πο purpofe:
for τ ncither are the Veins capable to receive what is
uf ficient, nor can Nature afford a proper and need-
BiRecrvit, evennow the Ageof the World 1s bro-
ken, and the Farth fo feeble and worn out, that
it fearce produces a puny Kind of Creatures, when
it bore formerly a lufty Race, and brought forth
fuch prodigious Bodies of wild Beatts, For Ican-

i The World, he concludes, grows old; the Earth, he
fays, produced formerly all Animals and Fruits of her own
accord ; but now, we find, fhe is paft her Teeming-time,
and therefore it mut be allowed the grows old.

Vout. O not

Boox Il. Of the Nazure of Things.

every way, and fends out more Particles from it
felf; nor is the Nourifhment eafily diftributed

193

By the fame Rule the vifible Heavens, the The World
urounding Walls of this great World muft grows odd,

194

T. Lucretii Lire. If.
Haua (ui opinor) ‘enim mortalia fecla fuperne
Aurea de Celo demifit funus in arva:
Nec mare, nec fluétus plangentes faxacrearunt :
Sed genuit Tells eddem, que nunc alit ex fe, 1155
Preterea nitidas fruges, vinetaque leta
Sponte fua primum mortalibus ipfa creavtt.
Ipfa dedit dulcets fetus, &F pabula leta:
Que nunc vix noftro grandefcunt auGta labore:
Conterimufque boves, €F vires agricolarum: 1160
Conjicimus ferrum vin arvis fuppeditati :
Ujque adeo pereunt fetus, augentque labores.
Famque caput φησι σης grandis fufpirat arator
Crebriits incaffum magnum cecidiffe laboren :
Et cum tempora tgnporibus prafentia confert 1165
Preteritis, laudat fortdnas fepe parentis :
Et crepat, antiquum genus ut pietate repletum
Perfacilé anguftis tolerarit finibus evum,
Cum minor effet agri multo modus ante viritim :
Nec tenet, omnia paullatim tabefcere, (9 ire 1170

Ad fcopulum {patio etatis defeffa vetufto.

Boox II. Of the Mature of Things. 195
not think all Species of Creatures defcended from.
the Sky by a * golden Chain upon the Earth,
nor were they by the Sea created, nor by
the Waves that beat the Rocks; but the
fame Earth which now fupports them, at firit
eave them Being. At firft fhe kindly, of her
own accord, raifed the rich Fruits and de-
lightful Vines for the Benefit of Men; fhe freely
of herfelf offered her fweet Produce, tne Corn
and tender Grafs, which now fcarce rife to Perie-
étion with all our Labour, We wear out our Oxen,
and the Strength of our Hufbandmen, we can
τατος find Plough-fhares fufficient to till the
Fields, Things are fo averfe to grow, and our
Labours are forever increafing, And now the
_lufty Plowman fhakes his Head, and laments
the Pains he took was oft 1n vain; and when he
compares the prefent Times with the glorious
Days that are paft, ‘he bleffes the good Fortune
of thofe that were before him; he talks loudly
how the old Race of Men}, filled with Piety, no
doubt fpent their happy Days within the narrow
Bounds of their own Field, (for then every Man’s
Share of Ground was much lefs than it is now)
)but has no Notion, fond Fool! that Things by
degrees decay, and worn out by old Age,
haften to Ruin fo the utmoft Period of their
Duration.

K Tt was the Opinion of Homer, that all Things were let
down from Heaven to Earth by a Go!den Chain.

1 He icoffingly mfinuates, that iince the Earth produced of
a εἶν accord, Men had nothing to do but to worlhip the

ods.

The END of the SECOND BOOK,
| O 2 |

THE

A R G U M E, N TO

OF “ii:

THIRD, BO OW

EQ ALIS is that Book of Lucretius which
, ought above all the reft to be read with

Be 2ῥὲ greateft Fudgment and Difcretion,
for bere he exerts bis whole Force to a that
the Soul is of a corporeal Nature, and confequentiv
fubjett io Death and Diffolution, and that the Ge-
nerality of Men being overaw’d by the Tyranny of
Religion, ave horribly miftaken to believe, that they
have reafon to dread eternal Torments after Death.
In the former Book, having explained the Nature —
and Properties of bis Atoms, in the four remaining
be applies himfelf to defcribe the Effects which
thofe Atoms produce. He begins with the Praife
of Epicurus, whom be extols for. being the firft
who taught, that this World and all Things in it
Were

The ARGUMENT,

aere not made by the Deity, but by a fortuitous
Concourfe of Atoms , and, by that means, delivering
the Minds of Men from the Fear of the Gods, from
the Terrors of Death, and the Dread of Punifp-
ments after Death. He then advances, that the
Mind and the Soul are a Part of Man, in the
fame manner as the Peet, the Hands, the Arms,
the Head, and other Members, and net a vital
Flabit of the «hole Body, or an Accord and Con-
fent of all the Parts of the Bedy, which fome of the
ancient Philofophers called Warmony. To pro-
ceed with the greater Perfpicuity, be obferves, that
be ufes the words Mind and Soul promifcuoufly,

_ that they are Loth but oneT hing, only the Mind is the
chief Part, andrefides in the Heart, becaufe Fear,

; Foy, and all the other Paffions which obey and de-
pend upon the Mund, difcover themfelves there,
while the Soul, in which the locomotive Faculty is
folely placed, being diffufed through the whole Bo-
dy, 1s moved as the Mind pleafes. He then endea-
vours to demonfirate, that the Nature of the Mind
and Soulis corporeal, becaufe the Mind touches the
Soul, and moves it, and the Soul touches the Boay;
but where there is no Body, there can be no Touch.
That this corporeal Mind is compofed of Atonts ex-
tremely fubtil, minute and round, and particularly,
that this Mind confifts of Heat, Windor Vapour, and
Air ,andof a Fourth, [know not whatnamelefs Thing,
wonderfully fubtil, and moft eafy to be moved,
which being featedin the Heart, is the Principle of
Senfe. But how the Heat, the Wind, the Air,
‘and this fourth namelefs Thing are mingled, or
“what Proportion of cach makes up the Compofitioi,
be confeffes ingenuoufly he cannot tell. He afferts,
that the Soul and the Body are fo untied togetber,
that they caunot be feparated without the Deftructio:
a O 3 oF

Ὁ

7

196

Fhe ARGUMENT’...

of both of them, and infifts, that not only the Mind
but the Boay too has Perception, or rather the
whole Animal compofed of Body and Soul.. He re-
futes the Opinion of Demcocritus, who taught, that
ibe refpeclive Parts of the Soul are fitted and joined
to there/pecitve Parts of the Body , and having affir-

ied before, that the Mind isthe moft excellent Part of
ibe whole Compound, be now further afferts, that
the Life and Frefervation of the Animal depends
gore on ibe Mind than on the Soul. He attempts
io prove by fix andtwenty Arguments, thet Minds

end Souls are bern with Bodies, and die with
trem, and, by the way, deriaes the Tranfmigration

of Pythagoras. Death, he fays, is Nothing, be-

caufe te Soul being mortal, has Nething to fear

after Death, and urges, that if it be granted that

the Scul 1s immortal, as Plato held, yet Death ftill

is Nothing, fince the feparated Soul would noi re-

member that fhe bad ever been before. He laughs

at the vain Auxtety of Men concerning their Sepul-

‘ture, aud proves that Death is not an Evil, be-
caufe the Dead want not thefe good Tiings which

ime Living enjoy, but ase exempted from thofe Ca-

famities which aft? and torment us Wretches that

are alive; that even Life itfelf is not a Thing very

acfrable, becaufe tt has Nothing new to give us, but

always the fane furfeiting Repetition of Pleafures,

fill at length we loath them. But left the Fables

which the Poets feign of Hell and of future Pu-

nifements foould terrify us, be explains thofe

Favles, and foews, that we feel thofe Torments while

τε are living, and bave no reafon to dread them

after we are dead. And laftly, to the End of this
Bock, be puts usin mind that it is both foolifp
end abfurd to bemoan ourfelves that we muft die,
fice the utfeft of Men, and the greateft Princes
ond

OL πὰ ““...

¢

The ARGUMENT.

and Emperors have been forced to fulmit to the
inevitable Stroke of Death , and infifts, that Men
ead unquiet and anxious Lives, becaufe they avoid
the Thoughts and Contemplations of Death, and
are foolifbly fond of that Life which they muft one
day lofe, which can fupply them with no new De-
lights, andis expofed to innumerable Dangers and
Afflitiions. And that after all, by the longeft Life
they can attain, they fave not one Moment. froin
the Lengib of Death, whichis as much eternal to
them who die to-day, as to thofe who died many

Ages ago,

O 4 , woo Pere ii

£ QQ

206

SSATP SDS AIG ME Δ 57

Vid
(= —
sic’ CS =e
eS

- τες 59: O28 x
SHAS: NG Te os ὟΝ τ τ RS

7. Lucreti Cart
DE
| RERUMNATURA

LIBER TERTIUS.

lumen
Qui primus potuifti, iluftrans commoda vite :
ri e sequor GGRAIA gentis decus, inque tuis nunc
fina pedum pono preffis veftigia fignis,

: TENEBRIS tantis tam clarum extollere

Non

“201

7. Lucretius Corus,

OBR FHE

NATUREof THINGS.

THE

THIRD BOOK.

clear a Light from fo great Darknefs, οὐ Epicu-
US.

3 {ρα κε who could firft ftrike fo The Praise

and direct us in the proper Advantages
of Life, Thee, the Glory of the Grecian Name,
I follow ; Thy Steps I clofely trace with mine,
not fo much from a Defire to rival Thee, as

“ He addreffes himfelf to Epicurus of Athens, and calls
him the Parent and Inventor of the Epicurean Philofophy ;
he praifes him for the Happinefs of his Wit, and the. Bene-
fits he conferred upon Mankind, by freeing them from the
Belief of a Providence, and from the Fears and ‘Terrors that
attend that Opinion.

from

202

l.4,0GRe Tr Drei

Non ita certandi cupidus, quam propter amerem, 5

Quod te imitari aveo: Quid enim contendat Hi-
rundo

Cycnis ? aut quidnam ΠΝ facere artubus Hedi

Confimile in cur fu poffint, ac fortis Equi vis 2

Tu Pater, &F rerum Inventor: tu patria nobis

Suppeaitas praecepta, tuifque ex, Inclute, chartis, τὸ

Floriferis ut apes in faltibus omnia limant,

Omnia nos itidem depafcimur aurea dicta,

Aurea, perpetua femper digniffima vita.

Nam fimul ac Ratio tua.cepit vociferari,

Naturam rerum baud Divina mente coortam, 165

Diffugiunt Animi terrores; meénia mundi |

Difcedunt, totum video per Inane geri res. -

Apparet Diviim numen, fedefque quiete: _

Quas neque concutiunt venti, ueque nubila nimbis

Adfpergunt, neque nix acri coucreta pruina 20

Cana cadens violat : femperque innubilus ether

integit, & large diffufe lumine ridet.:

Omnia [uppeditat porrd Natura, neque ulla

Res animi pacem delibrat tempore in ullo.

At contra nufquam apparent Acherufia templa : 25

Nec Tellus obftat, quin omnia difpiciantur, '

Sub peaibus quecunque infra per Inane geruntur.

Flis tibt me rebus quedam divina Voluptas

Percipit, atque Horror, quod fic Natura tua vi

Tam manifefia patet ex omni parte retecia. 30
Et quoniam docut, cuntiarum exordia rerum

Qualia fint : © quam variis diftantia formis

Ἢ

Sponte

Book Hil. Of the Nature of Things. 202

from the Love I bear, and the ardent Paffion I
profefs to imitate thee ; for how can the Swallow
contend in Singing with the wag ? or what can
Kids, with feeble Limbs, perform in running
with ie noble Horfe’s Speed? Thou great τ
ther, Founder of Philofophy ! Thou with Pa-
ternal Precepts doft infpire thy Sons, and from
thy Writings, moft illuftrious Chicf, as Bees
juck Honey from the flowery Fields, we teed
upon -thy Golden Sentences, ° Go! den, and fir
eternally to live. For when th y Reafon firit be-
gan to prove, that Nature was not form’d by
Powers Divine, the Terrors of the Mind all fled,
the Walls of this great World he open, and i
fee how Things are ‘managed through the mg h-'

ty You The Deity of the Gods, their ἰδ
Abodes appear, which neither Winds difturb,
ner Clouds o’erflow with Showers, nor the white-
falling Snow, congealed by tharpett Ffoir, “dees
fpoil ; but the unclouded Air farrounds them

always, and {miles on them fully” with diffuted
Lient. Nature in every thing fupplies their Wants;
Nothing at any Time deftroys their Peace. But

the mide Traéts of Hell are no where feen ; nor
does the interpofing Earth. prevent our Sight,
but we difcover what beneath our Feet is doing in

the Space beiow, Inthefe Perfuits acertain Divine
Pleafure fpreads round me, and 1 ftand amazed, =
that by Thy Strength of Mund, all Nature every

way lies naked to cur View.

Since then > I have taught what are the Arlt Tre Sz6-
‘Seeds and Principies of Things, how they differ ject of ths
᾿ οί.

b The Subject, he fays, of this Book will bean accurate
Enguiry into the Nature of the Soul, whofe Mortality he
will 8 vous to ὡς: in order to free Mankind trom:
the Pear of Death, and the Terrors of future Punihhment.

11

204

T. Lucrerit Lie. III,

Sponte fua volitent alterno percita motu,

Quogue mado poffint ex bis res queque creari:

Flafce fecundum ves ANIMI natura videtur, 26.

Atque Anim claranda meis jam verfibus effe :

Et metus tlle foras preceps Acheruntis agendus

Funditus, humanum qui vitam turbat ab imo;

Omnia fuffundens mortis nigrore: neque ullam

Effe voluptatem liquidam puramque relinguit. 40
Nam, quod fepe homines morbos magis effe ti-

mendos,

Iufamemque ferunt vitam, quam Tartara lethi,

Et fe fcire Animi naturam fanguinis effe,

Nec prorfum quicquam noftre Rationis egere:

Hine licet advertas animum, magis omnia Laudis,

Aut etiam Venti, fi fert ita forte voluntas, 46

Faclari caufas quam quod res ipfa provetur :

Extorres tidem patria, longéque fugati

Confpettu ex hominum, fudati crimine turpi,

Onnibus erumnis affetti denique vivunt : 50

ΕἸ quocunque tamen mifert venere, parentant,

Et nigras mactant pecudes, 5 Manibw? divis

3

Inferias

Boox Ill. Of the Nature of Things.

in their Figures, and of themfelves fly about,
beaten by mutual Strokes, and how from them
all Beings are produced, the Nature of the Mind
and of the Soul comes next to be explained in
thefe my Lines, and all the Terrors of infernal
Pains banifhed, and headlong driven quite away,
that from the Bottom fo difturb the Life of Man,
and cover all Things with the Gloom of Death,
and leave no Place for pure and unmixed Plea-

ἴτε to poffefs.

For what Men vainly talk, “ that Difeafes and Fear of
an infamous Life are more to be feared than the 2e#? ¢7#

~

Terrors of Death, and they know that the Soul
confifts wholly in the ¢ Blood, and therefore they
want no Affiftance from our Philofophy, I
would have you obferve, that thofe Boafts are
thrown out more for the fake of Praife and po-
pular Breath (if their Vanity by chance leads that
way) than that they believe any fuch thing ; for

let thefe very Men be banifhed from their Coun-

try, and driven into a Defert far from human
Sight, ftained with the Guilt of the fouleft
Crimes, yet they live on, afflicted as they are,
with all Sorts of Mifery, and wherever the
Wretches come, they fall a-facrificing, and flay
‘black Cattle, and offer Victims to the infernal

© Other Philofophers, he fays, have talk’d big about the
Soul’s Mortality, but when the Trial came, they ftartled at
the Approach of Death, and chofe patiently to live on,
though ever fo miferably ; and, when they came to die,
were Cowards.

¢ Some were of Opinion, that the Soul was a Suffufion of
Blood about the Heart, and confequently, that it 15 the
Blood itfelf. |

¢ The Ancients were ufed to offer black Victims to the
infernal Gods and to the Dead, but white to the Gods

above.
Gods 5

205

Caufe of
all Evils,

206. (& Lucaager Lis. ΠῚ;

Inferias mittunt: Multéque in rebus acerbis
Acriis advertunt animas. ad Relligionem.,

Quo magis in dubits hominem fpettare periclis 55
Convenit, adverfifque in rebus nofcere qui fit.
Nam vere voces tuin demum pecfore ab imo
Pyiciuatur, S eripitur Perfona, manet Res.

_ Denique Avarities, ( Honorum ceca cupido,
Que miferos homines cogunt tranfcendere fineis 60
juris, SF interdum focios feelerum, atque miniftros
Noéteis atque dies nitt preftante labore
Ad fummas emergere opeis: Lec vulnera vita
Non ninimam partem Mortis formidine aluntur.
Turpis enim Pama, & Contemptus, & acris Egeftas
Semota ab dulci Vita fiabilique videntur : 66
Lit quafi jam Lethi portas cunéarier ante:

Unde bomines, dum fe falfo terrore coatti

Refugiffe volunt longée, longéque recéffe :

Sanguine civili rem conflant : divitiafque 70
Conduplicant avidi, cedem cedi accumulantes.
Crudeles gaudent in trifti funere Fratris:

Lit Confanguinetiim menfas odere, timentque.

Confimilt ratione ab eodem fepe timore
Macerat inviaia : ante oculos illum effe potentem, 75
[lum afpectari, claroque incedere bonore 3

Ipf

Boox ΠῚ. Of the Nature of Things. 207

Gods; and in this deplorable State, they, with
more than common Zeal, apply themfelves to
the Offices of Religion.

Anp therefore it 1s proper to view Men rather
under a doubtful Fortune, and obferve how they
behave in Circumftances of Diftrefs ,; for then they
{peak Truth from the bottom of their Hearts,
the Mafk is pulled off, and the real Man fhews
undifguifed,

f Besipes, Covetoufnefs and the blind Defire
of Honours, which compel unhappy Men to ex-
ceed the Bounds of Right, and urge on the
Partners and AMfiftants of their Crimes to ftrive
Day and Night with the utmoft Pains, to arrive
at the Height of Wealth: Thefe Plagues of Life
are chiefly nourifhed by the Fear of Death;
for Infamy, and Contempt, and fharp Want,
feem far removed from a {weet and pure State of
Life, and, as it were, hover about the Gates of
Death ; and therefore whillt Men, poffeffed by
a falfe Fear, labour to avoid, and ftand at the
remoteft Diftance from them, they add to their
Heaps by Civil War, and, infatiable as they are,
double their Riches, heaping one Murder upon
another. “Chey laugh with cruel Delight at the
fad Funeral of a Brother, and hate and fear the
Entertainments of their neareft Relations.

From the fame Caufe and from the fame Fear,
Envy often becomes the TFormentor of Man-.
kind ; they complain that one is raifed to Power
before their Eyes, another to Refpeét, a third
diftinguifhed by fhining Honours, whilft they

* Faber fays, the following Lines contain fo many excel-
lent Things in them, that they cannot be fufficiently confi-
dered and admired.

lie

~

208

Του «Ere. ΗΠ

Ipfi fe in tenebris volui, canoque queruntur.
Tutereunt partim ftatuarum, 3 nominis ergé :
Et fepe ufque adeo, Mortis formidine, vite
Percipit humanos odium, lucifque videnda, 80
Ut fibi conf{cifcant merenti peciore Lethum,
Obliti fontem curarum hunc effe Timorem,
Hunce vexare pudorem, Hune vincula amicitial Ὁ
Rumpere, 5 in fumma pietatem evertere fundo.
Nam jam fape homines patriam, carofque parentets
Prodiderunt, vitare Acherufia templa petentes, 86

Nam veluti Pueri trepidant, atque omnia cecis
In tencbris metuunt : Sic Nos in luce timemus
Interdum, nibilo que funt metuenda magis, quam
Que Pueri in tenebris pavitant, finguntque futura. 90
Hunce igitur terrorem animi, tenebrafque neceffe *ft
Non radii folis, neque lucida tela “ei
Difcutiant, fed Nature fpecies, ἐδ :tiogue.

Primum ANimumM dico (mentem quem fepe vo~

cans)
In quo confilium vita, regimenque locatum “ft, 95
Effe hominis Partem nibilo minus, ac Manus, &
Fes. |

Atque Ocult partes animantis totins extant,
Quamvis multa quidem Sapientum turba putarunt
Senfum anini certa non effe in parte locatum :
Verum Habitum quendam vitalem corporis effe, 100
Harmoniam Graii quam dicunt, quod faciat nos

Wivere

Boox Ill. Of the Nature of Things.

lie buried in Obfcurity, and are trod upon like
Dirt, and fo they pine themfelves to death for
the fake of Statues and a Name; and fome
Men, froma Fear of Death, conceive fo great
a Hatred for Life, and the Prefervation of their
Being, thatin a gloomy Fit they become their
ewh Executioners ; not confidering that this

209

Fear of Death is the Source of all their Cares,

this breaks through all Shame, diffolves the
Bonds of Friendfhip, and in fhort overturns the
Foundations of all Goodnefs; for fome we {ce
betray their Country and their dear Parents,

ftriving by that means to deliver themfelves from

Weath, and the Pains of Hell.

For as Boys tremble, and fear every Thing
in the dark Night, fo we, in open Day, fear
Things as vain and little to be feared, as thofe
that Children qua’ e at in the dark, and fancy ad-
vancing toward® them. This Terror of the
το this Πα ξπείς then, not the Sun’s Beams,

ior the bright Rays of Day can {fcatter, but the
Light of Nature and the Rules of Reafon.
| First then, 5 I fay, the Adind of Man (which
we commonly call the Souw/) in which Is pla-

@ Part of Man no lefs than the Hand, the
Foot, the Eyes,.are Parts of the whole Ani-
mal; though many of the Philofophick Herd
have fancied, that the Senfe of the Mud is not

hxed to any particular Part, but is a fort of viral

Habit of the whole Body, which the Greeks cal

6 Some Philofophers held the Mind (che chief Part of
the Soul, the Soul confifting of three Parts, the Mind, the

The Mind

js a Sub.

sed the Conduct and Government of Life, is βάρ.

Memory, and the Will) to bea vital Habit of Body, as_

Health in a Man ; he infifts it is a Part of Man ditting&t from
the Body no lefs than the Hand, the Foot, &c. he will
have it to be corporeal, and an integral Parr of Mian.

Ὑ ox: 1. Ρ Llarimory ;

—= . T. Luceeris kas. iil.
4 ΟΣ cum fenfu, nulla cium in parte fiet Mens:
Ut bona fepe Valetudo cum dicitur effe
Corporis, &S non eft tamen bec pars ulla Valentis:
Sic Animi fenfum non certa parte reponunt: ΤΟΣ
Magnopere in quo mi diverft errare videntur. ᾿
Sape utique im promptu Corpus, quod cermitur, |
egrit,
Cim tamen ex alia letamur parte latent: :
Et retro fit, uticontra fit fepe vicifim,
Cum mifer ex animo, letatur Corpore toto: 10.
Non alio pacto, quam fi Pes cum dolet egri, 7
In nullo Caput interea fit forte dolore.
Preterea molli fomno cum dedita membra,
Effufumque jacet fine fenfu Corpus onuftum :
Eft aliud tamen in nobis, quod tempore in illo 115
Multimodis agitatur, & omneis accipit in fe ν
Letitie motus, {PS curas cordis inaneis.
Nunc Ammam quoque ut in membris cognofcere.

poffs

Effe, neque Elarimoniam corpus retinere folere: :
Principio fit, uti ἀρίγαξῖο Corpore multo, i2@
Sepe tamen nobis in membris Vita moretur.
Atque eadem rurfus cum Corpora pauca caloris

᾽

Diffugeres

\

Boox ΠῚ. Of the ature of Things. 21%

Harmony; and. thence flows all our Senfe, and
the Mind has no particular Place for its Abode:
As when we fay, Health belongs to the Body, Not Har-
yet it isno Part of the Body that isin Health, τον.
fo no particular Part, they tell us, 1s the Refi-
dence of the Minds butin this they feem to be
egrecioufly in the wrong, for often when fome
Vilible Pare of the Body fuffers Pain, we feel
Pleafure in fome other Part to us unfeen ; and
the contrary often happens in its turn, that a
Man difturb’d in Mind is perfectly well all over
his Body, in the fame manner as when a Man
has the Gout in his Foot, his Head at the fame
time is free from Pain.

Besipes, when our Limbs are given up to
feft Sleep, and the wearied Body lies ftretched
at leneth without Senfe, there 15 fomething with
in that in the very time 1s varioufly affected, and

eceives into itfelf all the Impreflions of Joy, and
empty Cares that torment the Heart.

. But to convince you, that the Soul! is a Part
like other Limbs, and not as a Harmony, takes
up the whole Body", obferve firft that many
Members of the Body may be cutoff, yet often
Life remains in the reft; and again, the fame
Life, when a few certain Particles of vital. Heat

h In Moficai Inftruments, if you take off fome of the
Strings, the Accord perifhes; fo if the Scul were the Harmo-
my Of the Body, when fome of the Members were lopt off,
the Harmony of the whole Bedy would perish likewife, and
{9 the Life and Senfe would be gone; but we know {ome of
tne Limbs may be lofi, and Men may retain their Senfes :
And therefore the Life and senfe do not proceed from the
marin ny of the Miembers. Indeed if fome certain Particles
or ideat and Vapour fly off from the Body, the Anima! wil!
die ; and therefore Liie and Senfe depend upon thofe Particles

of Heat and Vapour.
7 P 2 fly

212

T. Luereti Lis. WL

Diffugere, forafque per os eft editus acr :
Deferit extemplo venas, atque offa relinquit <
Nofcere ut hine poffis, non equas omnia parteis 126
Corpora habere, neque ex aquo fulcire falutem:
Sed magis bec, Venti que funt, calidique Vaporis
Semina, curare in membris ut Vita moretur.
Eft igitur Calor, ac Ventus vitalis in ipfo
Corpore, qui nobis moribundos deferit artus. 120

Quapropter, quoniam "ft Animi natura reperta,
Aique Anime, quafi pars Hominis: redde Harmoniat
Nomen ab organico faltu delatum Heliconis,
Sive aliunde ipfi porro traxere: &S in illam
Tranftulerunt, proprio que tum res nomine egebat,
Quicquidid eft, habeant: Tucatera percipe difta, 1 36
Nunc Animum, atque Animam dico conjunéia teneri
Inter fe, atque unam naturam conficere ex fe:
Sed Caput ejje quaft, <8 dominari in corpore toto
Confilium, quod nos Animum, Mentemque vocamus ἃ
Tdque fitum media regione in pectoris hearet. (141
Hic exfultat enim Pavor, ac Metus hac loca circum
Letitie mulcent: hic ergo Mens Animufque *ft.
Cetera pars Anime per totum diffita corpus
Paret : 5 aduumen Mentis, momenque movetur :

ldque

Boox Hl. Of the Nature of Things.
fly off, and our laft Breath is blown through the
Mouth, immediately leaves Poffeffion of our
Veins and Bones ; and this will give you to un-
derftand, that all the Particles of Matter are not
Of equal Confequence to the Body, nor do they
equally fecure our Lives ; but tne Particles of our
Breath, and the warm Vapour, are of principal
Concern to preferve Life to us in all our Limbs.
This Warmth therefore, this Vapour refides in
the Body, and leave our Limbs as Death makes
Approaches towards us.

But fince the Nature of the Mind and Soul
15 difcover’d to be a Part of the Man, give thefe
Fiddlers their favourite word Harmony again,
taken from the Mufick of the Harp, or whence
foever they borrowed the Name, and applied it
to the Soul, which then forfooth! had no pro-
per Name of its own ; however it be, let them
take itagain, and do you attend what follows.

3

I Say then, that the ! Mind and Soul are uni- The Wind
ted together, and fo joined make up one fingle “1 °™

Nature ; but what we call the Mind isas it were
the Head, and conducts and governs the whole
Body, and keeps its fixed Refidence in the mid-
dle Region of the Heart. Here our Paffions
live, our Dread and Fear beat here, here our Joys
make every thing ferene, here therefore muft be
the Seat of the Mind, The other Part, the Soul,
{pread through the whole Body, obeys this Mind,
and is moved by the Nod and Impulie of it,

i He ufes the words Mind and Soul indifferently ; the Mind,
which is the nobleft Part in which the Reafon refides, ie places
in the Heart, where ail the Paffisns have their Scat likewile :
The Soul, which is the inferior Part of this Nature, and in
which the locomotive Faculty is placed, is diffufed through
the whole Body, and moves as the Mind directs ; met, G10 IC
obeys the Mind, it partakes not of all its Paffions, ber of thofe
alone that are violent. ᾿ |

r 3 This

are Ce,

214.

ΤΡ Lucretir Lrs. Il,
Tdque fibi folum per fe faptt, 5 fibi gaudet: 146

Cit neque ves Animam, neque Corpus commmovet ulla,
Et quafi ciim Caput aut Oculus, tentante dolore,
Leditur in nobis, non omni concructamur .
Corpore : fic Animus nonaunquam leditur ipfe, % 59
Letitiaque viget, citm cetera pars Animai

Per mucmbra, atque artus nulla novitate ctetur.
Verum ubt vebementi magis eft commota metu Mens,
Confentire Animam totatn per memora videmts :
Suderes itaque & pallorem exiftere toto 155
Cor pore, €F infrix ngi linguam, vocemque aborirt,
Caligare oculos, fonere aureis, fuccidere artus.

Denique concidere ex Animi terrore videmus
Spe homines, facile ut quivis bine nafcere poftt, |
Effe Asimam cum Animo conjuntiam , que cum As

nimi οἱ 160
Percuffa’/t, exin corpus propellit, & ictt.

Hac eadem ratio naturam Animi, atque Animaz
Corpoream docet effe, ubi enim propellere membra,
Couripere ex fomno corpus, mutareque voltum,
Atque hominem totum regere ac verfare videtur: 16 5
(Quorum nil fieri fine tad poffe videmus :

Nec tasium porro fine Corpore) nonne fatendum *ft
Corporea natura Animam confiare, Animamque ὃ

Preterea pariter fungi cum Corpore: & una
Confentire Animum nobis in corpore cernis. τὴ
Si minus offendit vitam vis borrida tels 4 ᾿
Offibus ac nervis difclufis intus φάαέζ :

Ati meh iinfequitur languor, terreque petitus
Suavis, & in terra Mentis qui gignitur eftus,
Lint ΣῊΝ φηψ exfurgendi incerta voluntas. 175

_~ Erge

o™

--

Book Ill. Of the Nature of Things.

This Mind can think of itfelf alone, and of it
felf rejoice, when the Soul and Body are no ways
affected : as when the Head or the Eye is hurt
by fenfible Pain, we are not tormented over all
the Body, fo the Mind 15 fometimes grieved or
cheered with Joy, when the other Part, the Soul,
diffufed through the Limbs, is agitated with no
new Motion at all. Sut when the Mind 15 fha-
ken with violent Fear, we fee the Soul through
all the Limbs partakes of the fame Diforder,
Cold Sweats and Palenefs fpread all the Body
over, the Tongue faulters, the Speech fails; the
Eyes o STOW dim, the Ears tingle, and the Limbs
quake ; in fhort, we often fee Men fall down
froma Terror of the Mind: From whence: we
may eafily conclude, that the Soul is united with
the Mind, and when fhe is preffed forcibly with
its Impulfe, ὁ then fhe drives on the Body, and
puts ic in Motion.

By this Rule biterfome weTind: thatthe Nature
of the Mind and Soul is corporeal ; for we fee it
fhakes the Limbs, roufes the Body from Sleep;
changes the Countenance, and direéts and go-
verns athe whole Man. (Nothing of which can
be done without Touch, and there can be no
Touch without Body.) Should we not then allow
that the Mind and Soul are corporeal in their
Nature ὃ

Bestpes, you fee the Mind fuffers with the
Body, and bears a fhare. with it in all it en-
dures; 1f the violent Force of a Dait pierces the
Body, and fhatters the Bones and Nerves, tho’
Death does not inftantly follow, yet a Faintnefs
fucceeds, and a fort of pleafing Defire of finking
to the ground, a paffionate Refolution to die, and

theh again the Will fluctuates and withes to live
the Mind therefore muft needs be of a corpor eal
Er 4 Nature,

215

16

-

T.Lueretir ‘bre. Till

Ergo corporcain naturam Animi effe neceffe ᾽} :
Corporeis quoniam telis, iétuque laborat.

Ts tibi nunc Aninius quali fit corpore, 85 unde. .
Conftiterit, pergam rationem reddere aictis.
Principio effe aio per fubtilem atque minutis 180
Perquam Corporibus fattum conjiare : id ita effe,
Flinc licet advertas animum, ut pernofcere poffis,
Nil adeo fieri celeri ratione videtur,

Quam fi Mens jieri proponit, &S inchoat ipfa.

‘Ocins ergo Animus, quam ves fe perciet ulla, 185

Ante oculos quarum in promptu natura videtur.

At quod mobile tantopere Ὁ conftare rotundis
Perquam feminibus debet, perquamque minutts :
Momine uti parvo poffint impulfa mover.

Namque movetur Aqua, © tantillo momine flutat:
Quippe volubilibus, parvifque creata figuris. 19%
At contra Mellis conftantior eft natura,

fit pigri latices magis, (5 cunclantior actus,’
Flaeret eutin inter fe magis omnis matertat

Copia: Ninirum quia non tam levibus extat 195
Corporibus, neque tam fubtilibus atque rotundis :

Namque Papaveruim, aura pote fufpenfa, levifque

Cogeie, ut ab fuinmo tipi diffluat altus acervus :

At contra Lapidum conjecium, Spiclorumque

Nenu poteft: igitur parviffima corpora quanto 200
Et Leviffima funt, ita mobilitata feruntur.

At contra quo queque magis cum pondere magne,

A peraque inveniuntur, eo fiabilita magis fun.
Nune igitur, quoniam " Animi natura reperta
Mobilis egregie: Perquam conftare neceffe?ft 205
Corporibus parvis 8 levibus atque votundis, ΄

Que

Boox Ill. Of the Nature of Things. 217
Nature, becaufe it fuffers Pain by the Stroke of
Darts, which we know are Bodies.

J SHALL now go on to explain clearly of what The Mind |
fortof Body this Mind confifts, and of what Prin- "2/4 of
ciples itis formed. * And firft I fay, that the Nas
Mind is compofed of very fubtil and minute -
Seeds; that it is fo, attend clofely, and you
will find that nothing is accomplifhed with fo
much Speed as what the Mind attempts, and
propofes to exccute ; the Mind therefore is fwift-
ex in its Motion, than any thing in Nature we
can fee or conceive. Bur that which is fo ex-
ceedingly quick to move, muft confift of the
roundeit and moft minute Seeds, that may be
fet a-zoing by the lighteft Impulfe. So Water
is moved and difpofed to fow by ever fo little
Force, becaufe it is compoled of {mall and flip-
pery Seeds ; but the Nature of Honey is more
tenacious, its Moifture 1s more una@tive, and its
Motion flower; its Principles ftick clofer among
themfelves; and for this Reafon, becaufe it con-
fiftsof Seeds not fo fmooth, fofubtil, and fo round.

And thus, a large Heap of Poppy-Seeds is
blown away by the gentleft Breath of Wind,
and fcatter’d abroad ; but no Blaft can fhake a
Heap of Stones or Darts: Therefore the fmoother
and {maller the Principles cf Bodies are, the more -
eafily they are difpofed to Motion, and the hea-
vier and rougher the Seeds are, the more fixed
and ftable they remain.

Since therefore the Nature of the Mind is fe
exceedingly apt to move, it muft needs confit
of {mall, fmooth, and round Seeds; and your

* The Atoms that compofe the Mind are very {mall, fmootk
and round; for the Mind is mott eafy to be moved, and there-
fore muit be compofed of Particles which by their ‘Texture are
moft fubjeét to Motion.

knowing

218 FT. Ducrerii Lis. Wy,

Que tibi cognita res in multis, O Bone, rebus
Utilis invenietur, € oportuna cluebit.

flec quoque res etiam naturam deliquat ejus,
Quam tenui conftet textura, quamque loco fe 210
Contineat parvo, fi poffit couglomerari :
Quod fimul atque Lominem lethi fecura quies eft
Indepta, atque Animi natura, Animeque receffit :
Nilibi limatum de toto Corpore ceruas
Ad foeciem, nil ad pondus: Mors omnia praeftat, 2 15
Vitalem preter fenfum, calidumque vaporem, |
Ergo Animam totam perparvis effe neceffe °ft
Seminibus, nexam per venas, vifcera, nervos :
Quatinus omnis δὶ δ toto sain Corpore ceffit,
Lixtima membrorum circum-cafura tamen fe 220
Incolumem prefrat: Nec defit ponderis hilum:
Quod genus eft Bacchi cium flos evanuit, aut cium
Spiritus Unguents fuavis diffugit in auras?
Aut aliquo cum jam Succus de corpore ceffit :
Nil oculis tamen effe minor res ipfa videtur 226
Propierea, neque detratium de pondere quicquam :
Nimirum, quia multa, minutaque femina Succos
Lficiunt, €P Odorem in toto corpore rerum.
Quare etiam atque etiam Mentis naturam, Animeque
Scire licet perquam pauxillis effe creatam 230
Seminibus : Quoniam fugiens nil ponderis aufert. —

Nec tamen bec fimplex nobis natura putanda “ft.
Tenuis enim quedam moribundos deferit Aura

@

Boox il. Of the Nature of Things.

knowing this, my fweet Youth, will be found
of great ufe, and very feafonable for your future
Enguiries. This wil! difcover clearly to you tts
Nature, of what tenuious Parts it is formed, 1a
how fmall a Space it might be contained, if ic
could be fqueezed together; for when the calm
Reft of Death has pofleffion of a Man, and the
Mind and Soul are retired, you will find nothing
taken away from the Body as to its Buik, nothing
as ta its Weight. Death leaves every thing com-
plete, except the vital Senfe andthe warm Beath,

the whole Soul therefore muft needs be formed

of very {mall Seeds, as it lies diffufed through the
Veins, the Bowels, and the Nerves; becaute
when it has wholly leftevery Part of the Body,
the outward Shape of the Limbs remains entire,
and they want nota Hair of their Weight. And
this is the Nature of Wine, when the Flavour
of it 1s gone, and of Ointments, when their
fweet Odours are evaporated into. Air. . And
thus it is, when any Moifture perfpires through
the Pores cf the Body, the Bulk doesnot appear
lefs to the Eye, upon that account, ΠΟΥ 15 there
any thing taken off from the Weight; for many
and {mall are the Seeds that compofe the Moi-
fture and the Smell in the Contexture of
ail Bodies: And therefore we may be well ai-
fured, that the Nature of the Mind and Scul is
formed of exceeding little Principles, bscaufe
when it leaves the Body, it detracts nothing from
the Weight. |

YET we are not to fuppofe this Nature of the
Mind to be fimple and unmixed; for! athin

* He had obferved, that a Vapour exhales from dyirg ὦ
mals, and that warm too, together with Air intermixed, with-
out which there is generally no Heat ; but a dying Perfon

expires or breathes out his Soul, therefore that Soul confitts
of Vapour, Air, and Heat.
Breath

a
ἘΠ1-:

21G

Mon

Ty Bucrerei Lis. 11].

Mifta Vapore, Vapor porro trabit Aéra fecum ;
Nec Calor eft quifquam, cui non fit miftus {9 Aér.
Rara qucd ejus enim conftat natura neceffe*ft 236
Aeris inter cam primordia multa ciert.

Jam triplex Animi ft igitur natura reperta,
Nec tamen hec fat funt ad Senfum cuntia creandum !
Nil horum quoniam recipit mens poffe crearé 240
Senfiferos motus, quadam qui mente volutent.
Quaria quoque his igitur quedam natura neceffe?ft
Attribuatur : (ea°ft omnind nominis expers : )
Qua neque mobilius quicquam, neque tenuius extat,
Nec magis éparvis, aut levibus ex elementis : 245
Senfiferos motus qui didit prima per artus,
Prima cietur enim parvis perfelta firuris,
πάρ Calor motus, 5 Venti ceca poteftas
eiccipit : inde Aér: inde omnia mobilitantur :
Tum guatitur fanguis, tum vifcera perfentifcunt 250
Omnia ; poftremo datur offibus, atque medullis
Sive voluptas eft, five */t contrarius ardor.

Nec temeré buc dolor ufque ‘poteft penetrare, ne-

que acre

Permanare malum, quin omnia perturbentur :
Ufque adeo ut vite defit locus, atque Animai 255
Diffugiant partes per caulas Corporis omneis.
Sed plerumque fit in fummo quaft corpore finis

| Motibus, banc ob rem vitam retinere valemus.

Nunc, ea quo pacio inter fefe mifta, quibufque
Compta modis vigeant, raiionem reddere aventen

Abftrabit

7

Boox III. Of the Nature of Things. 221

Breath mingled with a warm Vapour, forfakes
the Bodies of dying Men and this Vapour draws
the Air along with it, for there can be no Heat
without Air intermix’d, and Heat being in its
Nature rare, muft needs have fome Seeds of Air
united with it. We find then the Mind confifts
of three Principles, of Vapour, Air and Heat ;
yet all thefe are not fufficient to produce Senfe :
For we cannot conceive that either of thefe, or all
of them united, can be the Caufe of fenfible Mo-
tions that may produce Reafon and Thought.
Anp therefore a fourth Nature muft needs be Tée Mind
added to thefe (and This indeed has no Name at only A
all) but nothing can be more apt to move, i δ
thine more fubtil than it is, nor confift more of
{mall fmooth Seeds; and this is what firft raifes
a fenfible Motion through the Body: This, as it
is formed of the minuteft Particles, is firft put
into Motion, then the Heat, and the unfeen Va-
pour receive a Motion from it, and then the Aur,
and fo all the Limbs are fet a-going ; then is the
Blood agitated, and all the Bowels become fen-
fible, and laft ofall, Pleafure or Pain is commu-
nicated to the Bones and Marrow. But no Pain
or any violent Evil can pierce fo far without dif-
ordering and fetting the whole into confufion, fo
that there is no more Place for Life, and the Parts
of the Soul fly away through the Pores of the
Body. But this Motion often ftops upon the
Surface of the Body, and then the Soul remains
whole, and the Life 15 preferved.
™ Now, how thefe four Principles are mixed,
and in what manner they fubfift, Iam very defi-
rous
™ The Epicurean Soul confifts of thefe four Things, Heat,
Vapour or Wind, Air, and the fourth, fomething without a
ri | Name.
£

“Tt. Lucrerit Lis. IIE
Arobit invitum patrit fermonis egeftas. 261
Sediamen, ut potero fumimatim attingere, tangam.
Inter enim curfant Primordia principiorum
Motibis tuer fe, abit ui feceruter ἼΣΗΣ
Polit, nec [patio feri divifa poteftas : 208
Geol φῶ multe vis unius corpsris extant.

Quod genus in quovis Animantum vifcere volo

“ft Oder, 85 auidam Calor, &8 Sepor: Et tamén
ex B15

Oinnibus ef anu pecfecium Corporis augmen.

τ Cale aique Ar, 9 Venti caca poteftas 276

Mille creant unam naturam, (5 mobilis tla

Lis, initium motus ab fe que dividst ohiss

Senfifer unde oritur primim per vifcera motus.

ivan peniius prov fui latet [ec natura, fubefique :

Nec magis Hacinfra quicquam eft in corpare noftro

Atque Anima fi Aiuime proporro totius ipfa: 276

Quod genus in nofivis membris, 9 corpore toto

Mifta latens Animi vis eft, animaque poteftas ;

Corpcribus quia de parvis, paucifque ereata°fi:

Sic 1201 nominis Hac expers Vis, facia minutis 230

Corperibus latet 2 Atque Animeai totius ipfa

Proporro*ft Anima, SS dontinatur corpore toto,

Confimili ratione neceffe *ft Ventus, 5. ALY,

4

γ

Boox Ill. Of the Nature of Things.

rous to explain, but the Poornefs of the Latin
Tongue prevents me; againft my Will; yet, as
far as that permits, I will endeavour briefly’ to
touch upon this Subject. The Seeds then of
thefe Principles move fo confufedly among
themfelves, that no one of them can be fepara-
ted from another, nor is there any Place feverally
allotted to each, where any one can act by itfelf :
but they are, as it were, many Powers of the
fame Body. As ina Piece of any Anima] there
is Smell, and Heat, and Tafte, and out of all thefe
one perfect Body is compofed ; fo Heat, and Aur;
and the invifible Vapour, and that fourth active
Quality, (which is the Principle of Motion to the
other three, and from whence all fenfible Motion
rifes through the Limbs) compofe by their Mixture
one moft fubtil Subftance, or one Nature. This
fourth Something 15 deeply fixed in the inmoflt
Receffes of the Body, nor is there any thing in
the whole Body more fecretly and inwardly pla-
ced; it is, as it were, the very Soul of the Soul
itfelf: For as in the Limbs, and through all the
Body, the united Force and Power of the Mind
and Soulare hid and unfeen, becaufe they are formed
of fmall and few Seeds, fo this Something with-
out a Name being compofed of minute Principles,
lies’ deep and concealed ; it is the very Soul of
the whole Soul itfelf, and governs the whoie

Body. By the fame Rule it is neceffary that the

=

Name. They are all blended together, fo as to compofe one
moft fubtil Subftance, which being diffufed through the whole
Body of the Animal, is contained by and within the Body,
and is the Caufe of its Prefervation ; yet they are not all
feated in the fame Place. That Part of the Body which 19
properly called the Mind is placed deepeft in the inmoft Re-

tefles of the Body, and is, as it were, the Foundation of the
whole Soul.

Vapour,

223

μῶ

T. Lucretir Lis. ΠΕ

Et Calor inter fe vigeant commifta per artus :
Atque aliis aliud fubfit magis, emineatque : 285
Ut quiddam fieri videatur de omnibus unum:

Ne Calor, ac Ventus feorfum, feorfumque poteftas
Avis interimant fenfum, diduttaque folvant.

Eft etiam Calor ille animo, quem fumit in ira,
Cum fervifcit, & ex oculis micat acribus ardor.290
Eft & frigidamulta comes formidinis Aura:

Que ciet horrorem in membris, SP concitat arius,
Lift etiain quoque pacatt fiatus Aeris tlle,

Peétore tranquillo qui fit, voltuque fereno.

Sed Calidi plus eft illis, quibus acria corda, 295

fracundaque mens facile effervifcit in ira :

Quo genere in primis vis eft violenta Leonum :
Peétora qui fremitu rumpunt plerumque gementes,
Nec capere irarum fluctus in pectore poffunt.
At Ventofa magis Cervorum frigida mens eff, 300
Et gelidas citiits per vifcera concitat auras:
Que tremulum factunt membris exifiere motum,
At natura Boum placido magis Aere vivit,
Nec nimis irai fax unquam fubdita percit
Fumida fuffundens cece caliginis umbras ; 305
Nec gelidi torpet telis perfixa pavoris :
Inter utrofque fita ft, Cervos, fevo/que Leones,

Sic Hominum genus eff. quamvis Dotirina po-

litos

Conftituaé

/

Boox ΠῚ. Of the Nature of Things.

Vapour, the Air, and the Heat be fo properly
mingled through the Limbs, and be difpofed εἰ-
ther higher or lower than one another, that one
certain Nature may be formed from all; left the
Powér of the Heat, the Vapour, and the Air
being divided and feparately placed, might de-
{troy the Senfe, and prevent its Operaticn.
Heat prevails in the Mind when the Crea-
ture is enraged, grows hot, and Fire fparkles
from its glowing Eyes. Much Vapour is cold,
and the Companion of Fear, it excites Horror in
the Body, and fhakesthe Limbs ; but Air is of a
calm;and mild Quality, 11 refides in a quiet Breaft,
andafereneCountenance. Burthofe have moft Heat
whofe Heartsare fierce, and whofe angry Mind 15
foon inflamed into Pafion. Of this fort, in the
firft place, 15 the diftracted Fury of Lions, who
roaring, often burft their very Breafts, and are
unable to contain the Torrent of Rage that fwells
within, The cold Temper of the Deer has
more of Vapour, and fooner incites a Chillaefs
in the Limbs, which caufes a trembling Motion
through the whole Body. But the Nature of the
Oxconfifts more of foft Air, nor does the fmoaky
Firebrand of Anger (that fpreads a Shade of
black Darknefs over the Mind) too much in-

flame him, nor is he ftupified by the Darts of chil-~

ling Fear, but his Nature is placed between both,
between the fierce Lion and thé Deer.

_ ® Tue Mind of Man is formed cf the fame
Principles, tho’ the Difcipline of Philofophy may

" ‘The infinite Variety of Tempers proceeds from the Va-
riety of Mixture that may be made of thefe three Things, by
reafon of the different Degrees of each Ingredient ; yet 8 vi-
cious Nature may be greatly correéted by Philofophy, tho’
not wholly fubdued.

Vou, I, (Oke polith

’

226

226

αν Eas Lis. {ΠῈ

Conftituat pariter quofdam, tamen illa relinquit
Nature cujufque Anime veftigia prima. 310
Nec radicitis evelli mala poffe putandum °ft,

Quin proclivins Hic ivas decurrat ad acreis ;

Ile metu citins paullo tentetur: at 1{{6

Tertius accipiat quedam clementius equo,

Inque aliis rebus multis differre neceffe’ ft 315
Naturas hominum varias, morefque fequaceis:
Quorum ego nunc nequeo cecas exponere caufas,
Nec reperire figurarum tot nomina, quot funt
Principiis, unde hee oritur variantia rerum,

Illud in bis rebus videor firmare poteffe, 320
{με adeo Naturarum veftigia lingui

Parvola, que nequeai Ratio depellere diétis :

Ut nibil impediat dignam Diis degere vitam.

Hee igitur Natura tenetur Corpore ab omni,
Ipfaque corporis eft cuftos, ὅθ᾽ caufa falutis; 325
Nam communibus inter fe radicibus harent :

Nec fine pernicie divelli poffe videntur.

Quod genus ὃ Turis glebis evellere Odorem

Faud facile *ft, quin intereat natura quoque ejus.
ὁ. Anim, atque Anime naturam corpore tote 330
Extrabere baud facile *ft, quin omnia diffolvantur :
Implexis ita principiis ab origine prima

Luter

Book Ill. Of che Wature of Things. 229
polifh and correct fome, yet it leaves behind the a
Marks of the original Nature of the Mind, nor
are we to think, that the Seeds of Vice can be
wholly rooted out. One Man, we fee, runs
more rafhly into Paffion, another is more difpo-
fed to Fear, and a third 15 apt to be more mer-
ciful than juft; it is impoffible but the various
Tempers of Mankind, and the Actions that fol-
low them, muft differ in many other Inftances,
the Reafons of which are at prefent out of my
power to explain : norcanI find Words to ex-
prefs that Variety of Figures by which the Seeds
are diftinguifhed, and from whence this Variety
of Difpofition 1s produced. This however may
juftly be afferted on this occafion, that the Traces
of original Nature, which cannot be corrected by
the Rules of Reafon, are fo very fmall, that no-
thing hinders us from leading a Life worthy of
the Gods. ,

ο Tuis Nature therefore of the Soul is con-
tained by the whole Body ; it is the Keeper of.
the Body, and the Caufe of its Safety: for they
are both united clofely together by mutual Bonds,
nor can tney be torn afunder but by the De-
ftruction of both. As it 15 impoffible to fepa-
rate the Odour from a Lump of Frankincenfe;
but the Nature of both muft perifh, fo it is
equally difficult to pare the Mind and Soul from
the whole Body, but they muft all be diffolved.
Of fuch interwoven Principles are they formed

° The L£picureans believed an Animal to be as it were a
Web in the Loom, that the Body is as the Chain, and the
Soul the Woof, fo that the Intermixture of each with the o-
ther compofes the whole Work ; but if either of them be
_ diffolv’d, the other, and therefore both together, mui be dif-
folved likewife.

Q2 from

223

Τὶ Lucreri © Lisi I.

Inter fe fiunt conforti predita vita:
Nec fine vi quicquam alterius fibi poffe videtur
Corporis, atque Animi feorfum fentire potefias: 335
Sed communibus inter eos conflatur utrinque
Motibus accenfus nobis per vifcera Senfus.

Preterea, Corpus per fe nec gignitur unquam,
Nec crefcit, nec poft mortem durare videtur,
Non enim ut Humor aque dimittit fepe vaporent,
Qui datus eft, nequeab bac caufa convellitur ipfe, 34%
Sed manet incolumis: non, inquam, fic Animat
Difcidium poffunt artus perferre reliéii :
Sed penitus pereunt convolfi, conque putrefcunt.
Ἐκ ineunte evo fic Corporis atque Animadi 345
Mutua vitaleis difcunt contagia motus,
Maternis etiam in membris, alvoque repifia 3
Difcidium ut nequeat fieri fine pefte, maloque :

Ut videas, quoniam conjuntta °ft caufa falutis,
Conjunclaim quogue naturam confiftere eorum. 350
Quod fupereft, fi quis Corpus fentire renutat :

Aique Animam credit permiftam Corpore toto
Sufcipere hune motum, quem Senfum nominitamus :
Vel manifefias res contra, verafque repugnat.

Quid fit enim Corpus fentire quis afferet unquam, 355 ~
27 non ipfa palam quod res dedit ac docuit nos ?

ft

f

Boox Ill. Of the Nature of Things.
from their very Beginning, that they enjoy 2
common Life,*nor have either of them, either
the Mind or the Body ina feparate State, the
Power of Senfe without the Affiftance of each
other, but Senfe is incited in us by the Nerves,
from the common Motions of both, and by their
joint Operations,

Besipes, the Body is never born alone, nor
does it grow or continue after the Soul is fied ;
for tho? Water throws off a Vapour when it is
made hot, yet it isnot by that means deftroyed,
but remains entire: The Limbs, I fay, cannot
with the fame Safety bear the Separation of the
Soul when it retires from them,- but thus divi-
ded, they muft all perifh and rot together.
For the mutual Conjunction of the Soul and Bo-
dy ‘from the very Beginning, even as they lie
in the Womb of the Mother, does fo jointly
promote the vital Motions, that no Separation
can ‘be made without Death and Diffolution ;
from hence you learn, that fince their Preférva-
tion fo much depends upon each other, their Na-
tures alfo are infeparably joined and united toge-
ther. a>

-BuT further, if any one denies that the Body
has Senfe, and believes that the Soul diffufed
through the whole Body is only capable of that
Motion we call Senfe, he oppofes the plaineft
Evidence, and,the Truth of all Experience ;
for who would ever pretend to fay, that the Bo-
ay has Senfe, if the Thing itfelf did not fully
“prove, and convince us of it? Ὁ But it is plain,

P The Reafon why the Body dces not retain the Faculty of
senfe after the Soul is gone, is becaufe that Power and Faculty

belong not to the Body alone, but to the Body ccnjoin’d and

united to the Soul.
Q 3 you'll

39

T. Lucrerit Lis. II,

At dimiffa Anima corpus caret undique Jenfu,
Perdit enim quod non proprium fuit ejus in evo:
Multaque praterea perdit, cum expellitur evo:

Dicere porro Oculos nullam rem cernere poffe : 360
Sed per eos Animum ut foribus /pectare reclufis,
Defipere *ft, contra cium fenfus dicat eorum :
Senfus enim trabit, atque acies detrudit ad ipfas.
Fulsida prefertim cim cernere fepe nequimus,
Lumina luminibus quia nobis prepediuntur: 365
Quod foribus non fit: neque enim, qud cernimus ipfi,
Ojiia fufcipiunt ullum reclufa laborem,

Praterea, fi pro Foribus funt lumina noftra,

jam magis exemptis Oculis debere videtur
Cernere res Animus fublatis poftibus ipfis. 370

Lilud tn bis rebus nequaquam fumere poffis,
Democriti quod fankia viri fententia ponit,
Corporis atqué Animi primordia Singula primis
Adpufita alternis variare, ac neflere membra.
Nam cum multo funt Animat elementa minora, 375
Quam quibus αὶ Corpus nobis &S Vifcera conftant,
Tum numero quoque concedunt, F rara per artug

Difiva

Boox Ul. Of the Nature of Things.

you'll fay, that the Body is void of all Senfe when
the Soul is-gone: ‘True, for this Faculty is not
peculiar to the Body alone, but to the Soul and
Body united ; and we know the Senfe becomes
weaker, and decays as the Body and Soul grow
old together.

To fay likewife, that the Eyes can fee no-
thing of themfelves, but the Mind looksthrough
them as through Doors laid open, this is ridi-
culous, when Senfe itfelf tells them the contrary,
and fets it fullin their View; efpecially when we
are unable to look upon Objects that dazzle the
Eyes, becaufe our Sight 1s confounded by too
great a Luftre. This could not be, if they were
mere Doors, nor are open Doors that we look
through capable of Pain. -Befides, if our Eves
were no more than Doors, the Mind would fee
clearer when the Eyes were pulled out, and the
whole Frame taken away. |
_ In this Cafe it isin vain to take fhelter under
the facred Opinion of 4 Democritus, who fays,
that as many Parts as there are of the Body, fo
many Parts too of the Soul are anfwerable, and
are contained in them ; for fince the Principles of
the Soul are not only much fmaller than thofe of
which the Body and its Parts confift, but are
fewer in Number, and are fpread thinly in di-

@ Tt was the Opinion of the Philofopher Democritus, that
the Soul has as many Parts 2s the Body, but were this true, we
fhould feel every thing that touch’d any Part cf the Body ; for
when any Particle of the Body, and the Part of the Soul that
is joined to it come to be moved, why fhould not Senfe arife
feom that Motion? But there are many Things, he obferves,
which we do not perceive when they touch us; therefore tliey
pyliake who Join a Part of the Soul to every Part of the Bo-

y.
Q 4 {tant

“2 3 I

f

T. LucretTir Lre. IJ.

Difita funt, duntaxat ut, hoc promittere }ῳΐ,
Quaniula prima queant nobis injelia ciere
Corpora fenfiferos motus in Corpore, tanta 480
Lutervalla tenere exordia prima Animat,
Nam neque Pulveris interdum fentimus adhafum
Carpore, nec membris incuffjam infidere Cretam,
Nec Nebulam notiu, nec Aranei tenuia fila
Obvia fentimus, quando obretimur euntes: 385
Nec fupra caput ejufdem cecidiffe vietam
Veftem, nec Plumas avium, Pappofque volanteis,
Qui nimia levitate cadunt plerumque gravatin:
Nec repentis itum cujufvifcunque Animantis
Senlimus, nec priva pedum veftigia queque, 200
Corpore quae in noftre Culices, &§ cetera ponunt.
U/que adeo prius eft in nobis multa ciendum
oemina, corporibus noftris immifta per artis,
Quam primordia fentifcant concufja Animai,
EY quai tntervallis tantis tuditantia ρα nt 3205
Concurfare, coire, 8 diffultare viciffim.

Et magis eft Animus vitai clauftra coércens,
Ei dominantior ad vitam, quam vis Anima.
Naim fine Mente, Animoque nequit refidere per artus
Temporis exiguam partem pars ulla Auimat: 400
Sed comes infequitur facile, & difcedit in auras 3
Et gelidos artus in lethi frigore linquit,

{

Booxlil. Of the Mature of Things.

{tant Spaces over all the Limbs, you may affirm
fo far, that the Principles of the Soul take up
only fo many different Spaces and Intervals, as
may be fufficient for thofe little Seeds that are in
us to incite thofe Motions that produce Senfa-
tion, That this Senfe does not affect every mi-
nute Part of the Bedy is plain; for we feldom

feel the Duft that fticks upon us, nor the Par-

ticles of Chall that drop upon our Limbs; nor
do we perceive the Dew by Night, or the Sne
Threads of the Spider meeting us, when we are
intangled by the fubtle Net as we pafs along;
nor the decaying Web lighting upon our Heads,
nor are we fenfible of the foft Feathers of Birds,
nor of the Aying Down of Thiftles, which from
their natural Levity are {carce able to defcend up-
on.us; nor do we fee! the Motion of every creep-
ing Infect, nor the little Traces of the Feet which
Gnats and fuch Animals make upon us. So that
the many Seeds which are diffufed over all the
Limbs, muft be firft put into motion before the
Principles of the Soul are agitated and made ca-
pable to feel, and before its Seeds, by ftriking
upon each other through fo many diftant Spaces,
can meet, unite, and part again, and be fo vari-
oufly moved as to produce Senfe and Perception
In us,

Burt the Mind it is that keeps up the Defences
of Life, and has a more fovereign Power to pre-
ferve our Beings, than all the Faculties of the
Soul; for, without the Mind, the leaft Part of
the Soul cannot fecure its Refidence in the Body
fora Moment, but follows it readily as a clole
Companion, and vanifhes into Air along with it,
and leaves the cold Limbs in the frozen Arms of
Death. But the Man, whofe Mind is whole

and

233

T. Lucretizr Luis. ΠῚ.

At manet in vita, cui Mens Animufque remanfit,
Quamvis eff circum-cefis lacer undique membris :
Trunucus, ademta Anima circum, membrifque re=
motis , AQ5
Vivit, & etberias vitaleis fuccipit auras:
St non omnimodis, at magna parte Animat
Privatus, tamen in vita cunéiatur, & beret.
Ut lacerato Oculo circum fi Pupula manfit
ncolumts, fiat cernendt vivata poteftas 3 410
Dummodo ne totum corrumpas lumins orbem,
Sed circumceidas aciem, folumque relinquas :
Id quoque enim fine pernicie conjiet eorum,
At fitantula pars Ocul medta illa perefa *ft,
Incolumis quamvis alioqui fplendidus orbis, 415
Occidit extemplo lumen, tenebreque fequuntur :
Foc Asma atque Animus vintti funt fadere femper.
Nune age, nativos animantibus, 89 mortaleis,
Lffe Animos, Animafque leveis ut ΜΝ" pols s
Conquifita din, dulcique reperta lacore ‘420
Disna tua pergam difponere carmina vita.
Tu fac utrumque uno ib nomen ΘΟΥ 77
Jique Animam, verbi canja, cum dicere pergain,
Mortaleim effe docens ; Animum quoque dicere credas:
Quatinus eft unum inter fe, conjunciaque res eft.
Principio, quoniam tenuem confiare minutis 426
Gorporibus docui, multoque minorious effe
Principiis faGiam, quam liquidus humor Aquaz°ft.
Aut Nebula, aut Fumus: Nam longée mobilitaie
Praftat, &8 a tenui caufa magis δα movetur;, 430
Quippe ubi Imaginibus Fumi, Nebuleque movetur :
Quod genus in foumunis fopiti ubi cernimus alta

Exbalare

Boox III. Of the Nature of Things. 2

and entire, remains alive, tho’ he be mangled
andall his Limbs lopt off; yet his Trunk, tho’ his
Soul be fo far gone, and his Members feparated

from him, ftill lives and breathes the vital Air;

the Trunk, if not fpoil’d of the whole, yet of a
creat Part of the Soul,’ {till continues alive, and
holds faft its Being, So, if you tear the Eye ail
round, if the Pupil remains fafe, the Power cf Sight
continues.entire, fo long as you do no. injury to
the Apple, but cut the White all round, and
leave that whole, this may be done without any
Danger or Lofs to the Sight; but if ever fo little
of the middle of the Eye be prick’d through,
tho’ the Ball otherwife looks bright and found,
the Light inftantly dies away, and Darknefs fol-
lows. This 15 the Cafe of the Mind and Soul,
and byfuch Bonds are they always held toge-
ther.

Awp now, for your fake, my Memmius, and
to let you know that the Mind and Soulare born
in us and die with us, I will go on to write Lines
worthy of thy Genius, and which [ have been
long preparing, and have at laft by fweet Lasour
happily perfected. Obferve only that you apply
both Names indifferently, or, more plainly, when
I offer to fay the Soul is mortal, you are to un-

erftand I mean the Mind likewife, fince tney
are both fo united together, that in this refpect
they make but one and the fame Thing.

First then, fince I have proved that the Soul
confifts of very minute Seeds, and is formed of
Principles much Jefs than clear Water, or Mitt,
or Smoke, becaufe itis more apt to move, and
is fet a-going by a much lighter Siroke (for it is
moved by'the very Images of Mift and Smoke)
as when, by Sleep o’ercome, in Dreams we fee
: the

2
o

5

236

TT. Lucretit Lis. ΠῚ,

Exhalare vapore altaria, ferreque Fumum:
Nam procul hec dubio nobis Simulacra geruntur :
Nunc igitur quoniam quaffatis undique vafis 4.35
Diffluere Humorem, &S8 Laticem difcedere cernis :
Et Nebula ac Fumus quoniam difcedit in auras :
Crede Animam quoque diffundi, multoque perire
Ociits, citins diffolvi corpora prima,
Cum fenel omnibus ὃ membris ablatareceffit. 440
Quippe eienim Corpus, quod vas quafi conftitit ejus,
Cum cobibere nequit conquaffatum ex aliqua re,
Ac varefatium detratto fanguine venis,
Aleve qui credas poffe banc cobiberier ullo ὃ
Corpore qui nofiro rarus magis an cobibefit? 445
Preterea, gigni pariter cum Corpore, €8 una
Crefcere fentimus, pariterque fenefcere Mentem,
Nam velut infirmo Pueri, tenereque vagantur
Corpore , fic Animi fequitur fententia tenuis.
Inde ubi vobuftis adolevit viribus etas: 450
Confitium quoque majus, 5 auctior eft Animi vis :
Poft ubizam validis quaffatu’ft viribus evi
Corpus, 9 obtufis ceciderunt viribus artus: |
Claudicat Ingentum, delirat Linguaque, Menfque,
Omnia defictunt, atque uno tempore defunt. 455
Ergo diffolvi quoque convenit omnem Animai
Naturam,.ceu fumus in altas aéris auras:
Quandoquidem gigni pariter, pariterque videmus 5

Crefeere, &F (ut docui) fimul evo feffa fatifcit.

uc

~

Book Ill. Of the Mature of Things.

the lofty Altars exhale a Vapour, and fend up

Smoke into the Air, the Images of thefe Things
no doubt produce thefe Phantafms in us. And
fince you fee, when the Veffel is broken to pieces,
the Water breaks loofe and flows away in aStream :
and fince Mift and Smoke vanifh into Air, con-
clude the Soul likewife to be poured out, and
that its Principles much fooner perifh, and its
Seeds are more eafily diffolved, when it 15 fepa-
rated and retires from all the Limbs ; for fince the
Body, which is as it were a Veffel to it, when it 1s
bruifed to pieces by any outward Force, or rarefied
by the Blood being drawn out of the Veins, can-

not keep itin*, how can you fuppofe it can be:

contain’d by fubtil Air? How can that which 15
more rare than this Body of our’s preferve it en-
piles

BESIDES, we perceive the Soul is born with
the Body, grows up withit, and both wax old
together. For as Children are of a weak and
tender Body, their Mind likewife is of the fame
frail Complexion. As their Age improves, and
their Strength is more confirmed, their Judgement
ripens more, and the Powers of their Mind are
more enlarged. But when the Body is fhaken
by the irrefiftible Stroke of Time, and the Limbs
fail without Stréneth, the Underftanding grows
lame, the ‘Tongue and the Mind lofe their Vi-
sour, all the Faculties fail, and go away toge-
ther. The whole Nature of the Soul therefore
muft needs be diffolv’d, and {fcatter’d like Smoke
into the Air, fince we fee itis born with the Body,
increafes together with it, and with it, as I faid
before, becomes feeble by Age, and decays.

* It isin vain to fay, that when the Soul is diffolved from
the Body it remains entire in the Air; for how can the fubtil

. Air preferve thatfafe, which often exhales through the Pores of
1

a thick Body?
τ ADD

237

238 LT. Lucretizt 18. Il,

Hluc accedit, uti videamus Corpus ut ipfum s6@
Sufcipere immaneis morbos, durum@gue dolorem s
Sic Aninuin curas acrets, luciumque, metumque,
Quare participem lethi quoque conventt effe :

Quinetiam Morbis in Corporis avius errat
Sepe animus, dementit enim; delrraque fatur: 465
interdumque gravi Lethargo fertur in altum,

Ai ternum@ue foporem, oculis, nutuque cadenti :
Unde neque exaudit voces, neque nofcere vultus
IMorum potis eft, advitam qui revocantes
Circumftant lachrymis rovantes ora, genafque. 440
Quare Animum quoque diffolvi fateare neceffe*ft,
Quandoquidem penetrant in eum contagia morbt:
Nam Dolor, ac Morbus lethi fabricator uterque ft,
Multorum exitio perdoéti quod fumus ante.

Denique cur, hominem cum Vini vis penetravit
Acris, 85 invenas difceffit diditus ardor, 476
Confequitur gravitas Membrorum ? prepediuntur
Crura vacillanti ? tardefeit Lingua ? madet Mens ὃ
Nant oculi ὃ Clamor, Singultus, ‘furgia glifcunt ὃ
Etjan cetera de genere boc quecunque fequuntur ?
Cur ea funt, niff quod vebemens violentia Vint 481
Conturbare Animam confuevit Corpore in ipfo?:

At quaecunque queunt conturbart, inque peairi,
Significant, (paullo fi durior infinuarit
Caufa) fore ut pereant, evo privata futuro. 485

Quinetiam, fubita vi morbi fepe coactus |

Ante oculos aliquis noftros, ut fulminis ithus

-
5

Concidit,

Boox III. Of the WVature of Things.

App tothis, that as the’ Body is fubject to
violent Difeafes and tormenting Pains, fo the
Mind is affected by fharp Cares, by Griefs and
Fear, and therefore muft equally partake of
Death and Diffolution with it. And then, in
great Diforders of the Body, the Mind frequently
grows mad, raves, and talks wildly ; fometimes
it is funk into a profound and never-ending Sleep
by a heavy Lethargy, the Eyes fhut, and the
Head nodding, fo that it neither hears the
Words, nor is able to diftinguifh the Face of
thofe who ftand about bedewing their Cheeks
with Tears, and ftriving to recall the departing
Breath. Wherefore you muft needs allow that
the Mind may be diffolved, fince the Infection
of the Difeafe pierces through it; for Grief and
Difeafes are both the Caufes of Death, as weare
taught by Experienee in a thoufand Inftances.

Awnp again, why is it, when the quick Force
of Wine itrikes through a Man, and the infi-
nuating Heat works in all his Veins, why fol-
lows a Heavinefs of the Limbs? The Legs no
longer fupport the reeling Body, the Tongue
faulters, the Mind is drowned, the Kyes fwim;
Noife, Hiccups, Brawlings deafen your Ears;
and many other Evils, the Confequence of fuch
Debauches ; how could this be, did not the im-
petuous Force of the Wine diftract the Soul as
it lies diffufed through the Body? Now what-
ever can be thus difturb’d, and hinder’d in its
Operations, would (were the Force to grow
more violent) be deftroy’d and utterly deprived
of future Being. |

Besipes, a Perfon furprized with a fudden Fit
of a Difeafe, drops down before our Eyes as if he
were thunder-ftruck. He foams, he groans and

trembles

“39

Τὶ Lucretir Lis. IE.

Cowidit, S {pumas agit, ingemit, S tremit artus,
Defipit, extentat nervos, torquetur, anhelat,
Inconftanter €P in jaGiando membra fativat : 490
Nimirum, quia vis Mardi difiracia per artus
Turbat agens Animum, fpumans ut in aquore falfo
Ventorum valiais fervefcit viribus Unda. Ξ
Lixprimitur porro Gemitus, quia membra dolore
sUficiuntur 5 ξϑ᾽ omnine quod femina vocis 405
Fyjiciuntur, © ore foras glomerata feruntur,

Qua quafi confuerunt, &F funt minuta vial.
Defipientia fit, quiavis Animi, atque Animai
Conturvaiur, &F (ut docui) divifa feorfum
Digectatur, eodem illo dijtracta veneno. 500
Inde, ubi jam Morbi fe flexit caufa, veditgue

In latebras ater corrupts C orporis humor,

Tum guafi talipedans priniim confurgit , (3 omneis
Pautlatim redit in fenf[us, animamque receptat.
Hee igitur tantis ubi morbis Corpore in ipfo 505
Faétetur, miferifque modis diftracia laboret :

Cur eandem credis fine Corpore in Aére aperto

Cum validis ventis etatem degere poffe ?

Lit quoniam Mentem fanari, Corpus ut egrum,
Cernimus, 9 flecti medicina poffe videmus 3 στο
Id quoque praefagit mortalem vivere Mentem:
Addere enim partets, aut ordine trajicere equum ft,
Aut aliud prorfum de Jumma detrabere illum,
Commutare Animum quicunque adoritur, 895 infit ;
Aut Aliam quamvis naturam flectere quarit: 515
At neque transferri fibt parteis, nec tribui vult,
Immortale quod eft quicquam, neque defluere hilum.

‘Nam

d - >

Boox III. Of the Nature of Things.

trembles all over, he is diftraéted, ftretches
his Nerves, is diftorted ; he pants, he tofles
and tires his Limbs with ftrange and unnatu-
ral Poftures: The Reafon is, becaufe the
Force of the Difeafe, driven violently through
the Limbs, agitates and difturbs the Mind, as
the foaming Waves of the Sea are enraged by
the ftrong Blaft of Winds. And then Groans
are forced from the Wretch, becaufe the Limbs
are tormented with Pain, and the Seeds of the
Voice are thrown out from the Bottom of the
Breaft; and hurried in confufion, without any di-
{tinct Accent through the Mouth. The Man
raves, becaufe the Powers of the Mind and Soul
are diftrated, and their Principles, as I faid,

broken, disjoin’d, and divided by the Violence
of the Diftemper. But when the Caufe of the
Difeafe gives way, and the black Humour of the
corrupt Body retires into fome convenient Veffel,

then the Patient begins to rife, feeble and ftao-
gering; and by degrees returns to all his Senfes,
and recovers Life, Since therefore this Soul is fo
toffed about with fuch ftrange Diforders, and
Jabours with fuch Agonies in fo miferable a man-
ner, as it is inclofed in the Body, how do you
think itcan fubfift without the Body in the open
Air, and expofed for ever to the raging Fury of
all the Winds ?

Anp fince we fee the Mind canbe madefound,
and be affected by the Powers of Medicirie, as well
as a diforder’d Body, this 15 a ftrong Evidence
that the Mind is mortal ; for whoever attempts
to make any Alteration in the Mind, or offers to’
change the Nature of any other Thing, mutt ei-
ther add fome new Parts to it, or take off fome
of the old, or elfe tranfpofe the former Order
and Situation ; ; but what is immortal can have

Vou. I. R Nothing.

24.1

24.2

T. Lucreti:t Lis. JIL

Nam quodcunque εἰς mutatum finibus exit,
Continuo hoc mors eft illius quod fuit ante.

Ergo Animus five agrefcit, morialia figna 520
Mittit (uti docui) feu flectitur a medicina :

Ufque adeo falfe rationi vera videtur

Res oecurrere, &P effugium precludere eunt: :
Ancipitique refutatu convincere faljum.

Denique fepe bominem ue cernimus ire,
Et membratim vitalem deperdere fenfum : 526
In pedibus primum Digitos livefcere, S Ungueis,
Inde Pedes, €8 Crura mori: Poft inde per artus
Tre alios traétim gelidi veftigia lethi :

Scinditur atqui Anime quoniam natura, nec uno
Tempore fincera exiftit, mortalis habenda ft. 53%
Quod fi forte putas ipfam fe poffe per artus
Tutrorfum trabere, & parteis conducere in unum,
Atque ideo cunttis fenfum deducere memoris :

A locus ille tamen, quo copia tanta Animat 535
Cogitur, in fenfu debet majore videri.

Qui quoniam nufquam’ ft, nimirum, (ut diximus ante)
Dilaniata foras difpergitur , interit ergo..
Quinetiam, fi jam libeat concedere falfum,

Et dare, poffe Animam glomerari in Corpore eorum,

Lumina qui linguunt moribundi particulatim: 541
Mortalem iamen effe Animam fateare necefe*f.

Nec

; Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things. 243

Nothing added to it, or taken from it, nor will
admit of any Change in the Order of its Parts:
for whatever is fo alter’d as to leave the Limits
of its firft Nature, is no more what it was, but
‘inftantly dies. ‘The Mind therefore, whether it
be diftemper’d, or reliev’d by Medicine, fhews
(as I obferv’d) ftrong Symptoms of its Mortality.
~ So evidently does the true Matter of Fact over-
throw all falfe Reafoning, that there is no Poffi-
bility to efcape its Force ; and the contrary Opi-

hion is either way fully refuted. :
BrsipeEs, we often fee Men perifh by degrees,
and lofe their vital Senfe Limb by Limb; firft,
the Nails and Toes grow black, then the Feet
and Legs rot; at length the Traces of cold
Death proceed on, f{tep by ftep, over the other
Parts of the Body. Since therefore the Soul is
divided, and does not at fuch a time continue
whole and entire, you muft pronounce it mortal.
But if you think the Soul retires out of the dy-
ing Members into the more inward Parts.of the
Body, and contracts its Seeds into one Place, and fo
withdraws the Senfe from the reft of the Limbs, yet
that Placeto which the Soul retreats, and where fo
much of it is crouded together, ought to enjoy a
more lively and brifker Senfe; but, iince there is
no fuch Place, ’tis plain, as we faid before, it is
{cattered piece-meal through the Air, and there-
fore perifhes. But fuppofe we grant, which is
falfe in itfelf, and allow that the Soul may be
huddled up together in the Bodies of thofe who
die one Limb after another, yet then the Soul
muft be confeffed tobe by Nature mortal. * For
* ‘The Reafons he gives for the Soul’s Mortality are very in-
telligible, tho’ far from being conclufive ; he means here, that
what decays and lofes its Nature by being thus contraéted and
huddled up, is as much mortal as that which is thus ditperfed

and is torn to pieces in the Air..

Tag"? =

244

T. Lucrerim Lis. If,

Nec refert, utrum pereat difperfa per auras,

An contractis in fe partibus obbrutefcat :

Quando Hominem totum magis, ac magis undique
ος fenfus 545

Deficit, S vite minus, &S minus undique reftat.

_ Et quoniam Mens eft Hominis pars una, locogue
Fixa manet certo, velut Aures, atque Oculi fuat,
éiique alit fenfus, qui vitam cunque gubernant :

Et velutt Manus, atque Oculus, Narefve feorfum
Secreta a nobis nequeant fentire, neque effe: 551
Sed tamen in parvo linquuntur tempore talt.

Sic Animus per fe non quit fine corpore, 9 ipso

| <Lffe Homine, illius quaft quod Vas effe videtur :

Sive aliud quiduis potis es conjunétius 617 a

Hingere, quandoquidem connexus corpori adberet.
Denique Corporis, atque Animi vivata poteftas

LInter fe conjunéta valent, vitaque fruuntur.

Nec fine Corpore enim vitaleis edere motus

Sola poteft Animi per fe natura, nec autem £60

Caffum Anima Corpus durare, && fenfibus uti :

Scilicet, avolfus radicitus ut nequit ullam

Difpicere ipfe Oculus rem feorfum Corpore toto:

Sic Anima atque Animus per fe nil poffe videntur :

Nimirum, quia per venas &8 vifcera miftim 565

Per nervos, atque offa tenentur corpore ab omni.

Nec magnis intervallis Primordia poffunt

Libera diffultare, ideo conclufa moventur

Senfiferos motus , quos extra corpus in auras

Aéris baud poffunt poft mortem ejecta moveri: 579

Propterea quia non fimilt ratione tenentur,

Corpus

Boox III. Of the Mature of Things.

it fionifies not whether the Soul dies fcattered
through the Air, or perifhes with its Parts con-
tracted into one Place, while the Senfes fteal
away from the whole Body more and more, and
the Powers of Life by degrees appear lefs and
lefs.

Anp fince the Mind isa Part of Man fixed ,

mn one certain Place, asthe Ears, Eyes, and other
Senfes that prefide over Life, and as the Hands,
and Eyes, and Nofe, when feparated from the
Body, are incapable of Senfe, or even to Be,
but muft in a very fhort time corrupt and putrify ;
fo the Mind cannot fubfift of itfelf without the
Body, (or even Be in the Man) which is as it
were a Veffel to the Soul, or any thing elfe you
can conceive more clofely united to it; for it
{ticks infeparably to the Body, and cannot be
divided from it.

FurtuHer, the vital Powers of the Body and |

Mind exert themfelves together, and live united
by the ftrongeft Bonds; neither can the Nature

of the Mind alone difpenfe the vital Motions of

itfelf without the Body, nor can the Body, void
of Soul, continue or ufe the Faculties of Senfe:
For as the Eye, torn out by the Roots and fepa-
rated from the Body, can fee nothing, fo the
Soul and Mind cannot act of themfelves, becaufe

they are {pread overall the Body by the Veins,.

the Bowels, the Nerves and Bones. Nor could
the Seeds of the Soul exercife thofe Vibrations
that produce Senfe, were they difpofed at wide
Intervals, and inclofed by no folid Body ; they
fhew thofe fenfible Motions becaufe they are fhut
up clofe, which they cannot exert when they are
forced out of the Body into the wide Air after
Death, becaufe they are not under the fame Re-

τὰ 9 {traint

2

4

“-

Ce

24.6

\

T. Lucretir Lis. III,

Corpus enim atque animans erit Aér, fi cobibere,
Sefe Anima, atque in eo poterit concludere motus,
Quos ante in Nervis, &S in ipfo Corpore agebat.
Quare etiam atque etiam refoluto Corporis omni 575
Tegmine, &F epeclis extra vitalibus auris,
Diffolvi fenfus Animi fateare neceffe *ft,
fique Animam, quoniam conjuntla eft caufa duobus,

Denique cum Corpus nequeat perferre Animai
Difcidium, quin id tetre tabefcat odore: 580°
Quid dubitas, quin ex imo, penitufque coorta

LEmanarit, uti Fumus, diffufa Anime vis ὃ

Aique ideo tanta mutatum putre ruina

Conciderit Corpus penitus, quia mota loco {unt
os >

Fundamenta foras anime ,manantque per artus, 58 Π

Perque viarum omnes flexus, in corpore qui funt,

Aique foramina ? Multimodis ut nofcere pols

Difpertitam Anime naturam exiffe per artus :

Et oritts effe fibi diftrattam Corpore in ipfo,

Quam prolapfa foras enaret in Aévis Auras? 590
Quinetiam, fineis dum vite vertitur intra,

Sepe aliqua tamen δ caufa labefatia videtur

tre Anima, &S toto folvi de corpore membra:

Li quaft fupremo languefcere tempore voltus, 594

Mothaque exangut cadere omnia Corpore membra :

Quod genus eft, Animo male faktum cum perhibetur,

dint Animam liquiffe,ubi jam trepidatur, &F omnes

Extremum cupiunt vires reprendere vinclum.

Conqualjatur enim tum Mens, Animeque poteftas

μηδ: & bee ipfo cum Corpore conlabefiunt :- 60°

Book Ill. Of the Nature of Things.

ftraint as they are within the Inclofure οὔ" the
Body ; for the Air would be an Animal, if the
Soul could be confined within it,’ and maintain
thofe Motions of Senfe which before it exercifed

in the Nerves and through the Limbs, You muft

confefs therefore, over and over, that the Mind:

and Soul (for they both make up but one Sub-
ftance) muft needs be diffolv’d, as foon as. they
are {tripped of the Covering of the Body, and

their vital Powers thrown out tnto the thin Air. ἡ

Acatn, fince the Body cannot bear the Sepa-
ration of the Soul, but it foon putrifies and

{ftinks, how can you doubt but that the Prin-.
ciples of. the Soul diffufed through the whole

Body, and raifed from the very inmoft. Parts of it,
flow out like Smoke; and therefore the rotten Body

thuschanged falls to piecesin fo ruinous a manner, —

béecaufe the Seeds of the Soul, which preferved

the whole, are moved widely from their Place,’

and flow through the Limbs, and all the wind-
ing Paffages of the Body. And: hence you are
fully fatisfied, that the Nature of the Soul is

fpread over all the Limbs, and is firft broken and’

divided in the Body itfelf, before it flies out into
the Air abroad.

| Naymore, whilftthe Manis ftill living, the Soul,
feems often to receive a violent Shock, fo that the:

Limbsare diffolving all over, the Face looking pale,
as if it were real Death, and all the Members of
the Body wan and ghaftly, falling to pieces.
This happens in a fwooning Fit, when the Soul
15 going, and trembles upon the Verge of Life,
and all the Faculties f{trive to hold faft the Chain
that binds up Soul and Body together, The Mind
and all the Powers of the Soul are then fhaken,
and are fo ftagger’d with the Body, tnat a Force

R 4 a

~

24

Ane

/

248

T. Lucretizr Lis. ΠῚ

Ut gravior paullo pofit diffolvere σαι.

Quid dubitas, tandem quin extra prodita corpus
Imbecilla foras, in aperto, tegmine dempto,
Non mado non omnem pofit durare per evum, 604
Sed minimum quodvis nequeat conjiftere tempus ὃ

Nec fibi enim quifquam moriens fentire videtur
fre foras Animam incolumem de Corpore toto,

Nec priis ad jugulum, 5 fuperas fuccedere fauceis:
Verium deficere in certa regione locatam :
Ut fenfus alios in parti quemque [ug {612} 610
Diffolvi: Quid fi immortalis nofira foret Mens:
Non jam fe moriens diffolui conquereretur :
Sed magis ire foras,veftemque relinguere, ut Anguis,
Gauderet, prelonga fenex aut cornua Cervus.
Denique cur Animi nunguam mens confiliumque
Gignitur in Capite, aut Pedibus, Manibufve, fed
unis 616
Sedibus, ἐφ certis regionibus omnis inberet:
Si non certa loca ad nafeendum reddita cuique
Sunt : &S ubi quicquid poffit durare creatum :
Atque ita multimodis pro totis artubus effe, 620
Membrorum ut nunquam exifiat prepofterus ordo ?
Ufque adeo fequitur res rem, neque Flamma creartin
Fluminibus folita *ft, neque in Igni gignier Algor.

Pre@ier tas

οοκ III. Of che ature of Things. 249
a little ftronger would drive it to utter Diffolu-
tion. ;

D o you doubt now, whether this Soul thrown
out of the Body, abroad, deftitute, into the open
Air,’ ftript naked, be fo far from remaining en-
tire to eternal Ages, that it cannot fubfift fo
much as for the leaft moment ?

Awnp then, no dying Man ever perceived his
Soul go out whole from all Parts of the Body at
once, nor felt it firft creeping up his Throat,
and then rifing up to his Jaws ; but he finds it
fail in that Part of the Body wherein it is placed,
as he knows that every Senfe expires in its proper:
Organ. But if this Mind were immortal, it
would not, when dying, complain of its being
diffolv’d, but rather rejoice that it was going
freely abroad, that it had thrown off his Coat as
a Snake, or as an old Stag that cafts his heavy
Antlars.

ΑἸ p why is not the t Mind, with all its
Reafon and Conduct, produced in the Head,
the Feet, the Hands, but that every Part is fix-
ed to one Place, and to a certain Situation?
If, proper Places were not appointed to all Beings
in which to be born, and when produced where
they might abide, and where every Member
might be fo conveniently difpofed, that there
might be no prepofterous Order of the Limbs
throughout the whole ? So regularly does one
thing follow another, that Fire is never raifed
from Water, nor Cold from Heat.

-

¢

t The Mind is confined to the Heart, and he that looks
for Souls in the Air, may as reafonably expect to find Flames
in Water, and Ice in Fire ; forall natural Things have cer-
tain and fixed Places to be’born and live in.

. BEsipes,

250°

T. Lucretizr Liz. II.

Praterea, ft immortalis natura Animai ’ ft,

Et fentire poteft fecreta 4 Corpore noftro : 625
Quingue (ut opinor) eam faciendum "ft Senfibus
aucélam :

Nee ratione alia nofmet proponere nobis
Poffumus infernas Animas Acherunte vagare.
PiGiores itaque, €9 Scriptorum fecla priora

Sic Animas introduxerunt fenfibus auéfas. 630
Mt neque feorfum a neque Nares, nec Manus
ipa

Life poteft Anima, neque feorfum Lingua, nec Aures
Mbjque anima per fe poffunt fentire, nec effe. .
Et quoniam toto fentimus Corpore ineffe

| Vitalem fenfum, & totum effe animale videmus, 635

δὲ fuoite medium celeri preciderit idiu

Vis aliqua, ut feorfum partem fecernat utramque :

Difpertita prociuldubio quoque vis Animai,

Lt difciffa funul cum Corpore disficietur :

At quod {einditur, &8 parteis difcedit in ullas, 640 -

Scilicet eternam fibi naturam abnuit effe.

Falciferos memorant currus abfcindere membra —

Spe ita defubito permifta cade calenteis,

Ut tremere in terra videatur ab artibus id quod

Decidit abfciffum: Cum Mens tamen, atque bomi-
Wis Vis ὁ , 645

Mobilitate mali non quit fentire dolorem :

Et fimul in τω fiudio quod dedita Mens ε,

Corpore

Boox ΠῚ. Of the Nature of Things.

Besipes, if the Nature of the Soul be im-
mortal, and enjoys the Power of Senfe when fe-
parated from the Body, you muft, as I conceive,
jupply her with the Ufe of the five Senfes, -nor
can we imagine how without them the Soul can
live inthe Shades below. "% The Painters and
tlie Poets, many Ages ago, have reprefented the
Souls indued with Senfe; but neither Eyes nor
Nofe, nor Flands, nor Tongue, nor Ears can be
feparately in the Soul, nor can they feparately
retain any Senfe,* nor even Be without it. -

Α ΝΡ fince the vital Senfe, we perceive, * is
diffufed through the Body, and we fee the whole
Body animated throughout, if any Weapon cuts
it in two in the: middle with a fudden Stroke,
and divides the Parts afunder, the Powers of the
Soul, without doubt, being feparated and difu-
nited, will follow the Fate of the Body; but
err is cut afunder, and falls into Parts, can
have nothing immortal in its Nature. Chariots,
we read, armed with Scythes, and reeking with
confufed Slaughter, would cut-off a Limb with
fo quick a Force, that the divided Part that fell
off from the Body, might be feen trembling up-
on the Ground; when the Mind and Heart of

the Man feel nothing of the Pain, fo fudden was
the Wound. His whole Soul is fo taken up with
the Heat of Action; that he purfues the Fight,

© He derides the Fables of the Ancients concerning the
Souls of Men, which, as they feigned, went into Hell ater
Death, where they cay ed all their Senfes as when they
were alive.

* The Soul being diffiated through the whole Body, muf
of neceflity be divided, if the Body be cut in two by a vio-
lent and fudden Stroke: If the Limb of a Soldier be cut oif
by an armed Chariot, the Motion of the diflected Part is 2
Proof that the Soul is divided likewife. "

anc

251.

ὅσο. T. ΤΠ υσΒΕΤΙΙ Lis. ΠῚ,
᾿ ΟΟΡΡΟΥΘ cum reliquo pugnam, cedeifque petiffit :
Nec tenet, amiffam levam cum tegmine fepe

Inter equos abftraxe rotas, falceifque rapaceis : 65®
Nec cecidiffe alius dextram, cum fcandit, €&8 inftat.
Lnde alius conatur adempto furgere crure,

Cum digitos agitat propter moribundus bumi pes ;
Lit caput abfciffum calido, viventeque trunco,
Servat bumi voltum vitalem, oculofque patenteis,
Donec relliquias Animai reddidit omneis. 656
Quin etiam tibi fi lingua vibrante minantis
Serpentis caudam procero corpore, utrinque

Sit libitum in multas partets difcindere ferro ;
Omnia jam feorfum cernes amcifa recentz 669
Voinere tortarit, ἔθ᾽ terram confpergere tabo,
Ipfam feque retro partem petere ore priorem,
Volneris ardenti ut mor[u premat ifta dolore,
Omnibus effe igitur totas dicemus in illis

Particulis Animas? Atea ratione fequetur, 665
Unam animantem Animas habuiffe in Corpore multas,
Ergo divifa*ft ea, que fuit una fimul cum
Corpore, quapropter Mortale utrumqueputandum ft
lis multas quoniam parteis difcinditur eque.

Preterea, fi immortals natura Animat 670

Conftat, ὃ in Corpus nafcentibus infinuatur :

Cur fuper anteaciam etatem meminiffe nequimus ὃ
Nec veftigia geftarum rerum ulla tenemus ὃ

Nam ft tantopere *ft Animi mutata poteftas,

Ommis ut adtarum exciderit retinentia rerum: 675

Non

Boox Il. Of the Nature of Things. 253
and the intended Slaughter; with the Remainder

of his Body; nor does he imagine that the
Wheels and mangling Hooks have torn off a-

mong the Horfes his Left-hand, or that he has
Joft his Shield. Another knows nothing that his.
Right-hand is lopt off, as he fcales the Wall, and
prefles eagerly forward. Another attempts to
rife with one Leg, while the dying Féot moves
the Toes as it lies by him upon the Ground; and

the Head cut off, the Trunk yet warm and hea-

ving, preferves the fame fierce Look in the Face,

and keeps the Eyesopen, till it has loft all Re-
mains of the Soul within it. And fo, divide

with a Sword, if you pleafe, into many Parts,

the Tail of along Snake, threatening, and bran-
difhing his Tongue, you'll fee every divided

Part wriggling with the frefh Wound, and ftain-

ing the Ground with Blood. You'll perceive the
Serpent turning his Head about to find his divi-

ded Body, and bite it with his Teeth, from the
fore Anguifh of the Pain he fuffers. Shall we
fay, that a proper Soul belongs feverally to all

thefe Parts? By this Rule it will follow, thatthe

fame Creature is animated by many Souls at the

fame time. °Tis plain therefore, the Soul that

before was one, and diffufed through the whole

Body, is divided, and confequently they are both
mortal, becaufe they are both equally divided in-
to many Parts.

FurTHER, if the Nature of the Soul be im-
mortal, and is infufed into the Body when a Child
is born, why do we remember nothing of the Life
we led before? nor retain any Traces of Things
done long ago? For if the Power of the Soul be
{fo utterly changed, that all Recollection of patt
Actions is entirely gone, this kind of Oblivion is
3

254.

TT. Lucretiu Lis. ἢ]
Non tu opinor) id ab letho jam longiter errat.
Quapropier fateare neceffe *ft, que fuit ante,
Interiiffe : Et que nunc eft, nunc effe creatam,
Preterea, fi jam perfecto corpore nobis
Luferri folita ft Animi vivata poteftas, 680
Tum cum gignimur, €F vite chm limen inimus :
laud tta conveniebat, uti cum Corpore, 89 ana
Cum membris videatur in ipfo fanguine créffe:
Sed velut in cavea, per fe fibi vivere folam
Gonvenit, ut fenfu Corpus tamen affiuat Omne. 68 5
Quare etiam atque etiam nec originis effe putan-
dum * ft
Experteis Animas, nec lethi lege folutas. y

| Nam neque tantopere adnetti potuiffe putandum *ft

Corporibus noftris extrinfecus infinuatas :

Quod fieri totum contra manifefia docet res. 690

Namque ita connexa *ft per Venas, Vifcera, Nervos,

Offaque, uti Dentes quoque fenfu participentur :

Morbus ut indicat, &8 gelidai frringor aquai,

Et lapis oppreffus fub dente ὃ frugibus afper :

Nec tam contexte cum fint, extre videntur 696

Incolumes poffe, 85 falvas exfelvere fefe

Omnibus αὶ Nervis, atque Offibus, Articulifque.
Quod fi forte putas extrinfecus infinuatam

Boox III. Of che Mature of Things. 25 5

(1 think) not far removed from Death itfelf. We
muft needs allow therefore, that the Soul that
was before utterly perifhed, and that which now
15. was newly created.

But, when the Body 1s completely formed,
when we are born, and enter within the Door of
Life , if then the vital Power of the Soul were
infufed, it would have nothing to do to grow up
together with the Body and the Limbs, and be
united with the very Blood, but, as it were ina
Cage, it would live entire of itfelf, and fo diffufe
the Faculties of Senfe through all the Body.
Again then and again it muft be faid, that the
Soul is neither without Beginning, nor exempt
from the Laws of Death ; for we cannot conceive
that the Soul, were it infufed from without into
the Body, could be fo nicely and clofely united
to the feveral Parts of it, as the Thing itfelf e-
vidently proves fhe is. She is indeed fo diffufed
through the Veins, the Bowels, the Nerves, and
Bones, that even the Teeth are not without Senfe.
This appears from the acute Pain we feel from
the Chillnefs of cold Water, or the grinding of
a rough Stone when weeat. The Soul therefore
being fo clofely connected with the feveral Parts,
cannot be fuppofed to depart whole, or deliver
herfelf entire from the Bones and Nerves, an
Joints of the Body. ᾿

* But if you think the Soul is infufed from

Υ If the Soul were infufed into a perfect Body, it ought
to have been done in fuch a manner that it might be in that
edy like a Bird ina Cage, not as it now is when it feems to
grow, and be fo much of a piece with it, that it cannot be
ἰδ and whole out of it.

* Let us grant, fays-the Poet, that the Soul is frit formed,
and infufed afterwards, yet it muft of neceflity fuffer Change,
as it pafies thro’ all the different Mazes and Pores of the Bady,
and confequently is mortal,

without,

256

T. Lucretit Lie. IIE,

Permanare Animam nobis per membra folere,

Tanto queque magis cum corpore fufaperibit, 700

Quod permanat enim, diffolvitur : Interit erga.

Difpertitur enim per caulas Corporis omneis :

Ut cibus in membre atque artus cum diditur omneis,

Difperit, atqué aliam naturam fufficit ex fe:

Sic Anima atque Animus quamvis integra récens 12

Corpus eunt, tamen in manando diffoluuntur ; 706

Dum quafi per caulas omneis diduntur in artus

Particule, quibus bec Animi natura creatur:

Oud nunc in noftro dominatur Corpore nata

Ex illa, que tunc peritat partita per artus. 710

Quapr opter neque natali privata videtur

Effe die natura Anime, neque funeris expers.
Semina preterea linquuntur, necne, Animai

Corpore in exanimo ? quod fi linquuntur, && infunt,

Haud erit, ut merito immortalis poffit baberi; 718

Partibus amiffis quoniam libata receffit.

Sin ita finceris membris ablata profugit,

Ut nullas parteis in Corpore liquerit ex fe:

Unde cadavera rancents jam vifcere vermeis

Expirant ? atque undeanimantum copiatanta “20

Eixos, ξ5 exfanguis tumidos perfluctuat artus?
Quod ft forte Animas extrinfecut infinuari

Vermibus, &3 privas in corpora poffe venire

Credis, nec reputas cur millia multa Animarum

Conveniant, unde una recefferit: Hoc tameneft ut 725

Querendum videatur, €8 in diferimen agendum:

Virnm tandem Anime venentur femina queque

Vernuculorum,

Booxlll. Of the Nature of Things. 257
without, and [0 fpread over all the Limbs, fheis for i

this reafon {till moreliable to perifh withthe Body ;

for a Thing that flows through fo many Paflages
is diffolved, and therefore dies, for fhe muft be
thus divided through all the Pores: And as the
Food ,: when it is diftributed through the Mem-
bers and the Limbs, lofes its irft Form, and takes
up another quite different, fo the Soul, tho’ it en-

_ ters wholeand frefh into the Body, yet, in pafiing
through, its Parts are diflolved, becaufe the Par-
ticles of which the Soul ts formed mutt be diffu-
fed through all the Pores into all the Body ; and -

that Soul which now rules and governs the Body,
is produced from that which perifhed, and was
diffolved in paffing through into the Limbs.
The Nature of the Soul therefore is neither with-

out Beginning, nor free from Death and Diffo- |
lution. | | !

“sBrsipes, ina dead Body fome Particles of the

Soul remain, or they donot. If they do remain

and abide in it, you can by no means properly —

fay fhe is immortal, becaufe fhe withdrew with
her Seeds divided, and with fome of them left
behind. But if fhe retired from the Body with
all her Parts whole, and left none of her Seeds
behind, how comes the Carcafs to breed fo many

Worms in the corrupted Bowels? And whence

do fuch Abundance of Creatures without Bones

and Blood fwarm over the bloated Limbs? But

If you fancy that Souls formed without creep into

thefe Worms, and every fingle Worm has a

particular Soul, nor think itftrange thatio many

thoufand Souls fhould flow together from with-

‘ut, to the Place from whence one departed, yet

‘tis proper to enquire and to examine into This,

Whether every particular Soulfearches into the

Your. S Several

Ὶ -
. »

258

T. Lucretit Lis. TL,

Vermiculorum, ipfeque fibi fabricentur abi fint:
An jam corporibus per fectis infinuentur.
At neque, cur faciant ipfe, quareve laborent, 730
Dicere fuppeditat, neque enim, fine corpore cum fint,
Sollicite volitant morbis, algoque, fameque.
Corpus enim magis his vitits adfme laborat :
Et mala multa Animus contage fungitur ejus.
Sed tamen his efto quamvis facere utile Corpus, 735
Cim fubeant : At qua poffint, via nulla videtur.
Haud igitur faciunt Anime fibi corpora, &8 artus.
Nec tamen eft ut jam-perfettis infinuentur :
Corporibus: Neque enim poterunt fubtiliter effe
Connene, neque confenfu contagia fient. 74.0-

᾿ Denique cur acris violentia trifte Leonum
Seminiuin fequitur: Doluw Volpibus, & fuga Cervis.
4 patribus datur, €8 patrius pavor incitat artus?
Et jam cetera de genere hoc, cur omnia meuvbris

f

Boox Ul. Of the Nature of Things.

feveral Seeds of the Worms, and choofes for it
felf what Seeds are moft proper to make itfelf a
Body, or whether fhe enters into a Body already
formed. But there is no Reafon to be given why
fhe fhould build a Dwelling for herfelf, and go
through fuch Fatigue; efpecially fince, difin-
tangled from Matter, fhe cannot be tormented
with. Difeafes, with Cold and Hunger; for Body
only can labour under thefe Calamities, and the
Soul fuffers many fuch Diftrefies only by her Con-
junction with it. But allow itconvenient for Souls
to fafhion out Bodies for themfelves to dwell in,
yet there is no way poffible for them to do this,
They do not therefore make up Eodies and
Limbs. for themfelves, nor are they infufed into.
Bodies ready made; for they could not be fo
nicely united as to inform every Part of the Bo-
dy, nor could the vital Motions be mutually car-
ried on between them.

Bestpes, * Why does fierce Rage affect the x, tran
fullen Breed of Lions? Why is Cratt derived to migration.
the Fox, and Flight to Stags from: their Sires,
and Paternal Fear gives Wings toall their Limbs?

Whence come other Paflions of this kind? Why

2 Here he attacks the Doétrine of Pythagoras and Plate:
If thefe immortal Souls, fays he, had fo often been fhifted out
of one Animal into the Body of another, the natural Difpo-
fitions of the Animals would by little and little have been al-
tered and changed; which we fee they are not, but continue.
the fame : If you fay, that of whatever kinds the Souls are, they
change their Nature, and puton the Manners that agree with
the Bodies into which they enter; he anfwers, whatever can
be changed is mortal. If it be pretended, that Human Souis
pafs into Human Bodies, why does that Soul that behaved wife
‘in the Body ofa Man at full Age, play the fool as it does when
infufed into the Body of a Child? Does the Mind grow weak
ina weak Body? Ifit does, it is changed ; anda ‘Thing fo
frequently changed cannot be immortal.
Det do

Ὁ Το ϊαυ σε Lisl
Ex ineunte evo ingenerafcunt, inque genuntur, 74.5
Si non certa {πὸ quia femina femintoque
Vis Animi pariter crefcit cum corpore toto ὃ
Quod fi immortalis foret, 85 mutare foleret
Corpora, permiftis animantes moribus effent :
Effugeret Canis Hyrcano de femine fepe 750
Cornigeri incurfum Cervt, tremeretque per auras
Aeris Accipiter fugiens veniente Columba :
Defiperent Homines, faperent fera fecla Ferarum.

Illud enim falfa fertnr ratione, quod aiunt,
Iinmorialem Animam mutato Corpore flecti: 755
Quod mutatur enim, diffolvitur : Interit ergo.
Trajiciuntur enim partes, atque ordine migrant.
Quare diffolvi quoque debent poffe per artus,
Denique ut intereant una cum Corpore cuntia,

Sin Animas bominum dicent in Corpora femper 760
4re humana, tamen queram cur ὃ fapienti
| “Stulta queat fieri, nec prudens fit puer ullus ?
Nec tam dottus eque pullus, quam fortis equi vis ?
Sz non certa fue quia femine, feminioque
Vis Animt pariter crefcit cum Corpore tote. 765
Scilicet in tenero tenerafcere Corpore Mentem
Confugient ; quod fi jam fit, fateare neceffe *ft,
Mortalem effe Animam, quoniam mutata per artus
_Tantopere amittit vitam, fenfumque priorem.

Quove

Boox. III. Of the Mature of Things.

do they belong to all Creatures from their tender
Age, and feem born with them, 1 the peculiar
Powers of the Soul were not produced from pe-
culiar Seeds in every particular kind, and did not
they grow up together with the whole Body ὃ
But were the Soui immortal and ufed to change
her Body, Creatures would be ftrangely confufed
in their Difpofitions and Qualities; the fierce
Dog of Hircanian Breed would fly the Attack of
the horned Stage, andthe fearful Hawk would
tremblé'in the Air at the Approach of the
Dove; Men would be void of Reafon like
Brutes, and the favage Race of Beafts might be-
come Philofophers.

Burt what is faid in this Cafe is fupported
by falfe Reafoning; that the immortal Soul is
changed according to the different Body:it 15
united with; for what is changed is diffolved,
and therefore dies; the Parts are tranfpofed, and
vary in their Situation. It follows therefore,
that the Principles of it may be diffolved through
the Limbs, and may all perifh together with the
Body. But they cry, that the Souls alway pafs
into Bodies.of the fame kind, the Souls of Men
into the Bodies of Men; then 1 would afk why a
Soul from being wife fhould become a Fool, and
a, Child is not “made a Privy Counfellor ? and
why a young Colt has not the Paces of a full-
erown Horfe? If the peculiar Powers of the Soul
were not produced from peculiar Seeds in every
particular kind, and did they not grow up to-
_ gether with the whole Body? ‘They'll fay per-
haps, that the Mind becomes equally weak in-a
tender Body ; if fo, they muft allow the Soul to
be mortal, becaufe, when infufed into the Body
it is fo much changed, itlofes the Life and Senfe
1¢ enjoyed before.

S 3 AND

261

Ὁ

T. Locreti Lrs. ΠῚ.
Quove msodo poterit pariter cum Cor pore quoque
Confirmata cupitum etatis tangere florem 771
Vis Animi, nifi erit confors in origine prima ὃ

Quidve foras fiti vult membris exire feneétis 2

An metuit conclufa manere in Corpore putri ὃ

Et domus etatis [patio ne feffa vetufto ὦ 795

Obruat 2 At non funt Immortal ulla pericla.

Denique connubia ad Veneris, partufque ferarum

Effe Avimas prafto, deridiculum effe videtur :

Et fpeciare immortaleis mortalia membra

Innumero numero, certareque preproperanter 780

Inter fe que prima, potilfimaque infinuetur :

Si non forte ita funt Animarum federa patta,

Ut, que prinia volans advenerit, infinuetur

Prima, neque inter fe contendant viribus hilum.

Denique im etbere non Arbor, non equore in
alto 785

Nubes effe queunt, nec Pifces vivere it arvts,

Nec Cruor in lignis, nec faxis Succus ineffe.

Certum ac difpofitum ft, ubi quicquid crefcat, ξϑ
infil :

Sic Animi natura nequit fine Corpore oriri

Sola, neque ἃ nervis, &F fanguine longius effe. 790

Hoc fi poffet enim, multo pris Τρία Animi vis

In Capite, aut Hlumeris, aut imis Calcibus effe

Poffet, &F innafci quavis in parte foleret :

Tandem in eodem bomine, atque in eodem vafe
WAKE EL.

Quod

Boox III. Of the Mature of Things. 263
Awnpv why fhould the Powers of the Soul de-
fire paffionately to grow and attain toa full Ma-
turity of Age together with the Body, if it were
not a Companion with it from the very Begin-.
ning? And why is fhe fond of flying away out
of old decayed Limbs? Is fhe afraid of being
confined a clofe Prifoner in a rotten Body, and
left her old Tabernacle, worn out by Time and
Age, fhould fall and crufh her to pieces? But no
Danger can affect a Nature that is immortal.
BESIDES, it 1s ridiculous to fuppofe, that a
Flock of Souls are ready hovering about, whilft
Brutes are in the Act of Luft, and drop their
Young, that they, immortal as they are, fhould
attend upon perifhing Bodies, in Troops with-
out Number, hurrying and coming to Blows as it
were, which firft fhould get poffeffion and enter
in; unlefs perhaps they rather choofe to agree
among themfelves, that the firft come fhould be
firft ferved, and there fhould be no further Dif-
pute about it. 3
AcaIn, there are no Trees in the Sky, no
Clouds can be inthe deep Sea, nor can Fifth live
In the Fields, nor can there be Blood in Wood,
nor Moifture in Stones. It is fixed and eftablifhed
where every thing fhould grow and fubfift. The
Soul therefore cannot come into Being alone
without the Body, nor can fhe εχ δ feparately
without the Nerves and the Blood ; if this could
be, the Powers of the Soul, you would rather
feel fometimes in the Head or Shoulders, or
even in the very Bottom of the Feet, ‘or in any
other Part of the Body, and fo you would per-
ceive it diffufing itfelf through the whole Body ;
as Water poured into a Veilel firft covers one
Part, then fpreads over the whole, Since there-
| S 4 fore

T,-Lucretrit Lie. Ih
Quod quoniam in noftro quogue confiat Corpore |
| cerium | 795

Difpoftiumque videtur, ubi effe, 855 crefcere poffit
Seorfum Anima, atque Animus: Tanto magis inf-
ciandum |

Totum poffe extra Corpus durare, gemique.
Quare, corpus ubi interiit, pertiffe neceffe */t

Confiteare animam diftratlam in Corpore tote. 800

Quippe etenim Mortale Avterno jungere, &F una

Confentire putare, & fungi muiua poffe,

Defipere *ft : quid enim diverfius effe putandum "3,

Aut magis inter fe disjunttum, difcrepitan que,

Quam, Mortale quod eft, Immortali, atque perenni

Funétum, in concilio fevas tolerare procellas ? 806

Preterea, quecunque manent Avterna, neceffe ‘ft,

dut quia funt Solide cum corpore refpuere idtus,

Nec penctrare pati fibi quicquam, quod queat

avetas |

Diffociare intus parteis’; ut Materiat - 819

Corpora funt, quorum naturam oftendimus ante -

Gui ideo durare etatem poffe per omnem,

Plagarum quia funt expertia, ficut Inane *ft :

Quod manet intatium, neque ab ittu fungitur hilum :
tut ideo, quia nulla loci fit copia circum, 815

Quo φεφ res poffint difcedere, diffoluigque :

Sicut Summarum Summa*ft eterna, neque extra

Quis locus eft, quo diffugiat : neque corpora [unt,

gua

Poffint incidere, &S valida diffolvere plaga: — -
Mt

-

|

Boox Ill. Of the Nature of Things.

fore there is a proper and determinate Place in

this Body of ours, for the Mind and Soul diftinétly |

to Be and increafe in, we have the more reafon
to deny that they can continue or be born without
it; and confequently when the Body dies, the Soul
diffufed through the whole Body mutt be allow-
ed to die likewife.

Anp then to join a mortal Nature to an im-
mortal, and to think they can agree together,
and mutually unite in their Operations, is Folly
and Nonfenfe ; for what can be conceived more
abfurd, what can be more impracticable tn itfelf,
more difagreeing to Reafon, than a mortal Na-
ture joined to one eternal and immortal, and fo
united as to be liable to all the Pains and Diftret-
fes of Human Life? ,

Besrtpes, ἢ whatever is immortal muft be fo,
either becaufe it is felid, and cannot be aftected
by Blows, fo that nothing can pierce it, and
break through the clofe Union of its Parts, (fuch
are the firft Seeds of Matter, as we proved be-
fore ;) or itiseternal, and lafts for ever, becaufe
it.is free from Stroke, asa Void is, which is not
liable to Touch, nor affected by the Force of
Blows; or laftly, becaufe there is no Space any
way about it into which its broken Parts can be
difperfed, (in this Senfe the Univerfe 1s eternal;
beyond which there is no Place where its Parts
may retire, nor any Bodies to fall upon it, and
diffolve and break it to pieces by mighty Blows

» Whatever is immortal is fo, either by reafon of its Solidi-
ty as an Atom, or becanfe it is free from Stroke, as the
Void, or becaufe there is no Place out of which or from
whence any Bodies- can come to dafh it to pieces, or into
which its diffolved or broken Parts can retire, as the Uni-
verfe; but the Soul is nothing like any of thefe ; it is compo-
fed of Seeds, and therefore not perictily folid; it is not a

Void, becaufe it affects the Body, and in its turn is affected
by it; and itis not the Univerfe, therefore it is mortal.

4 : from

265

266

T. LucretTII ΓΕΒ. Hi.

At neque (uti docui) Solido cum corpore Mentis 820
Natura *ft, quoniam admiftum °ft in rebus Inane ;
Nec tamen eft ut Inane : neque autem corpora defunt,
Ex infinito que poffint forté coorta

Proruere bane Mentis violento turbine molem,

Aut aliam quamvis cladem importare pericli: 825.
Nec porro natura Loci, fpatiumque Profunds
Deficit, exfpergi quo poffit vis Animaz,

Aut alia quavis poffit vi puja pertre :

Haud ivitur lethi preclufa°ft anua Mentz.

Quod fi forte ideo magis immortalis habenda *ft,
Quod lethalibus ab rebus munita tenetur ; 831
Aut quia non veniunt omnino altena falutis:

Aut quia que veniunt, aliqua ratione recedunt
Pulfa priits, quam, quid noceant, fentire queamus :
Scilicet ἃ vera longe ratione remotum °*ft. 835
Prater enim quam quod morbis tum Corporis egrit,
Advenit id, quod eam de rebus fepe futuris
Macerat, inque metu male babet, curt{que fatigat :
Preteritifque admiffa annis peccata remordent.
Adde furorem Animi proprium, atque oblivia rerum,
“4446 quéd in nigras Lethargi mergitur undas, 841

Niligitur Mors eft, ad nos neque pertinet hilum,
Dyandoquidem natura Animi mortalis habetur :

Et velut anieatto nil tempore fenfimus agri,
Ad confligendum venientibus undique Penis, 845

Omnia

Boox Ill. Of the Mature of Things. 267
from without.) But, as I faid, the Nature of
the Mind is not folid, becaufe there is empty
Space in allcompound Beings ; nor yet is ita Void,
nor are there wanting Bodies for ever beating,
upon it from without, and driving the whole
Frame of this Mind by impetuous Force into ut-
ter Diffolution, or to diftrefs it any other way
with extremeft Danger ; nor is there any Want of
Place or Space where the Seeds of the Soul may
be difperfed, or where they may be diffolved by
any Violence whatfoever, The Gate of Death
therefore is not barred againft'the Soul.
But if you think fhe may the rather be pro-
nounced immortal, becaufe fhe is placed fecure
from ‘Things that may deftroy her Being, or that:
Things oppofite to her Safety never come near
her,. or if they do, they are diverted by foine
Caufe, before you perceive they have done her
any ficnal Injury : this is a great Miftake, and
far from Troth: For, not to mention how fhe
fickens with the Difeafes of the Body, how fome-
thing happens that torments her about future E-
vents, how fheis diforder’d by Fear, and vexed
by Cares, and how the Confcience of Crimes paft
many Years azo, pierces her through; confider
the peculiar Diftraction that affects the Mind,
how fhe forgets every thing, and is overwhelmed
by the black Waves of a Lethargy.
Deratu thereforeis Nothing, nor is it of the A,aing the
Confequence of a Rufh to us, fince the Nature fear of
' of the Soul is certainly mortal; and as we were no ’¢**”-
way concerned at what formerly happened when the
© Carthaginians mufter’d thetr Armies on all fides

© As the Carthaginians Wars gave us no ‘T’rouble who were:

not born in thofe Days, fo, fince the Soul is mortal as well as

the Body, no Wars, Cares or Affiftions will torment us after
Death,

I againft

268

T. Lucrerii Lis. III.

“
,

Omnia cum belli trepido concuffa tumultu

Horrida contremuere fub altis etheris auris ;

In dubioque fuit fub utrorum regna cadendum
Omuibus Lumantis effet, terraque marique:

Sic ubi nonerimus, cum Corporis, aique Animai $50
Difcidium fuerit, quibus ὃ fumus uniter apti,
Scilicet baud Nobis quicquam, qui non erimus titiits
Accidere cmnino poterit, fenfumque movere:

Nou fi terva mari mifcebitur, 9 mare calo.

Et fi jam noftro fentit de Corpore, pofiquam 855°

Difiratta’ft Animi natura, Animeque poteftas :
Nil tamen boc ad Nos, qui cwiu, conjugioque
Corporis, aique Anime confifiimus uniter apti.
Nec, fi materiam noftram coulegerit etas

Poft obituim, rurfumque redegerit, ut fita nunc eft ;
Atque iterum Nobis ‘fuerint data lumina vite, 86%

Pertineat quicquaim tamen ad Nos id quoque fatium,

Tnterrupta femel cum fit repetentia noftra.

Et nunc nil ad Nos de nobis attinet; ante

Oui fuimus, nec jam de illis Nos afficit angor, 865
Quos de materia nofira nova proferet etas: — ~
Nam cum refpicias immenft temporis omne
Preteritum fpatium, tum motus Materiai
Multimodi quam fint ; facile boc adcedere poffis,

- Semina fepe in eodem, ut nunc funt, ordine pofta: 870
Nec memori tamen id quimus deprendere mente.

Inter enim jelia "ft vitai paufa, vageque
Deerrdrunt paffim motus ab Senfibus omnes:

᾿

Boox Ill. Of the Nature of Things.

againft us, and all the World trembled, and
fhook*with the dreadful Alarms of War, and it
was undecided under the Power of which Empire
the Land and the Sea, and all Things here below
fhould be fubjeéted ; fo, when we fhall be no
more, when the Separation happens between the
Soul and the Body, which together make up our
Being, Nothing fhall befall us s who then hall no
dee be, nor affect our Senfe; not tho’ the Earth
be fwallowed up by the Sea, and the Sea con-
founded with the Heavens above.

But if the Nature of the Soul, and the Powers
of it, when divided from the Body, had the Fa-
culty to think, this would fignify nothing to us,

who are'formed and compounded by a frit and

infeparable Union of Sou! and Body: together.
Nay, if Time could collect together our fcat-
ter’d Particles after Death, and reduce them into
the fame Frame they are now in, and the Light
of Life were again beftowed upon us, can all
this, if it were done, relate any thing to us, when

all the Memory of paft Life were interrupted and ~

gone? And now we give ourfelves no Trouble
about what we were formerly, nor are we under
any Anxiety what Perfons the Time to come will
raife from our Matter, when it is moulded up
again; for when you Jook back upon that infinite
Space of Time that is paft, and confider how
various are the Agitations of Matter, you will
eafily believe thofe Seeds of ours have been often,
ranged in the fame Order they are now in, tho’
we can recollect nothing of what was then tranf-
acted ; for a Paufe of Life is thrown in between,
and the Seeds, fo varioufly toffed about, took
fuch Motions as were averfe and oppofite to all
—Senfe.

᾿ For

209

70

4

T. Lucrett Lis. UE

Dedet enim, mifere quoi forteagréque futurum *ff.
Ipfe quoque effe in co tum tempore, citm male poffit
Accidere: At quoniain mors eximit im, probibetque,
Illuin, cui pofint incommoda conciliari 8.7)
Hec eadem, in quibus (F nunc Nos fumus, anté

fusffe s

Scirve licet Nobis nibil effe in morte timendum: ὦ
Nec miferum flert, qui non eft, poffe: neque bilum
Differre, an nullo fuerit jam tempore natus, 881
Mortalem vitam mors cuz immortalis ademit.

Proinde ubi fe videas hominem miferarier, ipfums
Poft mortem fore, ut aut putrefcat corpore péfto ;
Aut fiammis interfiat, malifve ferarum : 885
Scire licet, non fincerum fonere, atque fubeffe
Caecum aliquem cordi flimulum, quamvis neget ipfe
Credere fe quemquam fibi Senfum in morte futurum.
Non (ut opinor) enim dat, quod promittit; & inde
Nec radicitus é vita Se tollit, {8 eicit ; 590

Sed facit effe Sui quiddam fuper infcius ipfe.

Vivus enim Sibi cum proponit quifque, futurum
Corpus uti velucres lacerent in morte fereque 9

Ipfe Sui miferet : neque enim Se vindicat hilum,
Nec removet fatis a projecto corpore: €8 illud 805
Se fingit, fenfuque fuo contaminat adftans.

Hine indignatur fe Mortalem effe creatum,

Nec videt, in vera nullum fore morte alium Se x
Dui poffit vivus fibi Se lugere perempium,

Stanfque jacentem, nec lacerari, urive dolore. geo
Nam fi in morte malum’ ft malis morfuque ferarum

Trattart,

Boox ΠῚ. Of the Nature of Things.

For whoever is to become wretched and mi-
ferable, muft exift at that very Time when fuch
Misfortunes are to fall upon him; but fince Death
puts an efid to his Being, and hinders the Man
trom feeling thofe Misfortunes which we the Li-
ving endure, it is plain that we have nothing to
fear in Death, and none can be unhappy who are
not in Being ; nor is it of the Confequence of
This, whether fuch a one had ever been born,
whofe mortal Life immortal Death had once put
anend to.

Anp then, when you fee a Man lament himfelf,
becaufe his rotten Body fhall after Death putrefy in
the Earth, or be confumed by Fire, or by the Jaws
of wild Beafts, this Man you muft obferve does not
fpeak out, but hasfome fecret Sting concealed at his
Heart within, tho’ he pretends to fay that the Body
has no Senfe after Death ; for I think he does not
come up to his Word, nor believes that the
Whole of him is deprived of Life when he dies,
but, like a Fool, that fomething of himfelf re-
mains ftill. When a Man alive torments himfelf,
that Birds or Beafts will tear his Body to pieces
after Death, he bemoansthe Mifery of his Fate,
but does not fully diftinguith, nor fet himfelf at
a proper Diftance from his dead Carcafe, he be-
hieves himfelf to be That, and rots with all his
Senfes about him. Hence it is he grieves that he
was born mortal, nor fees that in Death therecan
be no other Self that can furvive, and mourn over
_ him after he is dead, thatcan ftand by him ashe
lies along, or fuffer Pain or Affliction for him.

For if it bean Evil to be crufhed after Death
by the Teeth and Jaws of wild Beafts, [4 do not

4 He alludes to three different Ways of Sepulture in ufe by
the Ancients ; fome were burnt, fome buried in the Earth,

and fome were put into Stone-Coffins filled up with Ho-
ney.

fee

271

΄-

Ψ, Lucrerit Lie. Td

Trattari, non invenio qué non hi 2 acerbum

Ignibus tmpofitum calidis torrefcere flammis ;

Aut in melle fitum fuffocari, atque rigere

frigore, cum in fummo gelidi cubat equore faxi: 905
Urgerive fuperne obtritum pondere terra.

At jam non domus accipiet te leta, neque uxor
Optima, nec dulces occurrent ofcula nati
Praripere, 8 tacita pettus dulcedine tangent ;

Non poteris factis tibi fortibus effe, tuifque 910
Prefidio: Mifer! 6 mifer ! aiunt, omnia ademit
Una dies infefia tibi tot pr emia vite.

Illudin his rebus non addunt, Nec tibi-earum

Fam defiderium infidet rerum infuper und.

Quod bene fi videant animo, dittifque fequantur : 915
Diffolvant animi magno fe angore, metuque. —

Tu quidem ut es letho fopitus, fic eris avi

Quod fupereft, cunétis privatu’ doloribus egris :

At nos horrifico cinefatium te propé bufto
Infatiabiliter deflebimus, aternumque 920
Nulla dies nobis merorem ὃ pectore demet.,

Iilud ab boc igitur querendum “fi, quid fit amari
Tantopere, ad fomnum fires redit, atque quietem,
Cur guifquam eterno poffit tabefcere ludtu ὃ

Floc etiam factunt, ubi difcubuere, tenentque 925
Pocula fepé homines, ξϑ inumbrant ora coronis,

Boc KT. Of the Nature of Things.

fee why his Fate is not equally wretched to be

laid upon a burning Pile, and confumed to afhes;

or to be fuffocated with Honey, or to be ΠΙΗ͂

with Cold, as he lies upon the Top of a bleak

‘Rock, or preffed with a heavy Weight of Earth
upon him,

Burt now no more will yout glad Family wel-
come you home, nor your beft of Wives, nor
fweet Children run to meet you, and {ftrive who
firft fhall have a Kifs, and make your Heart leap
with filent Delight ; no more fhall you bea De-
fence to yourfelf and Friends by your brave Ex-

ploits: Ah Wretch, thou crieft, Ah miferable ὦ

Me! One woeful Day has robbed me of fo ma
ny Bleffings of my Life. But, in this Cafe, he
never goes on and fays, that the Defire of thefe
Things is gone likewife. If Men would well
corifider, and accordingly exprefs their Com-
plaints, their Minds would be free from much
Anxiety and imaginary Fear; for Thou fleeping
in the Arms of Death, fhalt lie for ever difchar-
ged from all Sorrow and Pain, but we fhall never
ceafe to lament Thee, reduced to Afhes, near thy
fad Urn, andno Time fhall remove our never-end-

_ ing Grief from our Minds. Now I would gladly
| know if the matter be no more than. fleeping and
going to Reft, what there 15 fo'exceeding bitter in
Death, that any one fhould upon that account
pine his Lifeaway ineternal Lamentation?
Anp yet This the gayeft Part of Mankind do,
even when they fit down at their Caroufals, with
Bumpers in their Hands, and their * Heads
* It was the Cuftom among the Greeks and Latins, at their
Feafts and Entertainments, for the Guefts, and even the Wai-
ters to wear Garlands of Flowers upon their Heads. ‘This they
did, fays Pliny, to difpel by the Fragrancy of the Flowers the
Vapours and Heayine({s that proceeded from too much Drink-

Vor... T crowned

273

274

T. Lucretizr Luis. I,

Ex animo ut dicant, Brevis bic ef fruétus bomullis:
Fam fuerit, neque poft unquam revocare licebit.
Tanquam in morte mali cumprimis boc fit eorum
Quod itis exurat Miferos, atque arida torreat, 930
Aut alie cujus defiderium infideat rei.
Nec fibi enim quifquam tum Se, Vitamque requirit,
Cui pariter Mens & Corpus fopita quiefcunt :
(Nam licet eternum per nos fic effe foporem.)
Nec defiderium noftri nos adtigit ullum : 935
Et tamen haudquaquam noftros tune illa per artus
Longé ab fenfiferis Primordia motibus errant:
Quin conreptus homo ex fomuo fe conligit ipfe.
Muité igitur mortem minus ad Nos éffe putandum,
Si minus effe poteft, quam quod nibil effe videmus.
Major enim turbe disjectus Materiat O4t
Confequitur letho, nec quifquam expergitus exftat,
Frigida quem femel eft vitat paufa fecuta.

| Denique fi vocem rerum Natura repente
Mittat, &8 boc aliquoi noftrum fic increpet ipfa : 945
Quid tibi tantopere °ft, Mortals, quod nimis egris
Luétibus indulges ὃ quid mortem congemis, ac fles?
Nam fi grata fuit tibi vita anteadia, priorque,
Et non omnia pertufum congefta quaft in vas
Commoda perfluxere, atque ingrata intertere: 950
Cur non, ut plenus vite Conviva, recedis ?
LE quo animoque capis fecuram, Stulte, quietem ?
Sin ea, que frucius cumque es, pertere profufa,

Vitaque in offenfu ft, cur amplius addere queris,

Rurfus

BooxIll. Of the Nature of Things.

crowned with Flowers; they turn ferious and cry,
Short is the Pleafure of us poor Creatures, we can
juft fay it was, and once gone, it will never re-
turnmore. As if the greateft Evil in Death to
them was, that a parching Thirft fhould fcorch
the Wretches, and burn them up, or an infatiable
Defire of any thing they love fhould follow them
beyond the Grave. No Man gives himfelf any
Concern about himfelf or his Life, when the
Soul and Body are fleeping at Reft together (tho?

we were to fleep fo eternally) no Appetite for any .

thing we love beft would then affect us; and yer
tnen the Principles of the Soulare alive, and are
moved almoft with a fenfible Motion within us,
the Man roufed from his Sleep foon recollects

and recovers himfelf; Death therefore, we fhould -

_ imagine, would give us much lefs Anxiety than
Sleep; if there can be lefs than what feems nothing
at all; for there isin Death a wider Separation
of the Seeds, nor does the Man ever wake, when
once the cold Paufe of Life comes upon him.

275

Bur if the Nature of Things fhould offer tofpeak 4 Profo-
of afudden, and upbraid the Folly of any one of us Natures of

ina mannerlikethis: Prythee, Man, why is it that

thou indulgeft thy felf in fuch fharp Sorrow and,

Complaints? Why doft thou groan and weep be-
caufe thou fhalt die? If your Life pait has been a-
greeable to you, and all the abundant Delights of it
did not pafs your Mind as through a Sieve, and pe-
rifhed without Pleafure to you, “why do not you,
as ἃ Gueft plentifully regaled with Life, take
your leave ; and, fond Foo! ! enjoy your {weet
Repofe with a chearful Mind? But if the σοδᾶ
Things thou haft received have been idly fquan-
dered and are gone, and Life is grown a Burden
to you, why do you covet more, “that may come
to the fame unhappy End, and vainly die ae

Φ 2 ike

ἽἍἹ"

70

T. Lucretit Lis. IT.

Rurfum quod pereat male, &S ingratum occidat

omne : , 955
Nec potiis vite finem facis, atque laboris ? |
Nam tibi preterea quod machiner, inveniamque
Quod placeat, nibil eft : eadem funt omnia femper.
Si tibi non annis Corpus jam marcet, &8 artus
Confecti languent : eadem tamen omnia reftant, 960
Omnia fi pergas vivendo vincere fecla:
siique etiam potits, fi nunquam fis moriturus.
Quid refpondeamus, nifi juftam intendere litem

Naturam ? &@ veram verbis exponere caufam ?

At qui obitum lamentetur mifer amplius equo, 965
Non merité inclamet magis, &8 voce increpet acri? —
Aufer ab kine lacrymas, Barathro, 5 compefce

guerelas.
Grandior bic vero fi jam, Seniorque queratur :
Omnia per fructus vitai premia, marces?
Sed quia femper aves, quod abcft, prafentia temnts,
Imperfedia tibi elapfa*ft, ingrataque vita, 0973
ΕΣ nec-opinanti Mors ad caput adftitit ante
Quam fatur, ac plenus poffs difcedere rerum.
iNune aliena tua tamen etate omnia mitte, |
“Equo animoque, agedum, jam aliis concede: ne-

ceffe °ft. 7 975
Jure (ut opinor) agat, jure increpet, incilietque,
Cedit enim rerum novitate extrufa vetuftas ;
Semper &S ex alits aliud reparare neceffe °ft.:
Nec quidquam inbarathrum, nec tartara deciditatra.
Materies opus eft, ut crefcant poftera fecla: 980
Que tamen omnia Te vita perfuncta fequentur.

Nee

=

Boox IIL. OF the Nature of Things.

like thofe that were before; and not rather
put a period to thy Life and all thy Cares? For
there is nothing further I cancontrive or invent
that can pleafe thee more, Things always con-

tinue the fame; if thy Body was not to decay

by Years, nor thy Limbs grow feeble by Age,
Things will ever remain the fame, tho’ thou wert to
goon and live for ever, and much more fo if thou
wert never todie. What could we fay but that
Nature gave a very juft Reproof, and fet the
Cafe ina very proper Light ? ~

But the Wretch that deplores his Death be-
yond all Bounds, may not She defervedly cry out
the louder upon fuch ἃ one, and chide him in a
fharper Note, Get thee gone with thy Tears,
thou Booby, and leave fobbing. Ifhe bean old
Fellow, and far advanced that complains, -Doft
thou fret thy felf that haft run through all the
Delights of Life ? Becaufe thou art reaching after
abfent.Pleafures, thou defpifeft the prefent, and
fo thy Life pafles away imperfect, and without
relifh, and Death ftares thee in the Face before
thou art aware, before thou haft enough, and
canft go off the Stage fatisfied and full of Joy.
It ishigh time to take thy leave of every thing

that does ποῖ agree with thy Age; come, make

way cheerfully for others, there 15 no help for
it: I think Nature, upon fuch occafions, would
act juitly, and, by fuch a Rebuke, ufe him as he
deferves ; for old Things mutt be thruft off, and
give way aS new come, and one thing mult needs
be repaired by another; but nothing finks into
Hell, or defcends into the dark Shades. ‘There
mult ftill be a Stock of Matter to produce future
Generations, all which likewife, when their Race
ig run, fhall follow thee; nor did Things leds

4 pafs

ho

a |

27 ὃ

ΤΟ Lucrestu Lis. ΠῚ,

Nee minis ergo ante hac, quam nunc, cecidere, ca-
dentque :
Sic alid ex alio nunquam defiftet orirt,
Vitaque mancupio nulli datur, omnibus ufu.
Refpice item quam nibil ad Nos anteatia ve-
tuftas «Ὁ 985

Temporis eterni fuerit, quam nafcimur ante.

| Hoc igitur fpeculum nobis Natura futuri

Temporis exponit poft mortem denique nuofiram :
Num quid ibi horribile apparet ? num trifte videtur
Quicquam ? nonne omni fomno fecurius exflat? 900
Atque ea nimirum, quacunque Acherunte profundo
Prodita funt effe,in vita funt omuta nobis.
Nec mifer impendens magnum timet aére faxum
Tantalus, ut fama */t, caffa formidine torpens :
Sed magis in vita Divitm metus urget inanis 995
Mortaleis, cafumque timent, quemcunque ferat Fors.
Nec Tityon Volucres ineunt Acherunte jacentem,
Nec, quod [ub magno ferutentur pettore, quidquans
Perpetuam atatem poterunt reperire profetto,
Quanlibet immani proetiu Corporis exflet, 1000
Qui non fola novem difpenfis jugera membris
Obtineat, fed quit Terrai totius orbem:
Non tamen eternum poterit perferre dolorem,
Nee prabere cibum proprio de corpore femper >

Sed

Boox ΠῚ. Of the Nature of Things.

pafs away in the Ages before than they do now,
and fo fhall they do for the Ages to come;
for Beings never ceafe to rife from the Ruins of
one another, and Life was given to none for a
Property, but to all for Ufe,

Loox back then, how that infinite Tract of
Time that vanifhed before we were in Being, how
it has no Relation tous; and the Nature of the
Time to come will be of the fame Concern to us
after we are dead. And now does any thing
fhew dreadful in Death? Has it any thing me-
Jancholy in its Appearance ὃ Is it not more ferene
_ than the fofteft Sleep ὃ

Awnp truly, all thofe dreadful Things that are
faid to be in the Shades below, are all felt by us
whilft we are in this Life; nor is there, as they
tell us, fuch a miferable Wretch, fo ftupified
with idle Fear as Tantalus £, who dreads the Fall
of the huge impending Stone upon him from a-
bove ; but rather a vain Fear of the Gods torments
Men in this Life, and terrifies them with all the
Ills that Fortune thinks fit to lay upon them.

Nor do the Vultures dig into the Bowels of
Tityus, ashe hes in Hell, nor can they find in
that Jarge Breaft of his a Liver they fhall be for
ever tearing out, tho’ his Body were ever fo big,
tho’ he not only cover’d nine Acres with his ex-
panded Limbs, but could fpread them over all
the Earth ; yet he would not be able to bear eter-

nal Pains, nor could he furnifh an everlafting ©

* Lucretius reprefents the Fable of Tantalus different from
the common Fiction of the Poets; they place him up to the
Chin inthe River Eridanus, with Apples about his Head,
but not admitted either to drin's of the Water, or eat of the
Apples. He follows their Opinion who fay, that a Stone 15
hanging over the Head of Tantei in Hell, the Fall of
which he perpetually dreads.

TA Meal

279

280

¥

T. Lucretirt Lrs. Th

Sed Tityos nobis Hic oft, in amore jacentem O05

Quem volucres lacerant, atque exeft anxius ΠΆΡΟΣ ἢ
Aut alia quavis feindunt cuppedine cure.

Sifyphus in vita quogue nobis ante aculos eft,
Qui petere a populo fafceis, fevafque fecureis
imbibit 5 & femper vittus, triftifque recedit : 1010
Nam petere imperium, qe inane *ft, mec datur:

UNGUAM2,
Atque in eo femper durum fufferre laborem,
Flac eft adver fo nixantem trudere monte
Saxum, quod tamen a fununo jam vertice rurfum
Volvitur, 89 plani raptim petit equora campi, 1015

Deinde animi ingratam naturam pafcere femper,
Atque explere bonis vebus, fatiareque nunquam,
Quod faciunt nobis annorum tempora, circum
Cum redeunt: fatufque ferunt, variofque lepores,
Nec tamen explemur Vitai fructibus unquam ; ΣΟ 9
Foc (ut opincr) id eft, evo florente puellas Ὁ
Quod memorant, laticem pertufum congerere in vas:
Quod tamen explert nulla ratione poteftur.

Cerberus 5. furie jam vero, 95 lucis egenis
Tartarus, borriferos eructans faucibus aftus, 102%
Hec neque funt ufquam, neque poffunt effe profecto.
Sed metus in vita penarum pro malefattis |
Lift infignibus infignis, {celerifque luela
Carcer, (8 horribilis de faxo Faétu’ deorfuim,
Verbera, Carnifices, Robur, Pix, Lamina, Taede:

1030

Que

Boox III. O Mf the Nature of Things.

δ᾽

Meal out of his Body. But that Man is Tityus,
whom by Love oppreffed the Birds of Prey de-
your, and piercing Sorrow eats through, or any
other impetuous Paffion tears in pieces.

Sifiphus walks vifibly before us in this Life ; it
is he who fets his Heart to court the People for
Honours, -forthe Rods and cruel Axes, and is
ever repulfed, and retires fad and difappointed ; for
in vain to: hunt after empty Power, which is never
obtained, and to fuffer the hardeft Labour in the
Perfuit of it ; This is to thruft with all one’s
might the Stone up the Hill, which again tumbles
down upon us from the Top, and rolls fwiftly
into the Plain below. , ι

Anp then to be always obliging an ungrateful
Mind, tobe ever pouring Favours upon it, and
never fatisfy it, which the Seafons of the Year, as
they turn about, are always doing; they produce
their Fruits, and the whole Variety of their
Delights, and yet we are never filled with the
Bleffings of Life. This, I think, is what they
feign of the young 5. Maids below, that ‘they
pump Water into a leaky Veffel, which all their
Labour can never raife to the Top. ᾿

Besipes, Cerberus, and the-Furies, and Hell
void of Light, belching dreadful Flames from
its Jaws, there are no fuch Things in Nature, nor
ever can be; but the Fear of fore Punifhment in
this Life for diftinguifhed Crimes, and the Re-
wards of Villainy affright us: The Prifon, the
terrible Fall from the Yarpeian Rock, Stripes,
Executioners, the Gallows, melted Pitch, Saws,

A common Dittionary will explain the Hiftory of all
thefe Fables, and give an Account of thofe illufrious Perfons
he mentions. He means here the fifty Daughters of Danaus
King of the Argives.

and

28%

232

T. Lucretil Lis. 11].
Qua tamen 8 fi abfunt, at Mens fibi confeia faéti
Premetuens, adbibet flimulos, torretque flagellis ;
Nec videt interea, qui terminus effe malorum
Poffit, nec que fit penaruim denique finis :
Atque eadem metuit magis bec ne in morte gra-

vefcant : 1035

Hine Acherufia fit Stultorum denique vita.

Hoc etiam tibi Tute interdum dicere poffis:
Lumina fis oculis etiam bonus Ancw? reliquit,
Qui melior multis, quam, Tu, fuit Improbe, rebus.
Inde alii multi reges, rerumque potentes 1040
Occiderunt, magnis qui gentibus imperitarunt.

{ile quoque Ipfe, viam qui quondam per mare

magnum

Stravit, iterque dedit legionibus ire per altum,
Lhe pedibus falfas docuit fuper ire lacunas :

Et contemfi, aguis infultans, murmura ponti, 1045.

Lumine ademto, animam moribunae corpore fudit.
Scipiades, belli fulmen, Carthagins borror,
Offa dedit terre, proinde ac famul infimus effet.
Adde repertores dofivinarum, atque leporum,
ade Heliconiadum comites; quorum unus Hoe
MEFUS |
Sceptra potitus, eadens alits fopitu’ quiete ft :
. Denique Democritum poftquam matura vetuftas
41... memorem moius languefcere Mentis,

1050

Sponté

Boox III. Of the Nature of Things.

and fuffocating Smoke ; and if there be none of
thefe, yet the Mind, confcious of Guilt, is ever
in dread of thefe Tortures, it ftings us to the
Heart, and Jafhes us with Rods, not to be en-
dured : Nor has the Wretch a Profpect of any
End to the Miferies he fuffers, nor what can fet
Limits to his Punifhment, and he fears left thefe
Tortures fhould fall the heavier upon him after
Death ; fo that the Fools live as deplorable a Life
as if they were really in Hell.

Txus then you may juftly reafon with your
felf: The good King 4ucus has long-fince bid
adieu to Life, a better Man by much than fuch
a Wretch as Thou, and fo have many Kings and

Potentates of the Earth, who ruled over mighty

Nations.

ConsiDER, even He, that He himfelf, who
formerly made a Road over the wide Sea, gavea
Paffage to his Legions to march over it, and
taught them to walk upon the falt Deep; who
defpifed and infulted the Waves and the Roar-
ings of the Ocean: This Xerxes, cover’d with
Darknefs, has breath’d his Soul out of his Body
long ago. 3 :

Scipio, that Thunderbolt of War and Dread
of Carthage, has. given up his Bones to the
Earth, as if he had been the meaneft of Slaves.

Anp to thefe the Founders of Arts, and the
Inventers of Verfe : add further the Companions
of the Mufes, the mighty Homer, the fole
Sovereign of them all, he fleeps quietly in the
fame Grave with the reft.

Besrpes, when a ripe old Age gave * Demo-
crifus warning that the Strength of his Mind de-

᾿ cayed

® When Demecritus was worn out with Age, and feem’d
to be near his Death, his Sifter was one day complaining to
him, that if he fhould die the fhauld not perform hes Vows
at

283

284

&

T. Lucretir Lis. I.

Sponte fua letho caput obvius obtulit ipfe. aan
Ipfe Epicurus obit decurfo lumine vite, 1055 —
Qui genus humanum ingenio fuperavit, F omneis
Praftinuit, βοείας exortus uti etherius Sol.
Tu vero dubitabis, 59 indignabere obire,
Mortua quoi vita oft prope jam vivo, atque videnti?
Qui fomno partem majorem conteris evi? 1060
Et vigilans flertis, nec fomnia cernere ceffas,
Sollicitamque geris caffa formidine mentem ?

| Nec reperire potes, quid fit tibi fepe mali, cum

Ebrius urgeris multis Mifer undique curis,
“χε animi incerto fluttans errore yagaris ὁ $ 1065
Si poffent Homines, proiade ac fentive videntur,

Pondus inefje Animo quoa fe gravitate fatiget,

Et quibus id fiat caufis cognofcere, &S unde
Tanta mali tanguam moles in pelfore conftet ;
Haud ita vitam agerent, ut nunc plerumque vide-
4215. 1070
Quid fibi quifque velit, | δ᾽ querere femper,
Commutare locum, quaft onus dzponere poffit.
Exit fepe foras magnis ex edibus Ile,
Efe domi quem pertefum "δ, fubitoque revertit :
Quippe foris nibilo melins qui fentiat effe. 1075
Currit agens maunos ad villam Flic precipitanter,
Auxilium tectis quafiferre ardentibus inftans ;
Ofcitat extemplo, tetigit, cum limina ville :

Aut

Boox Ill. Of the Nature of Things.

cayed, he met Death half-way, and chearfully
obeyed the Summons,

Epicurus himfelf, who excelled the whole
World in Wifdom, and darkened all about him
with his fuperior Luftre, as far as the bright
mid-day Sun outfhines the Stars, is dead, and his
Light of Life run out.

SHatt thou then repine, and grieve to die,
whofe Life is little more than a Scene of Death
whilft thou liveft, with thy Eyes open? Who
-weareft the greater Part of thy Life away in
Sleep, who fnoreft and art ever dreaming whilft
thou art awake, and haft thy Mind always tor-
mented with empty Fear, nor art able to find
what is the Malady that troubles thee, when
thou reeleft about, born down on all fides by the
fevereft Mifery, and wandereft 1n the uncertain
Mazes of Doubt and Error?

But if Men would really confider, as they
would be thought tc do, that they are preffed
down by the natural Weight of their own Minds,
and find out the Caufes whence This proceeds, and
whence fo heavy a Load of Evils torments their
Breaft, they would not {pend their Lives as we now
feethey do, not knowing their own Defires, but
every one ftriving to change his Situation, as
if that was the way to eafe him of his Burden.

One, tired at home, leaves his noble Seat,
and goes often abroad, but returns fuddenly a-
eain; for he finds no Relief by fhifting his Place.
Another hurries and drives full-fpeed to hisCoun-
try-houfe, as it was 41} o fire, and he came to
extinguifh it ; he no fooner fets his foot within
the doors, but prefently begins to yawn, or falls
at the Feftival in honour of Ceres; but he bid her take
heart, and bring him every day fome warm Loaves of Bread,
by {melling to which he kept himfelf alive till that Solem-
nity was over, and then willingly died. ,

I , heavily

4285

286

T. Lucretit Lre. HE.
Aut abit in fomunm gravis, atque oblivia querit,
Aut etiam properans urbem petit, atque revifit.
Hoc fe quifque modo fugit : At, quem fcilicet, ut fits
Effugere haud potis eft, ingratis beret, ξ9 angit,
Propterea, morbi quia caufam non tenet eger :
Quam bene fi videat : jam, rebus quifqne reliétis
Naturam primum fiudeat cognofcere reruit, 1084
Lemporis eterni quoniam, non unius hore
Ambigitur flatus, in quo fit mortalibus omnis
“ijtas poft mortem, qua veftat, cumque, manenda.
Denique tantopere in dubiis trepidare periclis
Que mala nos fubigit vitai tanta cupido? 1096
Certa quidem finis vite mortalibus adfiat,
Nec devitari lethum pote, quin obeamus.
Praterea, verfamur ibidem, atque infumus ufque:
Nec nova vivendo procuditur ulla voluptas.
Sed dum abeft, quod avemus, id exfuperare Οἱ»
detur. 1095
Cetera: poft aliud, cum contigit illud, avemus ;
Et fitis equa tenet vitai femper hianteis :
Pofteraque in dubio *ft fortunam quam vebat etas,
Quidve ferat nobis cafus, quive exitus inftet.
Nec prorfum, vitam ducendo, deminis hilum 1109
Tempore de mortis, nec delibrare valemus,
Quo minits effe diu poffmus morte peremti.
Proinde licet quot vis vivendo condere facla,
Mors eterna tamen nibiloninus illa manebit:
Nec minis Ille din jam non erit, ex hodisino 4105
Luimine qui finem vitai fecit, &F ille
Menfibus atque annis qui multis occidit ante.

Boox III. Of the Nature of Things.

heavily tofleep, and ftrives to forget himfelf, orelfe
poftsas hard back, and returns to Townagain. Thus

hetries all ways to fly himfelf, but that Self itis, as _.

it muft be, out of his power to efcape ; he fticks
clofe to him againft his will, and forely torments
him. The reftlefs Fool does not know the Caufe
of his Difeafe, 1f he throughly did, every one
would give up all other Perfuits, and apply
chiefly to fearch into the Nature of Things ; I
do not mean to trouble himfelf about the Event
of the prefent Hour, but inquire into the doubt-
ful State of Eternity after Death, which 18 every
one’s Concern, and which mutt be the Lot of all
Mankind.

Lastiy, how many Evils does a fond Defire
of Life oblige us fo much to apprehend, tho’
they may never happen? But there is a Boundary
fixed to the Age of Man ; we cannot avoid the
Stroke of Death, die we mutt.

BrIsDES, we are ever running on ina Circle
of the fame Actions, and ever perfuing them ;
nor does living on afford us any new Delight.
The Pleafure we covet eagerly exceeds every
thing we enjoyed before, as long as it 18 ab-
fent; but when we have it in poffeflion, we

long paffionately for another, and the fame-

Thirft of Life hanes upon us, ftill gaping for

more; and yet we know nothing what the.

Time to come may produce, what Chance may
happen to us, and how the Scene will end:
ΝΟΣ can we, by living forward, take off a
Moment from the Length of Death, it will
always fhew as if we had been dead ever fo
fo long. Though you live ever fo many Ages,
the State of Death will be ftill eternal ; and he
that died to-day, is to all purpofes as long dead,
as he that died a thoufand Years ago. :

The END of the THIRD BOOK.

287

INDEX

FIRST VOLUME,

A.
‘

1 Paze
a) CCIDENTS. - -- 39
A Acheron. — Γ᾿. = 1§
Altions, their Nature. Σε-- 42
LE ther. — - — 25
fiina defcribed. -- — ~~ ότι
Air rarefied, 35. Not the firft Principle. — 59
ALL, its Nature. — 381
Anaxagoras. — i πα aa
Animals, their Diffolution, 181. Their Growth and
Decay. ne 19

Annihilation.

, a... ἫΝ 32
Atoms,51. Their Motion, 89 Their continual Mo-
tion, 125. They have no Colour. 159

B.
Beings defcribed, 32. They continually change. 171
Blood, the Notion of the Soul’s being inthe Blood. 205
Body, the Nature of Bodies, 23. The meeting of broad
Bodies 35. Every Thing either Body or Void, 27.
Bodies void of Parts, 51. Body and Void infinite, 87.
Vou. 2, σε Te

INDE X.

The Motion of Bodies, 9r. The Defcent of Bo-
dies explained, 117. Some Bodies void of Colours, 169.

The Body dies without the Soul. 229
Centre, the Univerfe has no Centre. — 89
Changes of Things according tothe Seeds|5 — 183

Colours, the Form of their Seeds, 133. Seeds have no
Colour, 159. Colour is Light reflected, 163. The

whole Nature of ic explained. τ 167
Conjuntts of Things. - -- 39
Creatures, their Form different. = 129
Curetes. = 151
Cybele, her Myfteries defcribed. --- 49

D. |
Dart, the cafting of a Dart. - — κφ9ι

Death, the Fear of it the Caufe of all Evils, 207. Rea-
~ fons againft the Fear of it, "ἢ Νο ep after

Death. = — 271
Democritus, his Opinion, 231. The Nature of his

Death. --ὦ —= 283
Defcent of Things explained. —- — |) a
Doves, the Colours of their Feathers. — 165
Drunken Man defcribed. - — 239

E.
Earth, its ΠΡ 22. Not the firft Principle, 61. The
Mother of the Gods, 149. Is void of Senfe, 153.
‘The common Parent of Creatures, 181. And Prefer-

ver of them. — — ---- — 195
Elements, 61. The firft Principles. ae 65
Empedocles. - τιν — 61
Enuius. ea eas τς
Eavy, its Effects. — 207
Epicurus, his Character, 11. Ἧς Olision of Fire, 139-

‘His Praifes celebrated, 201. His Death, — 285
Events. ὦ --. Ξε 29
Bye, the Nature of the Eyes. 231

FB.
Facula. se ._ = = 135
Fear of Death, its Effects. ~ πὶ — 207

Fires

INDE X.

Fire, Heraclitus his Opinion of Fire, 59. Celeftial

_ Fire, 67. Fire made by Collifion. — 75
Figure, Variety of Figures finite. — 139
Fifh, rheir fwimming. -- - 35
Fit, a Perfon in a Fit. -- -- 239
Flame, its Motion explained. — —, 113
Food, its Nature, 73. The Nourifhment of all Crea-
tures, 153. The Variety =e it. -- 157
Form of the Seeds. Ts © iy Ad
Free-will, the Caule of it. -- wae δὲ
G.
Gods, their Nature defcribed. i) 9
Η.
Harmony, the Soul ἃ Sort of Harmony. ——— 209
Heat and Cold. -- — 143
Heles. “-ὦ.-- ὌΝ .- t
| * Heraclitus. | Sa Sey
Homaomery. ---..-. = 1
Homer, 15. HisDeathe = - 283
I.

Immortal Nature, what. oi | 265
Individuals, many of the fame Species. -- 187
Infinity, of Αδαρ. — — 145
Inula. _ — 135
Invocation, of Venus. — im 2 — o£
Iphigenia. ey — - 13

ΙΕ
Leaft in Bodies, «1: The Neceffity of ἡ — 63

Letters. ᾿ “ὦ 69
Light, its Principles. —— ---- ay
Lightnixg, its Nature explained. — Ὁ Ὁ

Liquors; the Formi of their Seeds: -π “πα 127

~

M.
Matter etefinal,. 45. Its Way of acting, εἶτ. Combu-

ftible, how refolved. — 155
Melibea. — -- eae 14:
Memmius. — —, — -- 7
Middle, the Nature of it. ma = ΟΣ

Ua Mind,

INDEX.

Mind, its Nature explained, 205. Is a corporeal Sub-
{tance, 209. How it affects the Body,215. Itfuffers
Pain, 217. Is compofed of fubtil Seeds, ibid. Is made
up of four Parts,221. The Vices of it corrected by
Philofophy, 225. Is the great Preferver of Life, 233.

' The Bonds between the Mind and Soul, 235. The
Mind fubject to Death, 239. Is affected by Medi-
cine,241. Cannot fubfift without the Body, 245. A
guilty Mind. = 2.83

Mortality, Arguments for the Mortality of the Soul, 263

Motes, in the Sun. — i 107
Motion, of the Seeds, 103. The Beginning and Progrefs
᾿ οὗ Motion. a “ας — 121

Nothing, made from Nothing,17. Nor returns to No-

thing. = τ κ- = 25
P,

Philofophy defcribed. -- — OF

Phrygian Mufick. oa — 15K

Place, loweft Place explained. — — το
Principles, of Things fixed, 21. The frft Principles ex-
plained, ἔς. Principles of Things inGnice, 145. They

are fimple, 179. Purple. — 14:
Pythagoras, his Opinion of the Soul. —ose 259
Rays, of che Sun. — moses LOg
Rebounding of the Seeds. τ rs 105
Relizion, the Character of it. oS aa LE
Riches, their Vanity. ome - 99
Scipio, his Death. Tice 282.
Sea, its Water fluid and bitter, 127. Its Colour ex-

plained. -- -- ᾿ς ἼΣΟΣ

Seeds, or firft Principles,19. Eternal, 23. Invifible, 27.
They are folid, indiffoluble, 45. Unchangeable, 49.
Entire, 57. Their Nature according to.4vaxagoras, 71.
Common Seeds mixed in Things, +5. The Motion
af the Seeds, 87. Flow Bodies are produced by Seeds,

rol.

ἘΝ DE’ X..

yor. The wandring and toffing of the . ds, γος.
Swiftnefs of the Seeds, r09. Their Paffa® through:
a Void, 111. The Defcent of the Seeds exniained, 117.
They decline in their Motion, 119. Number of Seeds
fixed and certain, 125- The Form of the Seeds, 12%
Their Form that affect the Senfe, 133. Things made
of mingled Seeds, 147. Seeds have no Colour, 161.
Have no Qualities, 169. ‘The Nature of foft Seeds, α 72.
Seeds infenfible produce Things ferfible, 17¢. They
are without Pain or Pleafure, 179. The Nacturecf the
Seeds that compofe the Mind ε 219
Senfe, the Senfes judge of the Quelities of Things, 167,
Some tuken away and reftorec, 177. Belongs to the
Soul and Body, 228. SentibleThings flow from Seeds

void of Senfe. ΄ -- -- 171
ϑεριέζῳεε; the Ways of it. —— 273
Sizily. - — — δι
Signs, tne Nature of if, ς΄ ἘΞ 12
Sifsehus. ΕΞ - a 23K
Smell, no Smellin the Seeds, 169. «Its Nature. 29
Softer "Ὁ , ἑωΣ . ΟΝ 49
Seitzs. indi ΧΙ Ϊ6, 53
Some voz, a fourth Something defcribed. 223

ΘΟ the Nature of it, τς. 4s corporeal, 211. Confifts
c: Vapour, Air and Heat, 219. Is contained by the
waole Body, 227. , Is mortal and perifhable, 235.
Cows up and dies with the Body, 237. Cannot ac&

‘without the Bodv, 245. Isdivided, and therefore mors

4

cal, 253. Is not infufed Αἵ τὰς Birth, 255. Whether τῇδ

Soul remains in a dead Body. 257
Spaze, defined, 33. Is without Bounds. 83, 185
Square, the Nature of it. 163
Stoics, their Opinion of the World. “--«- ὃς
Stroke, in Bodies, SEE 123

᾿ Subjecé, of the Poem. | —— 9
Sun, how fupplied. os 93
Swooning Fit defcribed. 247

Ἕ
Tantalus, Tityus. - ~ 279
Zemper, whence the different Temper of Creatures pro-
ceed. eee rm men, ore 225

ee ~~ ὰ
TPings

INDEX

Things not deftroyed by Time, 23. Are in conftant
Wear, 31. How they are fupported, 69. Are com-
pofed of mingled Seeds, 155. Appear of different
Colours. : 161

Time, its Nature, 25. Of itfelf is Nothing. Ay”
Touch, the Nature of that Senfe. ---- τ - 13
V.

Vanity of Things. — ον 99
Vapour, Life depends upon it, 213. The invifible Va-
_ pour defcribed. 223
Venus, her Character. es 2
Vidim, the facrificing of black Victims. — 205

Univer fe, infinite, 81. Not governed by the Gods. 189
Void, its Nature, 31.- The Neceflicy of it, 63. The Mo-
tion of Things through a Void, 119. AVoid infinite, 185

ΝΥ.
War, the Arts of War. 221
Water, not the firft Principle. ------ 59
Weight, in Bodies. — 123
Winds, their Nature. . Sane 2/-

orld, not made by the Gods, 113. There are many~
Worlds, 183. The World receives new Seeds, 19 .

The World grows old, and decays. 193
xX.
_ Kerxes. — ἘΞ ΞΨν 283

san OP aD

BOOKS lIately Printed for D. Browne,
without Temple-Bar.

I. ORACE?’s SatTires, Epistues, and Art of

Poetry, tranflated into ἔαρ, with Notes. By
S. Dunster, D. D. Prebendary of Sarum. ‘The sth
Edition revifed and corrected, with confiderable Improve-
ments and fome additional Notes.

2. A New Tranflation of Juvenat’s SaTires, with
Explanatory and Claffical Notes, relating to the Laws and
Cuftoms of the Greeks and Romans.

3. The Sarires of Persius tranflated into ξηρὴ
by Tuomas SHeripan ἢ. D. with explanatory Notes.
_ The 2d Edition ; to which is added an alphabetical Index.

4. Biocgrapuia Criassica; the Lives and Cua-
RACTERS Of all the CLassic Authors, the Grecian and
Roman Poets, Hiftorians, Orators, and Biographers, in z
Volumes, vz.

Vor i
Containing the Lives, &’c. of the Grecian Poets.

Homer. Pindar. ] Simonides. | Callimachus.

Hefiod. fE{chylus. | Ariftophanes. | Apollonius.

Sappho. Sophocles. | Theocritus. | Aratus.

Alczus. Euripides. | Lycophron. , Oppian.

Anacreon. | “»- | .

. The Roman Poets.

Plautus. Tibullus. ‘Seneca. Juvenal.
‘Terence. Propertius. | Lucan. Martial.

Lucretius, | Phedrus. Perfius. Valerius Flac-

Virgil, nilius. cus. Aufonius.
Horace. Ovid. Statius.. Claudian.,

Vou. II.

Containing the Lives, “Jc. of the Grecian Hiftorians.
Herodotus. Polybius. Arrian. Herodian.
Thucydides, J Diodorus Si- | Appian. Plutarch.
Xenophon. culus. Dio Caffus. { Lucian.
Demofthenes. | Dion. Hal.

The Roman Hiftorians.

Catullus. Marcus Ma- | Silius Itali- | cus,

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Salluftius. j Titus Livius. | nius Arbiter. Tranquil-

Caius Julius | Velleius Pa- { Corn. Taci-] lus.
Ceefar. νι terculus. tus. Plinius Jun.

Marcus Tul- | Quintus Cur- | Lu. Annzus | M. Junianus
jius Cicero. tus Rufus. Florus. | Juftinus. |

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ΤΙ Lucretius Carus
OF THE

NATURE of THINGS,

IN SIX BOOKS.

ILLUSTRATED with
Proper and Ufeful NoTes.

Adorned with Copprer-PLarTeEs,

᾿
Curioufly EncRraveEp

By GUERNIER, and others.

Carmina fablimis tunc funt peritura Lucreti
Exitio Terras cum dabit una Dies. OviD:

: VOL. Ii.

LONDON:

: Printed for Danret Browne, at the Black Swaiz
: without TLemple-Bar.

ΟΝ MDCCXLHI.

A NE W

RANSLATION
OF |

I. Lucretius Carus,

OY THE

NATURE of THINGS.

Won. i. Β

a of b.
a Ae UM EN F
Or FH &

FOURTH BOCK.

Ἡ [δ Book begins with a Repetition of the

fame Comparifon the Author introduced in the

Firft Book, v.92, to relieve the Mind of

bis Memntus from the Roughnefs and Unpleafantnefs
of the Subject upon which he was difputing, and to
befpeak the Docility and Attention of bis Readers,
Fle then enters upon ῥὶς Subjett, which treats of the
Senfation of Animals, as well when they are awake,
as when they are fleeping ; that is, to ufe the Ex-
preffion of Lucretius, be explains the Senfes of the
Mind, as well as thofe of the Body , be begins witb
the Images of Things, and infifts ftrenuoufly, that all
Senfation is made by them. He fays, that certain
moft tenuious ana fubtil Images are continually flow-
ing from the Surface of all Bodies, that they fly about
in the Air, but neverthelefs are invifible, unlefs they
be refietted upon the Sight from Mirrours or Water.
Then be defcribes the extreme Tenuity of fuch Images,
and from thence takes occafion to confirm the Doétrine
be taught in the firft Book concerning tbe Exiguity of
bis Atoms. He lays dewn two Sorts of Images, one
that of their own Accord are bred in the Clouds,
ewhich reprefent the Images of Giants, or of Moun-
B 2 tants.

The ARGUMENT.

tains, or of fome monftrous Beaft , the other, fuch as
fly off from the Surface of Bodies, and are, as it
qvere, the Films or Membranes of them. He calls
them Exuvise Rerum, and then teaches .that thefe
Exuviz are perpetually flying off from the Surface of
all Bodies, and are carried through the Air with
fuch wonderful Celerity, tbat they exceed even the
Rays of the Sun in Swiftnefs. The Sight being the
principal of the Senfes, be begins with that, and
teaches tbat it proceeds from the Incurfion and Strik-
ing of thofe Imazes upon the Eyes, in ibe fame man-
ner as the other Senfes are caufed by Corpufcles, that
Jirike from without upon the feveral Organs of Senfa-
tion. He io it the mean time all Things that
relate to the efpcient Caufes of Sight, and propofes
feveral Problems relating to Vifion, which he folves
with Truth and Propriety. But that no one, from
the Explication of thefe Problems, might accufe the
Senfes of Deception or Fallacy, he at large afferts
their Certainty, and by the way takes Occafion ἐδ
confute the Sceptick, and lays it down as an indif-
putable Maxim, that all Truth is grounded on the
Certainty and on the Belief of the Senfes. He then
proceeds to the other Senfes, and infifts that Voice
and Sound are corporeal Images, which firike the
Far, and are the Caufe of Hearing. He then ex-
plains the Nature of Voice, and the Manner of iis
Formation, and gives a Reafon why ihe fame Voice
is beard by many Perfons at once, and treats of what
an Eccho is, and what is the Caufe of it. He then
gives Inftructions concerning Savour, and Tafte, and
Odour, aud Smell; particularly what Savour and
Odour are, and why all do not perceive them, why
the fame Food is [weet to fome, and bitter to others 3
ζοῦν one Odour is more agreeable to one, than it is
to another 5 and why the fame Voice ftrikes a Terror
into fome, and is agreeable, at leaft not frighiful, to
others. He proceeds to treat of Imagination and

Cogita-

The ARGUMENT.

Cogitation, which be fays are made likewife by the
fame moft fubtil Images of Things prefenting them-
felves to the Mind: He then explains feveral Pro-
blems relating to Cogitation; why, for Example,
we feem to feein our Dreams Perfons who are dead ;
why the Images of Things feem to tarry with us,
while we are thinking of the Things whofe Images they
are; why we think of a fudden upon whatever we
will, why we feem to ourselves to move in our Dreams. ΄
He fays the Tongue, the Eyes, the Noftrils, the Ears,
and all the Organs of Senfation were made before the
Ufe of them, quite contrary to what bas happened in
regard to all Artificial Things, the Invention of which
fucceeded the forefeen Want and Ufefulnefs of them.
fle gives the Reafon why Animals feek after their
own Meat and Drink, why we move whenever we
pleaje, and explains what it is that aétuates and
drives forward the Bulk of our Bodies: He treats of
Sleep and Dreams, and teaches in the firft Place,
how Sleepis caufed in us, and in all other Crea-
tures; then be affigns feveral Caufes of different
Dreams: At laft, be falls upon the Subject of Ve-
nery ; and to the End of the Book continues to treat
of Love, of Barrennefs, of Fruitfulnefs, and other:
Points relating to Generation, with more Freedom
perbaps than is becoming: But Natural Philofopbers
generally allow themfelves uncommon Liberties upon
fuch Occafions.

B 3 | 4:

Tl. Lucretia Cari
DE

RERUM NATURA.

ΕΚ QUA LPTs

Via Pieridum perago loca nullius ante
4 Trita folo, juvat integros accedere fonteis 5
Mig, baurive : juvatq; novos decerpere flores,
Infignemque Meo capiti petere inde coronam,
Unde prius Nuili velarint tempora Mufe. 6
Primim quod magnis doceo de rebus, © arétis
Religionum animos nodis exfolvere pergo 5
Deinde, quod obfcura de re tam lucida pango
Carmina, miuj@o contingens cunéta lepore :
Td quoque enim non ab nulla ratione videtur. io
Nain veluti Pueris abfynthia tetra Medentes,

Cum

SNLY

ς:. . ay X
Le i αι
4 va
ww SONS 7,
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‘

ON
(As “B

wos

1. Lucretius Carus,

ΟΕ THE

NATURE of THINGS.

THE

FOURTH BOOK.

Β οἱ difficult Accefs, and yet untrod ; I love

ΖΔ to approach the pureft Springs, and thence
to draw large Draughts; I love to crop frefh
Flowers, and make a noble Garland for my
Head from thence, where yet the Mufes never
bound another’s Temples with a Crown like mine. -
And firft I write of lofty Things, and {ἔγινε to
free the Mind from the fevereft Bonds of what
Men call Religion; then my Verfe I frame fo
clear, altho? my Theme be dark ; feafoning my
Lines with the Poetic Sweets of Fancy, and Rea- ,
fon juftifies the Method; for as Phyficians when

4 The firft twenty-nine Lines of this Book, in which the

Poet invites the Reader’s Attention, are to be found near
the latter End of Book the Firft.

B 4 _ they

P |: SPIR’D, I wander o’er the Mufes Seats;

TT, Luce erm Lin lve

Ciim dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum

Contingunt mellis dulct,-flavoque liquore,

Ut Pusrorum etasimprovida ludificeiur

Labrorum tenus, interea perpotet amarum 15

Abfynthi laticem, deceptaque non captatur 53

Sed ῥοπῆς talt tattu recreata valefcat,

Sic Ego nunc, quoniam bec Ratio plerumg, videtur.

Triftior effe, quibus non eft trattata, retrogue

Voleus abborret ab Hac 3 volui tibi fuaviloquenti 20

Carmine Pierio rationem exponere noftram,

Et quafi Mufeo dutci contingere melle 5

Si tibi forte animum talt ratione tenere

Verfibus in nofiris poffem, dum per/picis omnem

Naturam rerum; ac perfentis utilitatem. on
Sed quoniam docui, cunctarum Exordia rerum

Qualia fint, {FP quam variis diftantia formis

Sponte fua volitent eterno percita motu :

Quoque modo poffint res ex bis queque creari:

Aique A:imi quomiam docu natura quid effet, 36

ΕἸ quibus é rebus cum Corpore compta vigeret ;

Quove modo diftratta rediret in Ordia prima :

Nune agere incipiam tibi, quod vebementer ad has res

Aitinet, effe ea, que rerum Simulacra vocamus :

Que quafi Membrane fummo de corpore rerum 35

Derepte volitant ultro citroque per auras :

ΚΣ

Book lV. Of the Nature of Things.

/

they would prevail on Children to take down α΄

bitter Draught of Wormwood, firft tinge the
Edges of che Cup with fweet and yellow Honey,
that fo the Children’s unfufpecting Age, at leaft
their Lips, may be deceived, and take the bitter
Juice ; thus harmiefly betrayed, but not abufed,
by tafting thus they rather havetheir Health reftored :
So I, becaufe this Syftem feerms fevere and harfh,
to fuch who have not yet difcerned itsTruth, and
the common Herd are utterly averfe to this Phi-
lofophy, I thought it fit to fhew thefe rigid Prin-

‘ciples in Verfe, imooth and alluring, and tinge

them, as it were, with {weet Poetic Honey, thus

to charm your Mind with my foft Numbers, till

you view the Nature of all Things clearly, and
perceive the Ufefulnefs and Order they difplay.

> Now fince I taught what are the firft Prin-
ciple of all Things, and how they differ in their
Figures, and wander of their own accord, urged

on “by an eternal Motion, and how of them all a

Beings firft are formed; and I have fhewn the

Nature of the Mind, of what Seeds compofed,

and how it exerts itfelf united with the Body, and
feparated from it, how it returns to its firft Prin-
ciples again: I fhall now begin to explain what
is of the neareft Concern to thefe Inquiries, and
prove that there are what we call the Images of

‘Things, which, like Membranes, or Films, flow-
ing from the Surface of Bodies, fly every Way

abroad through the Air. Thefe, while we are

> After he has recited the Subjects of his Inquiries in the
preceding Books, he fays, he will now treat of the Images,
which, lke Films and Membranes of Bodies, are perpetually
flowing from the Surface of Things, and prefenting their
Species aud Figures to us. Ifthey come whole, and with-
out Mixture, we then perceive Things that truly have a
Being ; if they come maimed, inverted, or joined to one
another, trom thence proceed the Phantafms of Centaurs,

and the like Monfters, and fometimes too the Spectres of |

the Dead; for the Soul, we are told, dice with the Body.
awake,

9

10

T. LD we 8 eran rs. TV.

Atque eadem nobis vigilantibus obvia menteis
Terrificant, atque in fomnis, chm fepe figuras
Contuimur miras fimulacraque luce carentum ;
Que nos borrifice languenteis fepe fopore 40
Excierunt: Ne forte Animas Acherunte reamur
Effugere, aut Umbras inter vivos volitare :

Neve aliquid noftri poft mortem poffe relinqui,

Cum Corpus fimul, atque Animi natura peremta,
Ln fua difceffum dederunt Primordia queque. AS
Dico igitur, rerum Effizias, tenurfque figuras

WMhiitier ab rebus fummo de corpore earum ;

Que quaft Membrana, vel Cortex nominitanda ’/t,

Quod fpeciem, ac formam fimilem gerit ejus Imago,

Quojufcunque cluet de corpore fufa vagari. 59
Id heet bine quamvis hebeti cognofcere corde 9

Principio, quoniam mitiunt in rebus apertis

Corpora res multe, parti diffufa folute,

Robora feu Fumum mittunt, igne/que Vaporem:

Et partim contexta magis, condenfaq; utolim 55

Cum veteres ponunt tunicas eftate Cicade ;

Et Vituli citm membranas de corpore fummo

Nafcentes mittunt, © item citm lubrica Serpens

LExuit in fpinis veftem: Nam fepe videmus

Mlorum fpoliis vepreis volitantibus auétas. 69

Hac quoniam fiunt, tenuis quoque debet Imago

Ab rebus mitti fummo de corpore earum.

Nam, cur illacadant magis, ab rebufque recedant,

Quam que tenuia funt, bifcendi°/t nulla poteftas.

Prefertim cum fint in fummis corpora rebus 65

Multa minuta, jaci que poffint ordine eodem

Quo fuerint, vetcrem &S forme fervare figuram 5

Hi

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things.

awake, often rufh upon our Minds and terrify us,
and likewife fleeping, when we think we fee
ftrange Phantoms and Spectres of the Dead,
which fhake us horribly when faft afleep. For
fure we are not to imagine, that the Souls are
broke loofe out of Hell, or that the Ghofts hover
and play about the Living, or that any Part of
us remains after Death ; fince the Soul and Body,
once diffolved, return feverally into their firft
Seeds from whence they were produced.

I saythen, that Images or tenuious Figures are
always flowing, or fent out from the Surface of
Bodies, which may be called the Membranes or
the Bark of Things; and thefe feveral Images
bear the fame Shape and Form, as the particular
Body from whence they flow.

THIs requires no extraordinary Apprehenfion to
conceive, for to give a plain Inftance; many
Things emit Bodies from themfelves, fome more
rare and diffufed, as Wood difcharges Smoke, and
Fire a Vapour; others more denfe and compact,
as when Grafhoppers in Summer caft their old
Coats, and Calves new-born drop the Pellicules in
which they are inclofed; or as the Winding Snake
leaves his Skin among the Thorns, for che Briers
we often fee adorned with their light Spoils. This
being fo, it follows, that a very fubtle Image may
fly off from the utmoft Surface of Bodies ; for there
can be no Reaion given, why thefe, and not others
more thin than thefe, may not fall off and be dif-
charged ; efpecially fince in every Surface there are
many minute Corpufcles, that may be caft off in the
very fame Order they are ranged in the Body,
and fo preferve their “ οἷά Form and Figure ; and

© That is, the Image of their Form; for Form, accord-
ing to £picurus, is that which continually remains in the
Surface of the Body, while the Image, as a Spoil, is con-
tinually flying away.

they

IL

12

“4S Lene bem Wee

Et multo citius, quantd minis endopedirt

Pauca queunt, & funt in prina fronte locata.

Nam certé faci, atgue emergere multa videmus, 7d
Non folitm ex alto, penitufque, ut diximus ante,
Verim de fumi, isipfum quoque fepe colorem :

ΕἸ volgo faciunt 14 lutea, ruffaque Vela,

Et ferrugina, εἰπε magnis intenta Theatris

Per malos volgata, trabeifque trementia flutant : 75
Namque ibi confeffum Caveai fubter, 95 omnem
Scenai fpeciem, Patrum, Matrumque, Deorumque,
Inficiunt, coguntque fuo fluitare colore :

Bt quante circum mage funt inclufa Theatrt

Mania, tam magis bec intus perfufa lepore 90

Omnia conrident conrepta luce diei.
Ergo Lintea de fummo cium corpore fucum
Muttunt, Effigias quoque debent mittere tenueis
Res queque, ex fummo quoniam jaculantur utreque.
Sunt wwitur, jam formarum veftigia certa, 84
Que vulgd volitant fubtili predita filo,
Nee fingillatim poffunt fecreta videri.
Preierea, omnis Odos, Fumus, Vapor, atque alie res
Conftmiles, ideo diffufe rebus abundant,
Ex alto quia dum veniunt intrinfecus orte, go
Scinduntur per iter flexum 3 nec recta viarum
Offia funt, qua contendunt exire coorta.
At contra, tenuis funmi membrana Coloris
Cum jacitir, nibil eft, quod eam difcerpere poffit
In prompt quoniam "ft in prima fronte locata. 95

Poftremo

ν τ

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things. 13
they are the reactier to fly off, becaufe they are

fall, and not fo liable to be ftopped, and are

placed likewife upon the utmoft Surface.

For it is certain, that many Particles are not
fent out and get loofe only from the middle and
inward Parts, as we faid before, but 4 Colour it-
felf is difcharged from the Surface of Bodies. And
fo Curtains, yellow, of a deep red, or blew (as
they hang in lofty Theatres, waving expanded on
the Beams, and flowing on the Pillars with the.
Wind) do this; for they ftain the Stage, the
Scenes, the Audience, Senators, Matrons, and
the Images of the Gods, and caufe them to wave
in their own gaudy Dye; and the mofe the Walls
of the Theatre are darkned, and the Day-light
fhut out, every Thing within is fpread over and
fhines out with a brighter Luftre. Since there-
fore thefe Curtains difcharge their Colours from
the Surface, all Things, by the fame Rule, may
emit fubtle Images, for thofe are thrown off from
the Surface as well as thefe.

TueEReE aretherefore certain Images of Things,
of a fine and fubtle Contexture, that are always
flying about, and are impoffible feverally to be
difcovered by the Eye.

.Besipes, all Smell, Smoke, Vapour, and other
fuch Things fly off from Bodies in a diffufed and
{catter’>d Manner, becaufe as they pafs to the Out-
fide of Bodies from within, they are broken and
divided by the crooked Pores they muft make
their Way through ; the Road they are to take is
full of Windings, as they attempt to rife and fly’
out; but, on the contrary, when the Membrane
of Colour is thrown off, there is nothing to dif-
order it, becaufe it lies difentangled upon the very
surface.

AND

ἃ Colours get loofe and are reflected from the Images of

‘Things

14

ΤΌΤ Οπ ΒΤ Licey
Poftremo, in Speculis, in Aqua, Splendoreque in
ΟἹ
Quecunque apparent nobis Simulacra neceffe °ft,
Quandoquidem fimilt fpecie funt predita rerum,
Effe in imaginibus miffis confiftere eorum :
Nam cur illa cadant magis, ab rebufque recedant 100
Corpora res mulle que mittunt Corpore aperto,
Quam que tenuia funt, bifcendi’/t nulla poteftas.
Sunt igitur tenues formarum, confimile/que
Lifigia, fingillatim quas cernere nemo
Cum poffit ; tamen affiduo, crebroque repulfe 105
Rejetta, reddunt Speculorum ex equore vifum :
Nec ratione alia fervari poffe videntur.
Tantopere, ut fimiles reddantur quoique figure :
Nunc age, quam tenui natura conftet Imago,
Percipe: &P imprimis quoniam Primordia tan-
cum 110
Sunt infra nofiros fenfus, tantoque minora,
Quam que primum ocult ceptant non poffe tueri.
Nune tamen id quoque uti confirmem, Exordia
reruns
Cunciarum quam fint fublilia, percipe paucts.

Primm

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things. 15

Awnp then “ὁ fince the Forms that appear to us
in Looking-glafs, in Water, and all polifhed
Bodies, are exactly like the Things whofe Images
they are, they muft neceffarily be compofed of
the Images that How from the Subftance of the
Things themfelves; for why thofe Particles fhould
fall away, and be difcharged from Bodies which
are difcovered by the Eye, rather than thefe that
are more thin and fubtle, no Reafon can properly
be affigned.

THERE are therefore tenuiousand fine Shapes of
the fame Figure with the Things themfelves,
which, tho’ they cannot fingly be diftinguifhed by
the Sight, yet being reflected, and fwiftly and con-
{tantly repelled from the fmooth Plane of the
Glafs, become vifible, nor can any other Reafon
be fo properly offered, why Forms fo like the
Things are returned to us.

AND now conceive, if you can, of what a te-
nuious and fubtle Nature an Image confifts; and
for this Reafon, in the firft place, becaufe the
Seeds of Things are fo much beyond the Reach
and Difcovery of our Senfes, and are infinitely
lefs than thofe Bodies that efcape the Obfervation

-of the moft curious Eye ; as a Proof, how fubtle
the firft Principles of Things are, attend to thefe
fhort Obfervations.

Things in fuch a manner, as argues likewife the Direption
and getting off of Images.

© Since the Images, we fee inMirrours, in Waters, or In any
fmooth and polithed Body, are exaétly like the Things whole
Images they are, therefore thofe Forms muft necefiarily be
compofed of the Images that flow from the Subfances of the
Things themfelves ; the very utmoft Film, which before adher’d
to the whole Thing, is feparated from it, as it were a Mem-
brane, and ftrikes into the Glafs or Water. We are to ob-
ferve, that the Image of each Thing, that is feen in the
Glafs, or in Water, is not fingle and one only, but many,
which, neverthelefs by being refleCted to the Eyes by a never-.
cealmg Reverberation, feem not to be many, but only one.

And

16

T. LucrerTii Liz lv.

Primim Ammala funt jam partim tantula,
Corum | . 118
Tertia pars nulla ut poffit ratione videri.
fiorum Inteftinum quodvis quale effe putandum ° ft ?
Quid? Cordis globus aut Oculi? quid? Membra ὃ
guid? Artus?
Quantiula funt ? quid? preterea Primordia queques
Unde Anima, atque Animi conftet natura necef-
fum ft, | 120
Nonne vides, quam fint fublilia, qudmque minuta ὃ

Preierea, quecunque fuo de corpore odorem
Lx/{cirant acrem, Panaces, Abfinthia tetra,
Abrotonique graves, €S triflia Centaurea:

Forum unumquodvis leviter fi forte ciebis, 125
Quamprimum nofcas rerum Simulacra vagare
Mulia modis multis, nulla vi, caffaque fenfit.
Quorum quantula pars fit Imago, dicere nemo */t
Qui poffit, neque cam rationem reddere ditis,

Sed ne forte putes ea demum fola vavare, 130
Quacunque ab rebus rerum Sinulacra recedunt :
Sunt etiam, que ponte fua gignuntur, 8 ipfa
Conftituuntur in boc calo, qui dicitur aér:

Qua multis formata modis fublimée feruntur,

Nec fpeciem mutare fuam tiquentia ceffant: ‘ 1365
Et quoiufque modi formarum vertere in ora,

Ut nubeis facile interdum concrefcere in alto
Cerninus, «2 mundi fpeciem violare ferenam,

Aéra mulcenteis motu: Nam fepe Gigantum

Ore

Book ΙΝ. Of the Nature of Things. 17

Ano firft there are Animals fo exceeding fmall, 722 5x6-
that one third Part of them cannot poffibly by any pi " τ ἜΣ
means be difcover’d. What are you to conceive — -
of the Bowels of thefe Creatures? Of their little
Blearts and Eyes? What of their Members?
hat are you to think of their Limbs? How
very {mail are they ? What befides of the Seeds
Which compofe the Soul and Mind, don’t you
imagine how fubtle and minute they are?
Brsipes, ‘ Herbs that exhalea fharpSmell from
their Bodies, fuchas All-heal, bitter Wormwood,
ftrong Southernwood, and four Centaury, if you
thake any of thefe ever fo lightly, you may be
fure many Particles fy off, and icatter every way,
but without Force, andtoo co to affect the Senfe αὶ
yet how {mall and fubtle are the Images that are
formed from thefe, no one can conceive or exprefs.
§ BuT left you fhould think, that the Images Prodigies:
that fly. off from the Surface of Bodies, are the
Only Things that wander abroad, there are other
Shapes that are fafhioned of their own accord,
ys are produced in the lower Region we call the
Air; thefe are framed in various iy eta. are car-
ried upward, and being very fubtle and lefs com-
pact in their Contexture, are ever changing their
Figure, and affume all Variety of Forms, Thus
we fee the Clouds fometimes thicken in the Sky,
@arkning the ferene Face of the Heavens, and
¥ undine the Air by the Violence of their Mo-
ion ; now the Shape of Giants feem to fly abroad,

* Since an Image confifts only of thofe Particles that fly
@way from the Surface of Bodies, it furpaffes all Belief, how
Uvile and tenuious an Image muft be, efpecially fince in a
Great Length of Time, nothing can be perceived to be ex-
haled or worn away.

)® He fpeaks now of another Sort of Images, which are
certain Compofitions or Coagmentations, that are formed in
the Air of their own mecord as fo many Cio and do not
angeed flow from the Things which they reprefent.

οἱ. IT, C and

18 T. ΕΘ ree rei. Lis. te

Ora volare videntur, 5 umbram ducere laté: 140
Interdum magni mohtes, avolfaque faxa
Monitibus anteire, €8 folem fuccedere preter:

Inde alios trabere, atque inducere bellua nimbos.
Nune ea quam facili, 85 celert ratione genantur,
Perpetuoque fluant ab rebus, lapfaque cedant. 145

Semper enim fummum quidquid de rebus abundat,
Quod jaculentur: &P hoc alias chm pervenit in res,
Tranfit, utin primis Veftem: Sed in afpera Saxa, —
Aut in materiem ut Ligni pervenit , ibi jam
Scinditur, ut nullum Simulacrum reddere poffit. 150
At cum, fplendida que conftant, oppofta fuerunt,
Denfaque, ut in primis Speculum ft: Nibil accidit
borum,

Nam neque uti veftem poffit tranfire, neque ante
Scindi, quam meminit lever preftare falutem.
Quapropter fit, ut bine nobis Simulacra genantur, 156
ΕἸ quamvtis fubito, quovis in tempore, quamque
Rem contra Speculum ponas, apparet Imago:
Perpetua fluere ut nofcas ὃ corpore fummo
Texturas rerum tenuets, tenueilque figuras.
Ergo multa brevi {patio Simulacra genuntur, 160
Ut merito celer bis rebus dicatur origo.

Et quafi inulta brevi [patio fummittere debet
Lumina Sol, ut perpetuo fint omnia plena:
Sic ἃ rebus item fimilt ratione néceffe "ἢ
Temporis in puntto rerum Simulacra ferantur 165

' Multa

Book IV. Of the Nature of T bings: 19

and project their Shadows all round; and then huge
Hiils, and Rocks torn from the Mountain-Top,
are born before the Sun, and hide his Light. O-
thers again advance and reprefent tne Shape of
Montters wandring through the Sky.

Now learn in how eafy and fwift a Manner Refeaion.
thefe Images are produced ; how they continually
fly and fall off from the Surface of Bodies 5 for
there is always a Store of Forms upon the Out-
fide of Things ready to be thrown of: Thefe
when they light upon fome Things pafs through
them, as a Garment for inftance ; but when they
{trike upon fharp Rocks, or upon Wood, they are
immediately broken and divided, fo that no
Image can be reflected ; but when they are op-
pofed by denfe and polifhed Bodies, fuch as Look-
ing-glafs, then nothing of this happens ; for they
can neither pafs through this as through a Garment,
nor are they divided, beforetheGlafs prefervestheir
Figure perfect and intire. Hence 1r is, that thefe
Forms are prefented toour Sight; and placea Thing
ever fo fuddenly, and ina Moment of Time, before
the Glafs, and the Image inftantly appears. So that
you find, there are fubtle Textures of Things,
and fubtle Images continually flowing from the
Surface of Bodies ; and therefore many of thefe
Forms are produced in a fhort Space of Time,
and may be juftly faid to receive their Being from
avery fwift Motion.

h Anp as the Sun is obliged to emit many of its
Rays in an Inftant, that the whole Air might be
full of ight, fo many Images of Things muft
needs be carried off in the {malleft Point of Time,

1 That all Things may be full of Light, Rays muf be
Continually emitted from the Sun; for the fame Reafon
Images muft likewife be perpetually flying away from Bodies ;
for which way foever you turn the Mirrour, the Images of
the oppofite Things appear, nor do they ever difappear fo’
long as thofe Things keep their Places.

Oe and

20

a
ΠΕ τι Liste

Multa modis multis in cunétas undique parteis :
Quandoquidem Speculum queifcunque obvertimus oris,
Res ibi refpondent fimila forma, atque colore.
Preterea, modd quom fuerit liquidiffima celt
Tempeftas perquam fubito fit turbid fede 170
Undique, uti tenebras omneis Acherunta rearts
Liguiffe, 5 magnas celi compléffe cavernas.
Ujque adeo tetra nimborum notte coorta,
Impendent atre formidinis ora fuperne.
Quorum quantula pars fit Imago, dicere nemoeft,1'75
Dui poffit, neque eam rationem reddere dté1s.
Nunc age, quam celeri motu Simulacra ferantur,
Lt qu@ mobilitas ollis tranantibus auras
Reddita fit, longo ut {patio brevis bora teratur,
Tn quemcungque locum diverfo numine tendunt, 180
Suavidicis potiis, quam multis ver fibus edam :
Parvus ut eft Cycni melior canor, illum Gruum quam
Clamor, in etheriis difperfius nubibus Aujiri.
te perfepe leveis res, atque minutis
Corporibus factas, celereis licet effe videre. 185
In guo jam genere ft Solis lux, PF vapor ejtts, —
Propterea quia funt ὃ prints facta minutis :
Que quafi truduntur, perque Aéris intervallum
Non dubitant tranfire, jequenti coucita plaga.
Suppeditatur erin coinfeflim lumine lumen, 190
Lt quaft protelo fiimulatur fuleure fuleur, ᾿
‘Quapropter Simulacra pari ratione neceffe ᾽[}
Inunemorabile per [patium iranfcurrere poffe
Temporis in punco : primum quod parvola caufa
Eft procul ἃ tergo que provebat, atq; propellat : 195
Deinde, quod fa ue adco textura predita rara
Mittuniur, facile ut guafois peneirare queait res,
Et quafi perimanare per Aéris intervallum. |
Pretered,

a)

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things. 11

and fcatter’d every way abroad; for place your
Glafs in what manner you pleafe, the Things ap-
pear in the fame Colour and Figure they really’
are. ,

So often, when the Face of the Sky is moft
ferene and bright, it becomes on ali Sides black and
horrid of a fudden, that you wouid think the whole
Body of Darknefs had left the Regions below,
and filled the wide Arch of Heaven ; fo dreadful
does the Night appear from driving Clouds, and
featters gloomy Terror from above; but how
fmall in Comparifon of thefe Clouds, are the I-
mages of Things, no one can conceive or exprefs.

AND now, with how {wift a Courfe {πεῖς Images Thesavift-
are carried on, how fuddenly they. make their π of
Paffage through the Air, how they out-ftrip dull 256 ges
Time, wherever by various Motion they intend
their Way, I choofe in fweeteft Numbers than in
tedious Verfe to fhew: As the Swan’s fhort Song is
more melodious than the harfh Noife of Cranes,
fcattered by Winds through all the Arr. -»-

First then; we obferve, that light Things, that
are formed of {mall Particles, are very fwift in their
Motion ; of this Sort, are the Rays and Heat of.
the Sun; becaufe they are compofed of very minute
seeds, which are eafily thruft torward, as it were,
through the interjacent Air, the following urging
On the Part that went before; for one-Beam of
Light is inftantly fupplied by another, and every
Kay is prefled on by another behind. By the
fame Rule, the Images may pafs through an un-
accountable Space ina Moment of Time: Firft,
Becaule there is always a Force behind to drive
and urge them forward, and then their Texture,
as they fly off, is fo thin and fubtle, that they can
pierce throuch any Bodies, and, as it were, flow
through the Air that lies between.

| a2 1 BESIDES,

T. Τὺ ΒΤ Are. ee

Praterea, fi, que penitus Corpufcula rerum

Ex alto in terras mittuntur, Solis uti lux, 200

4c vapor, bec puntto cernuntur lapfa diet

Per totum celi fpatium diffundere fefe :

Perguevolare mare, ac terras, calumque rigare

Quod fupera’ft: Ubi tam volucri bec levitate fee
7717. ᾿ |

Quid? que funt igitur jam prima iv fronte paraia 205

Cum jaciuntur, 9 emiffum res nulla moratur,

Nonne vides citiis debere, €F longius ire:

Multiplexque loci fpatium tranfcurrere eodem

Tempore, quo Solis pervolgant lumina celum ?

Foc etiansin primis fpecimen verum effevidetur,2 10
Quam celeri motu rerum Sunulacra ferantur,
Quod fimul ac primum fub divo [plendor Aquat
Ponitur, extempio, celo ftellanie, ferena
Sidera refpondent in Aqua radiantia mundi.

Jammne vides igitur, quam puntio tempore imago 215
AB iheris ex oris ad terrarum accidat oras ὃ
Quare etiam atque etiam mittt bec fateare ne-
coffe
Corpora, que feriant oculos, vifiumque laceffant:
Perpetuoque fluunt certis ab rebus Odores :
Frigus ut a fluviis, Calor ἃ fole, ZEftus ab undis 220

SE qQuorts,

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things.

iBesrpes, if thofe Corpufcles that lie in the
inward Parts of Bodies are difcharged from above
down upon the Earth, fuchasthe Light and Heat
of the Sun; if thefe, we obferve, defcend in a
Point of Time, and fpread themfelves through all
the Expanfion of the Air, and fy over the Sea,
the Earth, and the upper Regions of the Heavens ;
if thefe are diffufed with fuch wonderful Celerity,
what fhall we fay ? Thofe Particles that are al-
ways ready upon the utmoft Surface of Things,
when they are thrown off, and have nothing to
obftruct their Motions, don’t you fee how thdfe
may fly {wifter, and go further, and pafs throysh
a much greater Space 1 in the fame Time than the
Beams of the Sun take up to make their way
through.

Axoruer notable Inftance, which fully proves
with how fwift a Motion the Images are carried
on, is this; As foon as a Bowl of clear Water is
placed in the open Air, in a Star-light Night,
the fhining Stars are feen twinkling in the ἼΗΙ!
Water ; Don’t you fee therefore in ‘what a Point
of Time the Images defcend upon the Earth from
the upper Regions of the Air ?

AGAIN eh and again, you muft allow that
k Particles are perpetually flowing from the Sur-
face of Bodies, which prefent themfelves to our
Eyes and ftrike our Sight : From fome Bodies a
Train of Smells are always flying off ; fo Cold is
emitted from the Rivers, Heat from the Sun, a

+ The Images pafs more {wiftly than the Rays of the Sun,
becaufe they are more fubtle, and what conduces much to
their Celerity, they flow from the Surface of Things, and
eafily difengage themfelves and get off; but Heat ad Light
are emitted from the inward Parts of the Sun, and therefore
cannot {fo eafily get free.

* ‘This Flow or Streaming of Images into the Eyes, he
fays, muft be granted, becaufe certain Effluviums from other
Things infinuate themfelyes into all the other Senfes.

C4 fale

23

¥
T. Duce errr Lie.

fe quoris, exefor marorum litera circum.

Nec varie ceffant Voces velitare per auras:

Demaue in os falfi vemt humor fepe Saporis,

Cum mare verfamur propter: Diuutagne contra
Ciim tuimur mifceri abfinthia, tangitamaror. 225
Ufqie adeo omnibus ab rebus res quaque fluenter
Fertur: 89 in cuuttas dimiltitur undique partets,
Nec mora, nec requies inter datur ulla fluend :
Perpetuo quonian fentimus, &S omnia femper
Cernere, Odorari licet, ‘8 fentire Sonoren.

Preterea, quoniam manibus traciata figura
In teuebris quedaim, cognofciiur effe eadem, que
Cermitur in luce, €8 claro candore, neceffe’ft
Confimilt caufa Tactum, Vifumque moveri.

Nune igitur, fi Quadratum tentamus, & id nos 235
Commovet in tenebris 5 in luct qu@ poterit res
Accidere ad fpeciem, Quadrata nifi ejus imago ὃ

Effe in Imaginibus quapropter caufa videtur
Cernendi, neque poffe fine bis res ulla videri.

Nune ea, que dico, rerum Simulacra feruntur 240)
Undigue, © in cunttas jaciuntur didita parteis ,
Verinm, nos oculis quia folis cernere quimus,
Propterea fit, uti, [peciem quo vertimus, omnes
Res ibi eam contra feriant forma, atque colore. |

Et quantim quaeque a nobis res abfit, Imago 245
Efficit ut videamus, S internofcere curat. /
Nam cium mittitur, extemplo protrudit, agitque
Ara, qui inter fe cumque ft, oculofque locatus

| {que

Book. lV. Ofthe Nature of Things. ας

fait Vapour from the Water of the Sea that eats
through Walls along the Shore, and Sounds are
always flying through the Air. Laftly, As we
walk upon the Strand a fale Tafte offends our
Mouth ; and when we fee a Bunch of Wormwood
bruifed, the Bitternefs ttrikes upon the Palate: So
plain it is that fomething is continually flowing of
from all Bodies, and is {cattered all about; there
is no Intermiflion ; the Seeds never ceafe to flow,
becaufe we ftill continue to feel, to fee, to fmell,
and hear.

Besitpes, fince any Figure we feel with our
Hands in the Dark, we know to be the fame we
before faw by Day, and in the cleareft Light, the
Touch and Sight muft needs be moved by the fame
Caufe ; and therefore, if we feel a quadrangular Fi-'
sure, and diftinguith its Shape in the Dark, what
can prefent that Shape to us in the Light but its
quadrangular Image? The Canfe therefore of our
Sight muft arife from the Images, nor indeed can
we diftinguifh any thing without them. |

Now thefe Images 1 am fpeaking of are carried
akout every Way, and are thrown off and {cat-
tered on all Sides; and therefore it 1s, fince with
our Eyes alone we are able to fee, that which way
foever we turn our Eyes, the Objects ftrike upon
them in their proper Form and Colour.

Tue Image hkewife is the Caufe that we dif- How we
cover, and takes care to fatisfy us at what ! Di- 4#/cover
ftance Bodies are removed from us; for as foon’?”¢ ? ᾿
as it is emitted, it inftantly thrufts forward, and ogiegs.
drives on the Air that ts placed between itfelf and

' The Image ftriving to get to the Eyes, drives forward
all the Air before it: Now this Stream of Air is longer or
fhorter, as the Object is more or lefs diftant; but the longer
orthorter thatStream of Air is which protruded by the Image
{trikes the Eye, fo much longer or fhorter the Interval of

Space between the Object and the Eye muft be allowed to be.
the

26

T. Lw Ce Pam Wea

Tque ita per noftras acies perlabitur ommis:
Et quafi perterzet pupilias, atque ita tranfit. 250
Proplerea fit, uti videamus quam procul abfit
Res queque: © quanto plus aéris ante agitatur,
Et noftros oculos pertergei lougior aura,
Tam procul effe mazis res queque remota videlur :
Scilicet bec fumme celeri raticne geruntur, 255
Quale fit ut videamus: Et una quam procul abit.

Illud in bis rebus minimé mirabile babendum °ft,

Cur ea, que feriant oculos Simulacra, videri

Singula citm nequeant, res ipfe perfpiciantur :
Venius enim quoque paullatim cum verberat, ὃ
cum 260

Acre ferit Frigus, non privam quamque folemus
Particulam Venti fentire, {9 Frigoris ejus 3
Sed magis unverfum : fierique perinde videmus
Corpore tunt plazas in nofiro, tanquam alique res
Verberet, atque fui det fenfum corporis extra. 265
Preterca, Lapidem digito cium tundimus, ipfum
Tangimus extremum Saxi, fummumqgue colorem,
Nec fentimus eum tatu, veriim magis ipfam
Duritiem penitus Saxi fentimus in alto.

Nunc age, cur ultra Speculum videatur Imago
Percipe, nam certe penitus remmota videtur. 271

Quod

Book lV. Of the Nature of Things. 27

the Sight; this Stream of Air then glides to the
Eye, and as it were grates gently upon the Ball,
and fo paffes through. Hence it is that we per-
ceive how far Things are diftant from our Sight ;
for the more Aur there is that is driven before the
Image, and the longer the Stream of it is that
rubs upon the Ball, the longer the Interval of
Space between the Object and the Eye muft be
allowed to be. All this is done with the utmoft
Celerity ; for we fee what the Object is, and know
its Diftance in the fame Inftant,

Nor are we to think it at all {trange in this
Cafe, that the Objects may be perfectly feen, and
yet the Images that finely {trike the Eye cannot
themfelves be difcovered; for when the Wind
blows gently upon us, and its fharp Cold pierces
our Bodies, we cannot diftinguifh the feveral Par-
ticles of Wind or Cold that fo affeét us, but we
are fenfible of their whole Strength together ; we
perceive their Blows laid upon our Bodies, as if
fomething were beating us, and made us feel the
Effects of its outward Force upon us. And fo,
when we {trike a Stone with our Fingers, we touch
the Surface and outmoft Colour of the Stone; but
then we feel nothing of the Colour or Surface by
our Touch, we perceive no more than the Hard-
nefs cf the Stone that lies within.

ΑΝΡ now learn why the ™ Image is always Wy the
feen beyond the Glafs, for it certainly appears at ἔπαρε @)-

a remote Diftance from us. For Inftance: When 2 en ἐξ

m Τῆς Eye knows the Diftance of the Things feen by means Glafs.

of the Air that is driven by the Image to the Eye; now
when two Airs are driven, the Interval muft of neceffity be
more extended and ever doubled; but the Image of the Glafs
(for we fee the Glafs itfelf, as well as the Thing whofe Image
is reflected) protrades one Air, and the Image reflected an-
Other. And this is the Reafon why the Image appears not
to be in the Surface of the Glafs, but as if it were within and
beyond it.

you

{

Tt. LU CR®e ®t wp ΠΗ.

Quod genus illa, foris que vere tranfpiciuntur,
Fanua cum per fe tranfpeclum orebet apertum,
Multa facitque foris ex edibus ut videantur.
Is quoq3 enim duplici, geminog; fit Aére Vifus. 275°
Primus enim? ft, citra pofteis qui cernittur Aér.
Inde fores ipfe dextra, levaque fequuntur.
Poft extraria lux oculos perterget, {9 Aér
Alter, 9 ila, foris que vere tranfpiciuntur.
Sic ubi fe primum Speculi project Imago, 280
Dum venit ad noftras acies, protrudit, agitque
Ara, qui inter fe cunque’ft oculofque locatus :
ΕἸ facit, ut prins Hune omnem Jentire queamus,
Quam Speculum: Sed ubi Speculum quoque fenfimus
apfuse

Continud ἃ nobis in id bac, que fertur, Imago 285
Pervenit, © noftros oculos rejetta revifit : )
Atque alium pre fe propellens Aéra volvit,
Et facit, ut prius bunc, quam fe, videamus: eoque
Diftare a Speculo tantum remmota videtur,
Quare etiam atq; etiam minimé mirarier eft par 290
Iilis, que reddunt Speculorum ex equore vifum,
Aeribus binis, quomam res confit utroque.

Nunc ea, que nobis membrorum dextera pars eft,
In Speculis δὲ ut in leva videatur, eo qued

Planitiem

v
BOOK IV. Of the Nature of Things. 29

you are placed in an inner Room, and Things are
deen at a Diftance from you; when thé Door is
open, and gives you a clear Profpect, and allows
you plainly to difcover any Object without, your
Sight in this cafe is formed, as I may fay, by a
double Air ; the Air that lies within the Door is
the firft ; then the Door is placed in the Middle
between, and then the Light without that rubs
gently uponthe Kye, this isthe other Air; and at
lencth the Object is difcovered. So, when the
Image of the Glafs firft flies off, as it makes a
Paffage to our Sight, it {trikes forward, and drives
on the Air that lies between itfelf and the Eye, fo
that we feel all this interjacent Air before we fee
any thing of the Glafs ; but when we difcover the
Glafs, the Image that is emitted from us inftantly
fies to it, and being reflected and fent back, re-
turns again to our Sight, and forces the Air that
is before it 3, which is the Reafon that we perceive
this interjacent Air before the Image 15 feen by us.
Now when two Airs are driven (the Image of the
Glafs forcing on one, and the Image reflected an-
other) the Interval muft of neceffity be more ex-
tended, and even doubled. Hence it is that the
Image appears not in the Surface of the Glafs, but
beyond it ; and therefore we are not to wonder at
all, that the Images of Things are reflected to our
sight, from the Surface of a fmooth Glafs, by
means of ἃ double Air, becaufe it appears plainly
that they are fo.
But more"; That Part of the Body that is Why the

the Right Side, appears in the Glafs to be the Jmage és
Left ; tran{pofed,

-

" Since the Image flows from us, and goes ftraight for-
ward, it ought as it goes away to fhew us its hinder Parts,
fo that the Right may anfiver to the Right, and the Left to
the Left. He anfwers the Obje€tion by this Example: Take
(fays he) a Mak made of Clay, not harden’d, but while it is

vel

30

T Loucereetil Lis ly.

Planitiem ad Speculi veniens citm offendit Imago, 295
Non convertitur incolumis 3 fed recta retrorfum
Sic eliditur, ut fiquis prius ariaa quam fit
Cretea perfona, adlidat pileve, trabive :
Atque ea continuo retiam fi fronte figuram
Servet, 9) elifam retro fefe exprimat ipfa: 300
Fiet ut, ante oculus fuerit qui dexter, bic idem
Nune fit levus, 9 ὃ levo fit mutua dexter.

Fit quoque de Speculo in Speculum ut tradatur

Imago:

Quingue etiam, femve ut [671 Simulacra fuérinti.
Nam quecung; retro parte mtericre latebunt-: 305
Inde tamen, quamvis torte, penitufque remota,
Omnia per flexos aditus eduéta licebit
Pluribus bec Speculis videantur in edibus effe.
Ufque adeo ὃ Speculo in Speculuim tralucet imago,
Et chim lava data°ft, fii rurfinn dextera flat: 310
Inde retrerfum reddit fe, €F couvertit eodem +

Quinetiam, quecunque latufcula fent Speculorum

Adfimils

Book IV. Of the Nature of i” bings. 21

Left ; becaufe the Image, when it {trikes upon
the Surface of the G!afs, is not reflected again un-
changed, but is turned a different Way about.
For Inftance: Take a Mafk made of Clay,

efore it be dry, and dafh it againft a Pillar or
Beam ; if it preferves its Figure intire,and appears
inverted only fo that the Face fills up the Hol-
low, the Event will be, that the Right Eye will
now be the Left, and the Left the Right.

Awp then it may be contrived that the ° Image Images
fhall pafs from one Glafs into another, fo that five ‘727 ove
or fix Images fhall be reflected at once ; and Ob- μ᾿
jects that are placed backwards in the inward Part
of the Houfe, let them be ever fo much out of
Sight, and the Turnings ever fo crooked, they
may be all drawn out through the winding Paf-
fages, and by the placing of many Glafles be per-
fettly difcovered. The Image may be fo tranf-
ferred from one Glafs into another, that it will
change its Left into its Right ; but when it is again
reflected from the fecond Glafs into the third, it
will refume its Left Part again, and will continue
to change in the fame manner as it paffes into all
the Glaffes that follow.

Bu T in Glaffes joined together in the ? Convex Convex
Glaffes.

yet moift, and dafh itagainft a Beam or Pillar, fo as to invert
it backwards, that the Face may fill up the Hollow; and
by this you may imagine, that Images being, as they are,
very tenuious Subitances, may by dafhing againft the Glafs be
inverted backwards in like manner.

° Bach Image flies away from the Object, and the Depar-
ture of the firit is fupplied by the coming of a fecond, in a
perpetual and never-ceafing Flux; for the Image behind im-
pels the Image before, and thus they run in a fucceffive
Courfe, and urge on their predeceflor Images; fo that the
Image which we this Moment fee in the laft Glafs, was but
juft now in the firft, and a new facceeds in the room of that
which went laft away; and thus a perpetual Succeffion of
Images is made from Glafs to Glafs.

P The Pillar’d Convex is one of the fort of Glafles that
reitores the Image after the ufual manner.

Figure

T. Lucr eral ΤΡ

Adfimili lateris flexura predita nofiri :
Dextera ea propter nobis Simulacra remittunt,
Aut quia de Speculo in Speculum transfertur Imago,
Inde ad nos elifa bis advolat ; aut etiam quod 316
Circumagitur, citm venit Imago, proplerea quoa
Flexa figura docet Speculi convertier ad nos.

Indugredt porro pariter Simulacra, pedemque
Ponere nobifeum credas, geftumque imilari: 320
Propterea, quia de Speculi qua parte recedas,
Continud nequeunt illine Simulacra revert:
Omina quandoquidem cogit natura referrt,

Ac vefilire ab rebus ad equos reddita flexus.
Splendida porro ocult fugitant, vitantque tueri :
Sol etiam cecat, contra fi tendere pergas, 326 |

Propterea, quia vis magna’ ft ipfius: & alle
Aéra per purum graviter Simulacra feruntur,
Et feriunt oculos turbaulia compofituras.
Praterea, Splendor, quicunque’ft acer, adurit 33@
Sazpe ocilos, ideo quod femina polfidet ignis
Multa, dolorem oculis que gignunt infinuando,
Lurida preterea fiunt quecunque tuentur
Arquati, quia luroris de corpore eorum
Semina multa fluunt Simulacris obvia rerum, 335
Multaque funt oculis in eorum denique mifia,
Que contage fua palleribits omnia pinguni.
E tenebris autem que funt in luce tuemur,

Propterca, quia cim proprior caligius Aer

Alter

pox IV. Of the Nature of T bings. 32

Bicure of a Pillar, the Side of the Image reflected
is returned fo, that the Right Part of the Image
anfwers to the Right of the Objeét or Thing feen;
either becaufe the Image, being transferred from
one Glafs into another, is reflected twice ; or that
the Image, when it comes to us, is turned about ;
for, that the Face is turned about as it paffes back-
wards, we learn from the Figure of the Glafs.

BesipeEs, you would believe that the Image
moves with us, and attends all our Steps, and
imitates our Geftures ; becaufe, when you retire
from any Part of the Glafs, the Image cannot be
reflected from that Part; for Nature ordains, that
all Images that are emitted from Bodies, fhould
be returned and reflected by equal Angles.

Tue Eyes, you obferve, fly and avoid a glar-
ing Object ; the Sun likewife blinds you if you
look too intenfely againft it, becaufe its Force is
great, and its Images are difcharged from above
through the pure Air, and ftrike violently upon
the Eyes, and difturb and loofen their Contexture 3
befides, a Brightnefs too powerful for the Sight,
often burns the Kye; becaufe it contains many
Seeds of Fire, which piercing the Ball, give it
fenfible Pain. |

Awp then, Whatever a Perfon looks upon that
has the Yellow Jaundice, becomes pale and lurid 9
Becaufe many lurid Seeds flow from fuch a Body,
‘and meet with the Images of Things as they ad-
vance. And further, There are many Seeds within
the yes of One fo diftempered, which {tain all Things
with their Infection, and make them look pale.

Acain, If we are placed in the Dark, we fee
Objects that are in the Light ; 4 becaufe when the
dark

[ΞΡ

1 When the lucid Air follows the dark, it, by reafon of
its Subtilty, purges and cleanfes the Pores of the Eye, and
makes room for the Images to enter; but when the dark Aur

Po. 11, D follows

T Lucrp min “Lit ég
Alter intt oculos prior, ‘8 poffedit apertos : 240
nfequitur candens confejtim lucidus der,

Oui quafi purgat eos, ac migras difcutit umbras
Aeris illius : Nam multis partibus bic eft

Mobilior, multifque minutior, θ᾽ mage pollens.

Oui fimul atque vias oculorum luce replevit, 548
Atgue patefecit quas ante obfederat ater :

Continuo rerum Simulacra adaperta fequuntur

Que fita funt in luce, laceffuntque, ut videamuis.

Quod contra facere in tenebris a luce neguimus,

Propterea, quia poftertor caliginis Ar 258

Craffier infequilur, qui cunda foramina conzplet :

Objiditque vias oculorum, ne Simulacra }

Poffint ullarum rerum conecta moveri. -
Qyadratafque procul turreis cum cernimus urbis B

Propterea fit uti videaniur fepe rotunde, 258

Angulus obiujus quia Tonge cernitur omnis,

Sive etiam polis non ceruitur , ac perit 6715

Plaza, nec ad noftras acies perlabitur ictus :

Jsva per multum quia dum Simulacra feruntur,

Οὐρὶ! bebefcere eum crebris offenfibus der, 360°

δῆμος ubi fuffugit fenfum fimul angulus omnis,

lit, quafi tornata ui faxorum firucta tuantur : .

Non tamen ut coram que funt, vereque retunda,

Sed guafi adumbraiun paullam fimulata videntur,
Umbra videtur item nobis in Scle moveri, 308

~~

ΕΣ 7 oi gs a oan ee
Lit veticwa ΠΡ fequi, gefumgue unitart,

( Aéra

Book lV. Of the Nature of Things.
dark Air, which ts nearer, firft enters and takes
Pofleffion: of the open Eyes, the bright clear Air
immediately follows, which as it were purges the
Eye, and diffipates the Darknels the dufky Air
had infufed into it; for this lucid Air is by many
Degrees more apt to move, is more fubtle, and
has more Force. ‘This, as foon as it has filled
the Paffages of the Eyes with Light, and opened
thofe Pores that the dark Air had {topped before,
the Images of Things conveyed in the Light im-
mediately follow, and ftrike upon the Kye, and
move the Sight. But if we are placed in the
Light, we cannot difcover Objects in the Dark ;
becaufe a Train of dark and thicker Air follows
the bright, which is neareft the Eye, and ftops up
all the Pores, and fo choaks up the Paffages of
the Sight, that the Images of Things cannot -be
moved or received into it.

Furtuer, When we fee the fquare Towers of
a City at a Diftance, they commonly appear round
to us; becaufe all Angles, feen far off, fhew ob-
tufe, or rather they do not fhew at all: Their Strokes
die away, and the Blows never reach our Eyes ;
for, as the Images are carried through a long Tract
of Air, the Air beats upon them continually in their
Piffage, and fo wears off their Corners, Hence
It is that, fince no manner of Angle ftrikes the
Bye, the ftonyFabrick appears of a circular Figure ;
yet that Roundnefs is not fo diftiné as if the Ob-
ject itfelf were really round, and feen at a fmall Di-
{tance ; but it bears a kind of Refemblance to fuch
a Figure, yet is not completely fo.

Our Shadows feem to move with us in the
Sun, to follow our Steps, and imitate our Geftures

follows the bright, the Paffages of the Eye are fo cicfed and
choaked up by that dull ΠῚ heavy Air, that it becomes in-
capadle to receive the Images of Things that offer them-

felve ὃς tO Ie,
3. (aif

35

T. LuUcReaten fis wal

(Aéra fi credas privatum lumine poffe
Indugredi, motus bominum, geftufque Jequentem.
Nam nibil effe poteft aliud nift lumine caffus
Aer, id, quod nos Umbram perbibere fuémus). 270
Nimirum, quia Terra locis ex ordine certis
Lumine privatur Solis, quacunque meantes
Officimus: repletur item, quod liguimus 6715.
Propterea fit, uti videatur, quae fuit Umbra
Corporis, ὃ regione eadem nos ufque fecuia. 374
Semper enim nova fe radiorum lumina funaunt,
Primaque difpereunt, quaf in ignem Lana trabaiur.
Propterea facile fpoliatur lumine Terra:
Et repletur item, nigrafque fibi abluit Umbras.
Nee tamen hic Oculos falli conceaimus bilum: 3807

Jam, quocunque loco fit Lux, atque Umbra, fuert
Torun eft, eadem vero fint lumina, necne:
Umbraque, quae fuit bic, eadem num tranfeat ilue:
An potius fiat, pauilo quod diximus ante:
Hoc Animi demum Ratio difcernere debet : 45
Nec poffunt Ocult naturam nofcere rerum. .

Proinde Anuni vitium boc Oculis adfingere ποῖ,

Book lV. Ofthe Nature of qi pings.

Gif you can fuppofe that Air, void of Light, is able
to walk, and to follow the Motions and Geftures of
the Body ; for what we ufually call Shadow, can be
nothing, but the Air deprived of Light). TheReafon
15. becaufe as we walk we hinder the Rays of the Sun
from ftriking upon a certain Part of the Earth,
which by that means becomes dark ; but that, as
we leave the Place it 1s covered with Light; and
therefore it is that the Shadow of the Body over-
again{t it follows us in all our Motions’. For a
Train of new Rays are continually flowing from
the Sun, and the firft die away like Threads of
Wooll drawn through a Flame; and by this means
that Part of the Earth is foon deprived of Light,
and again becomes bright, and difcharges the
black Shade that hung upon it.

‘Bu T in this cafe we are not in the leaft to al-
Jow that the Eyes are deceived ; it is their Bufinefs
to difcover only where the Light and Shade are,
but to determine nothing whether the Light be the
Jame, or the Shadow be the fame that moves from
one Place to another, or whether it be as we ex-
plained above. It is the Office of the Mind and
Judgement to diftinguifh This ; for the Eyes can
Know nothing of the Nature of Things, and there-

fore you are not to impute to them the Failures of
the Mind.

* He teaches us, by an Example, in what manner new
Rays are continually flowing from the Sun’s Orb, and how
they fupply the Place of the former that vanifh away, vig.
as it were like Wooll drawn through a Flame; for then the
Wooll that is frit drawn would be confumed by the Fire,
whilft other Wooll is in the mean time drawing through it.
Thus Lambiaus explains this Paflage, but it is full obfcure.

> He undertakes to defend the Certainty of the Senfes,
which (he fays) receive the Images of Things juft as they

are brought to them, but all Errors proceed trom the [πάσ- ’

ment of the Mind; which he attempts to illuftrate by many

Examples,
De WHEN

5»

38

T. LucR ete: Line

Qua vehimur Navi, fertur, cium flare videtur,:
Que manet in flatione, ea preter creditur ire:
Et fugere ad puppim colles, campiq; videntur, 390
Quos agimus preter navim, velifque volamus.
Sidera ceffare etheris adfixa cavernis
Cuntta videntur: at adfiduo in funt omnia motu:
Quandoquidem longos obitus exorta revifunt, )
Cum permenfa fuo funt celum corpore claro:
Solque pari ratione manere, €F Luna videiur
In ftatione, ea que ferri ves indicat ipfa.
Exftantefque procul medio de gurzite Montes,
Clafibus inter quos liber patet exuts, iaem
Apparent, 9 longé divolfi licet, ingens 4οα
Tnfula conjeétis tamen ex bisuna videtur.
Atria verfari, 8 circumcurfare columne
Ofque adeo fit uti pueris videantur, ubi ΤΡ]
Defierunt verti, vix ut jam credere poffint,
Non fupra fefe ruere oninia tecla minart, 405
Jaunque rubrum tremulis jubar ignibus erigere αἰ
Cum ceplat Natura, fipraque extollere montets 5
Quos tibt tum fupra Sol monteis effe videtur,
Cominus ipfe fuo contingens fervidus ignt,
Vix abfiunt nobis miffus bis mille fagitte 3 41
Vix etiam curfus quingentos fepe verutt:
Inter eos, Solemque sacent immania ponti
fequora, fubjirata atheriis ingentibus oris :
Inierjeéiaque funt terrarum millia multa,
Que varie retinent gentes, S fecla ferarum, 415
At conleélus aque digitum non altior unum,
Dui lapides inter ΛΠ per firata viarum,
Defpetium preabet fub terras impete tanto,
44 terris quantum cali patet alius hiatus :

€3
SO
Gra

Nubila

-

BooK LV. Ofthe Nature of Things.

WuHeEn we are on Ship-board, the Veffel drives
on when it feems to ftand ftill, and when it lies at
Anchor it feems to move; the Hills and Plains
feem to fly and retire from us as we row, or fcour
with full Sails be’ore the Wind.

Awp thus all the Stars feem fixed in the vaulted
Sky, when they are all in continual Motion: ‘They
rife; and when they have meafured the Heavens
with, their bright Orbs, they fet again at an im-
menfe Diftance. The Sun end Moon, by the
fame Rule, appear fixed, when Experience tells
us that they move.

AND Mountains, ftanding: at a Diftance from
one another in the Middle of the Sea, fo that a
Fleet of Ships may fail eafily between theni, ap-
pear like one continued Ridge of Rocks; and
though widely ir yet “thew like one vaft
Ifland, formed by all of them joined together.

So Boys, when they have made themfelves
giddy, fo ftrongly fancy that the Walls are turned
about, and the Pillars run round, that, even when
they ftand ftill, they can {carce believe but that the
whole Houfe threatens to tumble upon their Heads,

Tuus, when Nature begins to difplay the bright
Splendor of the Sun with trembling Light, and
to raife it above the Top of the Mountain that
‘Hill over which the Sun jut appears, and glow-
ing feems to fcorch with his Beams, is fcarce two
thoufand Bow-fhot diftant from us, per haps not
five hundred Cafts of a Dart; when yet, between
that and the Sun lie many mighty Seas, fpread
under a vaft Expanfion of the Heavens ; many
thoufand Leagues of Land lie between, poffeffed by
many Nations, and the whole Race of wild Beafts.

50 a Puddle of Water,no deeper than one of your
Fingers, that lies in the Street between the Stones,
affords a Profpect fo deep under the Earth, as the
Diftance between the Earth and the wide Arch of
. D 4 ἐπι Cis

3?

40

T. Lucreti: Lr: Ty

Nubila defpicere, 55 celum ut videare videre, TS 420
Corpora mirando fub terras abdita celo.

Denique, ubi in medio nobis equus acer obbefit
Flumine, &§ in rapidas ainnis defpeximus undas 5
Stantis equi corpus tranfverfum ferre videtur
Vis, & in adverfum flumen contrudere raplim: 425
Ht, quocungue oculos trajecimus, omnia ferri,

Et fiuere adfimili nobis ratione videntur.

Porticus equali.quamvis eft denique duciu,

Stanfque in perpetuum paribus fuffulta columns 53
Longa tamen parte ab fumma cim totavidetur, 4 29.
Paullatim trabit angufti faftigia coni,

Teita (οἷο jungens, atque omnia dextera levis :
Donicum in obfcurum cont condunit acumen.

In pelago nautis ex undis ortus, in undis .
Sol fit uti videatur obire, &F coidere lumen: 425
Quippe ubi nil aliud mifi aquam, culumg; tuentur,
Ne leviter credas labefaitari undique fenfics.

At maris ignaris in port clauda videntur
Navigia, apluftiris fra&is, obnitier undis.

Nam quecung; fupra rorem falis edita pars eff 440
Remorum, relia*ft , reéta fuperné Guberna:
Que demerfa liquore cheunt, refraéta videntur
Omnia converti, furfumque fupina reverti :

Li reflexa prope in fummo fluitare liquore.

Raragque per celum cium venti nubila portant 445
Tempore nocturno, tun fplendida Signa videntur.
Labier adverfium nubeis, atque ire fuperné

{

Longe

i) |
Boow IV. Of the Nature of 7; bings. At

Heaven ; fo that you feem to lock down upon the
Clouds, to take a clear Survey of the Sky; and
view with wonder the celeftial Bodies contained
in it, as they feem beneath the Earth.

Osserve, When your mettled Horfe ftands fll
with you in the Middle of a River, and you look
down upon the rapid Stream of the Water, the
Force of the Current feems to drive your Horfe
violently upwards, and hurry you fwiftly againft
the Tide ; and on which Side foever you caft your
Kyes, all Things feem to be borne along, and car-
ried againft the Torrent in the fame manner.

A Lone Portico, though it be of equal Breadth
from one End to the other, and reaches far, fup-
ported by Pillars of an equal Height; yet when
you ftand at one End, to take a View of its
whole Extent, it contracts itfelf by degrees to a
narrow Point at the further End; the Roof
touches the Floor,- and both Sides feem to meet,
till ic terminates at Jaft in the fharp Figure of a
dark Cone.

Tue Sun, to Mariners, feems to rife out of
the Sea, and there again to fet and hide his Light;
for they fee nothing but the Water and the Sky ;
and therefore you are not to conclude rafhly that
the Senfes are at all deceived.

To thofe who know nothing of the Sea, a Ship
in the Port feems difabled, and to ftrive againft the
Waves with broken Oars; for that Part of the Oar
and of the Rudder that is above the Water, appears
fraight; but all below, being refracted, feems
-to be turned upwards, and to be bent towards the
Top of the Water, and to float almoft upon the
Surface of it.

So, when the Winds drive the light Clouds
along the Sky in the Night, the Moon and Stars

ieem to fly againft the Clouds, and to be driven

above

Υ

T.LucRETm ‘Lis. ΒΝ
Longé aliam in partem, quam quo ratione feruntur,
At fi forté oculo manus uni fubdita fubter
Preffit cum, guodam fenfu fit, uti videantur 450

Omnia, que tuimur, freri tum bina tuendo ;

Bina Lucernarum florentia lumina flammis,

Binaque per totas edeis geminare Supellex :

Et duplices Hominum facies, & corpora bina.
Denique cm fuavi devinnit membra fopore 455

Somnus, €F in fumma corpus jacet omne quiete:

Tum vigilare tamen nobis, {PF membra movere

Nofira videmur, 8 in nottis caligine ceca

Ceriere cenfemus Solem, lumenque diurnum :

Conclufoque loco Celum, Mare, Flumina, Monteis 400

Mutare, 8 campos pedibus tranfire videmur :

Et fonitus audire, fevera filentia notis

Undique cum conftent, (8 reddere ditta tacentes.
Cetera de genere boc mirando multa videmus,

Que violare fidem quafi fenfibus omnia querunt 465

Nequicquan: : quoniam pars horum maxima fallit

Propler opinatus Animi, quos addimus ipfi,

Pro vifis ut fint, que non funt fenfibu? vifa.

Nam nibil egregius, quam res fecernere apertas

AA dubtis, Animus quas ab Je protinus addit. 476
Denique, nil Sciri fiquis putat, id quoque nefcit,

fi,

Book IV. Of the Naiure of Things.
above them in a Courfe quite oppofite to that in
which they naturally move.

Awnp if you chance to prefs with your Fingers
ΝΠ τ one of your Eyes, the Effect will be, that
every thing you look upon will appear double,
every bright. Candle will burn with two Fiames,
and all the Furniture of the Honfe will muluply
and fhew double; every Face about you, and
every Body will look like Two.

Lastiy, When Sleep has bound our Limbs
in fweet Repofe, and all the Body lies diffolved in
Reft, we think ourfelves awake; our Members
move ; and inthe gloomy Darknefs of the Night,
we think we fee the Sun and broad Day- light ; and,
though confined in Bed, we wander o’er “the Hea-

-vens, the Sea, Rivers and Hills, and fancy we

are walking through the Plains: And Sounds we
feem to hear ; and, though the Tongue be ftil],

we feem to fpeak, when the deep Silence of the
Night reigns ail about us.

Many more Things of this kind we obferve
and wonder at, which attempt to overthrow the
Certainty of our Senies, but to no Parpofe ; for
Things of this fort generally deceive us, upon ac-
account of the Judzment of the Mind which we
apply to them, and fo we conclude we fee Things
which we really do not; for nothing is more dif-
ficult than to diftinguifh Things clear and plain
from fuch as are doubtful, to which the Mind is
ready to add its Affent, as it 1s inclined to believe

every thing imparted by the Senies.

Lastiy, ‘If any one thinks that he knows
nothing, he cannot be fure that he knows This,

t Fle falls upon the middle Academicks, of whom 4Arcefilas
was Author ; who introduced an incoherent kind of Philofo-
phy, and afierted that nothing could be known ; for fome-
thing (as our Poet fays) muft be known, otherwife it could
not be known that nothing.can be known.

when

AY

44

ΤΟ Lucrewmtii Listy.
An δεῖν! poffit, qui fe nil Scire fatetur :
Hunc igitur contra mittam contendere caufam,
Qui capite ipfe fuo inftituit veftigia retro.
Lit tamen hoe quoque uti concedam, feire, at id
ipfum 475
Quaram, (quom in rebus veri nil viderit ante)
Unde feiat, quid fit Scire, 5 Nefcire viciffim :
Notitiam veri que res, falfique creérit 5
ΕἸ dubium certo que res differre probarit ?
Invenies primis ab Senfibus effe creatain 48a
Notitiam veri, neque Senfus poffe refelli:
Nam mayjore fide debet reperirier ulud,
Stoute fua veris qued pofit vincere falfa.
Quid majore fide porro, quam fenfus baberi
Debet ὃ An ab fenfu falfo Ratio ortavalebit 485
Dicere eos contra, que tota ab Senfibus orta’ ft ?
Qui nifi fint veri, Ratio quoque falfa fit omnis.
Ain poterunt Oculos Aures reprebendere ? an Aureis
Tatius ? an bune porro Latium Sapor arguet oris ?
An confutabunt Nares, Oculive revincent? 490
Non (ut opinor) ita’ft: Nam feorfum quoique po
ΧΩ
Divifa°/t : {μα vis quoique ft : ideoque neceffe’/t, |
Quod melle, aut durum eft, gelidum, fervenfve,
ΟΡ fume
Td molle, aut durum gelidum, fervenfve videri 53
Et feorfum varios rerum fentire Colores, 6Ὸ 405

Ai

.

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things.
when he confeffes that he knows nothing arall. I
fhall avoid difputing with fuch a Trifler, who per-
verts all Things, and, like a Tumbler with his
Head prone to the Earth, can go no otherwife
than backwards.

Anp yet allow that he knows This, I would
afk (fince he had nothing before to lead him into
fuch a Knowledge) whence he had the Notion,
what it was to know, or not to know; what it
was that gave him an Idea of Truth or Falfhood,
and what taught him to diftinguifh between Doubt
and Certainty ?

But you will find that the Knowledge of Truth
is originally derived from the " Senfes, nor can
the Senfes be contradicted ; for whatever is able,
by the Evidence of an oppofite Truth, to convince
the Senfes of Falfhood, muft be fomething of
‘greater Certainty than They. But what can de-
ferve greater Credit than the Senfes require from
us? Will Reafon, derived from erring Senfe,
claim the Privilege to contradict it? Reafon, that
depends wholly upon the Senfes, which unlefs you
allow to be true, all Reafon muft be falfe. Can
the Ears correct the yes? or the Touch the
Fars? or will the afte confute the Touch? or
fhall the Nofe or Eyes convince the reft? This,
I think, cannot be ; for every Senfe has a feparate
Faculty of its own; each has its diftincét Powers ;
and therefore an Object, foft or hard, hot or cold,
muft neceffarily be diftinguifhed as foft or hard,
hot or cold, by one Senfe feparately, that is, the
Touch. It is the fole Province of another, the
Sight, to perceive the Colours of Things, and the

" He attacks the ancient Academicks, who held the Mind
to be the (οἷς Arbiter and Judge of Things, and eftablithcs
the Senfes to be the fole Arbitrators; For (iays he) whatever
can correct and confute what is falfe, muit of neceflity be the
Criterion of Truth; and this is done by the Senfes only.

fevera!

45

ra

6

T. bower err _—

Et quecunque coloribw’ funt conjunéla, neceffe’/t.
Seor/us item Sapor 0715 bavet vin, feorfus Odores
Nafeuntur, feorfum Scnitus : idecque neceff?’ ft,
Non poffint alios ali convincere Senfits.
Nec porro poterunt ipft reprendere Jefe, 500
Ligua fides quoniam debebit femper baberi,
Proinde, quod in quoque’ ft bis vifum tempore, verum’ ft,
Et, fi non poterit ratio diffolvere caufam,
Cur ea, que fuerint juxtim quaarata, procul fiut
Vifa rotunda , tamen preftat rationis egentem 505
Reddere mendosé caufas utriufque figure,
Quam mamibus manifefia furs emittere quequam ;
ΕἸ violare fidem primam, &S convellere tota
Fundamenta, quibus nixatur Vita, Salufque.
Non modo enim Ratio ruat omits, Vita queque ipla 510
Concidat extemplo, nifi credere fenfibus aizfis,
Precipiteique lecos vilare, ( cetera, que fint
In genere hoc fugienda, fequi, contraria que fint.
illa tibi eft igitur verborum copia caffa .
Omnis que contra fenfus infirudia, parata*fi. 515%
Denigue ut in Fabrica, fi prava’ft, Regula prima, .
Normaque fi fallax rectis regionibus exit, ‘
Et Libella aliqua fi ex parti claudicat bilum ;
Omnia mendosée fieri, atque cbftipa neceffum’ ft,
Prava, cubantia, prona, fupina, aique abfoua tetta s
Fam ruere ut quedam videantur velle, ruantgue, 521
Prodita judictis fallacibus omnia primis,
dtc witur Ratio 1181 rerum prava neceffe fi, |
balfaque fit, fabfis ΤΣ, ab Senfibus orta* ft.
‘Nunc ahi Senfus quo pacto σας, fuam rei 525
sential, baud quaquam ratio ferupofa relia “jt.
Principta

Boox IV. Of the Nature of Things. 47

feveral Properties that belong to them. The Tafte
has a diftinét Office. Odours particularly affect
the Smell, and Sound the Ears ; and therefore it
cannot be that one Senfe fhould corre¢t another,
nor can the fame Senfe correct itfelf, fince an equal
Credit ought to be given to each ; and therefore
whatever the Senfes at any time difcover to us,
mutt be certain.

Anp though Reafon is not able to affign a Caufe
why an Object that is really four-{quare when near,
fhould appear round when feen at a Diftance; yet,
if we cannot explain this Difficulty, it is better to
sive any Solution, even a falfe one, than to de-
liver up all Certainty out of our Power, to break
in upon our firft Principle of Belief, and tear up
all Foundations upon which our Life and Security
depend ; for not only all Reafon muft be over-
thrown, but Life itfelf muft be immediately ex-
tinguifhed, unlefs you give Credit to your Senfes :
Thefe direét you to fly from a Precipice and other
Fivils of this fort which are to be avoided, and to
perfue what tends to your Security. All therefore
‘is no more than an empty Parade of Words, that
‘can be offered againft the Certainty of Senfe.

LasTtty, As in Building, if the principal Rule
of the Artificer be not true, if his Line be not exact,
Or his Level bear in the leaft to either Side, every
thing muft needs be wrong and crooked, the whole
Fabrick muft be ill-fhaped, declining, hanging
over, leaning and irregular; fo that fome Parts will
feem ready to fall and tumble down, becaufe the
Whole was at firft difordered by falfe Principles.
50 the Reafon of Things muft of neceffity be wrong
and falfe, which is founded upon a falfe Repre-
fentation of the Senfes.

AND now, in what manner each of the other
Senfes diftinguifhes its proper Objeét, is a Subject
of no great Difficulty to explain.

AND

43 -

T. Lucretit Lis.lW

Principio, quditur Sonus, & Vox omnis, in Aurets
Lifinuata {40 pepulere ubi corpore fenfim.
Corpcream queque enim Vocem conftarefatendum ft,
Lt Sonitum, quomam poffunt impellere Senfus. 520
Preterradit enim Vow fauceis fepe, facitgue

ifceriora foras gradiens arteria Clamor.
Quippe, per angufum turba majore coorta
ire foras ubi ceperunt primordia Vocuim,
Scilicet expletis quoque janua raditur cris 535
Rauca vis, & iter ladit qua Vox it in auras.
fHaud igitur dubium eft, quin Veces, Verbaque confteng
Corporeis ὃ principiis, ut ledere poffint.
Nec te fallit item, quid corporis auferat, &8 quid
Detrabat ex Liominum nervis, ac viribusinfis 54a
Perpetuus Serino nigrai noclis ad umbram,
Aurore perdutius ab exoriente nitore :
Prefertim fi cum fummo’ fl clamore profufus :
Lrgo corpoream Vocem confiare neceffe’jt,
Multa lequens quonian: amittit de corpore partem 548
Afperitas auiem Vocis fit ab afperitate
Principiorum, €8 ikem levor levore creatur.
Nec fimili penetrant Aureis primordia forma,
Qyuom Tuba depreffo graviter fub murmure mugit,
Aut reboant raucum Retrocita cornua bombum: δ 550
Vallibus ξ9 Ογοπὶ gelidis orti ex Heliconis
Crim liguidam tollunt lugubri voce querelam. |
Hafce igitur penitus Voces citm corpore nojftro
Exprimimus, recloque foras emitiiumus ore,
obilts articuiat verborum dedala ig EUR 3 555
orimaturague labroruin pro parte jig Cura,

Alqie

=

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things.
_Awp firft, Sound and all Voices are heard when
they enter the Ears, and ftrike with their Bodies

pon the Senfe ; for we mutt allow that Sound
nd Voice are Bodies, becaufe they have Power to

fren {crapes the Jaws, and the Noife makes the
W indpipe rough as it paffes through. When the

eeds of Words begin to hurry ina ‘Crowd through
he narrow Nerves, and to rufh abroad, thofe
Veffels being full, the Throat ts raked and made
hoarfe, and the Voice wounds the Paffage through
which it goes into the Air. There is no Queftion
then but * Voice and Words confit of corporeal
Principles, becaufe they affect and hurt the Senfe.
You are likewife to obferve how much a conti-

nual Speaking, from Morning to Night, takes off

very Nerves and Strength of the Speaker, ee
if it be delivered in the higheft Stretch of the Voice.
Of neceffity therefore Voice muft be a Body, be-
caufe the Speaker lofes many Parts from himfelf.

Tue Roughnefs then of the Voice depends upon
the Roughnels of the Seeds, as the Smoothneis is
produced from fmooth Seeds; nor are the Seeds
of the fame Figure that itrike the Ears when the
Trumpet founds with grave and murmuring Blafts,
as when the Sackbut rings with its hoarfe Noife,
or Swans tn the cold Vales of Helicon fing out with
mournful Notes their fweet Complaint.

Ween therefore we prefs out this Voice from
the Lungs, and fend it abroad directly through the
open Mouth, the nimbleTongue, with curious Art,
fafhions it into Words, and the Motion of the Lips
affifts likewife in the Formation of them.

* Voice without doubt is a Body, becaufe it rakes and
ferapes the Jaws, makes them,rough and hurts them, and
therefore mutt of neceffity touch theni ; and whatever touches
or is touched, is a Body.

Wor, Il. E AND

make Impreffion upon the Senfe; for the Voice _

from the Body ; how much it wears away from the -

Ag

40

T.Lucreti: Lisi

Atque ubi non longum fpaiium ft, unde illa pro-

fecia ἢ
Perveniat vox queque, neceffe’{t Verba quoque ipfa
Plané exaudiri, difcernique articulatim.,
Servat enim formaturam, fervatque fisuram. 560
At ft interpofitum fpatium fit longius equo,
Aéra per multum confundi Verba neceffe’ ft,
ΕἸ conturbari Vocem, dum tranfvolat auras.
Ergo fit, Sonitum ut poffis audire, neque bilum
LInternofcere Verborum fententia que fit, 565
Ujque adeo confufa venit Vox, inque pedita.

Preterea, Editium fepe unum perciet aurets
Omnibus in populo emiffum preconis ab ore:

In multas igitur Voces Vox una repente
Diffugit, in privas quoniam fe dividit aureis, 575
Obfignans formam verbis, clarumqve fonorem.

At que pars Vocum non aureis accidit ipfas,
Preaterlata perit fruftra diffufa per auras : |
Pars folidis adhifa locis, rejetta fonorem
Reddit, S interdum fruftratur imagine Verbi. 575

Que bend cum videas, rationem reddere pufis
Lute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca fola

Saxg

Book lV. Ofthe Nature of Things. ει

Awp where the Diftance is not long from
whence any Voice proceeds, the Words muft of
necefiity be plainly beard and articulately diftin-
@ulfhed, for in this Cafe the Voice preferves its
proper Frame and Figure; but if the interjacent
Space be more than it fhould be, the Words muft
needs be confufed by reafon of the Length of Air,
and the Voice be difordered as it pafies through.
Fence it is that you may hear a Sound only, but
difcover nothing at all of theMeaning of the Words,
the Voice comes fo broken and obitructed. |

BesipDeEs, Y one Sentence delivered from the
Mouth of a bawling Cryer, ftrikes the Ears of all
about him; for the one general Voice, that is
pronounced inftantly, breaks inftantly into innu-
merable little Voices, and fo reaches every parti-
cular Ear, giving a proper Form and a diftinét

“Sound to every Word.

But that Part of the Voice that does not reach-
the Ear, is diffufed through the Air to no Purpofe,
but there dies ; fome Parts {trike upon folid Places,
and being reflected return a Sound, and fometimes
cijappoint us with the &ccho or Image of the-
Word.

Ir you well confider This, you will be able to
account to yourfelf and others, why, in folitary
Places, the Rocks regularly return Words the

y ‘There is one whole or rather general Voice, which
being pronounced from the Mouth, divides itielf into innu-
merable other little Voices, which are wholly hke one an-
other; thus, when the Voice is uttered by the Speaker, the
Formation of the Bodies that burft out of the Mouth is com-
prefled, broken, and as it were ground to Pieces, in fucha
manner that it divides and goes away into minute Parts or lit-
tle Voices, altogether alike and of a hke Figure, which in-
Htantly leap abroad, and diffufe themfelves through the Air or
ambient Space, and itill preferve that Likenefs, till they
reach the Ears of all that are within hearing ; and thus the
fame Voice is at once heard by many, as ail drink of the
fame Water who drink out of the fame River.

BE 2 fame

52

T. Ἐπ οὔ] ἐς

Saxa pareis formas Verborum ex ordine reddant,
Palantets comites cum monteis inter opacos
Querinus, 8 magna difperfos voce ciemus. 580
Sex etiam, aut feptem loca vidi reddere Voces |
Unam citm jaceres: Ita colles collibus ipfis

Verba repulfantes terabant ditia referre.

Hee loca capripedes Satyros, Nymphafque tenere
Finitim fingunt, S Faunos effe loquuntur; 585
Quorum notitvago ftrepitu, ludoque jocanti
Adfirmant volgé taciturna filentia rumpi,
Chordarumque fonos fieri, dulceifque querelas,

Tibia quas fundit digitis pulfata canentum :

ΕἸ genus Agricolum laté fentifcere, cum Pan 590
Pinea femifert capitis velamina quaffans,

Unco fepe labro calamos percurrit bianteis,

Fiftula filvefirem ne ceffet fundere mufam.

Cetera de genere boc monftra, ac portenta loquuntur,

Ne loca deferta ab Divis quoque forte putentur 595
‘

=

Sola

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things,

fame with thofe we fpeak, while we feek our Com-
panions wandering o’er the dark Mountains, or
call after them aloud when they are difperfed and
lofetheir Way. 71 myfelf have feen Places that
return fix Words for one; the Hills fo reverberate
the Words from one another, that they feverally
repeat them and fend them back.

Tue neighbouring People fondly imagine fuch
Places to be frequented by Goat-footed Satyrs and
Nymphs, and tell Stories of the Fawns. They
fay, that the dead Silence of the Night 15 difturbed
by their late Revels and wanton Sports; that they
hear the Sound of Mufick, and the [οἷς Notes of
the Harp, as the Artift touches and fings to it to-
gether ; that the Swains all about can diftinguifh
plainly when * Pan, fhaking his Garland of Pine-
leaves upon his Head, with long-hung Lip, runs
oer the hollow Reeds, and fo his Pipe prolongs
his rural Song. They fpeak of many other ftrange
Sights, and monftrous Fables of the fame kind ;
leit, perhaps, they fhould be thought to dwell in
Places where the Gods never come, and therefore

z An Eccho is formed by the Reverberation of the vibrated
Air, when it meets with a {mcoth and folid Body; for the
Air, as well as other Mediums, muft glance and reflect from
Objects, if it cannot pafs through them. ‘Thus it changes its
firft Determination, and is variouily refleed, according to
the various Situation of the Objeét upon which it ftrikes.
The Reafon why the fame Sound is feveral times reflected, is,
becaufe there fometiimes happens to be feveral-Places difpofed
among themfelves, in fuch a manner and at fuch Diftances
one beyond the other, that the circular Undulations of the
Air, in different Places and at different Diftances, meeting
with Bodies folid and impenetrable, the fame Sound will be
often rebounded, according to the Number and Site of the
Objects ; fo that, after we have received the Sound reflected
from the neareft, we receive it likewife returned from thofe
that are more remote from us.

4 Pau was reprefented with a’Garland of Pine-leaves on
his Head ; in one Hand he bears a Pipe, made of feven Reeds
jomed together with Wax, of which he was the firft Inventor.

i 3 they

Ψ 3

ΤῸ

T. Luce Ἐ Lis
Sola tenere: Ideo jattant miracula diéiis.
Aut aliqua ratione alia ducuntur, ut omne
Humanum genus eft avidum nimis auricularum.
Quod fupereft, non eft mirandum, qua ratione
Que loca per nequeunt Oculi res cernere apertas, 600
Hee loca per Voces vemiant, ‘ Aureifque laceffant.
Conloquimur claufis foribus: quod fepe videmus.
Nimirum, quia Vox per flexa foramiia rerum
Lucolumis tranfire poteft, Simulacra renutant ;
Perfcinduntur enim, nift recta foramina tranant : 605
Qualia funt vitri, fpecies que travolat omnis.
Preterea, parteis in cunétas dividitur Vox,
Lx alus atte quoniam gignuntur ; ubi una
Difiluit femel in multas exorta, quafi ignis
Sepe folet feiutilla fuos fe fpargere in igneis, 610
firgo replentur loca Vocibus, abdita retro
Omnia que circum fuerint, fonituque cientur.
tt Simulacra viis diretits omnia tendunt,
Ut funt miffa femel, quapropter cernere nemo
Se jupra polis eft ; at Voces accivere extra, O15
Li tamen ipfa quoq; bec, dum tranfit claufa viarum,
Vox obtunditur, atque aureis confufa penetrat :
ΕἸ Somtuin potiis, quam Verba, audire videmur.
Hac, quets fentimus fuccum, lingua atque palatum,

Plufculum babent in fe rationis, plufque operai. 620

Principio

ν

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things.

they invent wonderful Tales like thefe ; or they
are induced by fome Reafon or other, as Man-
kind in general are mighty eager after Prodigies.
In fhort, it is nothing ftrange, that thofe Places
through which theEye can fee nothing, that through
fach theVoice can pafs and ftrike the Ears. We can
converfe together in different Rooms, when the

Doors are fhut, as we frequently do, becaufe Voice

can pierce fafely through the crooked Pores of Bo-
dies, which Images cannot, for they are broken if the
Paffages are not ftraight; fuch are the Pores of Glafs
through which all forts of Images freely find way.

BestpEs, » the Voice divides itfelf into feveral
little Voices, and thefe are broken again into
others, as foon as the firft fingle Voice breaks
into many more, like a Spark of Fire that leaps
abroad into a Thoufand; fo that all Places about,
even thofe behind you, are filled with Voice, and.
are moved by the Sound ; but all Images direct
their Courfe through ftraight Paflages, as foon as
they are thrown off from Bodies, and therefore no
one can fee any thing over his Head; you-hear
Words that are fpoken without, yet even thefe,
as they pais through the Doors that are fhut, grow
weak, and {trike the Ears in a confufed Manner,
fo that we rather feem to hear a Sound than to di-
{tinguifh the Words.

Nor ts the Account of the Tongue and Palate,
by which we tafte, a Subject of greater Nicety or
more Difficulty to explain.

!
“ἢ The Voice divides itfelf and leaps abroad into little
Voices, which diffufe and f{catter themfelves abroad on all
Sides, fo that they light into the Ears that are all around, and
not only thofe that are placed in a direét Line from the
Speaker ; but no fuch Thing can happen to the Images which
are broken in paffine through tortuous Pores and Holes of

Bodies. Yet the Voice itfelf, by penetrating through fuch
Mazes and Windings, becomes weak, indiftinét, and breaks

into Murmurs.
A AND

2}

brad}

T. Lucreti:t Line
Principio, fuccum fentiimus ia cre, cibum cium ;
Mandendo exprimimus: ceu plenam fpongiam aquat
Si quis forté manu premere, exficcareque capil 5
Inde, quod exprimimus, per caulas omne palati
Diditur, S rare perplexa foramina lingua, 625
Hec ubi levia funt manantis corpore Succi,
Suaviter atiingunt, SF fuavitur omnia tratiant
Humida linguai circum fudantia templa.
“7: contra pungunt fenfum, lacerantque cooria,
Quants queque magis funt afperitate repleta. 630
Deinde voluptas eff ὃ fucco in fine palatt,
Citm vero deorfum per fauceis precipitavit 3
Nulla voiuptas eff, dum diditur omnis in artus:
Nec referé quicquam, quo viciu corpus alatur,
Dummodo, quod capias, concoctum didere poffis 625
Artubus, 895 flomachi bumeétuia Jervare tenorem.
Nune aliis alius cur fit Cibus, ut videamus,
Expediam , quareve, aliis quod trife, 9 amarumft,
Hoc tamen effe alus pofiit predulce videri
Tantagq; in bis rebus diftantia, differitalque’fi, 640
Ut quod alis Cibus eft, alts fuat acre venenum.
Eft utique, ut Serpens hominis contacta falivis

Difperit, ac Jefe mandendo conficit ipfa,

Preaterea,
\

δι 9

Book lV. Of the Natureof Things. 47

Anon firft, We perceive a Tafte in the Mouth
when we {queeze the Juice from our Food by chew-
ing, as if we were to prefs a Spunge full of Water in
our Hands to make it dry ; then the Juice we draw
out is fpread over the Pores of the Palate, and
through the crooked Paflages of the fpungy Tongue.
When the Seeds of this Howing Juice are {moorh,
they gently touch, and affect all the moift and
fweating Surface of the Tongue with fweet De-.
light 2. but the Seeds, the more rough and fharp
they are, the more they ftimulate and tear the Senfe,

Awp then the Pleafure of Tafte we feel no fur-
ther than the Palate; when the Food is driven
down through the Jaws, and divided among the
Limbs, the Pleafure is gone; nor is it of any
Concern with what Meat our Bodies are nourifhed,
if you can but digeft what you éat, and feparate
it among the Members, and preferve the moitt
Tenor of the Stomach,

I sHALL now account why, as we find, ς dif-
ferent Sorts of Food are agreeable to different Pa-
lates ; or why, what 15 four and bitter to fome,
feems to others exceeding fweet. In thefe Cafes
the Variety and Difference are fo great, that what
is Food to one will prove fharp Poifon to another ;
and it happens that a Serpent touched with the Spit-
tle of a Man, expires and bites himfelf to Death.

¢ The Reafon why the fame Meat has different Effe€ts upon
different Palates, is, becaufe the Organ of the Tafte is dif-
ferent in fome Men, and in fome Animals, from what it is in
others ; either in its ‘Texture or Configuration of the Atoms,
or of the Spaces that intervene between them ; even as the
other Parts of Men or Animals are different, efpeciaily the
outward. But the different Paffages or Pores mutt neceflarily
admit and receive different Corpufcles of Juice; and every
thing out of which Juice is {queezed, contains Seeds of dif-
ferent Figures ; and the Corpufcles of all Juices, by reafon of
their various Figuration, do not agree with and fit the Organs
of all Animals,

BESIDES,

58

T Luceretm Lint

Preterea, nobis Veratrum eft acre venenum,
fit Capris adipes, (F Coturnicibus auget. 645
Ut, quibus id fiat rebus, cognofcere poffis,
Principio meminiffe decet, que diximus ante,
Semina multimodis in rebus mifia teuert. .
Porro omnes, quecunque cibum capiunt Animantes,
Ut funt diffimiles extrinfecius, ξ5᾽ generatim 650
Lxlina memororum circumcefura coercet,
Proiude ac Seminibus diftant variantque figura.
Semina cium porro difteut, differre neceffe ft
intervalla, Viafgue, Poramina que perbibemus,
Omnibus in membris, 68 in ore, ipfoque palato. 655
Lffe minora igitur quedam, majoraque debent,
ΕΠ triquetra allis, aliis quadrata neceffe’ft :
Multa rotunda, modis multis multangula quedam.
Namque Figurarum ut ratio, motufque repofcunt,
Proinde Foraminibus debent differre figure: 660
Et variare vie proinde ac textura coércet.
Ergo ubi qued fuave’/t aliis, alis fit amarum :
dilis, queis fuave ft, leviffima corpora debent
Contrectabiliter caulas intrare palan.
ft conira, quibus eft eadem res intis acerba: 665
Afpera nimirum penetrant, bamataque faucets.
Nunc facile ex his eft rebus cognofcere queque.
Quippe, ubi quoi Febris, bili fuperante, coorta’ft,
Aut alia ratione aliqua’ft vis excita morbi ;
Perturbatur ibi totum jam Corpus, (S omnes 670
Commutantur ibi pofiture Principiorum :
Fit, prius ad fenfum ut que corpora conveniebant,
Nune non conveniant, (9 cetera fint magis apta,
Que penetrata queuni fenfum progignere acerbum.
Utraque enim funt in mellis comm iia fapore, 675
ld quod jam supera tibi fepe oftendtunus ante.

Nune

¥

Boox IV. Of the Nature of Things.

BestpEs, to Us Hellebore is ftrong Poifon,
but Goats it fattens, and is Nourifhment to Quails ;
and to underftand by what means this comes to
pafs, you muft recollect what we obferved before,
that Seeds of different kinds are mingled in the
Compofition of ali Bodies.

Anp then, all Animals fupported by Food, as
they differ in outward Shape, and after their feverak
kinds have a different Form of Body and Limbs,
fo they confift of Seeds of different Figures : and
fince their Seeds differ, the Pores and Paflages
which (as we faid) were in all the Parts, and in
the Mouth and Palate itfelf, muft differ likewife 5
fome mut be lefs, fome greater ; fome with three,
fome with four Squares; many round, and fome
with many Corners in various Manners: For as
the Frame of the Seeds and their Motions require,
the Pores muft differ in their Figure. The Dif-
ference of the Pores depends upon the Texture of
the Seeds, and therefore what is fweet to one is
hitter to another: It is fweet, becaufe the fmooth-
eft Seeds gently enter into the Pores of the Palate 5
but the fame Food is bittér to another, becaufe the
fharp and hooked Particles pierce the Jaws and
wound the Senfe.

Now, by obferving this, Things will appear
plain ; for when a Man has a Fever, either by the
overflowing of the Gall, or whether the Violence of
the Difeafe be raifed by any other Means, in fucha
Cafe all the Body is difturbed, and all the Order
and Difpofition of the Seeds are changed. And
hence it is, that the Juices that were before agree-
able to the Senfe, are no longer pleafing, and thofe
are more fit to enter the Pores that fret and produce
a bitter Tafte ; for even in Honey there 15 a Mix-
ture of rough and fmooth Seeds, as we had fre-

quent Occafion to mention to you before.
AND

59

Co

T. Lucrketiit Lisi
Nunc age, quo patto Nareis adjeétus odoris
Tangat, agam. Primim res multas effe neceffe°ft,

Unde fluens volvat varius fe fluétus Odorum.

Nam fluere, S mitit volgo, [pargique putandum’ ft.

Verum alus ahus magis eft Animantibus aptus, 68%

Diffimileis propter formas, ideoque per auras

Mellis Apes quamvis longé ducuyiur odore :

Volturiuque cadaveribus: tum fiffa ferarnim

Ongula qué tulerit greffum, promiffa Canum vis 685

Ducit: &F humanum longé prefentit odorem

Romulidarum arcis fervator, candidus Anfer. ν
Sic aliis alius nidor datus ad fua φμόηιψιις -

Pabula ducit, &2 a tetro refilire veneno

Cogit ; eoque modo fervantur fecla ferarum, 690
Fic Odor ipfe igitur, nareis quicunque laceffit,

Eft alio ut poffit periitti loagiis alter.

Sed tamen baud quifquam tam longé fertur eorum,

Quam Sonitus, quam Vox, mitto jam dicere, quam

res,

Que feriunt Oculorum acies, vifumque laceffunt. 695

Lrrabundus enim tardé venit, ac perit ante

Paullatim facits diftraétus in Aeris auras:

Da

=

BOOK. IV. Of the Nature of Things. 61

Awp now fhall I pafs on, and fhew in what
manner the Approach of Smells affect the Nofe.
And firft, A various Stream of Odours 15 continu-
ally Howing from all Bodies ; for you mutt fup-
pofe that Smells are perpetually thrown off, are
emitted and difperfed abroad ; but fome are more
peculiar to fome Animals than others, becauie they
confift of Seeds of different Figures ; and therefore
the Bee is attracted by the Smell cf Honey in the
Air afar off, and Vultures by the Stink of Car-
cafes ; and fo the natural Quality of the Hound
drives him on where the Hoof of the Stag has ied
the Way, and the white Goofe (the Saviour of the
Capitol) can perceive the Smell of a Man at a
great Diftance.

So it isthe Difference of Smell, peculiar to dif-
ferent Creatures, that directs every Species to its
proper Food, and makes it ftart at the Approach
of Poifon ; and by that means the Race of Bealts
is conftantly preferved.

¢ But this Smell or Odour that affects the
Nofe, fome kinds of it are emitted much further
than others, but no one of them is carried {fo far as
Sound or Voice (not to fpeak of thofe Images that
ftrike the Eye and provoke the Sight) for they
wander about and move lazily, and being {fcat-
tered through the Air, die away by Degrees be-
fore they have gone far, and for this Reaton, be-

ἃ Odours move more flowly through the Air than Sound,
are more ealily diffipated, and are not diffufed fo far, becaute
they flow from the moft inward Parts of an odorous Body, and
the Principles of which they are compofed are larger than the
Principles of Sound, and therefore cannot pierce through the
Paffages that Sound can ; and therefore Odour muft neceflarily’
move more flow, and be more eafily diflipated by the Atr it
meets in its Paffage. And this too is the Reafon why, though
we can eafily judge from what Part a Sound comes to us, we
cannot fo eafily diitinguifh on what Side of us the Body is that

“diffafes an Odour.

caule

T. Lu cr eri: Live

Ex alto primum quia vix emittitur ex re.

Nam penitis fluere, atque recedere rebus odores
Significat, quod fratia magis redolere videniur 700
Omnia, quod contrita, quod igni coniabefatta,

Deinde videre licet majoribus effe creatum
Principiis Voci: Quoniam per faxea fepta '

Non penetrat, qua Vox volgo, Sonitufque feruntur.
Ouare etiam quod olet, non tam facile effe videbts 705
Inveftigare, in qua fit regione locatum.

Refrigefcit enti cunttando plaga per auras:

Nec calida ad fenfum decurrit nuntia rerum.

Errant fepe Canes itaque, & veftigia querunt.

Nec tamen hoc folis in Odoribus, atque Saporum 719
In genere eft : Sed item Species rerum, atque Colores
Non ita conveniunt ad fenfits omnibus omues,

Ut non fint aliis quedam magis acria ΟΠ.
Quinetiam Gallum, noélem explaudentibus alis
Auroram clara confuetum voce vocare, 7
Nenu queunt rapidi contra conftare Leones,
Inque tueri: Ita continuo meminere fugai :

Nimirum, quia funt Gallorum in corpore quedan
Sema, que, cum funt oculis immiffa Leonum,
Pupillas inierfodiunt, acremque dolorem 720
Prabent, ut nequeant contra durare feroces ;

Cuin tamen bec noftras acies nil ledere poffint :

Aut quia non penetrant, aut quod penetrantibus illis
Fimitus ex Oculis liber datur, in remeando

Ledere ne poffint ex ulla lumina parte. 925

Nune

_
Book IV. Of the Nature of Things.
caufe they flow with Difficulty from the moft in-
ward Parts of Bodies; and that Odours are emit-
ted from the loweft Profundity of the Subject, is
proved trom this, that the more they are broken
and bruifed or feattered by Fire, the ftronger they
{mell.

ΕΝ ἢ then we may obferve, that Smells are
formed of larger Seeds than thofe of Voice; for
they cannot pierce through Walls of Stone, where
Voice and Sound freely pafs; and therefore we
cannot fo eafily diftinguifh on which Side of us the
Body is placed that “diffufes the Smell; for the

Stroke grows cold as,it moves flowly through the
Aur, nor does the hot Scent brifkly touch the Or-

gan; and therefore Hounds are often at a Fault,
and hunt about for the Trail.

Awp this happens, not only in Cafes of Smell |

and Tafte ; but the Images of Things, and all
Colours, do not affect the Eyes of all Men alike,
but to fome they’are more fharp and painful to the
Senfe than they are to others.

For the © Cock, that claps his Wings and
drives away the Darknefs, and by his clear Netes
calls forth the Morning Licht, the fierceft Lion
dares not ftand againft this Cre ature, nor look him

in the Face, but inftantly prepares for Flight 5

and for this Reafon, becaufe there are certain
Seeds in the Body of the Cock, that when emitted
into the Eyes of the Lion, fret and tear the Balls,
and caufe a very acute Pain, which the Beaft
with all his Courage is not able to bears; and

yet thefe Particles are no way hurtful to our Eyes ; -

either they do not pierce them, or if they do,
they find a free Paffage and return eafily from the
Eyes again, fo that they do not the leaft Prejudice
to the Sight.

© The Lion is terrified at the Sight of 8 Cock ; he does not
fay it is the crowing of the Cock that frightens thatwild Animal.

AND

63

—_—
64 T. Luce TTT “Lin
Nunc age, que moveant Animum res, accipe, 88
unde,

Que veniunt, veniant in Mentem, percipe paucis.
Principio boc dico, rerum Simulacra vagari
Multa modis multis in cunttas undique parteis
Tenuia, que facile inter fe junguniur in auris, 730
Obvia cum veniunt, ut aranea, bratteaque QUIT.
Quippe etenim multo magis bec funt tenuia textu,
Quam que percipiuint Oculos, vifum@ue laceffunt :
Corporis bec quoniam penetrant per rara, cienique
Tenuem Animi naturam intis, fen/umaue lacefunt.7 35

Centauros itaque {8 Scyllaruim membra videmus,
Cerbereafque canum facies, fimutacraque eorum,
Quorum morte obita tellus ampleftitur offa :
Omne genus quoniam paffim fimulacra feruntur,
Partim fponte fua que fiunt Aére in ipfo: 740
Partim que variis ab rebus cumque recedunt :
Et que confiftunt ex borum fatia figuris.
Nam certé ex vivo Centauri non fit imagos
Nulla fuit quoniam talis natura animalis,
Verum ubi equi atque hominis cafit convénit imago,745
Herefcit facile extemplo, qued diximus ante,
Propter fubtilem naluram, & tenuia texta,

Cetera de genere hoc eddem ratione creantur.
Que cum mobiliter fumma levitate feruntur,
Ut prius oftendi, facile uno commovet ictu 750
Oualibet una animum nobis fubtilis mage.

Tenuss

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things. ὅς
AnD now attend, * and obferve in fhort, what The Caufe

Things affect the Mind, and from whence proceed of ἱπαρίς
thofe “Objedts that make an Impreffion upon it. 744%
Firft then, I fay that fubtle Images of Things, a
numerous [rain of them, wander about every Way,
and in various Manners. ‘Thefe, as they meet,
eafily twine and are joined together in the Air, as
Threads of Gold or the Web of a Spider ; for thefe
are much finer in their Contexture than thofe Images
Boat ftrike the Eye and move the Sight. Thefe
pierce through the Pores of the Body, and move
the fubtle Nature of the Mind within, and affect

“the Senfe. Hence it is that we fee Centaurs, and
the Limbs of Scylla’s, and the Heads of Cerberus,
and the Shadows of thofe who have been long fince
dead, and whofe Bones are rotting in the Grave ;
becaufe Images of all kinds are ever wandering .
about ; fome of their own accord are formed in the
Air, fome are continually fying off from various
Bodies, and others rife from thefe Images mixed Wy ave
together: For it is certain, that the Image of a think on
Centaur never flowed from one that was “alive 5 HT
for there never was fuch an Animal in Nature; but
when the Image of a Horfe met by chance with

the Image of a Man, it immediately ftuck to it,

which it eafily does, by reafon of the Subtilty of

its Nature and the Finenefs of its ‘Texture ; and

all other monftrous Figures are formed after the

fame manner. ‘Thefe Images being exceeding
light, and eafily put in Motion (as I obferved be. °
fore) each of them affects the Mind at one Stroke ;

f He now explains what Imagination is, and the Caufe of
it. He fays, that many moft fubtle Images, fome flowing
from Bodies, others formed in the Air of their own accord,
and others differently mixed of different Things, are wander-
ing up and down on all Sides in the Air; that thefe Images
penetrate into the Mind, and gently moving it, are the Caute
of Imagination.

VOL. IT, δ dor

66

TT Luce τι Tie"
Tenuis enim mens eff,.&S miré mobdilis ipfa.

Hac fieri (ut memsro) facilé bine coznofcere poffs,
Quatinus hoe fimile eft oculis, quod mente viaemus,
Atque oculis fimilt fiert ratione neceffe’ | : 755
Nunc igitur quoniam docui me forie Leones
Cernere per fimulacra, oculos quecungque laceffunt :
Scire licet mentem fimili ratione movert
Per fimulacra Leonum cetera, que videt eque,
Nec minis, atque oculi: nifi quod mage tenuia cernt,

Nec ratione alia, chm fomniaus membra profudit, 761
Mens animi vigilat, nifi quod jimulacra laceffunt,
Hac eadem nofiros animos, que, quom vigilamus:
Ujque adeo, cerie ut videamur cernere eum, quem
Reddita vitai jam mors, 9 terra petita’ft, 568
Hoc ideo fieri cogit Natura, quod omnes
Corporis offects fenfus per membra quiefcunt,

Nec poffunt falfum veris convincere rebus.
Preterea, Meminiffe jacet, languetque fopore,

Nec diffentit, eum mortis, letbique potitum } 770
Jampridem, quem Mens vivum fe cernere creégit.

Quod

ooK IV. Of the Nature of Things. 67
for the Mind is of a very fubtle Nature, and won-
derfully difpofed to move.

TuatT the Mind is moved, as I obferved, by
the Images of Things, you may eafily collect from
hence, that what we perceive by the Mind is ex-
actly like what we fee with our Eyes; and there-
fore they muft of neceffity be both affected by the
fante Things, and in the fame manner. And fo,
when I faid, for Inftance, that I fee a Lion by
means of the I mage that ftrikes upon the Eyes, I
know by the fame Rule that the Mind is moved by
another Image of a Lion, which it equally and no
lefs fees, than the Eye fees the Image proper to it;
with this Difference only, that the Mind can per-
ceive Images of a more thin and fubtle Nature.

gs Nor from any other Reafon is the Mind Why thefe
awake when the Body is afleep, but becaufe thofe “2zczes
very Images affeét the Mind which were ufed to/#” 7"
move the Senfe when we were awake, fo that we
fully believe we fee a Perfon who has been long
fince dead and buried in the Grave ; .and it can-
not well be otherwife, becaufe all the Senfes of th
Body are obftructed and bound up by Sleep, τς
therefore have no Power to convince us of the
contrary. Befides, the Memory is feeble and lan-
suifhes by Refit, and makes no Objection to fa-
tisfy us, that the Man has been long in the Arms
of Death, whom the Mind really believes it fees
alive.

8. The Images that are continually wandering to and fro
in ali Places, ftrike with fuch Violence upon the Sleeper, that
they rufh into his Mind, and fhake and difturb it to fuch a
Degree, as begets in it an Imagination of the very Things
whofe Images they ue. And the Reafon why we believe the
Dead are actually prefent with us, is, becaufe the Seafes, by
Which alone we diftinguifh between true and falfe, being lulled
and ftupified by Sleep, cannot perform their Functions. Be-

fides, the Memory 18 Anes and we do not at tnat time
recollc& that the Perfon who feems to be prefent with us 15

dead,
“2 AND

63

T. LucRET11 ΠΣ
Quod fupereft, non eft mirum, Simulacra moveri,
Brachiaque in numerum jactare, cetera membra,
Nam fit, ut in fomnis facere hoc videatur Imago.
Quippe, ubi prima perit, alioque eft altera nata 775

Lindo ftatu, prior bec gefium muta ffe videtur.

Scilicet id fiert celert ratione putandum ’ft.

Muliaque in his rebus queruniur, multaque nobis

Clarendum ft, plane fi res exponere avemus.
Queritur in primis, quare, quod quoique libido 780

Venerit, extemplo Mens cogitet ejus iditfum.

Anne voluntatem noftram Simulacra tuentur ?
Et fimulac volumus, nobis occurrit Imago ?
Si Mare, fi Terram cordi’ft, fi denique Celum,
Conventus hominum, Pompam, Convivia, Pugnas,
Omnia fub verbone creat Natura, paratque? 786
Quom prefertim aliis eadem in regione, locogue
Longe diffimileis Animus res cogitet omnis 2

Quid porro, im numerum procedere quom Simt-

lacra

Cerimmus in fomnis, 5 mollia membra movere, 790
Molliia mobiliter quom alternis brachia mittunt ?
Et repetunt oculis geftum pede convenienti ὃ
Scilicet arte madent Simulacra dotia vagantur,
Notlurno facere ut poffint in tempore ludos ?

An

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things.

Awp then it is no wonder that the images feem
to move, and to throw about their Arms and the
reft of their Limbs to exact Time, and thus they
ἴδει to do when we are in a Drearn®; for when
the firft Image is gone, and another fprings up in
a different Potture, the firft, we think, has chang-
ed itsShape ; and all this, you muft conceive, is
done in an Inftant of Time. There are many
other Inquiries about Things of this Nature, and
we muft enter into long Difputes if we attempt to
give a diftin¢ét Anfwer to every one.

69

First then, it is afked, How it is that what- 7’Ay awe
ever we defire to think of, oo Mind immediately #4 oz

thinks upon that very Thing? Is it that the I-
mages are always ready at the Command of the
Will? Does the Image immediately occur to us
the Moment we defire? ΠῚ we fancy to think of
the Sea, the Earth, the Heavens, of Senates,
Shews, Feafts, Battles; does Nature form thefe,
and provide them ready at our Nod? efpecially
fince the Minds of others, that are in the fame
Country and in the fame Place with us, think of
Things quite different from thefe ?

Anp then, fince we fee Images in our Sleep to
ftep to Time, to move their pliant Limbs, and
throw about their tender Arms alternately, and
Keep due Meature with their Feet ; are they taught
this by Art? Have they learnt to dance, that thus
they play their wanton Sports by Night? ὁ Is not

this

h Since we continue fome time in the fame Imagination,

it is not one Image that is before the Mind all that while,
but many Images, that offer themfelves, fuccefiively, Image

after Image in a never-ceafing Flow. If thefe Images remain ©

in the fame Pofture, the Thing we fancy we fee will feem
without Motion ; but if the Poiture of the Images vary, it
muft of neceffity feem to move.

* What we take to be one fingle Moment of Time, is in-
deed many Moments ; fo that the Images being, as they are,
extremely fubject to Motion, a Multitude of them prefent

ε" themielves

what 2

«ο17,

jaan

T. Lucrewtti Lis. te
An magis illud erit verum, quia tempore in uno 795
Cim fentimus id: ut cin vox emitiitur una:
Tempore mulia latent, ratio que comperit effe :
Propterea fit, uli quovis im tempore quaque
Prefto fint Simulacra locts in queifque parata ?
Tanta eft mobilitas, 9 eorum copia tanta, 800
Et quia tenuia funt, nifi fe contend, acute
Cernere non potis eft Animus, proinde cmnia, que
{μπὲ
Praterea, pereunt, nifi fie fefe ipfe paravit.
Ipfe parat Jefe porro, fperatque futurum,
Ut videat, quod confequitur rem quamque: fil ergo.805
Tonne vides, Oculos etiam, quom, tenuia que fint,
Cernere ceperunt, contendere fe, aique parare,
Nec fine co fieri poffe, ut cernamus acute 9
Et tamen in rebus quoque apertis nofcere poffis,
Sinon advertas Animum, croinde effe, quafi omui 8τ
Tempore femote fuerint, loigecue remote.
Cur igitur mirum eft, Animus fi cetera perdit,
Preter quam quibus eft in rebus deditus ipfe ὃ
Deinde adopinamur de fiznis maxima parvis :
Ac nos in fraudem induimus, frufiramur S&S ipft 815
Fit quoque ut interdum non fuppeditetur Imago
Ejufdem generis, fed Femina que fuit ante,
in manibus Vir tum fattus videatur adeffe :

Aut

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things.
this the Truth rather, that what we take for one
Moment of Time, this prefent Now, has many
Parts included, as we find by Reafon ἢ And there-
fore it is, that in every Inftant there are a thoufand
different Images always ready in every Place; fo
numerous are ee and fo apt to move; and then
they are fo exceeding fubtle, that the Mind can-
not poflibly perceive them diftin@tly, without the
niceft Diligence. And fo thofe Images die away
unobier ved, which the Mind dces not apply itfelf
to perceive; but it does apply itfelf clotely to
diftinguith the Image it hopes to find, and there-
fore fees it.

Don’t you obferve that the Kyes, when they
would difcover an Objeét exceeding fmall, con-
tract themfelves clofe and provide ta It; nor can
they accurately diftinguifh, except they do ‘a
And you will find, even in Things ever fo plai
unlefs you ferictly apply your Mind, they will be
as if they were utterly ob{cure, and at the greateft
Diftance undifcovered. Where is the Wonder
then, that the Mind fhould lofe the Cbfervation
of all other Images but thofe it pa cularly in-
quires after and is employed about?

BEesIpEs, we often miftake fmall Objects for
ereat, and fo we contribute to our own Delufion
and impofe upon ourfelves,

It happens hkewile, that fometimes an Image,
of a different kind, prefents itfelf to the Mind.
Thus the Form that was before a Woman, now
fhews itfelf a Man, or fome other Perfon of a

themfelves to us every Moment, and among them the Image
ef the Thing of which we pleafe to think. Befides, though
all kinds of Images are continually at Hand, yet they being
moft tenvious and jubtle, the Mind cannot perceive them,
unlefs fhe watch with great Diligence and endeavour to do fo ;
for fubtle Things will efcape unheeded by a negiigent Mind,
as they do from a carelefs and unwatchful ye,

Fa different

7

Tr. Lucretal Lisa
Aut alia ex alia facies, e@tafque fequatur :
Oued ne miremur, Sopor, aique Oblivia curant, 820
Illud in bis rebus vitium vebementer, 9 iffum
Effugere errorem, vitareque premeditator,
Lumina non facias Oculorum clara creata,
Profpicere ut pofimus: (9, ut proferre viai
Proceros paffus, ideo faftigia poffe $25
Surarum, ac Feminum pedibus fundata plicari:
-Brachia tum porro validis ex apta lacertis
Effe, Manufque datas utraque ἃ parte mimflras,
Ut facere ad vitamin poffiinus, que foret ufus.
Cetera de genere hoc inter quecunque pretautur:
Omnia perverfa prepoftera funt raticne. 821
Nil adeo quoniam natum’ft in Corpore, ut uti
Poffemus, fed quod natum ft, id procreat ufum 5
Nec fuit ante Videre Ocutsrum lumina nata:
Nee diftis Orare priius, quam Lingua creata*ft: 835
Sed potins lounge Lingue preceffit crigo
Sermonem, multoque create funt prius Aures,
Quam Sonus ef: audiius: €9 omni denique membra
finte fuere (ut opinor) eorum quam foret ufus.
Flaud igitur potuere utendi crefcere caufa. 840

ad

Mbox IV. Of the Nature of Things. 73
different Age and Complexion ; but this we are
not to wonder at, fince the Senfes are all afleep,
and we are wholly in a State of Forgetfulnefs.

But in Subjects of this nature, guard yourfelf Te Limbs
to the utmoft of your Power againft that © Error, 7 724e
that-crofs Miftake ; and never believe that thofe/” Εἰ“
bright Orbs, the Eyes, were made that we might ΄.
fee; or that our Legs were made upright, and
Thighs fixed upon them, and were fupported by
Feet, that we might walk and take large Strides ;
that our Arms were braced with ftrong Sinews,
and that our Fiands hung on both Sides, to afiift
us in thofe Offices that are neceffary to the Sup-
port of Life. And whatever Conftructions they
put upon other Parts of the Body, they are all ab-
furd and again{t Reafon; for no Member of the
Body was made for any particular Ufe, but after
it was made each Member found out a Ufe proper

to itfelf; for there was no fuch Thing as to fee
before the Eyes were made, nor to {peak before
the Tongue was formed ; but the Tongue was ra-
ther in Being long before there was Speech, and
the Ears were made long before any Sound was
heard. In fhort, all the Members, in my Opi-
nion, were in Being before their particular Ufes
were fet out. ‘This is fo true that, to engage in

k It was the Opinion of Epicurus, that the Members of our
Body were not made defignedly for proper Ufes, but being
made by Chance, the Ufe that firft offered itfelf was laid
hold of by each Member ; for if any thing was made for a
certain future Uie, fomething muft have pre-exifted, that fig-
nified that fuch a Ufe would be convenient or neceffary. For
Example: If there had not been a previous Ufe of Fighting,
Sleeping and quenching of Thirf, Armour, Beds and Cups
had never been thought of ; thus the Eye could not be made
for the fake of Seeing, ὅς. This Opinion is ridiculous and
extravagant ; but the Pnilofopher was forced to refort to it,
otherwife he muft have allowed of a Providence, which is
hot more vifible in any thing than in the wonderful Mecha-
nifm of the Parts of a human Body.

Battle,

΄4 T. Lucretil ΒΕ

At coutra conferre manu certamina pugne,

Et lacerare artis, fedareque membra cruere,

Anté fuit multo, quam lucida tela volarent,:

Et volnus vitare prius natura coesit,

Qyam daret objectum parmai leva per ariem. 845

Scilicet (PF feffum corpus mandare quieti,

Mult antiquius eff, quam lect molha firata.

Et fedare fitim priis cf, quam pocula, natum.

Hac igitur pofjent utends cognita caufa

Credier, ex ufu que funt vitaque reperta. 850

Hla quidem Jfeorfusm funt omnia, que prius ipfa

Nata, dedere fue poft notitiam utilitatis.

Quo genere in primis Senfus, 9 Membra videmus.

Ouyare etiam aique etiam procul eft ut credere poffis,

Uiilitatis ob officium potuiffe creart. B55
lind item non eff mirandum, Corporis ipfa

Duod natura Cibum querit quoiufque animantis.

Duippe etenim fluere, aique recedere corpora rebus

Mulia modis multis docui, fed plurima debent

Ex animalibus tis, que funt exercita motu; 860

Muliaque per fudorem ex alto preffa feruntur,

Multa per os exbalantur, quom languida anbelant:

His ivitur rebus ΤΩΙ Corpus ; (S omnis

Subruilur natura, dolor quai confequitur rei :

Propterea capitur Cibus, ut fuffulciat artus, 865

Et recreet vireis interdatus, atque patentem

Per membra ac venas ut amorem obturet edendi,
Flumor item difcedit in omnia que loca cunque.

Pofcunt Humorem, glomerataque multa vaporis

Corpora que ftomacho prebent incendta nofiro, 870

Diffupat adveniens liquor, ac reflinguit, ut ignem:

Urere

. ἃ

"Book iV. Of the Nature of Things. 75
Battle, to mangle the Limbs, and to ftain the
Body over with Blood, thefe were in Being before
any fhining Darts flew through the Air, and Na-
ture taucht us to avoid a Wound before the Left
Hand learnt to oppofe a Shield in cur Defence ;
and fo, to commit the Body to Reft was lone be-
fore the Invention of foft Beds, and to quench the
Thirft was practifed before the Ufe of Cups. All
thefe Things, we may believe, were invented for
common Benefit, as they were found proper and
convenient for the Occafions of Life. All Things
therefore, that were in Being before the Ule of
them. was determined, applied themfelves after-
wards to the Office that was moft fuitable and ier-
viceable to them. Of this kind principally, are
the Senfes and Members of our Bodies ; and there-
fore you are to avoid, upon all Accounts, fo much
as to think that they were at firft iormed for any
particular Defien or Ule.

Nor is it wonderful at all, that it is the Nature Thi? and
of every Animal to require Meat ; for I have told /#zger-
you that a Train of Effluvia’s are ever flowing
from all Bodies, in various Manners, but moft
are difcharged from thofe Animals that are moft
-ufed to Motion ; many Particles forced from with-

in are carried off by Sweat, and many exhale
through the Mouth, when we are fatigued and
pant for Breath, The Body therefore, by thefe
Difcharges, becomes rarefied, and all Nature is
falling to Pieces, which is attended with great
Pain. Food therefore is taken to prop up the
Limbs, and being given from time to me, it
renews the Strength, and fatisfes that gaping De-
fire of eating through the Limbs and Veins.

Tue cooling Drink likewife defcends into all
the Parts that require Moifture, and the lowing Li-
quor fcatters all that Heap of hot Particles that fet
our Stomach in a Flame, and extinguifhes them as

Hii,

-

“6 T. Lucretit Lis. Vee
Urere ne poffit calor amplius aridus artus. :
Sic igitur titi anbela fitis de corpore nofiro
Abluitur, fic epletur jejuna cupido.

Nune qui fiat, utt Paffus proferre queamus, 875
Cim volumus, varieque datum fit membra movere:
Et que res tanium boc oneris protrudere. nofirt
Corporis infuerit, dicam: tu percipe ditta.

Dico Animo noftro primum fimulacra meandi
Accidere, atque Animum pulfare, ut diximus ante.88o

nde Voluntas fit: neque enim facere incipil ullam
Rem quifquam, quai Mens providit, quid velit, ante.
At, quod providet, illus rei conftat Imago.
Ergo Animus cum fefe ita commovet, ut velit tre,
Inq; gredi, ferit extemplo, que in Corpore toto 885
Per membra, atque arius, Anmai diffita vis eft :
Et facile’/t fatiu, quomam conjuntta tenetur.
Inde ca proporro Corpus ferit, atque ita tota
Paullatim moles protruditur, aique movetur.

Preierea, tum rarefcit quoque Corpas, &9 Aér, 890
Scilicet ut debet qui femper mobilis exftat,

Per patefatta venit, penetratque foramina largus 9
Et difpergitur ad parteis ita quafque minutas
Corporis: bine teitur rebus fit utrinque duabus,

Corpus

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things. 77

Fire, fo that the Heat has no longer Power to
{corch our Bowels; and thus is panting Thirft
wafhed away from our Bodies, thus our craving
Hunger is fatised.

1 Awp now attend, and you fhall know how it How we
is that we are able to walk when we will, that we movewsex
have a Power to move our Limbs as we pleafe, “? gee
and what it is that thrufts the Body forward with
all its Weight.

I say then, that the Images of Motion firft
affect and ftrike the Mind, as we obferved before,
This makes the Will ; for we never attempt to do
any thing before the Mind knows what it is we
defire to do, and the Image of that Thing which
occurs to the Mind muft be prefent before it.
And thus the Mind, having moved itfelf fo as to
refolve to go forward, ftrikes immediately upon
the Soul, which is diffufed through the whole Body ;
and this is eafily done, becaufe they are both clofe-

_ ly joined together. The Soul then ftrikes the Body,
and fo the whole Bulk. by degrees is thruft forward
and put into Motion.

Brsipes, the Body by this means is θὰ
and the Air, which 15 ever difpofed to move, enters
the open Paffages, and pierces through the Pores
in great Abundance, and fo is difperfed through
‘every minute Part of the Body. By thefe Two
therefore (by the Soul labouring within, and by

1 He now explains the Caufe of voluntary Motion. Cer-
tain Seeds, by which the Will to move may be ftirred up in
the Mind, ftrike the Mind. This caufes the Mind to will;
and that fhe may execute what fhe wills, fhe rouzes up the
Soul, annexed to her and diffufed through the whole Body ;
and hence the whole Frame is thruft forward. But left the
Soul fhould be unable to move fo great a Weight, the Air
affifts her from without, and entering into the Pores of the
Body, as it is rarefied by Motion, helps to drive on the Bur-
den; and thus, by the Soul labouring within, and by the Air

entering from without, the Body is fhoved forward, as a
Ship is driven with Sails and Oars.

the

“WY

.
T. ΕὔΟΒΈΤΕΙ his. Ty
Corpus uti, ut Navis velts, ventoque, feratur. 895

Nec tamen illud in bis rebus mirabile conftat,

Tantula quod iantum Corpus Corpufcula peffint
Contorquere, © onus totum convertere noftrum.
Quippe etenim Ventus fubtili corpore tenuis
Trudit agens magnam magno molimine Navin: 900
Et manus una revit quantovis impete euntem :
Atque Gubernaclum contorquet quolibet unum.
Multaque per trochleas, 9 tympana pondere magne
Commovet, aique levi fuftollit Machina nifu.

Nunc quibus ille modis Somnus per membra qui-

elem 905
Inriget, atque Anuni curas ὁ peétore folvat :
Suavidicis potius, quam multis verfibus, edam,
Parvus ut eft Cycni melior canor, ille Gruum quam
Clamor, in etberiis difperfus nubibus Auftri
Tu mibi da tenueis aureis, animumque fagacem, 9106
Ne jieri negites, que dicam poffe, retreque
Vera repulfanti difcedas pectore ditta :
Tutemet in culpa quom fis ne cernere poffis.

Principio Somnus fit, ubt eft diftracta per artus
Vis Anime, pariuque foras eetta recefit: 915
Et partim contrufa magis conceffit in altum, |
Diffolountur enim tum demum Membra, fluuntque.
Nam dubinum non ef,’ Animai quin opera fit |

Senfis

7
> x The. ἊΤ P SF
Book IV. Of the Nata 9 of Ziings. 79
the Air entering from without) the Body is moved,
‘as a Snip is by Oars and Wind.

Nor is this atall ftrange, that Particles fo very
fmall fhould turn about the Bulk of our Bodies,
and move fo great a Weight; ior the driving
Wind, formed of fo fine and fubtle Seeds, thrufts
forward a large Ship with mighty Force, and one
Hand can govern it under -full Sail, by turning
one little Helm, which Way it pleafes; and an
Engine with fmall Labour is able, by Pullies and
Wheels, to move many Bodies of a great Weight.

Next, how foft Sleep diffolves the Limbs in Sieg,
Reft, and frees the Mind from anxious Care, I
choofe in few but fweeteft Numbers to explain;
"as the Swan’s fhort Song is more melodious than’
the harfh Noife of Cranes fcatter’?d by Winds
through all the Air. Hear me, my Memmuus,
with attentive Ears and a difcerning Mind, left
what I fhall prove, you think impoffible to be;
and fo your Mind refufing to admit the Truth I
fhall relate, you make no Progrefs in Philofophy,
when the Fault is in yourfelf, that you will not fee.

Anp firft, ™ Sleep comes on when the Power
of the Soul, diffufed through the Limbs, Part of
it is thrown out and fled abroad, and Part being
iqueezed more clofe retires further within ; then
are the Limbs diffolved and grow weak. For
without doubt the Bufinefs of the Soul is to ftir up

m Ἧς fays our Senfes are locked up and hindered by Sleep
from performing their Functions ; but our Senfes proceed from
the Operation of the Soul; therefore it follows, that when
the Animal is afieep his Soul muft partly be gone out of him,’
partiy be retired into the inmoft Recefles of his Body, and
partly be difperfed through the Members. He will not al-
low that when the Animal fleeps the Soul is intirely retreated
from the whole Body, for then neither the Creature nor his
Senfes could revive after sleep; for as Fire buried in Afhes is
not wholly extinguifhed, fo neither is the Soul extin& in an
Animal afleep.

Senfe

80

T. LuerneTt™ tin
Senfus bie in nobis, quem cum Sopor impedit effe,
Tum nobis Animam perturbatam effe putandum’ ft,929
Lyetiamque foras, non omnem, namque jaceret
LEterno Corpus perfufum frigore lethi:

Quippe ubi nulla latens Animai pars remaneret

In membris, cinere ut multa latet obrutus Ienis,
Unde reconflari Senfus per membra repente 925
Poffit ut ex igni ceco confurgere Flamma.

Sed quibus bec rebus novitas confletur & unde
Perturbari Anuma, S Corpus languefcere poffit,
Expediam: tu fac ne ventis verba profundam.

Principio, externa Corpus de parte neceffum’ ft, 930
Aériis quoniam vicinum tangitur auris,

Tundier, atque ejus crebro pulfarier 1271,
Proptereaque fere res omnes, aut Corio funt,

Aut Seta, aut Conchis, aut Callo, aut Cortice teéta.
Interiorem etiam partem fpirantibus Aer 935
Verberat hic idem citm ducitur, atque reflatur. 4
Quare utringue fecus quom Corpus vapulet, <5 quom
Perveniant plage per parva forainina nobis
Corporis ad primas parteis, elementaque prima 5

fit quafi paullatim nobis per membra ruina. 940
Conturbantur enim pofiture principiorum

Corporis, atque Animi, fic, ut pars inde Animat
Ejiciatur (S introrfum pars abdita cedat 3

Pars

Book [V. Ofthe Nature of Things. 81

Senfe in us, which fince Sleep removes, we muft ’
conclude that the Soul then is difturbed and driven
abroad: Not the whole Soul; for then the Body
would lie in the cold Arms of eternal Death; then

no Part of the Soul would lie retired within the
Limbs, as a Fire remains covered under a Heap

of Afhes ; from whence the Senfes might be kind-
Ted again through the Body, as a Flame is foon
raifed from hidden Fire.

But by what means this wonderful Change is
brought about, how the Soul is thus difordered
and the Body languifhes, I fhall now explain. Do
you fee that I do not featter my Words into the
Wind,

_Anp firft, " The outward Surface of Bodies
which are always touched by the adjacent Air,
mutt of neceffity be ftruck by it and beaten with
frequent Blows; and for this Reafon all Things
almoft are covered either with Skin, or Briftles,
or Shells, or Buff, or Bark. ‘This Air then, as
it is drawn in and breathed out by Refpiration,
trikes upon the inward Parts of the Body. Since
therefore the Body is beat upon from within and
without, and fince the Strokes pierce through the
little Pores into the Seeds and firft Principles of
it, this caufes a kind of Ruin and Deftrudction
through all the Limbs; the Situation of the Seeds, .
both of the Body and Mind, are difordered ; fo
that part of the Soul is forced out, and part retires

n'The outward Air beats upon the outmoft Parts of the
Body, and the Air that is breathed in ftrikes the inward Parts;
thefe two-fold Strokes difturb the Order and Site of the A-
toms, and caufe a following Weaknefs in the Soul and Body ;
part ‘of the Soul is forced out, part retreats inwardly, and
part is difperfed through the Limbs ; ; fo the Parts thus dif-
joined cannot perform their ordinary Functions. ‘The Mo-
tions therefore of Senfe being changed, the Senfe too goes
away ; and thus what was the Support of the Body being ab-
fent, the Body muft neceflarily flag and fail.

Votil, G and

i

$2

T.Lucretrir Lip
Pars etiam diftratia per artus, non queat effe

Conjunéta inter fe, nec motu muiua fungi: 945"
° . « . s

Tuter enim fepit aditus Natura, viajque.

Ergo Senfus abit mutatis motious alte. :

Et quoniam non eft quaft quod fuffulciat artus, :
Debile fit Corpus, languefcuut cma membra :
Brachia, Palrebreque cadunt, Poplitefque procum=
bunt. 95°
Deinde cibum fequitur Somnus, quia que facit Agr,
Hec eadem Cibus, in venas dum diditur omnes,
Efficit: 9 multe Sopor ille graviffimus exftat, ᾿
Quem faiur, aut laffus capias, quia plurima tum fe

Corpora conturbant mazno contufa labore. 955
Fit ratione eadem coujetius porro Animai
Altior, atque foras ejettus largior ejus,

Et divifior inter fe, ac diftratiior intus. a

Et quoi quifque fere fruaio devinéius adoeret,
At quibus in rebus multivm fumus anté morati, 960
Atque in qua vatione fuit contenta magis Mens,

In Somnis eadem plerusmque videmur obire :

Caufidici caufas agere, S componere leges:
Induperatores pugnare, ac pralia obire :

Naute contrattum cum ventis cernere bellum: 965

Nos

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things. 8%

ad lurks clofe within ; and the Part that is dif-
fufed through the Limbs 15 fo broken and divided,
that the Seeds cannot unite to perform their mu-
tual Operations ; for Nature {tops up all Paffages
of Communication between them, and therefore
the recular Motions being exceeding]; y changed,

the Sen{e is intirely gone. Since therefore there is
not Power. fufficient to fupport the Limbs, the Bo-
dy becomes weak ; all the Members laneuith ; the
Arms, the pes fall; and the Knees fink under
the Weight of the Body.

Tuus Sle eep follows when the Belly is full, be-
caufe Food, when it 15 diftributed through all the
Veins, has the fame Effect upon the Soul as the
Air had ; and that Sleep is by much the foundett
which you take when you are weary or full, be-
saufe then more of the Seeds being agitated and
put into Motion by the hard Labour, mutually
difturb and diforder one another, And for this
Reafon the Soul retires further within, and a
Greater Part of it is thrown out, and the Parts that
femain within are the more feparated and the fur-
ther disjoined.

° AND then the Bufinels we more particularly Becht
follow, the Affairs we are chiefly employed in, .
and what our Mind 15 principally delighted with
When we are awake, the fame we are commonly
converiant about when we are afleep. The Law-
yer is pleading of Caufes and making of Statutes,
the Soldier is fighting and engaging in Battles,
the Sailor is warring againft the Winds; for my-

t was the Opinion of Epicurus, that the Minds of fleep-
Ing a are ftruck and moved by outward and adventitious
Images, and that thefe are the Caufes of Dreams. And we
nfiially ‘dream about what we have been chief y employed in
the Day, becauie the Paflages, through which the Images had
fo often entered, are not clofed up, and therefore more eafil γ
receive and admit the Images that belong to the Ations in
Which we have been employed.

Ca. me aly

i

ὃ 4

T.Lucreti Lis. ly
Nos agere hoc autem, (9 Naturam querere rerum
Semper, €F inventam patriis exponere chartis.
Cetera fic fiudia, atque artes pleruimque videntur
Li Sommis animos Hominum fruftrata tenere.

Et, gquicungque dies multos ex ordine ludis 970
Aifiduas dederunt operas, plerumque videmus,
Quom jam deftiterint ea Senfibus ufurpare,

Religiias tamen effe vias in Mente patentets,

Qua poffint eadem rerum Simulacra ventre.
Permuttos itaque illa dies eadem obverfantur 978
Ante oculos, etiam vigilantes ut videantur

Cernere faltanteis, 5 mollia membra moventeis :

Et citbare liquidum carmen, chordafque loquenteis
Auribus accipere, &S confeffium cernere eundem,
Scenaique fimul varios folendere decores. 980
U/que adeo magni refert fiudium, atque voluntas,

Et quibus in rebus confuerint effe operat

Non Homines folum, fed verd Animaha cunéta,

Quippe videbis Equos foricis, cm membra jacebunt,
In Somunis fudare tamen, fpirareque fepe, 985
Et quafi de palma fummas contendere vireis,

"Tune quafi Carceribus patefactis fepe quiete :

Venantumque Canes in mollt fepe quiete
Faciant crura tamen fubito, vocefque repente
Mittunt, 9 crebras redducunt naribus auras, 990
Ut veftigia fi teneant iiaventa ferarum.
Expergefactique fequuntur inania fepe
Cervorum fimulacra, fuge quafi dedita cernant 5
Donec difcuffis redeant erroribus ad fe:

Ai confueta domi Catulorum blanda propago 995
Degere, fepe levem ex oculis, velucremque faporem
Difcutere, F corpus de terva conripere tmftant, .
Proiude quafi ignotas facies, atque ora tuantur,

ER

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things. ὃς
felf, Iam always fearching into the Nature of
Things; and writing my Difcoveries in Latin
Verfe ; and fo, many other Arts and Employ-
ments are commonly the empty Entertainments of
the Minds of Men when they are afleep.

ΑΝ they who fpend their Time in feeing of
Plays for many Days together, when thofe Re-
prefentations are no longer prefent to the waking
Senfes, there ftill remain fome open Traces left in
the Mind, through which the Images of thofe
Things find a Paffage, fo that for many Days alf-
ter the whole Performance is acting over again be-
fore their Eyes; and even while they are awake
they fancy they fee the Daricers leaping, and mov-
ing their active Limbs ; they are ravifhed with the
foft Notes of the Mufick, and hear the {peaking
Strings ; they fee the fame Audience, the fameVa-
riety of the Scenes and Decorations of the Stage. So
ftrong Impreffions do Ufe and Cuftom make upon
us; fuch Efiects do the common Bufinefs of Life
produce in the Minds of Men, and in Beafts likewife.

For you fhall fee the gallant Courfer, when his 726
Limbs are at reft, to {weat in his Sleep, to breathe Dreams of
fhort, and, the Barriers down, to lay himielf out Beafis.
as it were on the fuil Stretch for the Prize.

Anp Hounds frequently in their foit Sleep throw
out their Legs, and of ἃ fudden yelp and {nuff the
Air quick with their Nofe, as if they were full
Cry upon the Foot of the Deer ; and when awake
they {till perfue the empty Image of the Game,
as if they faw it run fwiftly before them, till un-
deceived they quit the Chace, and the fancied I-
mage vanifhes away.

_ AwNp the fawning Breed of Houfe-Dogs, that
live at home, often rouze and fhake the drowly
Fit from their Eyes, and ftart up of a fudden with
their Bodies, as if they faw a Stranger or a Face
they had not been ufed to.

y G 3 THE

86

T. Lock Pa tT
Et quam queque magis funt afpera femina eorum,
Tum magis in Somnis eadem fevire necefum ff. 1009
At varie fugiunt Volucres, pennique repente
Sollicitant Divitm noéturno tempore lucos,
Accipitres fomno in leni ft prelia, pugnafque
Edere funt perfettantes, vifeque volantes.
Porro Hominum mentes maguis que metibus
edunt 2 1005
Maca etenim fepe in sonmnis faciuntque, gerunique,
Reges expugnant, capiuntur, pralia mifcent 3
Tolluni clamores, quaft ft i jugulentur ibidem :
Multi depugnant, gemitufque doloribus edunt ;
Et quafi panthere morfu fevique leonis IOIQ
Mandantur, magnis clamoribus omnia complent,
Multi de magnis per Somnuum rebw loquuntur,
Indicioque fui fact: perfepe fuere:
Multi mortem obeunt, multi de monutibus altis
Se quaft precipilent ad terram corpore toto 1018
Exterrentur, SS ex Somno, quafi mentibw capti,
Vix ad fe redeunt permoti corporis afiu.
Flumen item fitiens, aut fontein propter amenum
Aufidet, 9 totum prope faucibus eccupat amnem.
Pufi fepe lacum propter, fe, ac dolia curta, 1020
Somno devinéti credunt extollere veftem,
Totius humorem faccatum ut corpor’ fundant :
Cum Babylonica magnifico [plendore rigantur.
Tum, qiibus etatis freta primitus infinuantur,
Semen uvi ipfa dies membris maiura creavit; 1025

Conveniunt

OOK 1. Of the ΝΑΥΣΊΝ of T; L725.

er Violence; fo, many Birds will fy about, and
hide themfelves in the inmoft Receffes of facred
Groves by Night, if in their foft Sleep they fee
the Hawk perfuing them upon the Wing, or pounc-
ing or engaging with his Prey.

“AND then, ~ what mighty Deeds are Men hur-
rying themfelves about in their Dreams? Then
they fhew their Valour, and do wonderful Ex-
plois; they engage with Kings, are taken Cap-
tive, are in the Confufion of the Battle ; they cry
out as if they were expiring upon the Spot. Some
are in the hottett of the F ight, and groan with the
Anguifh of their Wounds, and fill che Air with
Complaints, as if they were torn by the Teeth Ε
a Panther or fierce Lion. Some in their oiecam
of Myfteries of State, and frequently difcover ἧς
Treaion of their own contriving. PSome think they
are dying away; and others, falling from dreadful
Precipices with all their Weight upon the Earth,
are terrified, and awake almoft out of their Senfes,
and can fcarce recover themfelves irom the Furry
and Diftraction of their Spits. Another, parched
up with Thirit, fits on the River’s Bank, or by the
Side of a pleafant Fountain, and almoit drinks down
his Throat the whole Stream: And Children in
their Sleep often fancy they are near fome Sink or
publick Piffing place; they think they are taking
up their Clothes, that they may make Waier
freely, and fo the Babylonian Coverlid with its
purpie Dye, and the rich Bedding, are wet through.

AND further, Thofe who are in the Heat "ἢ The Coup
Youth, whofe ripening Age has well digefted the # Love

eien: through all the Limbs, on fuch the Images

P It is no wonder that fome Dreams fright us more than
others, becaufe thofe whofe Images are compofed of rough
Seeds, that rudely grate and wound the Mind on which they

ftrike, mult of neceflity be the moit frightful,
G 4 of

a

Tue {harper the Seeds are of which the Images Fyictiful
are formed, they ftrike in the Sleep with the great- Dreams.

Ti bo Caen Lip. lV,

Conveniunt Simulacra foris ὃ corpore quoque,

Ν untia preclart volius, pulcbrigue coloris : oo

Qui ciel inritans loca turgida Jemine multo,
t, quafi ~anfactis fepe omnibu? rebw profundant

— - Fluminis ingenteis fluctus, veftemque cruentent. 1030

Sollicitatur 1d in nobis, quod diximus ante,

Semen, adulta etas cin primian roborat artis,

Namque alias aliud res commovet, atque laceffi La
Ex bomine bumanium Semen ciét un Cominis vis.

Quod fimulatque fuis ejeftum fedibus emit, - 1035 -

Per memnbr a, ataue artus decedit corpore toto

In loca comveniens nervorum certa 3 cietque

Continuo partets genitaleis corporis ipfas :

Taritata tument loca Semine, jitgue voiuntas

Fyicere id, quo fe contendit dira libido : 1040
Idque petit corpus mens, unde ft fax-ia amore :

? Namque omnes plerumque cadunt in volnus, C2 illam
°Emicat in partem fanguis, unde tcimur iu,

Et fi comminus eft, hytem rider occupat humor.
Sic igitur, Veneris qui telis accipit iffum, 1046
Sive Puer membris mithebribus bune jaculatur,

Seu Muler tote ;2°- > pers amorem,

Unde feritur, eo texdit, gefiitque coire,

Et jacere bumorem in corpus de corpore duftum:1050
Namque voluptatem prefagit multa cupido.

Hec Venus eft nobis, bine autem {t nomen Amoris :

fine le primum Veneris dulcedinis in. cor

Stillavit gutta, {8 fucceffit fervida cura.
Nam fi abeft quod ames, praefto Simulacra tamen funt

Liltus, nomen dulce obverfatur ad aureis. 1056
| , Sed

."

Book IV. Of the Nature of £ bings.

of every beauteous Object ftrike deeply, and fhew

the lovely Face and blufhing Cheek; which fo

provoke and itimulate the Parts, fwelling with

Seed in abundance, that they difcharge, as if the
Deed were done, large floods of Μ Koittui re, and
po llute the Robe.

“For (as J faid before) the Seed begins to teal
as foon as mature Age has well- braced the Limbs.
Other Things are moved and μῦς by other
‘Impreffions, but nothing but the Power of Beauty

can put the human Semen into Motion, which,
* foon as it is ejected from tts little Cells, flows
through the Limbs and throvgh every Part of the

Bedy, and beirg received into the Receptacle of

the Nerves proper for it, in an inftant ftimulates
the Genitals. Thefe Parts grow turgid with the Se-
men, and thence proceeds the Will to project it
where the Heat of Luft ftrives to reaca ; for the
Mind drives furioufly towards the lovelyBody from
F whence it received the Wound of Love. Men
generally fall upon their Wound, ‘and the Blood
-guthes with Violence towards the Part from whence
γε received-the Blow. Ifthe Murderer be near,
the red Liquor will {pout 181 over him. So he
that is ftruck with the Darts of Venus (whether
fome beauteous Boy, with Female Charms, the

| Arrow cafts ; or fome more-beauteous Maid, thar -
fhoots out Love from every Pore) tends to the -

Part that gave the Stroke ; he’ is in " Rapitures . to
enjoy; to injeat and to confummate; dor the hot
Defire to the Aét forefhews the mighty Pleafure
that attends it. This is prope: , Venus t0 us : 5 this
is the Deity of Love. Hence the Drops of {weet
Delight firft ftrike upon the Heart, and the burn-
ing Fever of fucceeding Care follows it clofe ; for
if the Object of your Love be abfent, her να τ
ing Image is always before you and her fweet
Name is ever thrilling in your. Kars,

Bur

89

T. LuCR ETE, πη ἐν

Sea fugitare decet Simulacra, &8 pabula amoris
Avjierrere fibi, atque alio convertere mentem :

Lit yacere bumorem conlecium in corpora queque :
Nec retinere femel converfum unius amore: 1060
ΕἸ fervare fili curam, certumque dolorem.

Uleus enim vivefcit, €8 inveterafcit alends,

ingue dies ghfcit furor, atque erumna gravefcit,

Si non prima novis conturbes volnera tlagis,
Voigivagzaque vagus Venere ante receitia cures, 1005
Aut αἰϊὸ poffis Animi traducere metus,

Nee Veneris fruétu caret is, qui vitat amerem:
Sed potius, que funt fine pena, commoda fumit,
Nam certa, SF pura eft faiis magis inde vcluttas,
Quam miferis, etenim potiundi tempore in ipfo 1070
Fluftuat incertis erroribus ardor Amantum:

Nee couftat quid primizm oculis, manibufque fruantur,
Ouod petiere premunt aré#e, faciuntque dolorem
Corporis, ὅθ᾽ denteis inlidunt fepe labeltis,

Ofculaque adfigunt, quia non eft pura voluptas: 1075
Et frimuli fubfunt, qui inflizant ledere idipfum,
Quodcunque eft, rabies unde ille germina furcunt.
Sed leviter penas frangit Venus ater Amorem,
Blandaque refrenat morfus admifta voluptas.

Nama; in eo foes eft, unde ft ardoris origo, 1080
Refiringui quoque poffe ab ecdem corpore flammam 3
Quod freri contra coram natura repugnat :

Unaque res bac eft, quoius quam pluria babemus,
Tam magis ardefcit dira cuppedine peétus. .
Nam Cibus, aique Humor membris adfumitur intus,
Que quoniam certas poffunt obfidere parteis, 1086
foe

δ : ͵ δὲ)
OoK IV. Ofthe Nature of Things. 91
Burt take care that you fly thofe Images, and 4 Caution
avoid thofe Incentives to Love, and divert your <g¢¢#/
Mind fome other way ; choofe to beftow your Fa- 4°?
vours in common; don’t referve your whole Stock

for One only, left by that means you entail Anxiety

and certain Sorrow upvon yourfelf; for the Ulcer’
{preads and grows ftubborn by feeding it, the Mad-

nefs increafes every Day, and the Trouble becomes

the heavier, unlefs you cure old Wounds by new,

or, Ikke a Rover, remove your firtt Smart by
wandering over all the Sex, or turn the Paffion of

your Mind into fome other Channel.

Nor is He without the Pleafures of /enus, who
difdains the Fetters of Love, but rather takes the
Sweet without the Pain that follows it; for fucha
fober Lover taftes more certain and more unmixed

elight, than thofe Wretches, thofe furious Vo-
taries, whofe Mind in the very inftant ef Enjoy-
ment is toffed with a thoufand Doubts and Fears.
Thefe know not what Sweets they fhall firft ritte
with their ands and yes; what they faiten upon,
they ftrain hard and give Pain to the Body; they
often fix their Teeth in the Fatr-one’s Lips, an
pin her down with Kiffes: And for this Reafon,
becaufe the Joy is imperfect, and fome Stings re-
main which provoke them to hurt the Thing,
whatever it is, that firft put them into a Rage;
but Venus in the Encounter of Love gently fooths
the Pain, and the fweet Pleafure intermixed re-
{trains the Lover’s Teeth from biting too hard.

Tue Lover hopes, perhaps, that his Flame
may be extinguifhed by the fame Object that firft
blew the Fire, but Experience fhews the contrary
of This; for This is the only Thing which, the
more we enjoy of it, cur Soul ftill burns with the
eager Defire of more. Meat and Drink are taken '
down into the Body, and becauie they fill up cer-
tain empty Places, thereiore the Apnetite of Eat-

ing

de

,
i. ΕΥΟΝΈΤΙ ΡΥ
Floc facilé expletur laticum, fruguinque cupida y
Ex hominis vero facie, pulcbroque colore,
Nil datur in corpus preter Simulacra fruendum
"Tenia, que vento fpes raptat fepe mifélla. 1090
Ut bibere in fomuis Sitiens quom querit, €9 bumor
Non datur, ardorem in membris qui flinguere poffit :
Sed laticum Simulacra petit, fruftraque laborat :
In medioque fitit torrenti flumine potans.
Sic in amore Venus Simulacris ludit Amanteis, 1095
Nec fatiare queunt [pectando corpora coram:
Nec manibus quidquam teneris abradere membris
Poffunt, evvantes incerti corpore toto,

Denique quom membris conlatis flore fruuntur
fitatis, quom jam prefagit gaudia corpus, 1100
Atque in eo eft Venus, ut muliebria conferat arva ;
Adfigunt avidé corpus, junguntque falivas
Oris, 89 infpirant preffantes dentibus ora,
Nequicquam : Quoniam nibil inde abradere poffunt,
Nec penetrare, €F abire in corpus corpore toto. 1105
Nam facere interdum id velle, S certare videntur :
Ufqueadeo cupide Veneris compagibus berent,
Membra voluptatis dum vt labefaéta liquefcunt.
Tandem ubi fe rupit nervis.conleéta cupido,
Parva fit ardoris violent paufa parumper 5 1110
Inde redit rabies eadem, ©& furor ille revifit,
Quom fibi quod cupiant ipfi, contingere querunt :
Nec reperire malum id poffunt que machina vincat :
Ujque adeo incerti tabefcunt volnere στο.

Adde quod abfumunt vireis, pereuntque labore.

Aide

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things.
ing and Drinking is eafily fatisfied , but from a
lovely Face and a fine Complexion, tne Body can
enjoy nothing but empty Images, and a fleeting
Hope fcattered by every Wind. Asa thirfty Man
defires to drink in his Sleep, and has no Moifture
to allay the Heat within, but vainly catches at the
Images of Rivers, and labours to no Purpofe,
and is parched up while he fancies himfelf quaffing
in a full Stream; fo in the Bufinefs of Love, Venus
deludes the Lover with empty Images, nor can he
quench his Defire by gazing upon the charming
Object, nor bring away any thing from the tender
Limbs with his Hands, as he wanders with wild
Excefs over all the Body of his Miftrefs.
Besipes, when they fport in the Flower of
their Age with their Limbs mingled in the Em-
brace, when their Bodies feel the coming Joy,
and Venus is fully employed to fow the Female
501] : though they eagerly twine in amorous Folds,
and dart their humid Tongues, and bite, and ar-
dently receive each other’s Breath, ’tis all to no
Purpofe; for they can carry nothing away from
the Parts they ftrain, nor can Bodies pierce or be
in Bodies loft: For This they fometimes with, for
This they contend when they engage; fo eagerly
are they entangled in the Nets of Love, that their
very Limbs are diffolved in the Exceis of Pleafure.
Then, when the collected Luft has burft from the
Nerves, a Ceffation of the violent Ardour enfues
for a while ; but the fame Rage foon returns, the
fame Fury is renewed, and again they ftrive to
touch the Point, the End of their Defires: They
can find no Device to fubdue the Pain they feel,
and fo they pine and languifh by a fecret Wound.
Awp then, 1 they waite their Strength, and
perifh

4 Here the Poet enumerates the many Inconveniencies that
attend upon the Paflion of Love, which at beft is a wretched
Slavery,

9F

| ΓΤ ΟΞ ΕἾ ΕἸ Ure.
Adde quid alterius fub nuiu degitur etas. 1116
Labitur interea Res, 9 Vadimenia funt,
Languent officia, atque egretat fama vacillans 5
Uneuenta, & pulchra in pedibus Sicyonia rident :
Scilicet &F gvandes viridis cum luce fnaragdt 1120
Auro includuniur, teriturque thalaffina veflis
Affidue, &F Veneris fudorem exercita potat :
ΕἸ bené parta patrum fiunt Anademaia, Mire:
Interdum in pallaim, ac Metitenfia, Ceaque vertunt.
Eximia vefte &8 vitiu Convivia, Ludi, L125
Pocula crebra, Unguenta, Corone, Serta parantur s
Nequicquam : Quoniam medio de fonte leporum
Survit amari aliquid, qued in ipfis floribus angat :
Aut quod confcius iple Animus fe forte remordet,
Defidiosé agere etatem, luftrifque perire: 1130

Ant quod in ambiguo Verbum jaculata reliquit :

Quod cupido adfixum cordi vivefcit, ut lenis:
Aut mmium jattare ecules, aliumve tuert
Quod puiat, in voltuque videt veftigia ἐν

“σης i Amore mala bec proprio, fummeéque fe-

cundo il 34

Inveniuntur, in adverfo verd, ataue inopi funt,
Prendere que poffis oculorum lumine aperto,
Innumerabilia: ut melins vigilare fit ante,
Qua docui ratione, cavereqiuve, ne ilaqueerts.

Nam vitare, tlagas in amoris ne laciamur, 1140

Book lV. Of the Nature of T hangs. 95
perifh by the Labour they go through, And
more, they lie under the Power οἱ “angele s Wills.
while their Fortune decays and their Debts in »"- ἢ
their Duty is neglected and their tottering Re-
putation fickens. Rich Pearls, and fine Shoes of
Sicyon, thine upon the Feet of their Mittreis 5 the
Farge Emeralds, with their green Luftre, are fet
in Gold; and the blue Veit is daily ftained, and
continually in ufe drinks up the Sweat of Luft.
The Family Eftate, acquired with Honour, is
changed into Coronets of Ribbands, and Head-
dreffes fparkling with Jewels ; and is fometimes
turned into coftly Gowns, or Garments of Melita,
or Cean Robes. Befides, they add to thefe the
Luxury of Feafts and ftately Couches, Plays,
frequent Caroufals, Crowns and Garlands. Bue
in vain! for fome Bitter bubbies up from the very
Fountain of his Delight, and poifons all his
Sweets ; either his own ouilty Mind ftings him
for leading fuch a-Life of Sloth, and murdering
fo Jarge a Part of his Time; or his Miftrefs has
dropped fome doubtful Word, which kindles in his
fond Heart like Fire; or he thinks fhe has thrown
her Eyes too freely abroad, and glanced upon an-
Other, and he difcovers the Remains of a fmiling
Pleafure upon her Face.

Tuese are the Misfortunes that attend an A-
mour ever fo fortunate and conftant ; but the Mi-
feries of a wretched and difaftrous Love are innu-
merable, and obvious to every one with his Eyes
Open. You had better therefore be upon your
Guard beforehand, and obferve the Rules 1 have
laid down to prevent your being caught ; for ’tis
fot fo difficult to avoid being drawn into the Snares

‘Slavery, obnoxious to Sufpicions and fantaftical Surmifes. It
Waites the Strength; for, if we believe fome Phyficians, one
Drachm of Semen weakens 2 Man as much as the Lof of
fixty Ounces of Blood.

of

96

TOLwe ore rm Tim
Non ita difficile eft quam captum retibus ipfis
Exire: 9 validos Veneris perrumpere nodes.

Et tamen implicitus quoque poffis, inque peditus

Effugere infefum, nifi Tute tibi obvius objtes :
Et pretermittas Animi vitia omnia primum, 1145
Tum que Corpor? funt ejus, quam percupis, ac vis.
Nam boc faciunt Homines plerumque cupidine caci:
Et tribuunt ea, que non funt bis commoda vere.
Multimodis igitur pravas, turpeifque videmus
Effe in delictis, fummoque in bonore vigere. τι οἱ
© Atque alios alii inrident, Veneremque siiadent
© Ut placent, quoniam fado adflictantur amore:
© Nec fua refpiciunt miferi mala maxima fepe.
Nigra, μελίχροθ: eft : Immunda & Fetida, ἄκοσμθ.
Cafia παλλάδιο" Nervofa, θ᾽ Lignea, δορείς yr 55
Parvola, Pumilio, χαρίτων sa, tota merum fal:
Magna, atque Immanis, κατάπληξις, plenague bouoris:
Balba, loqui non quit, τραυλίζε" Muta, pudens eft.
At Flagrans, Odicfa, Loquacula, λαμπάϑιον fit,
᾿Ισχνὸν ἐρωμένιον tum fit, quom vivere non quit 1160
Pre macie: δαδινὴ vero eft, jain Moriua tuff.
At Gemina &S Mammofa, Ceres eft ip/a ab Iaccho,
Simula, orm, ac Satyra jt, Labiofa, Φ'λημα"
Catera de genere boc longun’t ft dicere coner.

Sea

Book IV. Ofthe Nature of Things.
of Love, as to difengage yourfelf from ὡς Net
vhen you are taken, and to break through the
trong Knots which Venus ties clofe upon all her
V otaries.

ΑΝ though you are entangled and within the
Net, you may ftill avoid much of the Evil, un-
lefs you wilfully fet yourfelf againft the Remedy.
Firft then, You are to take no notice of any Im-
perfeétions, either of Mind or Body, you find in
the Miftrefs you admire and fondly love. All
Lovers, blinded by their Paffion, obferve this,
and attribute Bequties to the Fair, to which they
have no real Pretence; and therefore the Ugly
and Deformed we fee have their feveral Charms,
and fecure a fovereign Power over their Admirers.
The Lover that has fuch a forbidding Dowdy for
a Miftrefs, is laughed at by his Companions, who
advife him to appeafe Venus and render her propi-
tious; while they think nothing of their own
greater Misfortunes, in placing their Efteem upon
hen: lefs lovely and lefs beautiful. The Black

eems brown ; the Nafty and the Rank is neghi- |

gent; the Owl- eyed is a Pallas; the Sinewy,

mth her dry Skin, is a little Doe; the Dwarf,
of the Pygmy Breed, is one of the Graces, Wit
and Spirit all over ; the Large and Gigantick 15
furprifing and full of Majefty. If the ftammers
and cannot fpeak, then fhe lifps; fhe is modeft
1 fhe is dumb; bute the Turbulent, the Violent
and the Talkative, is all Fire. If fhe 1s worn
away with a Confumption, fhe is my flender
Love; you may fpan her in the Waift if fhe is
dying with a Cough. The two-handed Virago,
with her full Duges, is Ceres herfelf, a Bedfellow
for Bacchus ; the Flat-nofed is my Silene, a litile
Satyr; the pouting Lip is a very Kils, It would
be endlefs to fay all that might be offered upon
this Subject.
You, Il, Η But

as.

97

οὗ

T.Lucretisz Lis ly.
Sed tamen efto jam quantovis oris honore, τ 164 5
Quoi Veneris membris vis omnibus exoriatur :
Nempe alie quoque funt, nempe hac fine viximus
ante 3
Nempe eadem facit, & fcimus facere omnia turpi:
Et miferam tetris fe fuffit odoribus ipfa,
Quam famule longe fugitant, furtimque cachianant.
At lacrymans exclufus Amator limina fepe 117%
Floribus &S Sertis operit, pofteifque fuperbos
Uneuit Amaracino, & foribus mifer ofcula figtt.
Quem fi jam admiffum, venientem offenderit aura
Una modo, caufas abeundi querat bonefias: 1175
Et meditata diu cadat alte fumpta querela:
Stultitieque ibi fe damnet, tribuiffe quod ill
Plus videat, guam mortal: concedere par eft.
Nec Veneres noftras boc fallit: quo magis ipfe
Omnia fummopere hos vite pofifcenta celant. 1186
Duos retinere volunt, adjtrittofque effe in amore:
Nequicquam : Quoniam tu animo tamen omma pofis

Protrabere in lucem, aique omneis anquirere nifus.

Et fi bello animo’ft, ὅθ᾽ non odiofa viciffim,

Pretermittet te bumanis concedere rebus. 118 5
Nec mulier femper fiéto fufpirat amore:

Que complexa virt corpus cum corpore jungit.

ΕἸ tenet adfuétis bumetians ofcula labris.

Nam facit ex animo fepe, 9 comimunia querens

Gaudia, follicitat [patium decurrere amoris: 119(
Nec ratione alia Volucres, Armenta, Fereque,

Book LY. Of the Nature of Things.
But allow your Miftrefs all the Advantages of
Beauty in her Face, that Charms of Love arife
from every Limb, yet there are others as lovely
is fhe, and Time was wher you lived without
her ; and we know fhe plays the fame Game that
homelier Women can do as well. And then fhe

i

=

perfumes, rank as fhe is with filthy Smells, that
her Maids cannot come near her, but make a
Jeft of her when they are not feen.

But when the Lover is fhut out, and all in
Tears crowns the Gates with Flowers and Gar-
lands, and pours Ointments upon the ftately Pil-
lars, and the Wretch warms the very Doors he
his Kiffes; yet when he is admitted, and on
Blaft from her Armpits ftrikes full upon him as
he enters, he prefently feeks for a plaufible Reafon
fo be gone, and a!l his long-laboured Speeches of
Complaint are forgotten, and he condemns him-
felf of Foily for raifing fuch Ideas of her Beauty,
which no Mortal could lay Claim to. This Se-
Cret is well known to Women of the Town ; and
they act cunningly behind the Scenes as it wer
and conceal their Failings from thofe whofe Love
they would fecure fixed and lafting to themielves :
Bit ail to no Purpofe; for you may eafily ima-
gine how Things are, and difcover all, and pre-
vent their utmoft indeavours to deceive you. And
if your Miftrefs be of an open Temper, and not
dullen and referv’d, fhe will not fo much as hide
her Defects, but hope you will allow for Tmper-
fections that are common to the whole Sex.

Nor does the Woman always breathe with
feigned Defire when joined in ftriét Embrace with
um fhe loves, when fhe holds him clofe, and on
mis preffed Lips imprints her balmy Kiffes; for
[18 Often does it heartily, and ftrives to fhare the
Common Joy, and run the Heats with Vigour to
the Goal. Nog jor any other Reafon would Birds,

Η 2 ) and

100

T. Luck §5*mge? gic. 4
Ei Pecudes, &9 Eque maribus fubfidere poffent,
Si non, ipfa quod illorum fubat, ardet abundans,
Natura, &§ venerem falientum leta retraétat.
Nonne vides etiam, quos mutua fepe voluptas 1195
Vinxit, ut in vinclis communibus excructentur ὃ
In irrviis non fepe Canes difcedere aventes,
Divorfi cupide fuminis ex viribw tendunt,
Cum interea validis Veneris compagibus herent ?
Quod facerent nunquam, nifi mutua gaudia noffent :
Que lacere in fraudem poffent, vinktofque tenere. 120%
Quare etiam atque etiam (ut dico) eft commun? vo-
luptas.

Et commifcendo cum Semen forte virile
Femina commulxu fubita vi, conripuitque ;
Tum fimiles Matrum materno femine fiunt: 1205
Ut Patribus patrio: fed quos utriufque figure
Efe vides juxtim, mifcenteis volta Parentum:
Corpore de Patrio, {3 Materno fanguine crefcunt,
Semina quom Veneris ftimulis excita per artus
Obvia conflixit confpirans mutuus ardor : 1210
Et neque utrum fuperavit eorum, nec fuperatum ft.
Fit quogue, ut interdum fimiles exfiftere Avorum
Poffint, &8 referant Proavorum fepe figuras,
Propterea, quia multa modis primordia multis
Mafia fuo celant in corpore fepe Parentes, 1215
Que Patribus Patres tradunt a flirpe profetta,
Inde Venus varia productt forte figuras :
Mayjorumque refert voltus, vocefque, comafque.
Quandoquidem nibilo minis hac de feimine cerio
Fiunt, quam Facies, & Corpora, Membraque nobis.
Et Muliebre oritur patrio de femine feclum: 1221
Maternoque mares exfifiunt corpore crett.
Semper enim partus duplici de femine conftat:

Alques

τ IV. Ofthe Nature of Things. 101

and Herds, and wild Beafts, and Cattle, and Mares,
bear the Weight of the Male, if they did not burn
and rage with equal Heat, and fo receive with Joy
the lufty Leap. Don’t you obferve how thofe
whom mutual Pleafure has bound faft, are tor-_
tured as it were in common Bonds? how Dogs in
the Street are ftriving to untie the Knot, and pull
with all their Might a different Way, yet they
ftick faft in the ftrong Ties of Love? This they
would never do if not engaged in mutual Joys,
which cheat them with Delight and hold them faft,
The Pleafure then is common to them both.

Ir, in the mixing of the Seed, the Female Wry the
draws in and fnatches with fudden Force the Male 64/4 “ke
Seed, the Child, the Female Seed prevailing, is δ β oa
Tike the Mother, as he is like the Father if his’
prevails. But Thofe who, you obferve, exprefs
jointly the Refemblance, and mingle the Features
of both Parents, are formed equally from the
Juices of both; for then the mutual Ardor of
the Combatants has juftly tempered the conflicting
Seed, which, raifed by the Stings of Venus, 15
fent in due Proportion through all the Limbs. The
Succefs of the Battle is equal, neither is Victor nor
vanquifhed. It happens fometimes that Children ον “ike
are like their Grandfathers, and refemble the Per- δεῖν
fons of their remote Anceftors, becaufe the Pa- Bran
rents have frequently many Seeds concealed, αὐ λα
varioufly mingled in their Bodies, which preferve
the Features of the Family, and are delivered
down from one to another. Thefe Venus forms
into different Figures, as the Qualities of the Seeds
require, and reprefents the Complexion, the Voice
and Hair of the Progenitors ; for Thefe no lefs
arife from proper Seeds, than the Face, the Body
or any Parts of it. Anda Female Child proceeds
partly from the Father’s Seed, and a Male from the
*Mother’s, for the Iffue always confifts of the Seed of
Η 2 both ;

7
102 T. LUCRETMS ΤΕ
Atque, utri fimile eft magis id, quodcunque creatur, :
Ejus habet plus parte equa, quod cernere poffis, 1225
Sive Viriim fuboles five’/t Muhebris origo.

Nec divina fatum genitalem Numina quoiquam
Abfterrent, pater a natis ne dulcibus unquam
Appelletur, &8 ut flerili Venere exigat evum 3
Quod plerique putant : Et multo fanguine mefit 1230
Confpergunt aras, adolentque altaria donis,

Ui gravidas reddant uxores femine largo:

Nequicquam Divim numen, forteifque fatigant.

Nam fteriles mimium craffo funt femine partim :

Et liquido preter juftum, tenuique vicifim. 1235
Tenue, locis quia non potis eft adfigere adbefum,
Liquitur extemplo, 85 revocatum cedit ab ortu:
Craffius hoc porro, quoniam concretins equo
Mittitur 5 aut non tam prolixo provolat itiu,

Aut penetrare locos aque nequit 5 aut penetratum,
fEeré admifcetur mulebri Semine Semen. 1241

Nam multum harmonie Veneris differre videntur.
Atque alias alii complent magis, ex aliifque
Sufcipiunt alie pondus magis, inque gravefcunt.

Et multe fteriles Hymenais anté fuerunt 1245
Pluribus, 85 nate poft funt tamen, unde puellos
Sufcipere, F partu poffent ditefcere dulci:

Et, quibus anté domi fucunde fepe nequiffent
Uxores parere, inventa*ft illis quogue compar
Natura, ut poffent natis munire fenetiam. 1250

b

{76

Boox IV. Of the Nature of T bings.

both ; but the greater Likenefs it bears to the one
than to the other, it partakes of more than a juft
Proportion of the Seed of that Sex, which you
eafily appehend, whether the Child be Male or
Female.

ing called Father by a Number of {weet Children,
or curfe him all his Life with unfruitful Love, as
fome vainly think, and therefore with much Con-
cern ftain the Altars with the Blood of many Vic-
tims, and make them {moke with Clouds of Incenfe,
to implore a Bleffing upon the fhowery Seed and
promote Conception ; but to no Purpofe they tire
out the Gods and fatigue the Oracles, for they are
frequently unfruitful, becaufe the Seed is too thick
or too thin. ‘The thin Seed will not ftay in the
Parts where it was injected, but foon diffolves and
flows back ; and the Thick has no Effect, be-
caufe it is fent out heavy and condenfed, or it does
not carry home to the Mark, or it cannot rightly
penetrate the Paffages, or if it does, it is not at
all difpofed to mix kindly with the Female Juice.
For the Harmony of Love between the Sexes
is widely different; Men are more prolific with
fome Women, and Women conceive more readily,
and {well with their Burden after the Embrace of
fome Men, than with others. Many Women have
been barren in a firft and fecond Marriage, and
been fruitful at Jaft, have borne lufty Boys, and
bleffed theFamily with a fweet Offspring ; and Men,
after marrying feveral Times without Iffue, have
at length found out a Wife of a Conftitution agree-
able to their own, and fupported their old Age

τ The Poet, after his ufual Cuftom, falls foul upon the
Gods and fays, "Tis to no Purpofe to apply to them for Chil-

dren, for they never curfe with Barrennefs either Man or >

Woman.

H 4 with

103

* Nor do the Divinities above ever deftroy the of Bar-
prolific Virtue of the Seed, or prevent a Man’s be- renze/.

b
104 T. LucretTiil Leite
Ujque adeo magai refert, ut Semina poffint
Seminibus commufceri gemtaliter apta, |
Craffaque conveniant liquidis, S liquida craffis,
Dua quoi junéta vire fit femina per Veneris res.
Aique adeo refert, quo vittu vita colatur. 1255
Namque altis rebus concrefcunt Semina membris,
Atque aliis extenuantur, tabentque viciffim.
ΕἸ quibus ipfa modis tractetur blanda Voluptas,
Id quoque permagni refert: Nam more Ferarum,
Quadrupedumque magis ritu, plerumque putantur
Concipere Uxores, quia fic loca fumere poffunt 1261
Pettoribus pofitis, fublatis Semina lumbis.
Nec molles opw? funt motus Uxoribus bilunt.
Nam Mulier probibet fe concipiere, atque repugnat.
Clunibus ipfa viri Venerem fi leta retratiet: 1268
Atque exoffato ciet omni pectore flucius,
Hicit enim Sulei recta regione, viaque
Vomerem, atque locis avertit Seminis ictum. '
Idque fua caufa confuerunt Scorta moveri,
Ne complerentur crebro, gravideq; jacerent, 12470
Et fimul ipfa viris Venus ut concinnior effet :
Conjugibus quod nil noftris opus effe videtur.
Nec divinitus eft interdum, Venerifque fagittis
Deteriore fit ut forma Muliercula ametur.

Nam

BOOK IV. Of the Nature of Things.

with many Children. Of fo great Concern it is,

that the Seed of both fhould kindly mix, and mu-
tually glow with genial Heat; that the Thick

and the Thin fhould incorporate together; and

that the Woman, in the Art of Love, fhould en-
gage with a Man whofe Nature fhould be fuitable
to her own.

Awnp the Food we live upon is of no {mall Im-
portance ; for the Seed increafes through the
Limbs by fome Meats, and it becomes watery

and feeble by others.

7 can tranflate no further. Dryden, in bis Mit-

cellanies, goes on in full Vigour, and keeps up to the
Original.

Or like Importance is the Pofture too,
In which the genial Feat of Love we do.
For, as the Females of the Four-foot Kind
Receive the Leapings of their Males behind 5
So the good Wives, with Loins uplifted ὌΝ
And leaning on their Hands, the fruitful Stroke
may try.
For in that Pofture they will beft conceive ;
Not when fupinely laid they frifk and heave:
For active Motions only break the Blow,
And more of Strumpet than of Wives they fhew;
When anfwering Stroke with Stroke, the min-
gled Liquors flow.
Endearment eager, and too brifk a Bound
Throw off the Plough-fhare from the furrow’d
Ground.
But common Harlots in Conjunction heave,
Becaufe ’tis lefs their Bus’nefs to conceive
Than to delight and to provoke the Deed ;

A Trick which honeft Wives but little need.

Nor is it from the Gods, or the Darts of Venus,
that a Woman of ordinary Beauty is fometimes

beloved. She often fecures the Affection by her |

difcreet

105

106

T. LucretTm Aree

Nam facit ipfa fuis interdum Femina fattis, 1275
Morigerifque modis, &S mundo corpor? cultu,
Ut facilé infuefcat fecum Vir degere vitam.

Quod fuperci, Confuetudo concinnat amorem.
Nam leviter quamvis, quod crebro tunditur ittu,
Vincitur in longo [patio tamen, atque labafcit. 1280
Nonne vides, etiam guttas in faxa cadenteis
Humoris longo in fpatio pertundere faxa?

9

Book IV. Of the Nature of Things.

difcreet Conduct, by the Sweetnefs of her Deport-
ment, and an Exaétnefs in the Decency of her
Perfon ; fo that a Man, by Ufe, may fpend his
Life happily with her.

To fum up all: It is Cuftom that reconciles
he Delights of Love; for beat upon any thing
with conftant Blows, though ever fo lightly, it is
overcome at laft, and crumbles to Pieces. Have
not you obferved how Drops of Water falling
upon a hard Stone, by Length of Time, wear it
away ὃ

Lhe End of the Fourth Book.

ΤΗΝ

107

ΓΝ 8B O CT

“HE Poet begins this Book with the Praife of
ἢ Epicurus, tevbom be proclaims to be a God,
’ becaufe bis Divine Difcoveries have been more

ufeful to Mankind than the Inventions of Ceres, or

of Bacchus, or than the many glorious Exploits of
Hercules. He then lays down the Argument of this
Book, and fhews the Conneétion between the Sulyeéts
he is now going to treat of, and thofe of which be has
difputed in the preceding Parts of bis Poem and be-
ing now to explain the firft Rife and future Diffolu-
tion of the World, be teaches that the Earth, the
Sea, the Heavens, the Sun and Moon, are mortal ;
that ibey are not animated nor endowed with a Di-
vine Body, nor, as the Stoicks believed, are they
Parts of God bimfelf. He afferts that neither the
Heavens, as the general Opinion is, nor indeed any
Pari or Parts of the World, are the Manjfions or
Abodes of the Gods; and that none may believe that
the World was made by the Gods, and is therefore
immortal, be beaps up feveral Reafons, drawn as
well from the Nature of the Gods as from the De-
fettivenefs and ill Contrivance of this vajt Frame of
the Univerfe, by which be endeavours to prove that
1}

110 The ARGUMENT. q

it was not the Workmanfbip of a Deity. He argues —
that the Four Elements, Earth, Water, Air and
Fire, of which the World confi its, are neverthele/s

generated and mortal; and confequently that the
World itfelf once had a Beginning, and will have an
End. And he proves, by feveral other Arguments,
that this univerfal Frame bas not exited from all
Eternity, nor will be immortal and remain undif-
folved to all Futurity. Then he defcribes the Rife or
Birth of the Worlds and among all the Phyfiologers
there is not a Defcription of tt more likely to be true,
nor more lively and beautiful. The Atoms are moved
by their own Weight; they meet, this makes them
rebound 9 and according to the Difference of the Stroke
or Weight, the Refilition is made into different Places,
where they combine and grow into Bodies. He pro-
pofes many Difficulties concerning the Motions of the
Heavens and of the Planets, but determines nothing.
He teaches why the whole Frame of the Earth,
which is a beavy Body, hangs in the Air without
being fupported by any Foundation; and then takes
tbe Dimenjfions of the Sun, Moon and Stars, and pro-
nounces them neither bigger nor lefs than they feem
to us to be. He gives feveral Reafons of the Summer
and Winter Solftices ; tells what caufes Night 3 why
Aurora, or the Morning, precedes the Sun; why
the Nights and-Days mutually overcome, and chace
away each other by turns; why the Moon changes
ber Face and Figure, and why the Sun and Moon
are fometimes eclipfed. He defcends from the Hea-
vens, and defcribes the firft Rife of Herbs, Trees,
Birds, Beafts and Man, and adjufts the Order in
which each Kind was produced out of the Earth.
He fays that Monfters, or certain imperfect Ant-
mals, might be produced in the Beginning of the
World, but Nature denied them the Power to pro-
pagate their Kinds. Hence be takes Occafion to de-
ride and explode all Chimzera’s, Centaurs, Scylla’s,

ana

The ARGUMENT.

ana other fabulous Productions, invented by the Poets;
and denies there ever were any fuch Prodigies of Na-
ture, or ever will be. He defcribes the Strength of
the firft Men, their robuft Conftitution of Body, their
Meanne/s of Living, their Food, Wit, Manners,
Houfes and Marriages. He teaches that after Fire
was caft down upon Earth by Lightning, Men began
to be more civilized ; and having invented the drefs-
ing of Meat, fared more delicioufly than before. Then
‘Bey ΚΠ eftablifbed Societies, entered into Leagues and
Alliances, divided the Land among themfelves, and chofe
Kings to govern them, who were either the moft ftrong,
the moft beautiful, or the moft witty among them, and
were eleéled for one or more of thefe three Reajons.
But at length Gold being found out, the Richer come
manded the Poorer; and Envy ‘fpringing up among
them, a Sedition arofe, the Kings were depofed, Re-
publicks were inflituted, and Laws eftablifbed to fe-
cure every one in bis Property. He treats of the
Fear of the Gods, and of the firft Rife of Religion,
which he afcribes merely to Irnorance of the Divine
Nature, and of natural Caufes. And to the End
of the Book he teaches bow the feveral Metals, Gold,
Silver, Brafs, Iron and Lead, came firft to be dif-
covered. He mentions the firft Arts of War, and
the Weapons then ufed; and concludes with the In-
veniion and Progrefs of Spinning, Weaving, Azri-
wliure, Sailing, Mufick, Poetry and other Arts.

. T. ia

Lit.

Ll. Lucretia Cari —

DE
RERUM NATURA.

LIBER QUIN las

UIS potis eft dignum pollenti peftore carmen
Condere, pro rerum majeftate, hifque repertis?
Quifve valet verbis tantum, qui fundere laudes

Pro meritis Ejus poffit, qui talia nobis

Peétore parta fuo, quefitaque premia liquit? 5
Nemo (ut opinor) erit mortal corpore cretus.

Nam fi, ut ipfa petit majeftas cognita rerum,
Dicendum?ft: Deus ille fuit, Deus, inclute Memmi,

Qui

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NATURE of THINGS.

THE

| mor tH BOV Κ.

m 7 HO can, with all his Soul infpired,
%,/ compofe ft Numbers, worthy the Ma-
| f = jefty of fo great Things, of thefe Dil-
Pcoveries? Or who, in Words alone, can fing
)* His Praife, and equal His Deferts, who from the
Labour of his Mind has left fuch Benefits, and be-
ftowed Rewards fo glorious on Mankind? No
Meera! Man alive, as I conceive; for could I
raife my Verfe to reach the Dignity of Things He
knew, He was a God, my Noble Memmius, a

Ὁ He makes a God of Epicurus, and fays his Difcoveries
are more ufefui to Mankind than the Inventions of Ceres and
Bacchus, and the Labours of Hercules. He taught true 77
"dom, which drives all Uneafineis from the Mind, and in-
firuGs us rightly in the Nature of Things; for the Egicu-
reans were {o modeft, that the Name of #7/7om they applied
Only to their own Philofophy.

ox, II, Mi Ged

—

113

τ

T. LUCRETtm (Ss. a

Qui Princeps vite rationem inventt eam, que
Nunc appellatuy SAPIENTIA: quig; per artem τὸ
Fluétibus ὃ tantis vitam, tantifque tenebris,

In tam tranquillo, (S tam clara luce locavit.

Confer enim Divina aliorum antigua reperta.,
Namque Ceres fertur fruges, Liberque liquoris
Vitigeni laticem mortalious inflituiffe s 15
Citm tamen bis poffet fine rebus Vita manere :

Ut fama ft aliquas etiain nune vivere genteis.
At bend non poterat fine puro petiore vivi.
Qud magis bic meritd nobis Deus effe videtur,

Ew quo nune eliain per magnas didita gentets 20,

Dulcia permulcent animos folatia vite,
Herculis antiffare autem fi faéta putabis,

Lougiits ἃ vera multo ratione ferere 3

΄ ° e .. e

Quid Nemaus enim nobis nunc magnus biatus

ile Leonis obeffet, 9 borrens Arcadius Sus? 25

Denigue quid Crete taurus, Lerneaque peftis
fiydra venenalis poffet vallata colubris £

Ouidve tripeclora tergemini vis Geryonai ὃ

kt Diomedis equi fptrantes naribus ignem

Thracen, Biftoniafque plazas, atque [finara propter,30
Fantopere officerent nobis ? Uncifque timende
Uneuibus Arcadie volucres Stymphéla colentes ?
Aureaque Eefperidum fervans fulgentia mala

Afper, acerba tuens, tnmant corpore Serpens,
Arboris amplexus flirpem: quid deniq, obeffet, 35
Propter Atlanteum liltus, pelageque fevera,

Oud neque nofter adit quifquam, nequeBarbarus audet ὃ
Cetera de genere boc que funt porlenta peremta,

Si non vikta forent, quid tandem viva nocerent ¢
Nil, ut opinor: Ita ad fatiatem terra Perarum 40

Nune

Boox V. Of the Nature of Things.

Ged he was, who firft found out that Rule of Life

which is now called True Wifdom , and who this

human Life, fo toffed with Storms, and fo o’er-
whelmed in Darknels, has rendered by his Art fo
calm, and placed in fo clear a Light.

Compare the Beneftts long fince found out
by Thofe who now are Gods. Ceres, they fay,
difcovered firft the Ufe of Corn, and Bacchus gave
to Men the Knowledge of the Vine and its {weet
Juice. Yet Men might {till have lived without
both thefe, as many Nations, we are told, do
now. But no true Life could be, without the
Mind eafy and free; and therefore with better Right

is he to us a God, whofe gentle Rules, received

throughout the World, beftowed on Men Tran-

quility and Peace.

Tr you fhould think the great Exploits of Her-
cules exceeded His, you are carried far fromT ruth,
For how could the wide, gaping Jaws of ithe Ne-
mean Lion, or the ter Nik Arcadian Boar, affright
us now? HElow could the Bull of Crete, or Hydr 7;
the Plague οἱ Lerna, incompaffed with his. poi-
fonous Snakes? Or Geryon, with his tripple Face,
and the colleéted Strength of his three Bodies? Or

“what can we now Gace er from Duiomedes? Horfes,

from their Noftrils breathing Fire, dreadful to
Thrace, the Biftonian Plains, and all about Mount
Ifinarus 2? Or what from the Arcadian Birds of
Siympbalus, feared for their crooked Talons? Or
that huge Dragon, fierce and terrible in Look,
that, twining round the Tree, guarded the Gold-
en Fruit of the He/perides ὃ How could he hurt
us here, removed far from us near the 4élontick
Shore, and the rough Seas, where neither Roman
nor Barbarian dared to vilit? And other Monfters
which that Hero flew, had they not been fubdued,
how could they hurt us now, were they alive? Not
in the leaft, I think. For now the World abounds
E2 with

| 7
116 T. τυ Zico
Nunc etiam featit, &© trepido terrore repleta’ft
Per nemora ac monteis magnos, fyluafque profundas :
Que loca vitandi plerumque eft nofira poteftas.

Ai mifi purzaiune st pecius, que pretia nobis,
Aique pericula tune ingratis infinuandum ὃ 48
Quante confcindunt bominem Cuppedinis acres
Sollicitum cure? Quantique perinde timeres ὃ
Ouidve Superbia, Spurcities, Petulantia, quantas
Ejficiunt cladeis? Quid Luxus, Defidiefque ?

Hee igitur qui cuntia fubegerit, ex animoque 50
Expulerit diélis, non armis, nonne decebit,

Hunc Hominem numero Diviim dignarier effe ?

Cum bene prefertim multa, ac divinitus ipfis
Immortalibw de Divis dare ditia fuérit

Atque omnem rerum Naturam pandere diélis. 55

Oyuocius ego ingreffus veftigia, nunc rationes
Perjequor, ac doceo dtitis, quo queque creata
Federe fint, in eo quam fit durare neceffum :

Nec validas evi valeant refcindere leges.

Quo cenere in primis Animi natura reperta*fi, 60
Nativo primo confiftere corpore creia :

Nee poffe incclumis magnum durare per @vum:

Sed Simulacra folere in fomuis fallere mentem,
Cernere chm videamur eum, quem vita reliquit,

Duod fupereft, nunc me hucRationts detulit orde, 65

Ut

ν

Book V. Ofibe Nature of 7, bings. 11

with frightfulBeafts, that fill with dreadful Terror the
Forefts, the high Mountains and thick Woods; yet
thefe Places commonly ’tis in our Power to avoid.

But unlefs the Mind be purged, what. Wars
within, what Dangers wretched Mortals muft en-
dure? What piercing Cares of fierce Defire muft
tear the Minds of Men? And then, what anxious
Fears? What Ruin flows from Pride, from Vil-
Jany from Petulance? What from Luxury and
Sloth ἢ

Tue Man therefore that has fubdued thefe
Monfters, and drove them from the Mind by
Precept, not by Force; fhould not this Man be
worthy to be numbered with the Gods? efpecially
fince of thefe Immortal Deities he has {poken no-
bly and at large, and by his Writings has explain-
ed to us the Laws of Univerfal Nature?

Firs Steps I follow, and now perfue his Rules,
and by my Verfe I teach, that Things muft needs
fubfift by the fame Laws by which they were firft
formed ; nor can they break through the flrong
Bonds that Nature has fixed to their Being.’ Of
this fort the Soul, in the firft Place, I have proved
to be originally derived from mortal Seeds, nor
can it remain ‘eternally undiffolved ; and that I-
mages commonly deceive the Mind in our Dreams,
when we fancy we fee a Perion that has been long
fince dead.

ANpD what remains but now, ἢ as the Order of

Ὁ In this Book he propcfes to fhew, that the World had a
Beginning, and will have an End ; to defcribe the Rife of the
World, and of Animals real and feigned by the Poets; how
Names came to be given to Things; how mutual Society
arofe from Speech, whence proceeded Religion and the Fear
of the Gods. And then he will explain the Motions of the
Heavens, the Courfes and Revolutions of the Sun, the Moon,
and other Planets and Stars; and demonftrate that they are
whirled about by the Force of Nature only, without the
Felp or Affiftance of Providence.

1 my

110 T. LucRETm ΠΡ
Ut mibi, mortali confiftere corpore Mundum,
Nativumque fimul, ratio reddunda fit, effe.

Et quibus ille modis congreffus Materiai

Funddrit Terram, Calum, Mare, Sidera, Solem,
Lunaigue globum 5 tum que tellure Animantes 70
Exfiterint: Et que nullo fiut tempore nate.

Quove modo genus Tumanum variante loquela
Ceperit inter fe vefci per nomina rerum:

“ΕἸ quivus ille moais Diviim metus ifinudrit
Pectora, terrarum qui in orbi Janéta tuetur 75
Pana, Lacius, Lucos, Aras, Simulacraque Diviin. -

Preterea, Solis curfus, Luneque meatus
Expediam, qua vi fletiat Natura gubernans :
Ne forte bic inter Calum, Terramque reamur
Libera fponte fua curfis luftrare perenneis, 80
Morigera ad fruges augendas, atque animanteis :
Neve aliqua Diviim volvi ratione putemus. .
Nam, bene qui didicere Deos fecurum agere evitiit,
δὲ tamen interea mirantir qua ratione
Quaque geri poffint, prejertim rebus in illis, 85

Que fupera caput etkeriis cernuntur in oris 3

Kurfus in antiquas referuntur Relligiones,

Et Dominos acreis adfcifcunt, omnia poffe

Quos miferi credunt, ignari quid queat effe,

Quid nequeat 3 finita poteftas denique quoique 90

Quanam fit vatione, aique alié terminus berens.
Quod fupereft, ne Te in promifis plura moremur,

Principio, Maria ac Terras, Calumque tuere :

Eforum naturam triplicem, tria corpora, Memmi,

Treis

Rook V. Of the Naiure of fhings. 119°

my Defign requires to convince, by proper Rea-
fons, that this World is formed of mortal Seeds ;
that it began to be, and muft have an End; and
to fhew how the Seeds of Matter were united and
difpofed, to preduce the Earth, the Heavens, the
Sea, the Stars, the Sun and Moon; and then
what Creatures fprung from the Earth, and what
never had a Being ; and how the human bai
with various Lang} uage, began to give Names to
Things, and to = ieee: together.

ΑΝ by what means that Dread of Deities
above, firft crept into the Fleart, which 1 preferves
the Holy Things throughout the World; the
Temples, the La ee SH AA ἰταῦο νυ na In nages
of the Gods,

Besipes, I fhall explain the Courfe of the
Sun and Moon, and by what over-ruling Force
Wature directs their Motions ; left you fhould fup-
pofe thefe Luminaries travel their conftant Stages
freely and of their own accord between Fleaven
and Earth, and by their kind Influence promote
the Growth of Fruits and the whole Animal Cre-
ation ; or conceive that they are rolled about by -
the Will of the Geds. For thofe who well know
that the Gods live a Life of Eafe, if they fhould
wonder by what Power the World is carried on,
efpecially in the Things they fee over their Heads
in the Heavens above, they relapfe again into their
old Superftition ; they raife over themfeives a Set
of cruel Tyrants, who the Wretches fancy can do
all Things, becanfe they know nothing of what
can or what cannot be, or by what means a finite
Power is fixed to every Being, and a Boundary
immoveable which it cannot pals.

Anp therefore, to keep you no longer in Suf- The Forld
enfe in what I promifed, take a View, in the 4.
Mit Place, of the Seas, the Earth and te Plea
rens; this triple Nature, thefe three Bodies, my

κε Meminiits,

aid

120.

T.LucReérm Lis.

Treis fpecies tam diffimileis, tria talia texta, 95
Una dies dabit exitio: multofque per annos
ufentata ruet moles & machina Mundi.
Nec me animt fallit, quam res nova, miraque
mentt |

Accidat, Exitium Celi Terreque futurum:
Et quain difficile id mibi fit pervincere dictis: 100
Ut fit, ubi infolitam rem adportes auribus ante,
Nec tamen banc poffis Oculorum fubdere vifu,
Nec jacere indu Manus, via qua munita fidet
Proxima fert humanum in pettus, templaque mentis :
Sed tamen effabor : divtis dabit ipfa fidem res 105
Forfitan, ‘8 graviter terrarum motibus orbis
Omnia conquaffart in parvo tempore cernes:
Quod procul a nobis flectat Fortuna gubernans :
it Ratio potius, quam Kes perfuadeat ipfa,
Succidere horrifono poffe omnia vitia fragore. 110

Qua prius azgrediar quam de re fundere fata
Santins, (S multd certa ratione magis quam
Pythia, que tripode ¢ Phebi, lauroque profatur ;
Multa tibi expediam doétis folatia diftis :

Kelligiona

Book V. Of the Nature of Things.

Memmius, three Beings of fo different a Frame,
three fo wonderfully formed, one Day thall put
an End to; and the whole Mate and Fabrick of
the World, that has ftood for many Ages, fhall
tumble to Pieces.

I xnow how this, this future Ruin of Heaven
and Earth, feems ftrange and furprifing to your
Apprehenfions, and how “difficult it is to convince
you of the Truth of ir. This is a common Cafe,
when you offer a Subjeét to the Ear it has been
unufed to, and which you cannot difcover with
your Eyes, nor feel with your Hands, the Ways
by which Knowledge and Belief generally find a
Paffage to the Breaft, and affect the Mind. Pil go
on however. The very Nature of the Things per-
haps will give a Credit te my Words, and you
may foon iee the whole Fabrick of the World
fhaken grievoufly by terrible Convulfions ; but
the commanding Power of Chance remove that
Day far from us! And let Reafon, rather than the
Thing itfelf, convince us, that all Things dif-
folved by the laft dreadful Crack will fall to Ruin.

‘ But before I attempt to teach thefe Truths,
more facred and much more worthy of Beltef than
what the Pythonefs delivers from the Tripod and
Laurel of Apollo, I fhall firft offer fome Encou-
ragements againft your Fears, leit, being under

© Many of the old Philofophers, Pythagoras, Plate, Tri/-
megifius and others, believed the World to be endued with
a rational Soul, and to partake of the Nature of the God that
made it, They confidered the admirable Order and Con-
nection of all the Parts of the Univerfe, which they were
perfuaded could not be fuftained but by a Soul intrinfically
informing, ordering, difpofing and connefting them. ‘The
Stoicks w vent farther, and held, that every one “of the celeftial
Bodies that have Motion, were to be efteemed in the Num-
ber of the Gods. ‘They obferved a Cone in the Revolu-
tions of the Heavens, and in the Courfes of the Stars; and
therefore concluded their Motion to be voluntary, and con-
Jequently that they are Gods.

the

121

δώ

YT. Lucker ΜῊΝ
Relligione refrenatus ne forté rearis, 11g
Terras, 5 Solem, Celum, Mare, Sidera, Lunam,
Cerpore divino debere e@ierna manere :

Proplereaque putes ritu par effe Gigantum,
Pendere eos pwias immani pro fcelere omneis,

Qui rvatione fua difturbent mania Mundi, 129
Preclarumque velint celt reftinguere Selem,
Immortalia mortalt fermone notantes.

Que procul ufqueadeo divino ab numine diftent,

Inque deitm numero fie funt iidigna vidert, :
Notitiam potiis prebere ut poffe putentur, 12q

Quid fit vitali motu, fenfuque remotum.

Quippe etenim non eft cum quovis corpore ut effe

Poffe Animi natura putetur, Confiliumque.

Sicut in @tbere non Arbor, nec in equore falfo

Nubes effe queunt, neque Pifces vivere in arvis 5 130

Nec Cruor in lignis, nec faxis Succus ineffe :

Cerium, ac difpofitum ft, ubi quicquid crefcat, © infit,

Sic Animi natura nequit fine Corpore oriri

Sola, neque anervis, 89 fanguine longiter effe.

Flos fi poffet enim, multo prius ipfa 2217} vis 135

In Capite, aut Humeris, aut unis Calcibus effe

Poffet, SF innafci quavis in parte foleret :

Tandem in eodem bomine, atque in eodem vase maneret.

Quod quoniam nojiro quogue conftat Corpore certum,

Difpofitumque videtur, ubi effe, SS crefcere poffit 140

Seorfum Anima, aique Animus: tanto magis infi-
Ciandutil,

Fotum poffe extra Corpus, formamque animalem

Putribus iu glebis Terrarum, aut Solis in icnt,

Au

Boox V. Of the Nature of Things ~ 123

the Check of Religion, you fhould by chance ima-
eine that the Earth, the Sun, the Heavens, the Sea,
the Stars, the Moon, being animated by a Spirit
diffufed throughout the Whole, were a Deity, and
would remain for ever; and coniequently, tha
ali thofe deferve juftly the fame Punifhment as the
Rebel Giants, for their Impiety, who by their
Arguments would affault and break down the
Walls of the World, and would extinguifh the
Sun (the bright Luminary of the Sky) and pro-
nounce a Sentence of Diffolution upon Things in
their own Nature immortal, Ὁ

Ἄν yet thefe Things are fo far from having The World
any thing of Divinity about them, and fo unwor- 7%? 742
thy of being ranked in the Number of the Gods, ”°"
that they may be thought rather to give us a No-
tion of fomething as remote from Senfe and vital
Motion as poffible ; for we are not to imagine that
the Powers, Mind and-Soul, can be united with all
forts of Bodies. As there are no Trees in the Sky, no
Clouds can be in the deep Sea; nor can Fifh live
in the Fields ; nor can there be Blood in Wood, ar
Moifture in Stones, ‘There are certain and fixed A-
bodes, where all Things have a Being, and increatle.
The Soul therefore cannot come into Being alone,
without the Body; ncr can fhe exift feparately, with-
out the Nerves and the Blood. If this could be, the
Powers of the Soul you would rather feel fometimes
in the Head or Shoulders, or even in tae very Bot-
fem of the Feet, or in any other Part of the Badge
and fo you would perceive it diffufing itlelf through
the wholeBody : AsWater poured intoa Veffel firft
covers one Part, and then fpreads over the Whole.
Since therefore there is a proper and determinate
Place in the Body, for the Mind and Soul to be
and increafe in, we have the more Reafon to deny
that they can continue or be born without it, or
that the Form of Life can refide in rotten Clods
of Earth, or in the Fire of the Sun, or in the :

W ater,

124

T. Pu Cre vr me ΤΣ

Aut in Aqua durare, aut altis Zitheris oris.
Haud igitur conftant divino predita fenjfi, 14.5
Quandoquidem nequeunt vitaliter effe animata,
Tilud item non eff ut polfis credere, fedes
Effe Deim fanctas in mundi partibus ullis.
Tenuis enim natura Dein, longésue remota

΄ Senfibus ἃ nofiris, animi vix meite videtur. 150

Que queniam manuum tatium fuffugit, &8 icium,
Taétile nil nobis quod fit, contingzere cebet.

Tangere enim ncn quit, quod tangi nox vicet ipfum,
Quare etiam fedes quoque neftris fedibius effe
Diffimiles debent, tenues de corpore eoruin. 1}

Que tibi pofterins largo fermone probabo,

Dicere porro, Hominum caufa voluiffe parare
Preéclaram mundi naturam, proptereaque
Id laudabile opus Diviiin laudare decere,
faternumque putare, aique immortale futurnm, 160
Nec fas effe, Deiim queda fit ratione vetufta
Gentibus bumanis fundatum perpetuo evo,
Sollicitare fuis ullum de fedibus unquam,
Nec verbis vexare, 5 ab imo evertere fusamam :

Cetera

Boox V. Of the Nature of Things. τ

Water, or in the lofty Regions of the Sky. Thefe
therefore are fo far from being endzed with a Di-
vine Underftanding, that they are incapable even
of being animated with common Life.

Nor are you to believe that the ¢ Sacred Man- Heaven
fions of the Geds are placed in any Parts of this ποῦ δὲ
World of ours; for the Nature of the Geds is fo oe of the
fubtle, and at fo remote 2 Diftance from our
Senfes, that it can fcarce be apprehended by the
Mind. Since therefore it cannot be touched or
felt by our Hands, it can touch nothing that is the
Object of our Senfes; for nothing has a Power to
touch, that is incapable of being touched itfelf.

For this Reafon the Abodes of the Gods muft be
far different from ours ; they muft be fubtle, and
anfwerable to their own Nature. But the Truth
of This I thall more fully prove in another Place,

ΑΝ then, © to fay that the Gods defioned this 72. ΠΡ»
noble Fabrick of the World for the fake of Man, zor made
and therefore we are to fpeak honourably of this #2z.
excellent Work, and conceive it to be eternal,
and fhall remain for ever ; and that it 15 impious
to prove, that this Frame of the World, con-
trived by the Geds to continue for ever for the
Ule of Man, fhall fall to Ruin; or to offer to
difturb its Duration by Words and Arguments,
and fo overturn Things from their very Founda-

d ‘The Abode of the Gods is not in the Heavens; for the
Nature of the Gods is too fubile to touch fuch thick Bodies
as the fieavens. Nor can their Abode be in any Part of the
Univerfe; for whatever abides’ or is in any Place, both
touches and is touched. But the Gods, by reafon of the Sub-
tilty of their Nature, can do neither.

© Lucretius impioufly endeavours to raife a Duft, and blind
Men’s Underftandings ; and to fecure his former Opinion,
pretends Objections, intermixt with Scoffs, againit all thofe
who, upon fober Principles, and a ftri€t Search into the Or-
der and Difpofition of Things, were forced to confefs this
Frame to be the Contrivance of fome intelligent Being, and
the Produ& of Wifdoin itleif.

7 tions,

126 T. Duce τη Lie. Wo
Cetera de genere boc adfiugere,©S addere, Memmi,165
Defipere ft 5 quid enim Immortalibus, atque Beatis
Gratia ποτα queat largirier emolumenti,

Ut noftra quicquam caufa gerere adgrediantur ὃ

Quidve novi potuit tanto poft ante quietos

Inlicere, ut cuperent vitam mutare priorem ? 170

Nam gaudere novis rebus debere videtur,

Cui veteres obfunt 5 fed, cut nil accidit egrt

Tempore in anteaclo, cum pulchre degeret evuin,

Quid potuit novitatis amorem accendere tali ἢ

An, credo, in tenebris vila, ac merore jacebat, 175

Donec diluxit rerum genitalis origo ?

QDuidve mali fuerat nobis non effe creatis ὃ

Natus enim debet, quicunque’ft, velle manere

In vita donec retinebit blanda voluptas.

Qui nunquam vero vite guftavit amorem, 18@

Nec fuit in numero, quid obeft non effe creatum ¢
Exemplum porre gignundis rebus, €8 ipfa

Notities Hominum, Divis unde infita primim ?

Quid vellent facere ut feirent, animogue viderent ὃ

Quove mode ft unquam vis cornita Principiorum, 185

QDuidnam inter fefe permutaio ordine poffent,

‘Si non ipfa dedit fpecimen Natura creandi?

Namque

BooK V. Of the Nature of 7 hirgs.

tions. ‘l’o pretend and enlarge upon This, and more
fuch Scutt, my Memmiuius, is all Madnefs ; for what
Advantage can any Acknowledgments of ours be-
ftow upon Divinities happy and immortal, that they
fhould give themfelves any Trouble upon our Ac-
count? or what new Pleafure could prevail upon
the Gods, who lived at Reft for fo many Ages
before, to defire to change their former cae of
Rafe and Tranquility ? 1 Thofe generally rejoice in
anew Condition, who have been unhappy in the

aft ; but the Man who has fele no Misfortunes in
his former State, but has lived pleafantly and un-
difturbed, what could excite the Love of Novelty
in fuch a One as this? Was the Life of the’ Gods
fpent in Darknefs and Melancholy, till the Struc-
ture of the World fhone out and cheared their
Spirits? or what Evil had we fuffered if we had
never been created? Indeed, when we are once
- we fhould ftrive (whoever he be) to preferve
our Life, fo long as we find an engaging Pleafure in
our Being ; but he who never tafted the Love of
_Life, nor was inrolled among the Living, . what
fiarm could he complain of if “he had never been?

Bestpes, ‘what Model had the Geds to work
by, when they fet about the Creation of the World?
From whence had they any previous Knowledge
of Man, to inform them, and give their Mind an
Idea of what they propofed to make ἢ How could
they come acquainted with the Powers and Force
of the Atoms, and with what they were able to
eect by the Change of their Site and Order, if
Nature herfelf had not afforded them firft a Spe-
cimen of Creation’? For the Seeds of Bodies were

ΤΕ was the Opinion of Epicurus, that the World was made
by Nature, or rather by a fortuitous Concourfe of Atoms.
‘They met without any Premeditation, and mutually cleaved
to one ancther; and thus made all Compound Things, jutt

as it happened, without anv pre-conceived Defign.

from

|

¥. LoCRE rs ‘Lita

Namque ita multa modis multis Primordia rerum
Ex infinito jam tempore percita plagis,
Ponderibufque [ες confuerunt concita ferrt, 1Q0
Omiuimodifque coire, atque omnia pertentare,
Quecunque inter fe poffint congreffa creare,
Ot non fit mirum fi in taleis difpofituras
Deciderunt quoque, & in taleis venere meatus,
Qualibus hac rerum genitur nuncSumma novands.19 5
Quod fi jam rerum ignorem Primordia que fint,
Hoc tamen ex ipfis Cali rationibus aufim
Confirmare, aliifque ex rebus reddere multts,
Nequaquam nobis drvinitus effe paratam
Naturam rerum, tanta fiat predita culpa. 200
Principio, quantum Celt legit unpetus ingens,
Tude avidam partem Monteis, Sylveque ferarum
Poffedere, tenent Rupes, vafteque Paludes, |
Et Mare, quod late Verrarum difitnet oras.
Inde duas porro prope parteis fervidus Ardor, 205
Afjiduufgue Geli cafus mertalibus aufert,
ued fupereft arvi, tamen id Natura fua Οἱ
Sentibus obducat, ni vis Humana το αἱ,
Vitaz caufa valido confueta bidenti
Ingemere, &S terram prelfis profeindere aratris. 210
Si non facundas vertentes vomere glebas,
Terraigue folum fubigentes cimus ad ortus:
Sponte lua nequeant liguidas exifiere in auras.

!

Et

Boox Y. Of t the Nature of 7, hings.. 129
from all Eternity fo varioufly agitated by Blows

from without, and driven fo about by their own
Weight, and tryed every way to unite, and at-
tempted all forts of Motion that might end at Jaft

in the Formation of Things; that no wonder they

at laft fell into fuch Difpofitions, and fo decent

Order, as to produce the Univerfe, and continu-

ally preferve and renew it.

‘For were I wholly ignorant of the Origin of The World
Things, ὃ yet I could prove this Truth from the zor made
Heavens, and by many other Reafons, that the lg a
Frame of the World was by no means raifed by ἢ κ᾿
the Gods for the Ufe of Man; fo faulty itis, and J
contrived fo ill.

Anp firft, The Earth, covered over by the
violent Whirl of the Heavens ; huge Mountains,
and Woods, the Harbour of wild Beafts; and
Rocks, and vaft Lakes; and the Sea, which
widely feparates the diftant Shores, take up a great
Part of it; and then the torrid Heat, and conti-
nual Cold, rob Mankind almoft of two Parts,
and make them uninhabitable.

Tue fruicful Fields that remain, Nature of her-
felf would fpread over with Thorns, if the Labour
of Man did not prevent it; if he did not, to
preferve Life, force the Earth by conftant Toil
with ftrong Tools, and cut it through with the
Plough ; if we did not turn up the fruitful Clods
with the crooked Share, and compel the Soil to
exert its Strength, of its own accord it would pro-
duce nothing.

5 He fays, that the Work of an all-wife Artift ought to be
Perfect in all Points, not covered with Mountains, Woods
‘and Lakes, dreadful to behold; not with fome Parts chilled
with perpetual Froft, and others parched with continual Heat.
Tt thould produce Fruits of all Sorts, rather than Thorns,
Briers, &c. All Things fhould be eafy, beautiful, fafe and
pleafant. It fhould be a Work worthy of a wile and boun-
teous Ged.

wor. 1, ἡ | K AND

130

T. LUGREDI ie
Et tame interdum magno quefita labore,

Cim jam per terras frondent, atque omnia florent ;
Lut nimiis torret fervoribus etherius Sol, 216
Aut fubiti perimunt timbres, gelideque pruine,
Flabraque ventorum vielento turbine vexant.

Preterea genus borriferum Natura Ferarum,
Humane genti infefium, terraque marique, 220
Cur alit, atque auget? Cur Anni tempora morbos
Apportant ὃ Quare Mors immatura vagatur ὃ

Tum porra Puer, ut fevis projectus ab undis

Navita, nudus bumi jacet, infans, indigus omni ἣν
Vitali aumilio, cum primum in luminis oras 225 ;

Nixibus ex alvo matris natura profudit :

Vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut equumft,

Cui tantum in vita reftet tranfire malorum,

Ai varie crefcunt Pecudes, Armenta, Fere@que: ~

Nee crepitacula eis opu? funt, ne cuiquam adbiben=
daft 230

Alne nutricis blanda aique infraéta loguela :

Nec varias querunt Vefieis pro tempore Cali,

Denique non Armis opus eff, non Menibus altis,
Queis {μα tutentur, quando omnibus omnia large
Tellus ipfa parit, naturaque dedala rerum, 228

'

Principio

-
Book V. Of the Nature of Things.

Anp yet, when the Fruits are raifed with great
Labour, when they look green upon the Ground,
and all Things flourifh; either the Sun’s Rays
burn every thing up with their fierce Heat; or
fudden Showers, or piercing Frofts, deftroy our
Hopes ; or the Blafts of Wind, with terrible Hur-
ricanes, blow them away.

Ἄν then, why does Nature nourifh and in-

Beate the dreadful Race of wild Beafts, by Sea
nd Land; the profeffed Enemies to Human kind?
Why do the Seafons of the Year bring Difeafes
with them? Why does untimely Death wander
every way abroad?
Besipes, δ a Child, like a fhipwreck’d Ma-
riner caft on Shore by the cruel Tide, lies naked
upon the Ground ; a wretched Infant, deftitute of
every Help of Life, as foon as Nature, by the Mo-
ther’s Pangs, has thrown him from the Womb into
Pight ; and then he fills the Air with mournful
Cries, as he has Reafon to do, fince in the Courfe
of Life he has fuch a Series of Evils to pafs through.
But Cattle of every kind, and Herds, and wild
Bealts, grow up with Eafe: They have no need
of Rattles to divert them; they have no Occafion
for the kind Narfe, by her fond and broken
Words, to keep them in Humour; they require
no Difference of Drefs for the feveral Seafons of
the Year; they have no need of Arms, nor high
Walls, to fecure their Property ; for the arth,
with curious Contrivance, of herfelf produces
every thing in Abundance, for the whole Variety
Of Creatures, to. feed and fupport them.

1 If the Gods (fays he) had made the World, the Condition
of Man would have been better than that of other Animals,
yet we plainly fee it is much worfe; and to weigh ‘Things
rightly, Nature feems a kind Parent to them, and a crofs
Step-mother to us.

K 2 AND

131

432

T LUCRET11 Jig

Principio, quoniam Terrai corpus, 9 Humor,
Aurarumque leves anime, calidique Vapores,
E quibus bec rerum confiftere Summa videtur,
Omnia native ac mortal corpore confiant :
Debet tota eadem Mundi natura putari. 2
Quippe etenim quorum parteis, (P membra videmus
Corpore nativo £P mortalibus effe figuris 5
Hec eadem ferme mortalia cernimus effe,
Et nativa fimul. Quapropter maxima Mundi
Cum videam membra, ac parteis confumta regigni.
Scire licet, Cali quogue idem Terreque fuiffe 240
Principiale aliquod tempus, clademque futuram.

Tilud in his rebus ne me arripuiffe rearts,
Memmi, quod Terra, atque ignem mortalia fumpfi
Effe: neque Humorem dubitavi, Aurafque perire: 350
Alque eadem gigni, rirfujque augefcere dixt:
Principio, pars Terrai nonnulla perufta
Solibus affiduis, mulia pulfata pedum v1
Pulveris exbalat nebulam, nubeifque volantes,
μα: validi toto difpergunt aere venti: - 251
Pars etiam glebarum ad diluviem revocatur
Tmbribus, 9 ripas radentia flumina rodunt.
Preterea, pro parte fua quodcunque alid auget,
Roditur : 85 quoniam dubio procul effe videtur
Onmniparens, eadem rerum commune fepulcrum: 266

Boox V. Of the Nature of Things. 123

ΑΝῸ further, ‘ Since the Body of the Earth, σε Ex.
he Water, the light Breath of the Air, and the ext
Bt Fire, of which this Univerfe of Things con- 472"
ilts, Pad all a Beginning, and are all fort med om νὰ
mortal Seeds, the Nature of the World mutt be
the fame, and muft die likewife. For a Body,
whofe Parts and Members we know were born,
nd were produced from mortal Principles, that
Being muit be the fame in Nature with its Parts ;
it muft have a Beginning, and be equally Mortal.
And therefore when I obferve the Four Elements
(the great Limbs of the World) are continually
changing, are wafted away, and then renewed ;

I conclude, that the whole World, the Earth and
the Heavens, had a Time of beginning, and wall
in Time fall and be deftroyed.,

But, my Memmins, that you may not think Σ΄.
rafhly _ what I fhould have proved upon
this Subject, when 1 faid that the Marth and the
Fire were mortal, and made no doubt but the Air
and the Water were fo too, and that they began
to be, and by degrees increafed ; you are to ob-
ferve, firft, that fome Part of a Earth is burnt
up by the continual Strokes of the Sun; and much
of it, being worn by the continual Treading of
the Feet, rifes into flying Clouds of Dult, which
the fierce Winds fcatter through all the Air; and
Part of the Earth, by foaking Showers, is turned
into Water, and the incroaching Rivers eat away
their Banks. Befides, whatever increafes another
Body with any of its Parts, muft lofe fo much
from itfelf: And fince the Earth is certainly the
Great Parent and common Sepulchre of all Things,

iThe Nature of the Whole is the fame with that of its
Parts; and fince the Parts of the World, the Earth, Sea,
Air and Fire, are continually changed, fernetimes dimiiinels
fometimes renewed, it muft be own τ that the whole Mafs is
€qually and alike Mortal.

K 3 it

134

a. & ue ciR’s τ ἐν

Ergo Terra tibi limatur, © auéta recrefcit.
Quod fupereft, Humore novo mare, fiumina, fone
1615

Semper abundare, © latices manare perennets,
Nil opus eft verbis, magnus decurfus aquarum
Undique declarat: fed primum quicquid Aquat 265
Tollitur, in fummaque fii, ut nibil Humor abundet, ;
Partim quod validi verrentes equora venit
Deiminuunt, radiifque retemens etberius Sol:
Partim quod fubter per terras diditur omueis.
Percolatur entin virus, retroque remanat 27Q
Materies Humoris, ( ad caput amnibus omnis
Convenit , inde fuper terras fluit agmine dulct,
Qua via feita femel liguido pede detulit undas.
Agra nunc igitur dicam qui corpore toto
Innumerabiliier privas mutatur in boras. 275
Semper enti quodcunque fluit de rebus, id omne |
Aeris in magnum fertur mare: qui nifi contra
Corpora retiribuat rebus, recreetque fluenteis,
Omma jam refoluta forent, €8 in Aéra verfa.
laud igitur ceffat gigni de rebus, inves 286

Recidere

Book V. Of the Nature of Things.

it muft fometimes be diminifhed, and then increafe
and be renewed again.

Awp then, the Sea, the Rivers, the Fountains,
abound always with fweet Water, and flow with
everlafting Streams. There is no need of many
Words; the prodigious Currents that flow every
Way into the Sea, prove This effectually. But
left the Mafs of Waters fhould grow too great,
fome of it is continually lick’d up, and waftes
away ; the ftrong Winds, brufhing over its Sur-
face, take off part of its Floud; and a Part the
Sun exhales and draws up into the Air, and fome
is divided through the fubterraneous Paffages of
the Earth: There the faline Particles are ftrained
off ; and then the Waters flow back, and ftart up
in Fountains, and form themfelves into Rivers,
which glide fweetly with their collected Strength
over the Earth, through thofe Channels where the
Streams firft made their liquid Way.

AnD now, to fpeak of the Air*, which is
changed with its whole Body every Moment, in
various Manners not to be numbered; for what-
ever is continually flowing off from Bodies, is
carried into the vaft Ocean of the Air ; unlefs the
Air therefore reftored again thofe Particles to the
Bodies from whence they came, and renewed them
as they waited away, all Things had long fince
been changed into Air, and wholly diffolved.
The Air therefore is continually produced from

Sethe Air is changed as well as the Earth and Water,
which is proved before. Whatever flows from Bodies is car-
ried into the vaft Traé of Air; but minute Corpuicles are
continually flowing from all Things, and are conveyed into
the Air, where they fly to and fro without wafting. Now
unlefs the Air conftantly reftored thofe Corpuicles to the Bo-
dies from whence they came, all Things by this time would
have been wafted to nothing, and totally deftroyed ; therefore
Bodies are perpetually changed into Air, and the Air returns

again into Bodies.
K 4 Bodies,

13)

7

136 T? LucreTtTii Lin.
Recidere affidué, quoniam fluere omnia conjftat.

Largus item liquidi fons luminis, etherius Sol

Invigat affidué celum candore recenti,

Suppediiatque novo coufeftim lumine lumen,

Nam primum quicquid fulgoris difperit οἷ], 285
Quocunque accidit: id licet bine cognofcere pelts,
Qudd fimul ac primum nubes fuccedere Soli

Capere, &P radios inter quafi rumpere lucts,
Extemplo inferior pars borum difperit omnis 3
Lerraque mumobratur, qua nimbi cunque feruntur,299
Ut nofcas fplendore novo res femper egere,

Et primum jattum fulgoris quemque perire 5

Nec ratione alia res poffe in fole videri,

Perpetuo ni fuppeditet lucis caput ipfum.

Quin etiam nocturna tibi, terreftria que funt, 2 95
Lumina, pendentes Lychni, clareque corufcis
Fuleuribus, pingues multa caligine Tede,

Confimili properant ratione, ardore miniftro,
Suppeditare novum lumen, tremere ignibus inftant 5 |
Tujtant, nec loca lux inter quafi rupta relinquil: 320@
Ujqueadeo properanter ab omnibus ignibus ejus
Exitium celert toleratur. origine flammea.

Sic igitur, Solem, Lunam, Stellajque putandum

Ἐκ alio, atque alio lucem jatiare fubortu,

Et primum quicquid flammai perdere femper: 305

Inviolabilia

Boox V. Of the Nature of Things.

Bodies, and continually returns into them again ;
fer Things never remain the fame, butwaieeim ἃ
perpztual I Fluctuation.

Tue ! Sun likewife, that large Fountain of
liquid Light, conftantly bedews the Heavens with
a new Brightnefs, and initantly fupplies one Ray
by the Succeffion of another; its firft Beams of
Light, as foon as they have fhone out die away.
This you may collect from hence, that as foon as
a Cloud interpofes between the Sun’s Orb and Us,
and as it were breaks through the Rays of Light,
the lower Part of the Beams immediately perifhes,
and the Earth, as the Clouds pafs over it, is made
dark. This proves that Things require a conftant
Stream of new Rays, and that every firft Emiffion
of Light dies ; nor could Things otherwife be feen
in the Light, unlefs the Sun (the Fountain of
Brightnefs) continually fent out frefh Supplies.

AFTER the fame manner our nightly Lights
that we ufe here below, our hanging Luftres, our
Lamps fhining with a bright Flame, and fat with
oily Smoke, are continually fending out new
Streams of Light by the Help of Fire. They
prefs on and ditcharge their trembling Rays with-
out Intermiffion; they never ceafe, nor is the
Light ever interrupted, or leaves the Place dark
fora Moment ; : fo {wiftly is the Deftruction of the
firft Rays repaired from the conftant Fire of the
Lamps (the Fountains of Light) and a new. Beam
inftantly flies off as the old expires. We conclude
therefore that the Sun, the Moon and Stars, are
- continually throwing off new Supplies of Light, and

that the firft Rays they emit perifh and die away ;

1 Te proves that Fire perifhes, and is again renewed, by
inftancing the Sun, whofe firft Light totally perithes, and a-
new Light is created in its Place. ‘This we experience when
any Mitt interpofes between the Sun’s Orb and Us.

left

137

138

ΤΙ Τὺ ΟΕ ΤΥ “Line

Inviolabilia bac ne credas forte vigere.

Denique non Lapides quog, vinci cernis ab evo ὃ
Non altas Turreis ruere, &F putrefcere Saxa ὃ
Non delubra Dein, Simulacraque feffa fatifci ὃ
Nec fanttum numen fati protellere finets 214
Poffe? Neque adverfus nature federa niti ?
Denique non Monumenta virim dilapfa videmus
Cedere proporro, fubitoque fenefcere cafu ὃ
Non ruere avolfos Silices ἃ montibus altis,
Nec validas evi vireis perferrs, pratique 2185
Finiti 5. Neque enim caderent avolfa repente,
Ex infinito que tempore pertoleraffent
Omiuia tormenta etatis privata fragore.

Denique jam tuere Hoc circum, fupraque, quod

omnem

Continet amplexu terram ; quod procreat ex fe 320
Omnia (quod quidam memorant) recipitque peremtas

Totum nativum mortali corpore conftat.

Nam quodcungue ahas ex fe res auget, alitque,
Deminui debet, recreari citm recipit res,

Preierea,

Book V. Of the Nature of Things.

left you fhould believe thefe Beams remained per-
fect and undiffolved, and were eternally the fame.

BesipeEs, don’t we ‘obferve how Stones are
worn away by Time? that lofty Towers fall to
Ruin, and Rocks moulder to Duft? that the
Temples and Images of the Gods are tired with
ftanding, and are forced to give way ὃ ™ Nor can
the Gods themfelves extend the Bounds of Fate, or

ftrive againft the Laws of Nature. Don’t you
fee the Monuments of Men burft afunder at laft,
to grow old, and fuddenly break in Pieces? that
the Rocks are torn, and tumble from the high
Mountains, and are unable to bear or refift the
mighty Force even of ἃ finite Time? for they
would never have fallen with this fudden Ruin,
had they from all Eternity endured the Strokes of
Time fecure and unfhaken.
Awp then, "look up to thofe furrounding.
q τ 1 3

Heavens, that above and below embrace this
Body of the Earth; thofe Heavens which, fome
fay, produce all Things out of themfelves,. and
to which all Things are at laft refolved. They
furely had a Beginning, are formed of mortal
Seeds, and muft have an End; for whatever feeds
and contributes to the Increafe of other Bodies,
mutt lofe fome of its Parts, and muft again be
repaired by thofe Bodies when they are diffolved.

m Some imagine that it was the Opinion of the Ancients,

(that mot only Man, and ail created Things, as well animate
as inanimate Beings, but that even the Gods themfelves, were
fubject to Fate. They held Fate to be unalterable and un-
avoidable; but in fuch a manner neverthelels they believed,
though it could not be wholly prevented, it might however
be fomewhat retarded.

2 He confutes thofe who held that all Things proceed from
Jither, or Heaven, and are refolved again into Heaven, and
yet afiert that Heaven itfelf is Immortal and Eternal ; for
whatever is changed into other Things, and is repaired and

renewed by thofe ‘Things when they are refolved, muft be
Born and Mortal.

EUR T cee.

B39

140

T. ἢ, τ Ἔν 1b Lin

Praterea, fi nulla fuit genitalis origo 324
Terrai ὃ5 Celi, femperque eterna fuere :
Cur fupera bellum Thebanum, 8 funera Troe,
Non alias alii quoque res cecidere Poete ὃ |
Oud tot fatia viritm toties cecinere ¢ Nec ufquam
Fiternis fame monumentis infita florent ¢ 330
Veriim (ut opinor) babet novitatem Summa, recenfque
Natura ft Mundi, neque pridem exordia cepit.
Ouare etiam quedam nune Artes expoliuntur,
Nunc etiam augefcunt 5 nunc addita Navigtis funt
Mulia: Modo Orzanicit melicos peperere fonores. 335
Denique Natura bec rerum, Katioque repertayft
Nuper, 85. banc Primus cum primis Ipfe repertus
Nunc ego fun, in patrias qui poffim vertere voces,

Quod fi forte ΠΗ ὁ antebac cadens oniilia credis:

ἡ

ΒΟΟΚΥ. Of the Nature of βιησδ.

FurtTuHer, If the Heavens and the Earth had
no Beginning, but were from Eternity the fame,
how comes it that no ° Poets have fung of any
ereat Events beyond the Theban War and the De-
ftruction of Troy? How came the Exploits of fo
many Heroes to be buried in Oblivion? that none
cf their great Actions are recorded in the eternal
Monuments of Fame, to live for ever? For no
other Reafon, I conceive, but that the Univerfe
is of a late Creation, that the Subftance of the
World is New, and began not long ago.. And
therefore fome Arts are but lately known, others
are polifhed and refined, many new Difcoveries
are made in Navigation, and the Mafters of Mu-
fick have but now brought Sound and Harmony
to Perfection : and, inthe laft place, This very
Nature of Things, which I now write of, and the
Reafons of them, are but lately found out, and |
call myfelf One of the Firft who have attempted
to convey them to Pofterity in Latin Verte.

But ? if you fhould think that thefe Things

© He afferts the World muft be New, becaufe the. moft
ancient of all Hiftory reach no farther than the Theban or
Trojan Wars; and certainly if the World, far from being
Eternal, were much older than we know it to be, we fhould
have had Records of a much older Date: And farther, be-

—caufe all the Arts are but of late Invention, fince Mention is

‘

made of the Founders of all of them; and if the World had
had no Beginning, all Arts, efpecially thofe ufeful to Life,
would have exifted from all Time.

P ΤῸ thefe Arguments it is faid, that the fame Arts flourifh-
ed heretofore that do now; but fometimes Fire deftroyed
Mankind, fometimes Deluges fwept them away, or Earth-
quakes fwallowed them up; and hence it is that thofe Arts
feem tobe New. Lucretius retorts this Anfwer by obferving,
that no Man of found Judgment will pretend that this World,
whofe Parts are fometimes confumed by Fire, fometimes
overwhelmed with Waters, and fometimes fhaken and {wal-
lowed up by Earthquakes, can be Eternal: For the Occafhon
why we believe a Man to be Mortal is, becaufe he is fubject
to and attacked by thofe Difeafes, which having feized upon
Others with greater Violence, have {wept them away.

Were

.---

141

142 Ty. L wer erm Lis. Wo

Sed periifje bominum torrenti fecla vapore, 240
Aut cecidiffe urbeis mazno vexamine Mundi,

Aut ex imbribus affiduis exiffe rapacets

Per terras Amueis, aique oppida cooperuiffe :

Tanto quippe mazis viclus fateare neceffe ft,

Exuuimn queque Terrai, Celique futurum. 945
Nam cnn res tantis morbis tantifque perictis
Tentarentur, iki fi triftior incuburffet

Caufa , darent laid cladem, magnafque ruinas :
Nec ratione alta mortales effe videmur

Inter nos, wifi quod morbis agrifeimusifdem, 350
Aque illi, quos ἃ vita natura removil.

Preterea, quaecunque manent eterna, necefe ft,
Aut quia funt folido cum corpore, refpuere ictus,
Nec penetrare pati fibt quicquam, quod queat arcias
Diffociare intus parteis, ut Materiai 2.54
Corpora funt, quorum naturam offendimus aule :
“μὲ ideo durare atatem poffe per omuem.

Plagarum quia funt expertia, ficut Inane’/ft,
Oued manet intactum, neq; ab iéiu funcitur hilum:
Aut etiam, quia nulla loci fit copia circua, 360
Quo quafi res poffunt difcedere, diffolvique.
Sicut Summarum Summafi eterna, neque exira ,
Quis locus eft, quo ἐμ. liant: Neque corpora funt,
que |

Poffint incidere, 5 valida diffolvere plaga..
Mi neq; (uti docui) folido cum corpore Mundi 365
Natura ft, quoniam adimiftuar ft in rebus Inane
Nec tamen eft ut Inane: neq; autem Corpora ὍΝ
Hix Infinite que poffint forte coorta
Proruere bane rerum violento turbine Suimmam,
ut aliam quamvts cladem importare pericli. 570
Nec porro natura loci, fpatinmgue profundi

Deficit,

Boox V. Of the Nature of T bings.

were long before the fame they are now; but that
Mankind were deftroyed by the Rage of Fire, or
Cities were overwhelmed by Earthquakes (the
great Terrors of the World) or that the rapid Ri-
vers, by continual Showers, overflowed the Earth,
and covered whole Towns; you have ftill the

more Reafon to be convinc’d, and to allow, that
the Earth and the Heavens will at laft be deftroyed:

For if Things were liable to feel fo great Convul- ἡ

fions, and futter fo great Dangers, it is plain if
the Caufe of thefe Ruins had been more violent,
they muft have perifhed and been utterly diffolved.
Nor have we any other Rule to judge that we
ourfelves are Mortal, and muft die, but that we
ficken with the fame Difeafes as thofe endured,

whom Death has removed from this Life.
BesiDeEs, whatever is Eternal muft be fo, ei-
ther becaufe it confifts of folid Seeds, or it cannot
be broken by Blows; nor will it fuffer any thing
to pierce it, to difunite the clofe Contexture of its
Parts; of this fort are the Seeds of Matter, whofe
Nature we have fhewn before; or Things would
remain for ever, becaufe they are out of the Power
of Stroke, as a Void is, which is not to be touch-
ed, nor can be affected by Force; or becaufe
there is no Extent of Space about them, into
which their Parts may fall when they are diffolved.
For this Reafon the Univerfe, or All, is Eternal:
There is no Place beyond, where its fcattered
Seeds may retire ; nor are there any Bodies to beat
upon it, and by violent Blows break it to Pieces.
But (as I faid) the Subftance of the World is not
formed altogether of folid Seeds, becaufe a Void
is mixed with its Parts; nor is it wholly Void ;
nor are there wanting Bodies, rifing to ftrike and
overthrow with mighty Force this World, or to
bring it into Danger of Ruin fome other way 5 nor
is there any Defect of Place or Space beyond, into
which

143

a +n ΑΣ
144. TT. DL ΘΟΕ Tila

Deficit, ex/pergi quo poffint menia Mundi,

Aut alia quavis poffint vi pulfa perire.

Hoaud igitur lethi preclufaft janua Calo,

Nec Soli, Lerreque, nec altis Aiquoris undis: 375

Sed patet immani, © vafto refpeciat biatu,

Quare etiam Nativa neceffum’ ft coufiteare

Hee eadem: neq; enim, mortali corpore que funt,

Lx infinite jam tempore adbuc potuiffent

Limenfi validas evi contemnere vireis. 380

Denique tantopere inter fe chim maxima Mundi

Pugnent membra, pio nequaquam concita bello ;

Woune vides aliquam longi certaminis ollis

Poffe dari finem ? Vel cium Sol, Vapor omnis

Omnibus epotis humoribus exfiuperarint, 385

Quod facere intendunt, neque adbuc conata patrantur:

Tantum fuppeditant Amnes, ultroque minantur

Omnia diluviare ex alto gurgite pont 3

Nequicquam : Quoniam verrentes equora venti

Deminuunt, radiifque retexens elberius Sly 409

ΕἸ ficcare prius confidunt omnia poffe,

Quam liquor ince pti poffit contingere finem.

Tanium fpirantes equo certamine bellum

Magnis de rebus inter fe cernere certant:

Cim femel in terra fuerit fuperantior Tenis, 395

Et femel (ut fama ft) Humor regnarit in arvis,

ἴρηξ

Book V. Of the Nature of Things.

which the Walls of the World may tumble down,
or they may fall to Pieces by fome other Force,
and be diffolved. The Gate of Death therefore is
not barred againft the Heavens, nor the Sun, nor
the Earth, nor the deep Waters of the Sea ; but
‘ftands open, with its wide and gaping Jaws, to
receive themall, For thefe Reafons it muft needs
be allowed, that thefe Things had a Beginning ;
for whatever is formed of mortal Seeds, and muft
die, could not from Eternity refift the ftrong At-
tacks of infinite paft Time, and the Power of
Age. .
LasTiy, % Since the Elements (the firft Prin-
ciples of the World) are continually fighting, and
carrying on an implacable War among themielves ;
can there be no End, think you, of their long
Contefts? If the Sun, fuppofe, or the Fire, by
fucking up all the Moifture fhould get the better,
which they ftrive todo, but have not yet effected
their Defign; fuch a Supply of Water do the
Rivers pour in, and the Sea from its mighty
eeps rather threatens to drown the World: But
in vain; the brufhing Winds are continually lick-
ing up and leffening its Tide; and the hot Sun,
with its Rays, drinks up a Part; and Things
feem rather to be in Danger of being dried up,
than of perifhing by a Flood of Waters. With
fuch equal Succefs is the War carried on, and
their Powers are fo difputed with equal Force.
Yet Time was when the Rage of Fire once pre-
vailed over the World ; and the Water (as they

1 Fie brings another Argument from the continual Fighting
of the Elements, which are the Four chief Parts of the World:
For (fays he) fince Fire engages with Water, and fometimes
the Flame, fometimes the Flood, prevails; what fhould hin-
der but that this Contention will at laft end in the Deftruc-
tion of the whole World? And that great Conflagrations and
Deluges have happened, the Stories of Phaeton and Deuca-
Kon, well known, do fufficiently evince,

Pou. II, L fay)

145

146

ΤΌ Lucretr1 Lina
Tenis enim fuperavit, F ambens multa peruffit,
Avia chim Phaetbonta rapax vig/Solts equorum
fEthere raptavit toto, terrafque per omneis. .
At pater Omuipotens ira tum percitus acri 400
Magnanimum Phacibonta repents fulminis iétu
Deturbavit equis in terram , Solque cadenti
Obvius eternam fuccepit lampada mundi 9

« 4 «τ a . e »ὴ- : Φ ὲ
Disjetiofque redegit equos, junxitque trementeis :
Inde fuum per iter recreavit cunéia gubernans. 405
Svilicet, ut veteres Graiim cecinere Poete:

Quod procul a vera? ft animi ratione repulfum.

Lonis enim fuperare pote, ubi Materiai

Lx infinito funt corpora plura coorta :

Τριάς cadunt vires aliqua ratione revitie, AIO

Aut pereunt res exufte torrentibus auris :

Humor item quondam cepit fuperare coortus,

Ut fama’ft bominum, multas quando obruit urbeis :

Inde ubi vis aliqua ratione averfa receffit,

Ex Infinito fuerat quecunque coorta, 415

Conftiterunt Imbres, 9 Flumina vim minuerunt,
Sed quibus ille modis conjettus Materiaz

Fundarit

,
Book V. Of the Nature of Things. 147

fay) once got the Dominion, and drowned the
Earth. The Fire had the Victory, and fet every The World
thing in a Flame, when the mad Fury of the” δὲ
Horfes of the Sun, flying out of their Courfe, ee.
dragged the wretched Phaeton through the whole
Heavens, and over all the Regions of the Worlds

but great Fupiter, in his fierce Rage, fuddenly
ftruck the daring Youth with a Thunderbolt, and
tumbled him headlong from his Horfes to the ᾿
Earth: And Phebus meeting him as he fell, ga-
thered up the fcatter’d Rays of the Sun (the great
Luminary of the World) brought back thé di-
ftraéted Horfes, and harneffed them trembling to

the Chariot again; and driving them in the right
Courfe, recovered Things to their proper Order.

This Tale the Grecian Poets fung of old, which is
abfurd and againft all Belief; * yet the Fire may

get the maftery, if the large Supplies of fiery Seeds

are brought from the great Mafs of Matter jnto

this World. The Rage of thefe Seeds muft by

fome Force be weakened and fuppreffed, or
Things by fo fcorching Heats muft perifh and be

burnt up. The Water likewife prevailed once

(as they fay) when it overthrew many Cities; but

when the Seeds, that were fupplied from the Mafs

of Matter, were turned into fome other Channel,

the Rains ceafed, and the Rivers flowed again
within their Banks.

But now ‘I fhall explicate in Order, by what How te

Chance the violent Agitation of Matter produced μ᾿ δε-
Ὁ} ἂν“

τ It is poflible that Fire may deftroy all Things, if an im-
menfe Quantity of Corpufcles, of a fiery Matter, were brought
down upon the Earth out of the Infinite Space ; for in that
Cafe, unlefs the Power and Force of that igneous Matter be
weakned, repreffed and kept under, by fome means or other,
all Things will be burnt, and perifh with too much Heat.

5 In explaining how the World began, he excludes the Di-
vine Providence from being concerned in it, and afcribes the

17 Whole

148

Omnigenos cetus, θ᾽ motus experiundo,

T. LucrRETit1t Lipa
Fundérit Celum ac Terram, Pontique profunda, ;
Solifque SF Lune curfus, ex ordine ponam. |
Nam certé neque confilio Primordia rerum 42 (
Ordine fe queque, atque fagaci mente locdrunt ;
Nec quos queque darent motus pepigere profecto: —
Sed quia multa modis multis Primordia rerum
Ex infinite yam tempore percita plagis,
Ponderibufque fuis confuerunt concita ferri, 426
Oinnimodifque coire, atque omnia pertentare,
Quecunque inter fe poffent congreffa creare ;
Propterea fit, uti magnum voleata per evum

Tandem ea conveniant, que ut convenére repente 430

Magnarum rerum fiant exordia fepe,

Terrat, Maris, & Cali, generifque Animantum,
Fic neque tum Solis rota cerni lumine largo al

Altivolans poterat, neque magni Sidera mundi,

Nec Mare, nec Calum, nec denique Terra, neque Aér,

Nee fimilis nojtris rebus res ulla videri : 436

Sed nova tempeftas quedam, molefque coorta.

Diffugere inde loci partes cepere, parefque

Cum paribus jungi res, &8 difeludere Mundum,

Memoraque dividere, ξϑ magnas difponere parteis 440

Omuigenis ὃ Principiis, difcordia quorum

(a

Lntervalla,

the Hleavens, and the Earth, and the Deeps of
the Sea, and the Courfes of the Sun and Moon ;
or furely the Principles of Things could never
all into fo regular a Difpofition by Counfel or
efien, nor could they by Agreement refolve what
Motions they fhould take among themlelves, But
the Seeds of Things, being from Eternity beaten
pon by outward Blows, or ufed to be driven by
the Force of their own Weight, met every way,
ried all Motions that might at laft, by their unit-
ing, end in the Production of Things; and then

Union, and moved every way about, thofe Seeds
at length met and united, and became the Prin-
kiples of the great Productions that followed, of
the Earth, the Sea, the Heavens, and the whole
Animal Creation.

But as yet there was no Chariot of the Sun to
be feen, driving with his large Stock of Light
through the Sky ; no Sea, no Heavens, no An,
nothing like any Beings of this World of ours, to
be feen ; but a ftrange Confufion, a Mafs of rude
land undigefted Seeds. From this reap the va-
rious Parts retired to their proper Place, and Seeds
of like Nature joined together and formed this
World. Then were its mighty Parts divided,
and difpofed in Order, though produced from this
confufed Mafs, and from Seeds of every kind ;
for the difagreeing Powers of thofe Seeds jo di-

bh

]
i
|

Whole to Matter; from whence proceeded Chaos (a rude
jand indigefted Heap of Particles) which eing driven to and
fro, at leneth came together, like with like ; and thence
larofe the Heaven, the Earth, ὅθε. He obferves, that fo
jlong as the Atoms were jumbled confufedly one among an-
other, neither Earth, nor Heaven, nor Stars, had yet a Be-
jing; but when the chief Parts of the World began to disjoin,
jand get clear from each other, then the Heaven fhone with
|Splendor, the dry Ground appeared, the Waters were gatner-

fed into One, &c,
| L 3 {turbed

having attempted for infinite Time all forts of. |

49

4

150 T Lucretii Ling
| Intervalla, Vias, Connexus, Pondera, Plagas,
Concurfis, Motus turbabat, prelia mifcens,
Propier diffiimileis formas variafque figuras 5
Quod non omnia fic poterant conjuniia manere, 445
Nec motus inter fefe dare convenienteis :

Hoc eft ἃ Terris altum fecernere Calum,
Et feorfum Mare uti fecreto bumore pateret,
Seorfus item puri, fecretique etberis Ignes.

Quippe etenim primum Terrai corpore queque, 4.50
Propterea quod erant gravia, 8 perplexa coibant,

Book V. Of ihe Nature of Things.

fturbed their feveral Courfes, Intervals, Conec-
tions, Weights, Strokes, Unions and Motions,
and kept them fo continually at War, that they
could never all unite, nor agree upon any regular
Motions among themfelves. ‘Thus the Heavens
feparated, and raifed their Bodies on high above
the Earth; and the Sea, with its vaft Extent of
collected Waters, retired apart ; and the pure and
bright Fires of the Sky flew upwards, and divided
from the reft.

ΕΥΥ

Anp firft, t The Particles of the Karth, being ρτυ she
heavy and entangled, met and funk downwards £ar¢s
towards τᾶς 74d.

t It was the Opinion of Epieuras, that the Atoms, being

embroiled and confufed in a Heap together, did by their in-
nate Motion roul and tumble up and down among one another,
till at length all the more denfe Atoms jumbled towards the
Middle, and all the more Rare, being extruded and {queezed
away by the Thicker, flew towards the Circumference: ‘That
of thefe thicker Atoms the Body of the Earth was compacted,
and that it contained within its Bulk fome Seeds of Water,
which had not been able to difentangle themfelves and get
away at the fame time with the others; but that fome of
thofe that had difentangled themfelves, did by reafon of their
various Degrees of Tenuity retire to feveral Diftances ; thus
fome of them ftopt not far from the Mafs of Earth, and made
the Air; that others mounted yet more aloft, and compofed
the Sky; and that the fiery Corpufcles that were extruded
with the reft, cetting clear of all of them, combined into thofe
Bodies that fhine in the Sky, and are called Stars: Laftly,
That the lefler, round, fmooth Corpufcles, were fo deter-
mined, limited, and confined to that Motion towards the
Circumference that was made by Elifion (or, by Expreflion,
from the more denfe Corpufcles) that forafmuch as they went
not out of the Mafs by parallel Ways, they did in the very
Progreffion varioufly encounter one another, and mutually re-
peiled the Violence they received ; which Violence at length
ceafing, thofe that were got fartheft or moft remote from the
Center, became entangled one with another, and mutually
comprefling each other, and holding faft together, did by
that means create a certain Species of the Walls of the World ;
and whatever Corpufcles came to them there, were turned
back und repreffed from them in fuch a manner, that full
new Supplies coming up, the whole etherial or celeftial Re-

L4 gion

r

In medioque imas capiebant omnia fedes :
Que quanto magis inter fe perplexa coibant,

7

T. Lucrevrit Lis. Ve

Tam magis expreffere ea, que Mare, Sidera, Solem,

Lunamque eficerent, &S magni menia Mundi.
Omnia enim magis bec ὃ levibus-atque rotundis
Scminibus, multogue minoribu? funt Elementis,
Quam Tellus: ideo per rara foramina terre

Partibus erumpens primus fe fuftultt AAther

455

Signifer, 95 multos fecum levis abftulit [gneis: 460

Non alia longé ratione, ac fepe videmus,

Aurea cum primum gemmanteis rove per berbas

Matutina rubent radtati lumina Solis,

Eixbalanique Lacus nebulam, Fluviigue perennes :

ipfa quoque interdum Tellus fumare videtur :
Omnia que furfum cum conciliantur in alto,
Corpore concreto fubtexunt nubila Celum:
Sic igitur tum fe levis, ac diffufilis Aither
Corpore concreto circumdatus undique fepfit,
Fit laté diffufus in omneis undique parteis,
Omnia fic avido complexu cetera fepfit.
Hunce exordia funt Solis Luneque fecuta:

465

‘
|

470

Lnter utrofque globi quorum veriuntur in auris :

(2
δ

Boox V. Of the Nature of Things. 153
towards the middle Place of the Mafs; and the

more clofely twined the Parts of it were, the more
they fqueezed out thofe Seeds that compofed the
Bea, the Stars, the Sun; and that formed the
Moon, and the Heavens (the Walls of this great
World): For Thefe confift of Seeds much more 74. Fyy--
fmooth and round, and of much [είς Principles ation of
than the Earth; and therefore the Heavens (the?#e Hea-
Abode of the Stars) firft got free through the fub-7””*
tle Pores of the Earth, and afcended upwards ;
and being light, drew many Seeds of Fire along
with them; much in the fame manner with what
we frequently obferve, when the golden Rays of
the bright Morning Sun ἘΠῚ fhine upon the Grafs
decked with pearly Dew, and the ftanding Lakes
and running Rivers exhale a ΜΠ into the Air,
and the Earth fometimes feems to fmoke. Thefe
Vapours, when they are raifed upwards and united,

ecome Clouds, and with their condenfed Bodies
darken the whole Sky; and fo the hght and
{preading A@ther, being condenied, ftretches wide-.
ly over every Place; and being diffufed on all
Sides abroad, embraces every thing with its large
Circumference, and inclofes it about.

THe Beginnings of the ἃ Sun and Moon follow

next, whole Orbs are rolled in the Air between

gion was aptly made and fabricated by them. This is done
(as Lucretius obferves) in the fame manner as when Vapours
and Exhalations ffeam out of the Earth and Water; and be-
ing carried aloft, are there condenfed and grow into one Body
of Clouds, fo as to make as it were a Ceiling, under which
the Air that remains vifible to us is contained.

u Flaving made the Earth as the Foundation of the World,
and the Sky the Walls of it (as he calls it) he now places the
μαι and Moon, which are of a middle Nature, between the
Sky and the Air (as being compofed of Principles lighter than
thofe of the Air, and heavier than thofe of the Sky) in the
very Confines of the Air and Sky ; where (he tells us) they
are in perpetual Motion, as the Lungs and Heart in Animals,

the

154 T. Lucretm Lis
Que neque Terra fibi adfcivit neque maximus LE ther:
Quod nec tam fuerint gravia, ut depreffa federent : 4.75
Nec levia, ut poffent per fummas labier oras:

ΕἸ tamen inter utrofque tta funt, ut corpora viva

Verfent, && partes ut Mundi totius extent.

Quod genus in nobis quedam licet in ftatione

Membra manere, tamen cum fint ea que moveantur.
iis igitur rebus retraétis, Terra repente, 48%

Maxina, qua nunc fe Ponti placa cerula tendit,

Succidit, &P falfo fuffudit gurgite foffas :

Luque dies quanio circum magis Aitheris eftus,

Ft radu Solis cogebant undique Terram, 4825

4

Verberious crebris extrema ad limina apertam,

fn medio ut propulfa fuo condenfa coiret:

Tain magis expreffis falfzs de corpore Sudor

‘ugebat Mare manando, campofque natanteis :

Lt tanio ‘magis illa foras elapfa volabant 496
Corpora multa Vaporis, & Aéris, altaque Celi
Denfeoant procul a terris fulgentia templa:

Sidevant Campi, crefcebant Montibus altis

Afcenfus : neque enim poteranut fubfidere Saxa,

Nec pariter tantundein omnes fuccumbere Paries. 495
Sic igitur Terre concrete corpore pondus

Conftitit,

-

Boox VY. Of the Nature of Things.

the ther and the Earth, and whofe Principles
would unite neither with thofe of the Earth nor
the Sky; they had not Weight enough to fink
fo low as the one, nor were they fufficiently light
to rife fo high as the other; yet they are fo placed
between both, that they conftantly turn about their
Bodies, and fo become Parts of the whole World.
As in thefe Bodies of Ours, fome Members are
continually at Reft, when others are always in
Motion.

Tuese Things being feparated, * a great Part
of the Earth funk fuddenly, and made a Channel
where the Tides of the Sea now flow, and formed
a Cavern for the falt Waters: And the more the
Heat of the Sky, and the Beams of the Sun, prefled
every way with frequent Strokes upon the Earth,
full of Pores on the Outfide (that fo its Particles,
being driven towards the Middle, might be more
firm and condenfed) the more the fale Water like
Sweat was fqueezed out, and by flowing inlarged
the Surface of the Sea, and fpread wider abroad ;
and the more the many Corpufcles of Fire and
Air difentangled themfelves, and flew off from
the Earth, and formed themfelves above, at a
great Diftance, into the fhining Frame of the
FHleavens. The Valleys fubfided, the Mountains
railed their lofty Hleads; nor could the Rocks
fink down, nor all Parts of the Earth fall equally
low. And thus the Weight of the Earth, with its

x That feculent Mafs that funk together to the Bottom,
being preffed on all Sides by the Beams of the Sun and the
Heat of the Sky, contracted itfelf; thence exhaled the Sea
like Sweat; but the lighter Particles mounting higher, com-
pofed the Elements of Fire and Air ; and fome of the Par-
ticles of this Mafs, being more hard and {tiff than the others,
they did not all fubfide alike ; and hence came the hollow
Places to receive the Sea, and the Channels for the Rivers ;
and hence too the Level of the Plains, and the Turgidnefs of
the Mountains, |

heavy

15)

156

T.LucrEetat fra
Conflitit, atque omnis Mundi quaft Limus in imum
Confluxit gravis, 5 fubfedit funditus, ut Fex.

Inde Mare, inde Aér, inde ASther ignifer ipfe.
Corporibus liguidis funt omnia pura reliffa ; 500
δὲ leviora alis aha: ὃ5 liquidiffimus Azther,

Aique levifimus Aérias fuper influit auras x

Nec liquidum corpus turbantibus Aéris auris
Commifcet : finit hec violentis omnia verti
Turbinibus : finit incertis turbare procellis : 505
Ipfe fuos Ieneis certo fert impete labens.

Nain modicé fluere, atque uno poffe thera nifit,
Significat Ponti Mare, certo quod fluit eftu,

Unum labendi confervans ufque tenorem.

Motibus Afirorum nune que fit caufa, canamus.510
Principio, magnus Cali ft vertitur orbis :

Ex utraque Polum parit premere Aéra nobis
Dicendumfi, extraque tenere, & claudere utringue 5
Jade Alium fupera fluere, atque intendere ecdem,

Book V. ON the Nature of Things: 157

heavy Body, ftood firms; and its whole Mafs,
like thick Mud, fell to the Bottom, and funk the
loweft, as the Dregs of all.

Awp thus were produced the Sea, the Air, and
the ¥ Sky (or the #tber) fpangled with Stars.
All the finer Seeds went to the Formation of thefe
fluid Bodies, but fome were more light than others 9
and the moft light and liquid Ather mounted
higher, and fpread over the Body of the Air ; but
its liquid Parts never mix with the turbulent
Blafts of the Air below it. The airy Region is
tormented by violent Whirlwinds, and difturbed
by uncertain Storms; while the ther calmly
clides, and bears along its Fires in a fixed Courfe;
and that the Atber may flow thus gently, and in
a regular Motion, we have an Inftance in the
Fuxine Sea, that runs with one certain Tide, and
preferves one conftant Stream in the Current of its
Waters.

Now let us fhew from what Caufe proceeds Wy the
2 the Motion of the Stars: And δι, If the whole 97475
Orb of the Heavens be moved, then we muft al-”7"*
low, that the Air bounds and inclofes the outward
Surface of the Heavens, and both the Poles; the
upper Part of this Air preffes above, and drives
the Skies down to the Weft, the Courfe in which

_ ¥Y The refplendent and liquid “ΚΖ δον, having mounted
higher than the inconftant and turbulent Air, is wholly un-
diiturbed by Storms, and rolls in a conftant and like Motion ;
which Motion of the 4+4er is not in the leaft incredible,
fince the Zuxtze Sea does the like, and is continually flowing
into the Propontick, without changing its Courfe.

2 If the whole Orb be moved, then there’ may be two
Airs; one that may prefs from above, and drive it down to
the Weft, and another that may be faid to bear and lift it up
from beneath. If the Orb be without Motion, then fome
rapid Particles of the Sky, ftraggling to get into the empty
Space, and not able to force their way and break through
the ftrong Walls of the World, are whirled about, and drag
the Stars with them, 7c.

the

158

T. RUCREPIt Leg
uo volvenda meant eterm Sidera mundi : 515
Aft Alium fubter, contra quz fubvebat Orbem :
Uz fluvios verfare Kotas, atque Hauftra videmus.

Eft etiam quoque, utt poffit Celum omne manereé
in flatione, tamen ciim lucida figna ferantur :
Sive quod incluf: rapidi funt Attheris eftus, 520
Querentefque viam circumverfantur, δ᾽ Ignes
Paffim per Celi volvunt fe tnmania templa:
Sive aliunde fiuens alicunde extrinfecus Aér
Verfat agens igneis: five Ipfi ferpere poffunt,
Quo cijufque cibus vocat, atque wmvitat eunteis 5 525
Flammea per cwlum pafcenteis corpora paffim.
Nain quid in hoc Mundo fit eorum, ponere certum
Difficile : fed quid poffit, flatque per Orne
Tn variis Mundis varia ratione creatts,

Id doceo: plureifque fequor difponere caisfas 539

| Motibus aftrorum, que poffint effe per Oimue.

E quibus una tamen fit & bec quoque cauja necef[e-ft,
Que vereai motum fignis: fed que fit earum
Precipere, baud quaquam ft pedetentim progredientis,
Terrag; ut in media Mundi rezione quiefcat, 535
Evanefcere paullatim, (8 decrefcere pondus
Convenit : atque aiam naturam Jubter babere
Ex ineunte evo conjunctam, atgue uniter aptam
Partibus Aérus Mundi, quibus infita Π 411.

Propterea

Book V. Of the Nature of Things.
the Stars (the great Lights of the World) are to
move ; the under Part flows below, and lifts up
this Orb from beneath, and makes it rife, as we
fee the Wheels of a Mill, or Buckets, are turned
about by a running Stream.

Or perhaps the whole Body of the Heavens
may remain fixed, and yet the Stars may execute
their Motions ; either becaufe fome rapid Particles
of the Sky are fhut up, and ftrugegling to find a
Way into the empty Space, are whirled about,
and drag the Stars along with them; or fome ex-
ternal Air, rufhing in from fome other Place,
may turn them about; or they may move fe-
verally forward of themfelves through the Sky,
where proper Nourifhment invites them to feed
and keep alive their Fires, But it is hard to re-
folve for certain, what is the particular Caufe of
thefe Motions in this World of ours. I rather
propole Reafons in general for what may be done
through the Univerfe, in the Multitude of Worlds
contained in the Great 4//, and formed after va-
rious Manners ; and I offer many Caufes that may
account for the Whole, yet One only can be the
True One that produced thefe Effects ; but to
pronounce which it is, no wary Philofopher will
take upon him to do.

av

>

9

Bur that the Earth fhould reft in the middle Wy the
Region of the World, it is neceffary that its ##7*

Weight fhould in fome Degree leffen and be laid i ae

afide ; and for this End it was fit that another Sub-
{tance fhould be placed under it, to which from
the very Beginning it fhould be united clofely by
natural and * congeneal Ties, and upon which it

4 Though the Air only is circumfufed around the Earth,
yet becaufe both Air and Earth are bound by natural and
kindred Ties, and from their very Beginning are Parts of
the fame’ Whole, the Earth is no Burden to the Air; but
having in a manner laid afide all its Weight and Compreffion,
It only fticks faft and cleaves naturally to it,

fhould

160

YT. Due ei ἘΠΕῚ
Propterea non eft onert, neque deprimit auras: 540
Et fua cuique Homim nullo funt pondere Membra:
Nec Caput eft oneri Collo, nec denigue totum
Corports in Pedibus pondus fentimus ineffe.

At quecunque foris veniunt impéftaque nobis
Pondera funi, ledunt permulté fepe minora: 545
Ufqueadeo magni refert, cui que adjaceat res.

Sic igitur Tellus non eft aliena repente

| Adilata, alque auris aliunde ovjecta alienis :

Sed pariter prima concepta ab crigine Mundi :

Certaque pars ejus, quafi nobis Membra videtur. 550
Preterea grandi tonitru concuffa repente

Terra, fupra fe que funt, concutit omnia motu :

Quod facere baud ulla poffet ratione, nifi effet

Pariibus aériis mundi, caloque revinéta.

Nam communibus inter fe radicibus herent 5 Sa

Ex ineunte avo conjuntla, atque uniter apta.

Nonne vides etiam, quam magno pondere nobis

Suftineat corpus tenuifima vis dnimai,

Propterea quia tam conjunéta, atque uniter apla fi ὃ

Denique jam faltu pernict tollere Corpus 560

Duis polis eff, nifi vis Anime, que membra gubernai ὃ

Famne vides quantum tenuis natura valere

Poffit, ubi eft conjuntta gravi cum corpore, ut Aer

Conjunctus terris, (9 nobis eft Animi vis ¢

Nec

Book V. Of the Nature of Things.
fhould be ftaid. This Subftance being the fur-
rounding Air, which is a Part of the fame Whole,
and as it were of a Piece with the Earth, the
Earth therefore hangs fufpended in the Middle,
and is no Weight or Preffure to the Air at all;
and fo the Limbs are no Load to the Body of a
Man, nor is the Head a Burden to the Neck, nor
do we perceive the Weight of the whole Body to
prels heavy upon the Peet ; : but whatever Weight
is laid upon us from without, and is no Part of
Us, is a Pain to us, though it be ever fo {mall,
Of fo great Concern it is to what every Being is
feverally united. For the Earth was not brought
from any other Place, and then thruft into ‘the
ftrange Embrace of a different Air, but was
formed together with it, and became a regular
Part of the World; as our Limbs were produced
with the Body, and are effential Parts of it.
Besipes, the Earth, when it is fhaken of a
fudden by a violent Thunder, makes every thing
that is upon it to tremble ; which it could by no
means do, unlefs it was clofely joined to the airy
Parts of the World, and to the Heavens above ;
for they all ftick clofely together by common
Bonds, and kindly unite from the very Beginning.

Don’t you obferve how the moft fubtle Power of

the Soul fupports the Body with ail its Weight,
becaufe it is fo ftrictly conneéted and fo clotely
joined to it? And what-is it but the Force of the
Soul which actuates the Limbs that raifes the
Body, and makes it leap nimbly from the Ground ?
Don’t you perceive now what a Subltance of the
moft fubtle Nature is able to do, when united
with a heavy Body; fuch as the Air when it 15

‘joined Ὁ the Γ᾿ Bal as the Soul to this Body
of ours?

Vou. II, M Bur

(61

162

TT. LUGRETSP ‘Liam
Nec simio Solis major rota, mec minor ardor 565
Effe poteft, noftris quam fenfibus effe videtur.
Nam quibus ὃ fpatiis cunque Iones lumina poffient
Adjicere, &F calidum membris adflare vaporem,

Ila ipfa intervalla nibil de corpore limant
Flammarum, nibilo ad fpeciem ft contraétior Ignis. 540
Proinde calor quoniam Solis, luimengue profufum
Perveniunt noftros ad fenfus, S loca tingunt:
Forma quoque bine Solis debet filumque videri,
Nil adeo ut poffis plus, aut minus addere vere.
Lunaque five notho fertur loca lumine luftrans, 575
Sive fuaim proprio jattat de corpore lucem,
Quicquid id eft, mibilo fertur majore figura,
Quam, noftris oculis quain cernimus, effe videtur.
Nam prius omnia, que lounge remmota tuemur
Aévra per multum fpecie confufa videntur, 5860
Quam minimum filum: quapropter Luna neceffe ft,
Quandoquidem claram fpeciem, certamque figuram
Prebet, ut eft oris extremis cunque notata,
Quanta bec cung; fuat, tanta bine videatur i alta.
Poftremo, quofcungue vides Linc ether is Ignets, 58:
( Quandequidem, giojcunque in terris cernimus igneis,
Pum tremor eff clarus,. dum cernitur ardor eorum)

Perparvum

—

Book V. Of the Nature of Things.

But further; > The Orb of the Sun is not much
Jareer, nor is its Heat much greater, than what
our Senfes difcover to us; for at whatever Di-
fance the Fire can fend out its Rays of Light,
and warm us with its Heat, that Diftance takes
away nothing from the Bignefs of the Flame, nor
does the Fire appear lefs contracted to the Eye.
Mind therefore, fince the Heat of the Sun, and his
diffufed Light, do reach our Senfes, and fhine
Ὥροη the Earth, you are to conclude, that his
Form and Magnitude are no greater nor leis than
they appear to be.

Awnp the Moon, whether fhe views the World
with borrowed Light, or whether fhe fhoots out
her Beams from her own Bedy ; however it be,
fhe is of no greater Size than to our Senie fhe ap-
pears: For all Objects we look upon at a great

Diftance, and through a long Tract of Air, thew
frit irregular and confufed, before we difcover
their utmoft Figure and Proportion. And there-
fore, fince the Moon at once prefents to us the

certain Form, and the complete Appearance of

her whole Orb, fhe fhews to us above as great as

mie really is.

Besrpes, fince all our Fires here below, when

they are feen at a great Diftance, fo long as their
Light is clear, and their Brightnels fhines cut to

> The Magnitude of the Sun, Moon and Stars, is the fame
as it appears tobe: For (fays he) as we retire from any I’ ire,
fo long as we are within fuch a Diftance of it that we can
perceive its Light and Heat, the Fire feems no ieis than it
does when we are near it; but we feel the Heat, and perceive
the Light of the Sun; therefore the Sun is of the fame Mag-
Nitude it feems to be. And then, we diftinétly fee the utmott
Verge and Face of the Moon; yet we fhould fee it but con-
fufedly, if we were fo far off that its Diftance took away any
Of its Magnitude. And, laftly, the Stars are much of the
fame Magnitude they appear ; for even the Fires that we fee
here below, at a Diftance from one another, either by Day
or by Night, prefent to our Eyes the lixe Variety of Sizes.

M 2 us,

16

we

164 . T. Lucretirt Lisy
Perparvum quiddam interdum mutare videntur
Alierutram in partem filum, cum longins abfint, )
Scire licet, perquam pauxillo poffe minores 59¢
Lffe,, vel exigua majores parte, brevigue.

Lilud item non eft mirandum, qua ratione
Tantulus tlle queat tantum Sol mittere lumen,
Quod maria, ac terras omneis celumque rigando
Compleat, &P calido perfundat cunéta vapore. 595
Nam licet bine Mundi patefactum totius unum
Largifluum foutem featere, atque erumpere fluinen
EN omit Μῶν. quo fic Elementa vaporis
OUndique conveniunt, 9 fic conjectus eorum
Confluit, ex uno isin bic ut profluat ardor; ὅρα
Nonne vides etiam, quam laté parvus aquai
Praia riget fons interdum, campifque redundet ὃ

Efi etiam quoque, uti non magno Solis ab igni

Aéra percipiat calidis fervoribus ardor.
Opporiunus ia ft fi forié, & idoneus Aer, 605
Ut queat accendi parvis ardoribus iftus :
Quod genus interdum fegetes flipulamque videmus
Accipere ex una feintilla incendia paffim,
Forfitan 9 rofea Sol alte lampade lucens
Poffideat mulium cecis fervoribus ignem 610
Circum fe, nullo qui fil fulgore notatus,
ZEfiferum ut tantium radiorum exaugeat itlum,

Nec ratio Solis fimplex, nec certa patefcit,

j

Boox V. Of the Nature of Things.

is, do feem to change a little, and fhew more or
lefs contracted ; we may conclude, that the Stars
we view in the Heavens, are very little either
greater or lefs than they appear.

Nor are we to wonder how it comes to pafs,
that fo {mall a Body as the Sun, is able to emit fo
much Light as to fpread over the Seas, the whole
Earth and the Heavens, and to cherifh all Things
with its kindly Heat: For you may imagine,
that from the Sun one large Fountain of Light
breaks out, and flows abundantly, like a River,
ever the whole World; and that the Seeds of
Fire from all Parts of the Univerfe meet in the
Body of the Sun, and are there collected as Irito.
a Spring, from whence the Heat of the whole
World is diffufed abroad. Don’t you oblerve
how widely a fmall Fountain of Water fpreads
its Stream over the Meadows, and overflows the
Fields? .

Or perhaps © the Heat flowing from the {mall
Body of the Sun, may inflame the adjacent Air, if
the Air be properly tempered and difpoted to catch
the Fire from the feeble Strokes of Heat; as we
fometimes fee the Corn and the Stubble to be fet all
in aBlaze from one fmall Spark falling upon its or
it may be the Sun, fhining above with rofy Light,
has many dark and unfeen Stores of Fire about it
which, though diftinguifhed by no cutward Bright-
nefs, may yet increafe the Heat of its Rays, and
make their Strokes the more inflamed.

Nor can ὁ one certain Reafon be affigned, why -

the Sun declines from its Summer Fieight, and
| bends

¢ Perhaps the Air near the Sun is fet on Fire. by its Beams,
and that many fiery Particles, invifibie to us, are hovering
about his Orb; and thence may proceed {6 great a Profutios

of Light and Heat.
ἃ He propofes the Opinion of Democritus, who taught that
the lower Spheres are rolled and whirled around by the higheit
MM 3 Orxb,

16

166

T. Lu or ew ise

Quo ραξίο afiivis ὃ parlibus LE gocerotis
Bruimateis adeat flenus, atque inde revertens 61:
Canceris ut vertat metas fe ad Solftitialeis :
Lunaque menfibus id fpatium videatur obire,
Annua Sol in quo confuimit tempora curfu :
Non, inquam, fimplex bis rebus reddita cauf@ ft.
Nam fieri vel cum primis id poffe videtur, 62
Democriti qued fauéta virt fententia ponit :
Quantd quaque magis fint terram Sidera propter,
Tanto poffe minus cum οἰ turbine ferri.
Fivanefcere enim rapidas ilinus, 595. acreis
lmminut fubter vireis, ideoque relingut 625
Paullatim Solem cum pofterioribu’ Signis,
inferior multo quod fit, quam fervida Sigua:
Hi magis boc Lunam: 9 quantd demiffior ejus
Curfus aveft procul ἃ Calo, terrifgue propinquat,
Tanto poffe minits cum Signis tendere curfum. 630
Haccidiore etiam quanta jam turbine fertur
inferior quam Sol, tanto magis omnia Signa.
Hane adipifcuntur, circum, preterque feruntur.
Propterea fit, ut Hee ad Signum quodque veverti
Mobilis videatur, ad Hanc quia Signa revifunt. 635

fat quoque ut ὃ mundi tranfverfis partibus Aér
cllternis certo fluere alter tempore poffit,

Book V. Of the Nature of 7 hings.

bends his Winter Courfe towards the Tropick. of
Capricorn, and then returning, reaches the Tro-
pick of Cancer, aad makes the Summer Solftices
land that the Moon in every Month finifhes the
fame Courfe through the Twelve Signs, as the
un takes up a whole Year in running through:
[ fay, one certain Reafon cannot be ailigned for
thefe Events; for perhaps the Caufe may be what
he venerable Opinion of that Great Man Demo-
britus has laid down, that the nearer the Stars are
to the Earth, they are carried more flowly about
by the general Motion of the Fieavens. For the
rapid Force and Celerity of the upper Sky, are
much leffened before they reach the inferior Orbs 5
and therefore the Sun, with the lower Signs that
follow it, is in fome meafure left, becaule it is
much lower than the high Region of the Stars:
And the Moon is much lower ftill; and the greater
Diftance from the Heavens fhe obferves in her
Courfe, and the nearer fhe approaches the Earth,
the lefs is fhe capable of keeping Pace with the
Motions of the Signs, and the flower the is in her
Motion than the Sun as fhe moves below him ;
land the Signs may the more eafily overtake her,
jand pafs about and beyond her the oftner: And
therefore the Moon feems the fooner to run through
all the Signs, when in reality the Signs return to her.
Or perhaps © two feveral Airs may at certain
Seafons blow from the oppofite Parts of the World
by

| Orb, called the Primum Mobile, either fwifter or more flow,

according to the Diftance of each Sphere from that higheit
| Orb. Thus the Sun moves fwifter than the Moon, becaufe
| the Sun is higher, and therefore the Signs more feldom over-

| take and pafs by him than they do by her; nor is it then
ftrange, that the Moon runs through all the Signs In one

Month, which the Sun goes through but in twelve.
|e He introduces two feveral Airs waiting on the Sun and
Moon ; by one of which they are fh ved down from Cazcer
7 M 4 to

167

163

T. Lucretir Listy
Sui queat eftivis Sclem detrudere Siguis
Brumaleis ufque ad flexus, gelidumque rigorem :
Et qui rejiciat gelidis ἃ Frigoris umbris 649
LE friferas ufque in parteis, & fervida Signa.

t ratione pari Lunam, Stellafque putandum’ ft,
Que voluunt maznos in magnis orbibus annos,
Aévibus poffe alternis ἃ partibus ire.

Nouue vides etiam diverfis uubila ventis 64
Diverfas ire in parteis, inferna fupernis ὃ
Out minits illa queant per magnos etheris orbeis
Ab fribus inter fe diverfis Sidera ferri ὃ

At now obruit ingents caligine terras,
Aut ubi de longo curfu Sol extima cali 650
Iinpulit, aique fuos efflavit languidus igneis
Concuffos itere, 5 labefatios aére mulio :
fut quia fub terras curfum convertere cogit
Vis cadem, fupera terras qu@ pertulit orbem,

. Tempore uiem certo rofeam Matuta per oras 65
Lsiberis Auroram deferi, & luinina pandit,

Aut quia Sol idem Jub terras ille revertens

on}

. . Anticipat

~Boox V. Of the Nature of Thirgs. 169

᾿ by turns ; the one may drive the Sun down from
the Summer Signs into his Winter Courfe, and
the Extremity of Cold; the other may raife it
from the cold Winter Signs into the Summer Sol-
ftice. And for the fame Reafon the Moon and
the Stars, which fulfil their Periods and Revolu-
tions in their long Courfes, may be forced up-
wards and downwards in the Fleavens, by two
feveral Streams of Air likewife. Don’t you ob-
ferve the Clouds, driven by contrary Winds,
move different Ways, the lower oppofite to thofe
above? What then fhould hinder that the Stars
fhould not be carried on, by contrary Blafts of
Air, through the great Circles of the Sky?

Anp ‘ the Night, we imagine, covers the
Barth with thick Darknefs, either becaufe the Sun
in his long Courfe has reached the Extremity of
the Heavens, and being tired, has blown out his
Fire fcattered by the Swiftnefs of his Motion, and
decayed by the Tract of Air he paffed through ;
or the fame-Force that raifed his Orb, and drove
it round above, compels him to change his Courfe,
and roll beneath the Earth.

Anp ὃ Matuta, the Goddefs of the Morning,
at a fixed Time leads Aurora blufhing through
the Regioiis of the e Sky, and opens the Day, either
becaufe the Sun, returning from under the Earth,

to One icorn, and by the other heaved up again from Capr7-
corm to Cancer, and = at fixed and certain Times: And that
it may not feem incredible, he bids us look on the different
es of Clouds which thé-Winds drive feveral Ways.

f The Night (he faysy fucceeds the Day, either becaufe the
Sun, being fatioued with the Length of his Journey, is ex-
tinguithed ; ; or becaufe he is whirled with the fame Force be-
neath the Earth by Night, as above the Earth by Day.

& The Splendor which we call the Morning, and which be-
fore the Rifing of the Sun adorns the Heavens, is occafioned
becaufe the Sun, returning from Weft to Eaft, pours forth his
Rays before he appears himfelf, or becaufe the Seeds of Fire,
ogy

attempts

1

T. Lucrwetip Dies

Anticipat celum radtis accendere tentans :

Aut quia conveniunt ignes, (8 femina multa

Confiuere ardoris confuerunt tempore certo, 66a

Que faciunt Solis nova femper lumina gigni.

Ouod genus Ideis fama’ft δ montibus altis

Difperfes tenets orienti lumine cernt:

fide coire gicbum quaft in unum, 8 conficere orbem.
Nec tamen illud in bis rebus mirabile debet 665

ΕΠ. quod bec Ignis tam certo tempore poffint

Semina confluere, 5 Solis reparare nitorem.

Multa videimus enim, certo que tempore fiuni

Omnibus in rebus, florefcunt tempore certo .

Arbufia, & certo dimittunt tempore florem. 670

Nec mizits in certo denteis cadere imperat @tas

Tempore, 9 impubem molli pubefcere vefte,

Et pariter mollem malis demittere barbam.

Fulmina poftremo, Nix, fmbres, Nubila, Venti,

Non nimis incertis fiunt in partibus anni, 67%

*Namque ubi fic fuerunt caufarum exordia prima,

Atque uli res mundi cecidere ab origine prime,

Conjequa natura’ ft jam rerum ex ordiné ceri,
Crefcere ttemq; Dies licet, 5 tabefcere Noétets,

Et minui Luces, citm fumant augnuna Novies: 680

Aut

Ἂ
Book Y. Of the Nature of T bings. 17k

attempts to inlighten the World with his Rays,
before he appears himfelf; or becaufe the Seeds of
Fire that were difperfed abroad in his Journey the
Day before, flow together in the Eaftern Sky, and

- illuftrate the Earth with a faint Light, before they
have kindled up anew the Globe a the Sun, This
(they fay) is eafily difcovered from the Top of
Mount κα: where, upon the Rifing of the Sun,
we firft difcover his fcattered Rays, which are
afterwards contracted into one Orb, and make up
one Ball of Light.

Nor are you to wonder that thefe Seeds of Fire
fhould flow together conftantly every Day, and
repair the Splendor of the Sun; for we obferve
many Things in Nature that act regularly, and at
a fixed Time, The Trees look green at a certain
Seafon, and at a certain Seafon caft their Leaves ;
Children at a certain Time fhed their Teeth ;
and the Boy grows ripe at a certain Time, and
fhews the foft Down upon his Cheeks. And laftly,
The Thunder, the Snow, the Rains, the Clouds,

the Winds, are no lefs certain, and fall out in
fixed Seafons of the Year; for the Courfe which
Things obferved from the Beginning of the World,
they perfue the fame, and continue {{Π] to act in
the fame certain Order.

Tue ® Days likewife increafe, and the Nights
grow fhorter; and the Nights increafe, and the

| Days

δ Tt is impoffible in this Place to explain the whole Syftem
of the celeftial Globe. The Meaning of the Words guator,
JEquinox, Tropicks, Zodiack, &c. is to be found in every
Dictionary. It maybe proper only to obferve here, that the
Poet offers three Reafons for the Length and Shortnefs of the
Days and Nights: The firft, becaufe the Sun makes his
Rounds above and below the Earth more {wiftly at fome
Times than at others; and here he defcribes the unequal
Segments of the diurnal and noéturnal Circles in the oblique
Pofition of the Sphere ; 3 but from this Rule he excepts the
Jquator, which in every eens NY is divided from the

Horizon

=

E72

T. Lucrerir Lis.y.
Aut quia Sol idem, fab terras, atgue fuperne,
Imparibus currens anfrattibus etheris oras
Partit: Et it parteis non equas dividit orbem :
kit quod ad alterutra detraxit parte, reponit
Evjus in adverfa tanto plus parte relatus, 685
Donicum ad id figuum celi pervénit, ubt anni
Nodus noéturnas exequat lucibus umbras.
Nam medio curfu flatus Aquilonis, 9 Auftrt,
Diftinet equato celum difcrimine metas,
Propter Signiferi pofituram totius orbis 5 690
Annua Sol in quo contundit tempora ferpens,

Obliquo

" Boox V. Of the Nature of Things.

Days fhorten; either becaufe the Sun, in his
Courfe above and below the Earth, moves ob-
Jiquely in uncqual Lines, and divides the Heavens
into unequal Parts; and what he takes of from
one Part of the Heavens, he adds fo much to the
oppofite Part again, till he arrives at that Sign in
the Heavens, where he cuts the ' Aguinoffial Line,
and makes equal Day and Night; for this Line
is equally diftant from the the two * Tropicks,
which are the Bounds of the Sun’s Motion towards
the North and South; and this is owing to the
Obliquity of the ! Zodiack, through which the

sun

Horizon into two equal Parts. And this is the Reafon that
the Sun, being twice within the Year a in pes Equator,
makes two quinoxes in all Countries what : ‘This is the
true Reafon; for the Inequality of the ier and Nights
proceeds from the oblique Pofition and Site of the Zodiac 5
whence it comes to pafs that they who have a perpetual 4-
quinox, that is, thofe that live under the Aguator, never
‘have the leaft ‘Inequality, but a conftant Equality, of Days
and Nights, becaufe they inhabit under a ftraight and dire&
ponete 3 ; but thofe that live towards either of the Poles, have

their Days and Nights longer or fhorter, according as they
are miore remote ἘΝ the Pole, or nearer advanced to It;
but fuch as live in the moi oblique Sphere, that is, under

ither of the Poles, have fix Months of continual Light, and
by turns as many of continual Night and Darknels.

1This is one of the greateft Circles of the Sphere ; its
Poles are the fame with the Poles of the World, from either
of which it is equally diftant, and divides the celeflial Giobe
gnto the northern end fouthern Hemifcere.

Kk 'The Tropicks of Cazcer and Capricorz are the utmoft
Bounds of the Sun’s Revolution. They are called ‘Tropicks
from the Greek Τροπὴ, which poe Grud. -fion or Turning 3
m-eauie the Sun, when he comes at thole Circles, turns back
again towards the guator, nor ever goes beyond thofe
Bounds, either towards the North or South.

1'Vhe Zodiack is a Circle, or Zone, obliquely paffing from
Eaft to Weit, before the Eguinoétial and Solfitial Points,
ana parted in the midft by the Ecéiptick, which divides it
into two Parts; the one Northern, the other Southern. It
15 faid to be oblique, becaufe it is not an equal Diftance from
each Pole; but being carried crofs the Torrid Zane, it reaches

both

4

«-"

ἍΨ

17

ἯΤΟ eri: Lre: ke

Obliquo terras, 9 celum lumine lufirans :
Ut ratio deciarat Forum, qui loca cel
Omnia difpofitis fignis ornata nolarunt :

Aut quia craffior eft certis in partibus Aer,
Sub terris ideo tremulum jubar befitat iguis,

695

Nec penetrare poteft facile atqute emergere ad ortus.

Propterea noties biberno tempore lounge
Ceffant, dum veniat radiatum infigne diet:
Aut etiam, quia fic aliernis partibus aunt
Tardius €8 citiits cenfiuerunt confluere igues,
Qui faciant Solem certa de furgere parie.
Luna poteft Solis radius percuffa nitere,
Inque dies majus lumen convertere nobis
Ad fpeciem, quantum Solis fecedit ab orbe,
Donicum eum contra pleno bené lumine fulfit,
Aigue oriens obitus eus fiper edita vidit ς

700

“~T
©
Wn.

lide

͵

ἈΝ V. Of the Nature of Things.
Sun finifhes his annual Revolution, and fhines
upon the Earth and the Heavens with an oblique
Light. Such is the Opinion of thofe who have
mark’d out all the Regions of the Heavens, and
adorned them with the twelve Conftellations.

Or it may be, ™ becaufe the Air in fome Parts
Bis thicker; and therefore the trembling Kays
ftick longer in their Paffage under the Earth, and
cannot fo eafily pierce through and difcharg
themfelves, and fo bring on the Day. For this
Reafon the Nights in the Winter continue Icnger,
till the Sun rifes, and icatters the Darknefs wich
his Rays of Light.

Or becaufe, at certain Seafons of the Year,
the Seeds of Light which repair the decayed
Splendor of the Sun, flow together fooner or
later, and fo occafion his Rifing in different Parts
of the Heavens.

Tue Moon ® may fhine with Rays borrowed
from the Sun, and appear to us every Day with
Greater Light, as fhe retires further from the Sun’s
Orb; till being directly oppofite to him, the
fhines out with full Beams, and climbing up the
Faft, views him from above fetting in the Weft ;

both the Tropicks, and divides the Circle of the “quater.
In the firft Degree of Cazcer it touches the North ‘Lropick,
which is thence called the Tropick of Cancer. It touches the
South ες in the firft Degree of Capricorn, whence that
Tropick has the Name of the Tropick of Capricorn. When
the Sun comes to the Tropick of Cancer, about the Tenth
of Fune, then is our Height of Summer, or Summer Solftice 5
when about ihe Tenth of December he reaches the Tropick of
Capricorn, then is our Depth of Winter, or the Winter Solftice.

m ‘Thefe two Reafons are tr ifling.

mit tie Vioon receive her Ligh it from the Sun, if fhe bea
globous Body, and, laftly, if fhe make her Rounds below
the Sun, then they explain aright her various and manifold
Phafes, who fay, that the Moon changes her Face according
to fle different Light fhe receives from the Sun, as fhe ap-
proaches nearer to him, or retires farther from him.

and

176

Ἵμ LO ΟΕ Lis. Val
Inde minutalim retro quafi condere lumen :
Debet item, quanto propius jam Solis ad ignem
Labitur ex alia Signorum parte per orbem : σι
Ut faciunt, Lunam qui fingunt effe pilaz
Confimilem, curfufque viam (ὦ Sole tenere:
Propterea fit uti videantur dicere verum.

Eft etiam quoque uti proprio cum lumine polfit
Volvier, 9 varias frlendoris reddere formas. 715
Corpits enim licet effe aliud, quod fertur, {9 una
Labitur ommimodis occurfais officienfque,
vec potis eff cernt, gia calfuim lumine fertur.

Verfarique pote, gledus ut, fi forte, pilai
Dimidia exw parti candents imine tindtus: 20
Verfandoque globum varianteis edere formas,
Donicum eam partem, quectng; eff tembus audta,

id fpeciem vertit nobis, eculofque patenteis :
inde minutatim retro contorquet, 9 aufert

Luciferam parlem glomeraminis, atque pilat: 725

Ut Babylonica Chaldetin dottrina refutans = ,° Ὁ
Aftrolozorum arlem contra convincere tendit : -
Proinde quafi fieri nequeat quod pugnat uterque,

fut minits boe illo fit cur amplettier aufiss

Denique,

00K V. Of the Nature of Things.

and then fhe goes ° backwards as it were, and
hides her Light gradually, as fhe paffes through
the different Signs i in her nearer Approaches to the
Bun. Thus They explain her Phafes, who con-
clude her round like 2a Ball, and that fhe moves
below the Sun; and they feem to be right in their
Opinion, and {peak the Truth.

177

But ? the Moon, poffibly, may fteer her Courfe The Phafes
by her own Light, and fhew diferent Phafes and of the

Forms of Brightnefs ; for another Body may move
below her, and attending all her Motions, may
interpofe and hinder her Light from being feen ;
but this Body, being thick and dark, cannot be
difcovered by teste,

AND perhaps 1 the Moon may roll round her
Axis like a Ball, whofe one Half only ts bright,
This Ball, as it moves round its Center, Ar =
prefs the different Appearances of Light, till it
turns the whole bright Side to us, and fhines full
upon the open Eye 9 and then by degrees it turns
backward, and takes away its bright Side as it rolls,
and we fee no more of it. ‘This was the Doétrine
of the Chaldeans, who followed the Hypothefis of
Berofits, and attempted to overthrow the vulgar
Aftrology of the Greeks; as if the Schemes of
both could not be true, or you had lefs Reafon to
embrace the one than the other.

° When the Moon is at Full, fhe goes as it were backwards
under the Earth towards the Sun, and comes up to him;
Whence it is that fhe decreafes by degrees, Ὁ being i in Con-
junction with him, the become invifible to us.

P If the Moon fhines with unborrowed Light, then we muft
Imagine that another Body, which is opacous and totally dark,
always moves with the Moon, and obftrects and turns z aAWay
her Beams.

4 Fe propofes the Opinion cf thofe, who held one Half of
the Mcon’s Orb to be light, the other Haif dark. If this
Opinion (fays he) be true, imagine {uch an Orb to be turned
round on its 4xr/e, and it ‘will prefent the diferent Phafes we
behoid in the Moon,

wor, II. N LaAstice

OOK.

ὃ

T. Τὺ] ΒΈΠΕΝ ΜΡ

Denique, cur nequeat femper nova Luna creart 730

LY

Ordine formarum certo, certifque figuris :
Inque dies privos abolefcere queque creata,
Atque alia illius reparari in parte, leccque,
Difficile ft ratione docere, &F vincere verbis :
Ordine cium videas tam certo multa creart, 7258
lt Ver, 9 Venus, 9 Veneris prenuntius anté
Pinnatus graditur Zephyrus veftigia propter :
flora quibus mater prefpergens ante viai
Cuntta coloribus egregtis, 9 odoribus opplet.
Inde loci fequitur Calor aridus, €P comes una, 740
Pulverulenta Ceres, & Etefia flabra Aquilonum,
Inde Auiumnus adit: Graditur fimul Euius Euan :
Inde αἰῶ tempeftaies, ventique fequuntur,
Aliitonans Vulturnus, <9 Aufter fulmmine pollens :
Tandem Bruma niveis adfert, pigrumque rigorem 74.5
Reddit, Hyems Jequitur, crepitans ac dentibus Algus.
Oud minis ef mir um, ft certo tempore Luna
Gignitur, €&8 cerio deletur tempore rurfis :
Cum peri poffint tam certo tempore muita,

Solts item quoque defettus, Lung; latebras, 7.50
Pluribus é caujfis fieri tibi poffe putandum "ft.

Nam

Book. V. Of the Nature of T bings.

Lastiy, Why may not a Moon be created
new every Day, and be diftinguifhed by regular
Phafes, and certain Forms of Light? and this
new Orb die, and be fucceeded the next Day by
another, that fhould fupply its Place in the fame
Part and Quarter of the Heavens? It is difficule
to αἴσῃ a Reafon, and to prove the contrary,
efpecially fince we obferve fo many Things are
formed, and fucceed one another in a regular Or-
der. And firft the Spring begins, and Venus
enters, with her Harbingers (the winged Zephyrs)
marching by her Side ; then Mother Flora {preads
the Way before with Flowers of richeft Dye,
and fills the Air with fweeteft Odours; and next
advance the feorching Summer, and her Compa-
nion the Dufty Harveit, and the Eve/an Blafts of
Northern Winds ; and then comes Autumn, and
jolly Bacchus fteps along; now follow rufiling
Storms and boifterous Winds, the roaring South-
Fatt, and the fultry South full fraught with Thun-
der; at laft the Cold brings on the Snow and chill-
ing Froft, and then creeps Winter, all benumb’d,
and chattering with his Teeth. Itis the Jefs Won-
der then, that the Moon fhould be formed anew at
certain Times, and at fixed Seafons again expire,
fince fo many Things are {fo regularly produced,
and fucceed one another.

i’

fy

Tue * Eclipfes of the Sun and Moon may pro- Echpfesa

ceed, you may fuppofe, from many Caufes 5» for

t'The Sun (he fays) is eclipfed when the Moon, or any
opacous Body below his Glebe, interpofes between that and
the Earth, and thus intercepts his Beams, and hinders thoie
Rays of Light from coming forward to the Earth. ‘he loon
15 eclipfed when the happens to be in the Shadow of the Harta,
Or any other opacous Body that is interpofed between her Orb
and the Sun. Befides, why may not the Sun and Moon grow
faint and ficken, nay, as it were fall iato a Swoon, when they
chance to go through any Places of the Heavens that are in-
feftions to them, and deftructive of their Fires and Light?

N 2 why

480

-

---- |

T. ΓΟ ΒΈΤΕΝ Lie.

Nam cur Luna queat Terram fecludere Solis
Lumine, & a terris altum caput obftruere οἴ),
Objiciens cecum vadits ardentibus orbem :
Tempore codent aliud facere id non poffe putetur 755
Corpus, quod caffum labatur lumine femper ὃ

Solque fuos etiam dimittere languidus igneis

Lempore cur certo nequeat, recreareque lumen,
Cum loca preterit flaminis infefta per auras:

Que faciunt igneis interftingui atque perire? 760
iit cur Terra queat Lunam fpoliare viciffim
Lumine, & oppreffum Solem fuper ipfa tenerc,
Menfirua dum rigidas Coni perlabitur umbras:
Tempore coaem aliud nequeat fuccurrere Lune ;
Corpus, vel fupera Solis perlabier orbem, 705
Quod radios interrumpat, lumenque profufum 3

it tamen ipfa fuo fi fulgit Luna nitore,

Cur negueat certa mundi languefcere parte,

Dum loca luminibus proprits inimica pererrat ὃ

Quod fupercft, quoniam magni per cerula Mundi |
Sua fleri quicquid poffet ratione, refolvi: 771
Solis uli varios cuvfus, Luneque meatus
Nofcere poffemus, que vis, 5 caufa cieret : (

uove modo foleant offecto lumine obire,

ft nec opinanters tenebris obducere terras: - "78

Chim πα} connivent, (9 aperto lumine rurfum

Omnia convifunt clara loca candida luce.

Nunc redeo ad Mundi novitaiem, €5 mollia terre

virva, novo fetu quid primum i luminis oras

Tellere, iacertis tentdrit credere ventis. 780
Principio, genus Herbarum, viridemque nitorem

Terra dedit circum colleis ; campofque per cinneis

iiariaa fullerunt viridantt prata celore:

L“rvori-

Ἢ Ε ΓΙ and as fhe fhines pnb ΠΝ her
Body to him, and {top his burning Rays by thruft-
ing her dark Orb between ; and not another Body,
Wholly dark, be thought to interpofe at fuch a
Time, and produce the fame Effet? And why
may not the Sun grow faint, and deaden his Light
vat a certain Time, and renew it again when he has
pated certain Regions of the Air, that are Ene-
Ini to his Beams, and deftroy and extinguifh his
Fires? And then again, while the Moon in her
monthly Courie eg by the rigid Shadow of the
Ε΄ τὶ, which is of a Conic Figure, ie fhould
the tarth rob the Moon of Light, and being above
the Sun, hold his Rays fhut in; and why may not
another Body αἵ the fame Time move below the
mo": and pafs above the Body of the Sun, that
‘may intercept his Rays, and ftop his fprea ading
‘Fires? And yet, if the Moon be allowed to fhine
with her own Beams, why may not her Brightnefs
ΟΝ ay in certain Parts of the World, as fhe pafies
through Places that are Enemies to her Light ?
_ Awnp now, fince I have explained from what
Cauies proceed the Motions of all the celeftial Bo-
dies, ne given you a Rule to know what Force,
what Power, drives on the various Courfes of the
Sun, and the Wandrings of the Moon; in what
manner their feveral Rays are intercepted, and the
Karth is covered over with furprifing Darknefs,
as if they wink’d; and how again they fpread open
their Beams, and vifit the World with fhining
Light: I now return to the new-form’d Earth,
and her tender Soil, to find what kind of Beings
fhe firft raifed into Light, what Offspring the firit
ventured to commit to the faithlefs Winds.

Anop firft the Earth produced the Herbs, Herds ff
and fpread 2 gay Verdure over all the Hills, and 2)οάμερα.

the gaudy Fields fhone all around with Green ;
ἘΠῚ and

1 ὃ

γαψά

182

T. LUC EYRE ΤῸ
Arboribulque datum’ ft variis exinde per auras
Crefcendi magnum immiffis certamen babenis. 4785
Ut Pluma atque Pilt primum Setaque creantur
Quadrupedum in membris, & corpore pennipotentum:
Sic nova tum Tellus herbas virgultaque primum
Suftulit : inde loci Mortalia fecla creavit
Multa modis multis varia ratione coorta, 790
Nam neque de Calo cecidiffe Animalia poffunt, “
Nee terreftria de falfis exiffe lacuiis.

Linquitur ut merited maternum nomen adepta

Terra fit, ὃ terra quoniam funt cuntta creata.

Multaque nunc etiam exiiunt animalia Terris, 795

Imbribus, €8 calido Solis concreta vapore.

Quod minus eft mirum, fi tum funt plura coorta,

ΕἸ majora novaTellure, atque “Ethere adulto,
Principio, genus Alituum, varieque Volucres

Ova relinquebant exclufe tempore verno: 800

Folliculos ut nune teretes αἰ αἰ Cicade

Linquunt, [ponte fua vittum, vitamque petentes.

Tum tibi Terra dedit primum Mortalia feecla :

Multus enim Calor, atque Humor fuperabat in arvis.

Flinc ubi queque loci regio opporiuna dabatur, 805

Crefcebant Uteri terre radicibus apti 9

Quos ubi tempore maturo patefecerat atas

Tnfe 117

Boox V. Of ibe Nature of Things.

and Nature gave the feveral Trees a Power to Then
raife theméelves, and grow up with their fpread- 77ees.

ing Branches into the Air. As Feathers, and
Hair, and Briftles, were at firft produced from
the Limbs of Beafts and the Bodies of Birds, fo
the new Earth firft bore the Herbs and the Trees
and then fhe formed the many kinds of living
Creatures, for various Ends, and after a different
Manner: For the Race of Animals did net origi-
nally fall down from the Skies, nor could terreftrial
Beings rife out of the fale Sea : and therefore we
fay that the Earth juftly obtained the Name of M-_
ther, becaufe out of Her all Things were formed.
Even now many Animals rife ont the Earth,
and are produced by Moitlure and the Heat of the
Sun; and therefore the VVonder is the leis, that
many more fhould have been created in the Bzgin-
ning of the World, and of a large Γ oiZe, wien
the Earth was frefh as a young Bride, and her
Hufband 4ther in the Fiower of his Age.

Or all the Animal Creation, the feather’d Kind, Bia she
and various Breed of Birds, firft broke through He firft Ani-
Prifon of the Ege in Time of Spring ; as Grathop- ae

pers in the Summer now buartft their curlous little
Bags, and of themfelves know how to feck their
Food and preferve Life. And the * Karth next pro-

duced the Race of Men and Beafts, for then there TheOviein
was abundance of vital Heat and Moifture in the οὐ Man.

Soil; and where the Place was proper, a fort of
Wombs grew up, fixed and fticking in the Earth
by their Roots. Thefe the Infants 1 ripe for Birth

> After Birds were hatch’d from Eggs in the Spring, then
other Animals and Men burit forth from certain little Bags or
Bladders, which he calls Wombs, that ftuck to the Earth.
For their Nourifhment, a proper Liquor, like Milk, flowed
from the Veins of Picther Earth ito their infant Meehan ;
for the Earth, it feems, when fhe brought forth her Young,
had Milk in thofe Days, no iefs than Women now, when

they bring forth Children.
N 4 broke

T. ΤΟ ΟΝ ΕΝ ΟΝ
Infanium fugicns bumorem, aurafque petiffens,
Convertebat ibi Natura foramina terre,

Et fuccum venis cogebat fundere apertis S10 4
Cenfimilem Lattis: ficut nunc Femina queque (
Cam peperit, dulci repletur Laéie, quod omnis :

Tinpetus in mammas convertitur ille alimenti.

Terra cibum Pueris, veftem Vapor, Herba cubile

Prebebat multa molli lanugine abundans. 815
At novitas Mundi nec frigora dura ciebat,

Nec nimios @ftus, nec magnis viribus auras.

Omnia enim pariter crefeunt, € robora fumunt.

Qyare etiam atque etiam maternum nomen adepta

Terra tenet merito, quoniam genus ipfa creavit 620

Humanuin, atque Animal prope certo tempore fudit

Omne, quod in magiis bacchatur montibw paffim,

Aéviafque fimul Volucrets variantibw formis.

Sed quia finem aliquam pariendi debet babere,
Defirtit, ut Muler fpatio defeffa vetufto, 825
Mutat enins mundi naturaim totius etas,

Ἐχ aliogue alius flatus excipere omnia debet,

Nec manet ulla fui fimilis res: om#ia migrant,
Omnia commutat Natura, 9 vertere cogit.

Namque aliud putrefcit, 85 evo debile languet: 830
Porro alizd concrefiit, & δ contemtibus exit.

Ste igitur Mundi naturam totius atas

Mutat, ex alioLerram ftatus excipit alter,
Quod potuit, nequeat: poffit, quod non tulit ante.

Multaque tum Tellus etiam portenta creare 835
Couaiaft, mira facie, membrifque coorta ;

( Andro-

Book V. OF the Nature of T hings.

broke through; they left their moift Inclofure,
and fprung out into the Air. In thofe Places
Nature prepared the Pores of the Earth, and
forced her to pour from her open Veins a Liguer
like Milk 5 as a Woman after Delivery is ful] of
{weet Milk, becaufe the principal Juices of her
Food fly into her Breafts. ‘The Earth gives Nou-
rifhment to the Infant, the Warmth of the Sun is
inftead of Clothes, and the Grats abounding with
Plenty of foft Down affords the Bed.

But this new World produced no chilling
Cold, nor too much Heat, nor Force of rufhing
Winds; for Things increafed and grew violent
by degrees: And therefore, by the ftricteft Laws
of Juttice, does the Earth claim the Name of
Mother, becaufe in this Manner, for fome Time,
fhe herfelf produced Mankind, and formed every
favace Beaft that wildly roars upon the Mountain

Tops, and the great Variety of Birds, ciltinguithed
by the Beauty of their Feathers.

Awp that the Earth. might have fome Relcafe,
and not be always in Labour, fhe at length [είς
off, asa Woman worn out and es her Prime ;
for Time changes the Nature of the whole World;
one Body continually rifes from another ; no Being
remains long like itielf; Things are in a perpetual
Flux; Nature changes and forces every thing
about; one Thing decays and grows weak by
Time, another Ἐν τς vigorous and fourifhes in
its Streneth. Thus: Time alters the Face of the
whole World; and the Earth paffts from one
State to another. She can no more produce the
Creatures fhe once did, and now fhe bears what
fhe could not do before.

Tue Earth, it may be fuppofed, was at firft
delivered of many monftrous Births, of a wonder-
ful Shape, and of an uncommon Size (and fome

between

186

T. LucR EPI Linea

ἡ Androzynum iter ulium, tec UITUIMNGUE és utringue
remotum ) .
Orba pedum partim, manuum viduata viciffim,
Multa fine ore etiam, fine voltu ceca reperta,
Vinctaque membroruim per totum corpus adbefu: 840
Nec facere ut poffent quicquam nec cedere quoquam,
Nec vitare malum, nec fumere quod foret ufus.
Cetera de genere boc monfira, ac portenta creabat:
Nequicquamn: quoniam Natura abfterruit auctum :
Nec potuere cupitum e@talis tangere florem, S45
Nee reperire cibum, nec jungi per Vencris ves,
Multa videmus enum rebus concurrere debere,
Ut propazando poffint producere fecla,
Pabula primitm ut fint, genitaha deinde per artus
Semina qua poffint membris manare remifis: 850
Feminague ut maribis conjungt pofit, babendum
Mutua queis nectant miter fe gaudia, utrifque.
Multaque tum interuffe Mumantum fecla neceffe’ft.
Nec potuiffe propagando procudere prolem.
Nam quecungue vides vefer vitalibus auris, 855
Aut Dolus, aut Virtus, aut denique Mobilitas eft
Ex ineunte @vo genus id tutata refervans.
Multaque funt, nobis ex Utilitate fua que
Commendata manent tutele tradita noftre,
Principio, genus acre Leonum, fevaque fecla 860
Tutata ft Virtus, Vulpeis Dolus, Fuga Cervos.
At levifomna Canum fido cum pettore corda,
Et genus omne, quod eft Veterino femine partum,
Lanizereque fimul pecudes, 8 Bucera fecla,
Omnia funt Hominum tutele tradita, Memmi. 865
Nam cupide fugere Feras, pacemque fecute
Sunt, larga fuo fine pabula parta labore :

Que

“et?

é

“Book V. Of the Nature of Things. 187

between the two Sexes, not properly of both, yet T4e Zarth

not far removed from either) fome without Feet, ἴῶν αἱ
ἢ O72 ft 7 S

and others without Hands; many without a Mouth
and tyes; fome had their Limbs growing and
{ticking together over all their Bodies, that the
could do no Office of Life, ner move from their
Place, nor fly what was hurtful, nor receive Food
to preferve their Beings. Many other Monfters,
and itrange Productions of this kind, were at rt
formed; but in vain! For Nature was fhock’d,
and would not fuffer thern to increafe ; they could:
not arrive to any Maturity of Age, nor could they
find their Food, nor tafte the Pleafures of Love ;
for many Circumftances, we obferve, muft kindly
agree, that Creatures might be able to propagate
their Kind. Firft of all there mutt be proper Foed,
and then fit Organs for the genial Seed to flaw
through from all the Limbs ; ; and that the Male
and Female may be clofely joined, they muft be
furnifhed with thofe Parts that may promote i the
mutual Delights of both.

Anp therefore many kind of Animals muft
needs be extinct, nor could they all by Propaga-
tion continue their Species ; for almoft every Race
of Creatures we now ifee living, either their Cun-
ning, or their Courage, or their Swiftnels, have
fecured and preferved them from the very Begin-
ning, And there are many that, from their Ule-
fulnefs to Mankind, have recommended them-
felves to our Defence. And firft, the fierce Breed
of Lions, and their favage Race, their Courage

_ have protected ; Craft fecures the Fox, and Switt-
nefs the Stag. But the watchful and faithful Race
of Dogs, all Beafts of Burden, the Flocks and
Herds, all Theie, my Memmius, are committed to
the Care of Man. Thele fly fwiftly from the Rag
of wild Beafts ; they love a quiet Life; and icp
upon us for their Fill of Provifion, without any

Labour

T. LUCRE Tim ra

Que damus Utilitatis eorum premia caufa.

At, queis nil borum tribuit Natura, nec ipfa

Sponte fua poffent ut vivere, nec dare nobis 870

Utilitatem aliquam, quare pateremur eorum

Prefidio nofire pafci genus, effeque tuinm ?

Scilicet bec alts prede, lucrogue jacebani

Lndupedita fins fatalibus omuia vinclis,

Donicum ad interitum genus id natura redegit. 875
Sed neque Centauri fuerunt, neque tempore in ullo

Effe gueat duplici natura, €8 corpore bino

Ex alienigenis membris compaéta poteftas,

Hine illine par vis ut non fic effe potis fit.

14 tice: bine quaimvis bebeti cognofcere corde. 880
Principio, circum tribus ais impiger anwis

Foret Equus, Puer baudquaquam : quin fepe.etiam num
Ubera mammarum in fomnis lactantia queru.

Poft ubi Eguum " valide vires étate fenecta,
Membraque deficiunt fugienti languida vita: 885
Tum demum Pueris evo florente juventas

Occipit, (S moll veftit laxugine malas :

Ne forte ex Homine, & Veterino femine equorum
Confiert credas Centauros poffe, nec effe:

Aus rapiais canibus fuccinttas femimarinis S90
Corporibus Scyllas, (9 cetera de genere borum,
inter fe quorum difcordia membra videmus :

Que neque florefcunt pariter, neque rebora fumunt
Corporibus, neque propiciunt etate fenecia:

Nec fimilt Venere ardefcunt, nec moribus unis 895
Conveniunt, nec funt eadem jucunda per artus.
Quippe videre licet pinguefcere fepe Cicuta
Earbigeras pecuades, Homini que ?ft acre Venenum.
lamina

Book V. Of the Nature of Thugs.
Labour of their own, which we allow them plen-
tifully, as a Reward for the Benefits we receive
from them. But thofe Creatures on whom Na-
‘ture has beftowed no fuch Qualities, that cannot
fupport themfelves, nor afiord us any Advantage,
why fhould we fuffer fuch a Race to be fed by our
Care, or defended by our Protection? Thefe, by
the enhappy Laws of their Nature being deftitute
of all Things, became an eafy Prey to others, ull
their whole : Species was at laft deftroyed.

reo

BuT never have there been any fuch Things as No Cen-
Centaurs ; nor could a Creature at any aime be 7@4rs nor

formed from a doubtful Nature. from two Bodies,
and out of Members fo different and difagreeable.
The Limbs and Faculties of a Man and Horfe, couid
never act uniformly together, with all their Power ;
and this is obvious to a very mean Apprehenfion :
For a Horie at three Years old is ftrong and actives
a Child is far from being fo, at that Age he 15 com-
monly feeling for the Mother’s Breaft in his Sleep 5
and when the Horfe’s Strength decays by old Age,
and his feeble Limbs fail him at the End of ite,

then the Boy flourifhes in the Prime of Youth,
and the Beginnings of a Beard ‘pees upon his
Cheeks. Never think therefore, that there is or
ever can be fuch a Creature as a Centaur, made
up of a human Nature, and the fervile Seed of a
Horfe; or that there are any fuch Things as
Scylla’s, having their Loins furrounded with the
ravenous Bodies of half Sea-Dogs. Believe no-
thing of other Monfters like thete, whole Mem-
ers we obferve fo oppofite and difagreeing; which
neither live to the fame Age, nor yvrow firong or
decay together 3; which neither are inflamed with
mine dame fort of Love, nor have the fame Difpo-
fitions, nor preferve their Bodies by the fame
Food; for Goats, we fee, often grow fat with riem-
lock, which to Men is fharp Poilon. And fince
δ

bima-

t Sa

$90

T. LucRE@IF Line

Flamma quidem vero cum corpora fulva leonum
Tain foleat torrere, atque urere, quam genus ome GOO
Vifceris, in terris quodcunque & fanguinis extet
Qui fieri potuit, triplici cum corpore ut una
Prima Leo, poftrema Draco, media ipfa Chimera
Ore foras acrem efflaret de corpore flammam §

Quare etiam Tellure nova, Celoque recenti 905
Tia qui fingit potuiffe animalia gigni,

lixus in boc uno novitatis nomine inant 3

Lulta licet fimili ratioue effutiat ore:
Aurea tum dicat per terras Humina volgo
Eluxiffe, <F Gemmis florere Arbufia fuéffe: 916
Aut Eominem tanto membrorum effe impete natum,
Trans maria alia pedum nifus ut ponere poffet s
ΕἸ manibus totum circum fe vertere celum.
Nam quod multa fuere in terris femina rerum,
Tempore quo primum Tellus Animalia fudit: 915
Nil tamen eft figni, miftas potuiffe creari
Inter fe pecudes, compactague membra animantum :
Propterea quia que de terris nunc quoque abundant
Herbarum genera, ac bruges, Arbufiaque lata,
Non tamen inter fe poffint complexa creari. 920
Res fic queque fuo ritu procedit: &P omues
Federe nature certo difcrimina fervant.

Et genus bumanum multo fuit illud in arvis
Durins, ut decuit, Tellus quod dura credffet :
Et majoribus &8 folidis magis cdfibus tis 924
Fundatum, 8 vandis aptum per vifcera nervis ;
Nec facile ex efiu, nec frigore qucd caperetur :
Nec novitate cibi nec labi corporis ulla,
Miullague per celum Solis volventia lufira
Volgivago vilam traflabant more ferarum. 930
Nee robuflus erat curvi Moderator ἀγα ΤΊ

Quryquam

ox V. Of the Nature of Things. 191

Fire will ouch ‘and burn the yellow Body of a
Lion, as well as the Bowels of any other Creature
living with Blood in its Veins, how could a Cér-
Sera, with his Body of three Kinds, with a Lion’s
Head, a Dragon’s Tail, and the Middle like a
Goat, blow abroad a fierce Flame out of his Body?

Anp therefore Thofe who pretend that. this
new Earth and vigorous “ther could produce fuch
Creatures as Thefe, and fupport their Fictions
only upon the empty Argument of their being
New, may with the fame Reafon put upon Us
with other Fables; they may as well tell us that
golden Rivers flow through the Earth, that Trees
bloffom with Diamonds, that Men were made with
fuch mighty Strength and Bulk of Limbs, that they
could ftride with theirFeet over wide Seas, and whirl
about the Body of the Heavens with their Hands ;
for though there were many Seeds of Things in
the Womb of the Earth, when fhe firft began the
Production of living Creatures, this is no Rule
that Animals could be formed of a mixed Nature,
and compounded of different Bodies. The various
Products of the Earth, which are in great Abun-
dance, the Herbs, the Fruits and pleafant Trees,
never blended in fuch Confufion together; every,
thing proceeds in its own proper Order, and pre-
ferves its diftinét Kind by i eftablifhed Laws of
Nature.

Anon the firft Race of Men were much hardier The Szate
upon the Earth, as°cwas fit they fhould, for the hard & Maze.
Earth bore them. They were built within upon
larger and mre folid Bones, and their Limbs were
ftrained with ftronger Nerves; nor did they eafily
feel the Inclemency of Heat or Cold, or were af-
fected with the Strangenefs of their Food, or any
Weaknefs of Body. They led a long Life of many
rolling Years, and wander’d about like wild
Beafts. There was no. lufty Hufbandman to guide

the

~

ΟΣ

T. ἘΞΕΒΕΝ Ε Ὁ

Diuifquam, nec fribat ferro molirier arva 3
Nec nova defodere iu terram virgulta, nec altis
Arboribus veteres decidere falcibu’ raimos.
Quod Sol, aique Imbres dederant, quod Terra credrat”
Sponte fua, fatistd placabat pectora donum, 926
Glandiferas inter curabant corpora quercus
Plerumque, S qua. nunc biberuo tempore cernis
Arbuta Peniceo ΠΟΙ matura ceolere,
Plurima tum Tellus etiam majora ferebat : 940
Muitaque preterea novitas tum florida mundi
Pabula dia tulit, miferis mortalibus ampla.

At fedare fitim Fluvii Fontefque vocabant :
Ut nunc montibus ὃ magnis aecurfus aquat
Claricitat laté fittentia fecla Ferarum. 945
Demque nociivagi filvefiria templa tenebant
Nympharum, guibus exibant bumore fluenta
Lubrica, proluvie larga lavere bumida faxa,
FHumida faxa fuper viridi ftillantia mufco :
Lt parti plano featere atque erumpere campo. 950

Necdum res feni feibant tractare, nec uti
Pellibus, &F Spoltis corpus veftire ferarum :
Sed Nemora, aique cavos Monteis, Sylvafque colevant,
Et frutices inter condebant fqualida membra, |
Verbera ventorum vitare tinbreifque coacit. 955
Nec commune bonum poterant fpectare, nee ullis ©
Moribus inter fe feibant, nec legibus uti,
Quod cuique obtulerat prede fortuna, ferebat,
Spoute fua fibi quifque valere S wvivere accius,
ΕἸ Venus in frlvis jungebat corpora amantum. 960
Conciliabat enim vel mutua quamque cupido, _
Vel violenta Vire vis, algue impenfa libido:

,

Ved

Book V. Of the Nature of Things. 193
the Plough, or that knew how to cultivate the
Fields ; none to plant young Stocks in the Ground,
or with Pruning-Hooks to lop the old Branches
from the high Trees. What the Sun, the Rain,
and the Earth voluntarily produced, that Bounty
fatisfied their grateful Hearts. They commonly
refrefhed their Bodies with Acorns among the
Oaks, and with thofe wild Apples which you fee
ripen in Winter, of a red Colour, which the Earth
then bore in Abundance, and of a larger Size.
Many other excellent Fruits the new Earth, frefh
and in her Prime, produced in great Plenty for

her wretched Offspring.

But the Rivers and the Springs invited them
to cool their Thirft, as the Fall of Waters from
the high Hulls call now upon the thirfty Race of
Beaits ; and wandering in the Night, they refted
in hollow Caves, the Sylvan Temples of the
Nymphs; whence flowed a running Stream, that
wafhed the flippery Stones with its large Current ;
among the flippery Stones, cover’d with mofiy
Green, it found its Way, and fome of its little
Tide broke out and fpread into the Plain below.

As yet they knew nothing of Fire to drefs their
Food, nor the Ufe of Skins, or how to cover
their Bodies with the Spoils of Beafts ; but inha-
bited the Groves, the hollow Mountains and the
Woods, and hid their naked Bodies among the
Shrubs ; this they did to avoid the Rains and the
Blafts of Wind. They had no Regard to the
common Good ; they had no Order among them,
or the Ufe of Laws; every Man feized for his
own what Fortune gave into his Power; every
one confulted his own Safety, and took care of
himfelf. Their Amours were confummated in
the Woods; either the Ladies were urged on by
mutual Heat, or they were overcome by the fu-
perior Force and raging Fire of their Gailants, or

woL..il ° O were

194

T. LUCRETM “Lipa

Vel pretium, Glandes, atque Arbuta, vel Pira leéia.

Et manuum mira frett virtute, pedumque, |
Confectabantur fylveftria fecla Ferarum 965
Miffilibus faxis, 9 magno pondere clave,
Multaque vincebant, vitabant pauca latebris :
Setigerifque pares Suibus flveftria membra
Nuda dabant terre nocturno tempore capti,
Circum fe foliis ac frondibus involventes. 970
Nec plangore diem magno, Solemque per agros
Querebant pavidi, palantes noktis in umbris :
Sed taciti refpettabant, fomncque fepulli,
Dum rofea face Sel inferret lumina celo.
A parvis quod enim confuerant cernere femper 975
Alterno tenebras, 95 lucem tempore gigut,
Non erat, ut fieri poffet, mirarier unquam,
Nee difidere, ne Terras eterna teneret

Nox, ia perpetuum detraéto lumine Solis. .
Sed magisillud erat cure, quod fecla Ferarum 980

ΤΠ βαρ miferis faciebant fepe quietem:

Ejectique domo fugiebant faxea tecta

Setigeri Suis adventu, validique Leonis,

Atque intempefta cedebant notte paventes

HLofpitibus fevis inftrata cubilia fronde. 985
Nec nimio tum plus, quam nunc, mortalia fecla

Dulcia linguebant labentis lumina vite.

Unus enim tum quifque magis deprenfus eorum

Pabula viva feris prebebat dentibus haufits :

ft nemora ac monteis gemitu, fylvafque replebat, 990

Viva videns vive fepeliri vifcera bufto.

At quos effugium fervarat, corpore adef,

| ΡΟ ΟΣ

Boox V. Of the Nature of Things.

Ἔ
were foftned by Prefents, a Difh of Acorns, of
Apples, or of choice Pears.

_ Tuese unpolifhed Mortals, relying on the
“mighty Strength of their Arms, and the Swiftnefs
of their Feet, perfued the wild Beafts through the
Woods, with miffive Stones and heavy Clubs.
“Many they hunted down; fome fecured them-
felves in the thick Brakes; when Night over-
took them, like briftly Hogs, they threw their
rough Bodies naked upon the Ground, and rolled
themfelves up in Leaves and Grafs : nor did they
run howling about the Fields, frighten’d that the
Day was gone and the Sun was fet, or wander’d
about in the Darknefs of the Night; but they
waited without Complaint, and lay buried in foft
Sleep, till the Sun with his rofy Beams fhould
again fpread Light over the Heavens. For, from
their very Infancy, they had been ufed to obferve,
that there was a regular Succeffion of Light and
Darknefs ; and therefore they did not think it
poffible, they never feared or diftrufted, that an
Eternal Night fhould cover the Earth, or that
the Light of the Sun would never more return.

But what difturb’d them moft was, that the
wild Beafts often furprifed and deftreyed then
when they were afleep : They were forced to quit
their Haunts, and fly out of the Caverns of the
Rocks, at the Approach of the rough Boar’or the
{trong Lion; and trembling, in the dead of
Wight, to give up their Beds of Leaves to their
cruel Guefts.

ANnpb yet, in thofe Times, fewer died than do
how ; for then the One unhappy Wretch that was
feized, was fure to be devoured alive between
their cruel Teeth; and therefore he filled the
Groves, the Mountains and the Woods with his
Cries, as he faw his reeking Bowels buried in a
living Grave: But thofe who faved themfelves by

oe Flight,

>

196

T. LU@ne Te “ware

Pofterius tremulas fuper ulcera terra tenentes

Palmas, borriferis accibaut vocibus Orcum,

Donicum ess vita privarunt Vermina feva, 995
Experteis opis, ignaros quid voluera velleni.

t non multa Virtim fub fignis millia duéta
Ua dies dabat exitio: nec turbida ponti
AEquora ledebaut naves ad faxa, virofque.
Sed temeré, incafsiin Mare fluftibu’ fepe coorlis 1000
Sevibat, leviterque minas ponebat inaneis,
Nec poterat quemquam placidi pellacia Ponti
Subdola pellicere in fraudem ridentibus undis.
Tmproba navigit ratio tum ceca jacebat.
Tum Penuria deinde cibi, lanzuentia letbo 1005
Menbra dabat: contra nune rerum Copia merfat.
ili imprudentes ipfi fibi fepe Venenum
Vergebaut: nunc dant altis follertins 167.

Inde Cafas poftquam, acPelleis, lonemque pararunt,
Hi Mulier conjunéta Viro concefjit in unum: 1010
Cajftaque private Veneris connubia leta
Cognita funt, Prolemque ex fe videre creatam :
Tum genus Humanum primum mollefcere cepit.
fonts enim curavit, ut alfia corpora frigus
Non tia jam poffent cali {ub tegmine ferre: 101
Ai Venus unminuit vireis, Puerique parentum
blanditus facile ingenium freeére fuperoum.

Tunc [5 amicitiam ceperunt jungere babenies

Linitima inter fe nec ledere, nec violare:

Et pueros cominenddruni, muliebreque feclum 1020

Vocibus, 89 gefiu, cum balbé fionificarent,

Linbecilloruan effe equum mifererier omnium.

Non tamen omnimodis peterat concordia gigtt : |
Sed,

TI with their Bodies torn, and covering their
fmarting Wounds with trembling Hands, cali’d
Mpon Death in dreadful Accents, till gnawing
Worms put an End to their Life ; for they were
unikilled in Medicine, and ignorant what to apply
to their gaping Sores.

Bur then many Thoufands did not fall in Bat-
tle in one Day ; no boifterous Waves dafhed Ships
and Men againft the Rocks. The Sea then, and
its {welling Tides, raged in vain, and to no pur-
pofe, and laid afide its empty Threats, and grew
Calm again; nor could the deceitful Flattery of
its f{mooth Waters cheat any one into the Deceir,
or tempt him to venture upon the fmiling Sur-
face. ‘The dangerous Art of Sailing was then un-
known. Many then languifhed and died wretch-
edly for want of Food; but now Plenty is the
Deftru€tion of Mankind. Some then, through
Ignorance, would mix Poifon for themfelves ;
now they ftudy the Art, and give it to others.

But when they began to build Huts, and pro-
vided themfelves ane Skins and Fire; when Cne
to One was joined for Life together, and the chatte
fweet Delights of conftant Love were now firft
felt, and they faw a lovely Train of Children of
their own; then this hardy Race firft beean to
foften ; for being ufed to Fire, their tender Bodies
could not bear fo well the Cold of the open Air ;
and Liove impaired their Strength, and the Chil-
dren, by their little Arts of Fondnefs, eafily foft-
ned the haughty Temper of their Parents: Then
thofe who lived near together began to cultivate a
Friendfhip, and agreed not to hurt or injure one
another. “Chey undertook the Protection of Chil-
dren and Women, and declared, by Signs and
broken Words, that the Weaker fhould be under-
ftood as proper Objects of Compaffion. This
Mutual Amity, though it did not prevail among
2 them

197

198

Aut genus Humanum jain tum foret omne peremptum,

Sed bona, magnaque pars fervabant federa cafti:

ee

Nec potuiffet adbuc perducere fecla propago. 1026
At varios lingue Sonitus Natura Jubegit
Mittere, €& Utilitas expreffit nomina rerum:

Non alia longé ratione, atque ipfa videtur
Protrahere ad geftum Pueres infantia lingue, 103@
Cim facit, ut divito, que fint prefentia, monftrent.
Sentit enim vim quifque fuam, quam poffit abuti,
Cornua nata prius vitulo quam frontibus extent,
lilis iratus petit, atque infenfus inurget.

At catuli Pantherarum, feymmique Leonum 1035
Uneuibus, ac pedibus jam tum, morfuque repugnant,
Vindum cium ipfis funt dentes unguefque creat.
Alituum porro genus alis omne videmus

Fidere, {2 ἃ pennis tremulum petere auxiliainin,

Book V. Of the Nature of Things.

‘them all, yet the greater and better Part kept their

Faith, Zid Tea peaceably together ; otherwife
the whole Race of Men had been foon deftroyed,
and the ; Species could never have been preferved
to this ‘Time.

t NATURE compelled them to ufe the various
Sounds of the Tongue, and Convenience taught
them to exprefs the Names of Things ; like Chil-
dren, before they can well fpeak, are forced to
make ufe of Signs, and are obliged to point with
their Finger to the Objects that lie before them ;
for every Creature 15 fenfible what Faculties it has,
and how it is to ufe them. So Calves, before
the Horns appear upon their Foreheads, will butt
fiercely, and pufh with them, when they are en-
raged; and the Whelps of Panthers and Lions
wil il ΠΝ themfelves with their Claws, and Feet,
and Teeth, when their Claws and Teeth are (ene
to be feen; and all kind of Birds, we obferve,
truft to their Wings, and rely upon the fluttering
Support of their Pinions,

t It may be reafonably afked, how Leagues could be made,
and Societies eftablifhed, among Men, who perhaps indeed
could think, but had not yet learnt to utter their Thoughts?

Lucretius an{wers, that the firft Men were confcious to them-
felves of their own Powers and natural Faculties; and that

_ they uttered feveral Sounds, as each Object that they faw,

or as any thing that they felt, caufed in them either Fear
Joy, Pain, Grief, sc. for Nature herfelf compelled them to
this ; and therefore Horfes, Dogs, Birds, in fhort, all Ani-
mals that have Breath, do the ike. And thus Man too, at
firft, ftammered only imperfect and imarticulate Sounds; but

~ no Commerce was yet eltablifhed, they had no mutual Com-

munication with one another; nor indeed could any fuch
Thing be, till Names were given to ‘l’hings. Every Man
therefore perceived that it would be ufeful to him and others,
to agree upon a certain Name for each Thing. ‘Thus all
who were enter’d into one Society, agreed among themfelves
upon the farne Names of Things; and thus the Ufefulnefs
of calling Things by Names, gave occafion for the Invention
of Words: But for any to pretend that one Man gave Names
fo all Things, is wretchedly abfurd and foolith.

O 4 But

od

Hox
Names
WEE ΠΣ ""
impo οί.

200

T, Ἐρυ, ὁ κ π ἶἶἥν ἘΠῊΝ
Proinde putare Aliquem tum nomina diftribuiffe 1040
Rebus, SF inde Homines didicif[e vocabula prima,
Defipere'fi : nam cur Hic poffet cunéta notare
Vocibus, (F varios fonitus emittere lingue,
Tempore eodem Alti facere id non quiffe putentur ὃ
Preterea, ft non Alii quoque vocibus ufi 10465
Inter fe fuerant: unde infita notities eft
Unilitatis, &S unde data’ ft Huic prima poteftas,
Quid vellet facere, ut fcirent, animoque viderent ὃ
Cogere item plureis Unus, vittofque domare
Non poterat, rerum ut perdifcere nomina vellent : 1050
Nec ratione docere ulla, fuadereque furdis,
Quid facto effet opus, faciles neq, enim patereniur,
Nec ratione ulla fibi ferrent amplits aureis
Vocis inauditos jonitus obtundere fruftra.
Pofiremo, quid in bac mirabile tantopere eft re,1054
Si genus Elumanum, cui vox, € lingua vigeret,
Pro vario fenfu varias res voce netaret,
Cum Pecudes mute, cixm denique fecla Ferarum
Difimileis foleant voces variafque ciere,

Cun Metus, aut Dolor eft, &8 citm jam Gaudia glifcunt?
Quippe elenim id licet δ rebus cognofcere apertis. 106%
Laritata canum cium primum magna Molofsim

Mollia riéta fremunt duros nudantia denteis :

Longe alio fonitu rabie diftraGa ΩΣ

Et εἴ! jam latrant, © vocibus omnia complent,1065
At catulos blandé cim lingua lambere tentant,

Mut ubi eos jattant pedibus, morfuque petentes,
Sufpenfis teneros imitantur dentibus bauftus :

Longe

y

Book V. Of the Nature of Things. οι

BuT to think that one Man gave Names to all
Things, and that Men from thence learnt the firft
Elements of Speech, is abfurd and ridiculous 9
for why fhould one Man diftinguifh every thing
by a Name, and ufe the various Accents of the
Tongue, and at the fame time another not be as
capable of doing This as He?

Besipes, if others had not the Ufe of Words
among them as foon, how could they be made
acquainted with the Ufe of them? or by what Art
would this one Man make them know and under-
ftand what he defigned? One alone could not
compel the reft, and by Force make them learn
the Catalogue of his Names. He could not pre-
vail by Reafon, or perfuade Men fo unfit to hear,
to do as he directed ; nor would they bear with
Patience, or by any means endure, to have the
{trange Sounds of unintelligible Words any longer
rattling in their Ears to no purpofe.

ΑΝΡ then, what is there fo very wonderful in
This, that Men, to whom Nature has given a
Voice and a Tongue, fhould, according to the
various Knowledge they had conceived of the
ereat Variety of Things, diftinguifh each of them
by a proper Name; when mute Cattle, and the
feveral Kinds of wild Beafts, exprefs their Paffi-
ons by different Voices and Sounds, when their
Fear, their Grief, or their Joys are {trong upon
them? And that they do fo, you may obferve
from evident Examples.

For when fierce Maftiffs are at firft provoked,
they fnarl, and erin, and fhew their hard white
Teeth, and threaten, in their Rage, with lower
Sounds than thofe they rend the Air with when

P they bark and roar aloud; but when they gently
lick their Whelps with their foft Tongue, or tofs

_ them with their Feet, or feem to bite, and fondly
Eape as if to eat them up, but never touch them
with

202

Muta tamen cum fint, varias emittere voces :

T. LUCRETE ‘Line

Longe alio patio zannitu vocts adulant :
Εἰ εἰν deferti baubantur in edibus, aut cim 1070
Plorantes fugiunt fummiffo corpore plagas.

Denique non Hinnitus item differre videtur,
Inter equas ubi Equus florenti etate juvencus
Pinnigeri fevit calcaribus idtus Aimoris 9
Et fremitum patults fub naribus edit ad arma: 1075
Ac cium fis alias concuffis artubus binnit 2

Poftremo, genus Alituum, varieque volucres,
Accipitres, atgue Offifrace, Mergique marinis
Fluétibus in falfis vidtum vitamque petentes,
Lounge alias alio jaciunt in tempore voces, 1080
Et cum de vitiu certant, predaque repugnant :
Et partim mutant cum tempeftatibus una
Raucifonos cantus, Cornicumn ui fecla vetufta,
Corvorumque greges, ubi aquam dicuntur 9 imbreis
Pofcere, &8 interdum ventos aurafque vocare, 1085
Ergo, fi varii fenfus Animalia cogunt,

Quanto mortaleis magis equum ft tum potuiffe
Diffimileis alia, atque alia res voce notare ?
Jllud in bis rebus tacitus ne forté requiras: 1090
Fulmen deiulit in terras mortalious Ignem
Primitis: Inde omnis Hammarum diditur ardor.
Multa videmus enim celeftibus incita flammis
Fulgere, cum cel donavit plaga vapores.
ΕἸ ramofa tamen cium ventis pulfa vacillans 1095
Ai ftuat in ramos incumbens arboris Arbor,
Exprimitur validis extritus viribus Ignis:

:
Boox V. Of the Nature of Things. 203

with their T’eeth, they fhew their Pleafure with a
whining Voice; not fo, as when they howl, left
by themfelves at home ; or when they whimper,
with their crouching Bodies, to fhun the coming
Blow.

Awp does not the Horfe with different Neigh-
ings fill the Air, when, hot in Blood and in the
Prime of Youth, he is forely galled with Spurs of
winged Love, and rages in his Luft among the
Mares, and, eager to engage, with open Noftrils
{πῆς the Scent? Does not he fhake his trem-
bling Limbs, and neigh, for other Reafons, with
far other Sounds ?

Awp then, the Feather’d Race, the various
kind of Birds, the Hawk, the Ofprey, and Sea-
Gulls, that live and feek their Food in the fale
Waves, they throw out other Notes at other
times, than when they ftrive for Food and fight
for Prey ; and fome will change their hoarfe Voice
according to the different Qualities of the Air 3 as
the long-liv’d Ravens, and the Flocks of Crows,
when they are faid to call for Rain and Showers,
and fometimes to cry for Wind and Storms. If
therefore the different Perception of Things will .
compel thefe Creatures, mute as they are, to fend
out different Sounds, how much more reafonable
is it, that Men fhould be able to mark out dif-
ferent Things by different Names?

You may defire, perhaps, to be fatisfied in How Fire
other Inquiries. Know then, that Thunder firlt gaz.
brought down Fire to the Earth. All the Fire in
this lower World is in a great meafure derived
from thence; for many Things, we obferve, are
fet on Fire by Lightning, when the Vapours fly
Out from certain Quarters of the Heavens; and
the Branches of Trees, preffing hard upon one
another, when they are driven backward and for-
ward by the Winds, grow hot, and by the violent

| Agitation

204

T.LucreTir List

ΕἸ micat interdum flammai fervidus ardor,

Mutua dum inter fe rami frirpe/que teruntur :

Quorum utrumgue dediffe poteft mortalibuslgnem.110e
Inde Cibum coquere, ac flanme mollive vapore
Sol docuit, quoniam mitefcere multa videbant
Verberibus radiorum, atque eftu vitta per agros.
Luque dies magis bt victuim vitainque priorem
Commutare novis monfirabant rebus, SF igni, 1105
Ingento qui praftabant, & corde vigebant.
Condere ceperunt urbeis, arcemque locare
Prefidium Reges ipfi fibi, perfugiumque :
Et pecudes, & agros divifere, atque dedere
Pro Facie cujufque, &9 Viribus, Ingenwque. 1110
Nam Facies multum valuit, virefque vigebant :
Pofteritis Res inventa ft, Aurumque repertum,
Quod facile & Validis, & Pulchris demfit bonorem.
Divitioris enim feéiam plerumque fequuntur
Quamlibet &S fortes, 8 pulchro corpore creti. 1115
Quod fiquis vera vitam ratione gubernet,
Divitie grandes homini funt, Vivere parce
Liiquo animo; neque enim ft unquam penuria Parvi:
At claros fe bomines voluere effe, atque potenteis,
Ut fundamento frabili fortuna maneret, 1120
Et placidam poffent Opulenti degere vitam :
Neguicquam: Quoniam ad fumimum fuccedere ho-
nore
Certantes, iter infeftum fecére viat.
Et tamen é fummo quaft Fulmen dejicet iftos
Invidia interdum contemtim in Tartara tetra : 1125

Ut

Boox V. Of the Nature of Things. 205
Agitation burft out into a rapid Flame ; and fome-
times the Boughs and Bodies of Trees, by rubbing
together, will kindle and fly out intoa Blaze. And
thus Fire might be produced from either Caufe.

Bur the Sun firft taught Mankind to drefs their
Food, and foften it by Heat; for they obferved
the Fruits in the Fields grew tender and ripe by
the Warmth and Power of his Rays. And fo
thofe who had more Wit and Senfe, taught their
Neighbours every Day to leave their old Diet,
and their former way of Life, to enter upona
new Courfe, and ufe the Benefit of Fire.

ANp now their Kings began to build Cities, The Divi
and to raife Caftles, as a Defence to themfelves,/oz of
and Refuge in Time of Danger. They divided 42"

_ the Cattle and the Fields, and gave to every one

Ε΄ as he excelled in Beauty, in Strength and Under-

eitanding; for Beauty and Strength were then in
great Repute, and bore away the Prize. Act laft
Riches and Gold were found out, which foon took
away the Honour from the Strong and Beautiful ;
even the Brave and the Beautiful themfelves com-
monly follow the Faction of the Rich.

But if Men would govern their Lives by the
Rule of true Reafon", to live upon a little with an
even Mind, would be the greateft Riches. This
Little no Man can fear to want; but Men ftrive
to be renowned and powerful, that their Fortune
may ftand firm upon a lafting Foundation, and
the Wealthy cannot fail to live at Eafe, All ab-
furd! for thofe who labour to reach the higheft
Honours, make a very unhappy Journey in the

End: Envy, like a Thunderbol:, ftrikes them
from the Pinnacle of their Glory, and tumbles them
down with Scorn into an Abyfs of Mifery, So that it

" Who that reads thefe Lines can believe, that Epicurus
Was an Epicure? He believes that a wife Man cannot be poor,
becaufe he lives content with what he has, and thinks it
enough, though it be but a little.

iS

y
«.

ἃ ΤΟΤΕ ΤῊ ΤΡ

Ut fatiits muito jam fit parere quietum,

Quam regere Imperio res velle, Regua tenere.

Proinde, five incafsum defeffi fanguine fudent :

Anguftum per iter luétantes Ambitionis :

Invidia quoniam feu Fulmine furma vaporant 1130

Plerumque, & que funt aliis magis edita cunque :

Quandoquidem fapiunt alteno ex ore: peiunique

tes ex auditis potiis, quam fenfibus ipfis :

Nec magis id nunc eft, nec erit mox, qitam fuit ante.
Ergo Regibus occifis fubverfa jacebat 1135

Priftina majeftas foliorum, (9 feeptra fuperba ;

Et capitis Summi preclarum Infigne cruentum

Sub pedibus Volet magnum lugebat honcrem :

Nam cupide conculcatur mimis ante metulum. 11397
Res itaque ad fummam Pacem Turbafque redibat,

Imperium fibi cum, ac fummatum quifque pelebate

Inde Magiftratum partim docuere creare,

Furaque confiituere. ut vellent legibus uti:

Nam genus Humanum defeffum ΟἹ colere evum,

Ex inimicittis languebat 5 quo magis ipfum 1145

Sponte fua cecidit fub leges, aréitaque jura :

Acris ex Ira quod enim fe quifque parabat

Uleifci, quam nunc conceffum ft Legibus equis 3

Hane ob rem’ ft Homines pertafum vi celere evum:

Unde Metus maculat penarum premia vite. 1150

2. ὅ

Circumretit enim Vis alque Inyuria quemque,
Atque, unde exortr fi, ad eum plerumque revertit 5 Ὁ
Nee facile’ ft placidam ac pacatam degere vitam,

Oui violat factis communia federa pacts. 4

Boox V. Of the Nature of Things. 207
is much fafer, as a Subject, to obey, than to wifh for
Empire and to govern Kingdoms. Let thofe that
will tire themfelves in vain, and {pend their Blood
and their Sweat in climbing the narrow Track. of
Ambition (for the Higheft of them all are blafted
with Envy, as with a Thunderbolt; and the
higher they are, they are the more expofed) fince
they depend wholly upon others for their Wifdom,
and try Things more by their Ears than by their
Underftanding. This is the prefent Cafe ; it al-
ways was fo, and ever will be.

THose Kings then being flain, the former Ma-
ΝΠ ἢν of their Thrones, and their proud Scepters,
were laid in the Duft; and the Diadem, the noble
Ornament of Kings, all ftained with Blood, is
now trodden by vulgar Feet, and weeps over its
expiring Honours; for we eagerly fpurn at what
we too much feared before.

Tue Government now returned to the Rabble, Repu.
and the very Dregs of the People; whilft every “cés.
one reached at Empire, and the Supreme Power
for himfelf. And therefore the Wifeft among them
taught the reft to fettle a Magiftracy, and to efta-
bhifh Laws, by which they would be governed,
Men grew weary of living in a State of Force,
and were worn out with continual Bickering among
themfelves, and therefore, of their own accord,
more readily fell under the Power of Laws and
the Bonds of Juftice ; for every one, in his Refent-
ment, perfued his Revenge with more Violence
than the Equity of the Laws would now allow
him, and therefore Men were tired of this hoftile
way, which foured all their Pieafures of Life with
the Fears of Punifhment ; for Force and Wrong
Intangle the Man that ufes them, and commonly
recoil upon the Head that contrived them. Nor
is it eafy for that Man to live a fecure and pleafant
Late, who by his Conduct breaks through the com-
ἢ Mon

<<

—

208%

T. Luck 7 “teem
Eft {απ} enim Diviim-genus Humanumque, 1155
Perpetuo tamen id fore clam difidere debet :
Quippe ubi fe multi per Somnia fepe loquentes,
Aut Morbo delirantes procréxe ferantur,
Et celata diu in medium peccata dediffe.

Nune qi@ caufa Detim ter magnas Numina genteis
Pervolgdrit, δ ararum compleverit urbeis, 1161
Sufcipiendaque curdrit follennia facra,

‘* Que nunc in magnis florent facra rebw locifque :
Unde etiam nunc eft Mortalibus infitus Horror,

Qui delubra Detim nova toto fufcitat orbi 1165
Terrarum, 95 feftis cogit celebrare diebus :

Non ita difficile ft rationem reddere verbis.

Quippe etenim jam tum Diviim Mortalia fecla
Egregias animo facies vigilante videoaut,

Et magis in fomiuis mirando corporis auciu, 1170
His igitur fenfum tribuebant, propterea quod
Membra movere videbantur, vocefque fuperbas
Mittere pro facie preclara, & viribus amplis :
At ternamque dabant vitain, quia femper eorum
Suppeditabatur facies, 55 forma manebai, 1175
(Et manet omnino) 95 quod lantis viribus auctos
Non temere ulla vi convinci poffe puiabant.
Fortunifque ideo longé preftare putabant

Quod mortis timor baud quemquam vexaret eorum,
Et fimul in fomnis quia multa, (8 mira videbant 1186
Efficere, 5 nullum capere ipfos inde laborem.

Preterea, Celi rationes ordine certo,

Et varia aniorum cernebant tempora verti 3

»

Boox V. Of the Nature of Things.
mon Bonds of Peace: Though he has the Cun-
ning to deceive both Gods and Men, his Heart
always trembles for fear of being difcover’d ; for
Men often talk in their Sleep, and are faid to re-
veal Things when they are delirious by a Difeafe,
and to bring to Light their Plots that had been
lone concealed.

ΑΝ now I’Il fhew the Caufe that firft difperfed
the Notions of the Gods throughout the World,
and filled the Towns with Altars, and ordered fo-
Jemn Rites to be performed, and holy Ceremonies
now in Ufe, when Victims fmoke on every facred
Fire ; and whence that fixed Horror in the Minds
of Men, that builds new Temples to the Gods in
every Corner of the Earth, and compels Men to
celebrate their Feftivals: 115 not fo hard a Thing
to fhew the Caufe.

for Men, in the Beginning of the World,
were ufed to fee divine and glorious Forms, even
when awake ; and in their Sleep thofe Images ap-
peared in more majeftick State, and raifed their
Wonder. And thefe they thought had Senfe.
They fancy’d that they moved their Limbs, and
{poke proud Words, fuitable to the grand Ap-
pearance they fhew’d, and to the Mightinels of
their Strength. They afcribed Eternity to them,
becaufe a conftant Stream of Images inceffantly
Came on, in Form the fame (that could not change)
vand then, they could not die, becaufe no Power,
they thought, could crufh Beings fo ftrong in
Force, fo large in Size: And they thought them
infinitely happy, becaufe they were never vexed
With the Fears of Death; and likewife in their
Dreams they faw them do Things ftrange and
wonderful, with Eafe, and withour Fatigue.

Besipes, they obferved the Motions of the
Fieavens were regular and certain, that the vari-
Ous Seafons of the Year came orderly about, but

mow. iI, P could

ὲ

200

a O

TT. L ue@e@et tay eee

Nec poterant guibus id fieret cognofcere caufis :
rego perfugium fibt babebant omiia Divis 1184
Tradere, 9 illorum nutu facere omnia flecii.
In Caclogue Deiim fedes, &8 templa locdrunt,
Per celum volvi quia Sol, {8 Luna videntur :
Luna, Dies, 3 Nox, & nottis Sigua fevera,
Nogiivageque faces celi, Flammaque volantes, 1190
Nubila, Ros, Inbres, Nix, Venti, Fulmina, Grandoy
Et rapidi fremitus, (FP murmura magna minarum, —

O genus ifelix bumanum! talia Divis
Citm tribuit facia, atque tras adjunsit acerbas :

or

Quantos ium gemitus Ipfi fibt, quantaque nobis 1195

Volnera, quas lacrymas pepertre minoribu’ noftris !
Nec Pietas ullaft velaium fepe videri

Vertier ad Lapiilem, atq; ommeis accedere ad aras y

Nee procumbere bumt proftratum, 5 pandere palinas
Anté Detiin delubra, nec aras fanguine mulio 120
Spargvere quadrupedum, uce votis nectere vota :
Sed mage pacata poffe omuia mente ΠῚ.

Nam cum fufpicimus magni celeftia mundi

Templa fuper, fielhfaue micantibus etbera fixum,
Li venit in mentem Solis, Luneque viarum, 120 5.
Tune alis oppreffa malis in peciore cura :
illa quoque expergefacium caput erigere infit,
Leque forié Deum nobis immenfa poteftas
Sit vario motu que candida fidera verfet.
Tentat enim dubiam mentem rations eceftas,
Leguenam fuerit Mundi genitalis orize:

7
Boox V. Of the Nature of Things.

could dilcover nothing of the Caufes of thefe Re-
volutions, and theretore they had this Refort ;
they afcribed every thing to the Power of the
Gods, and made every thing depend upon their
Will and Command.

Tue Habitation and Abode of thefe Gods they
placed in the Heavens, for there they faw the Sun
and Moon were rolled about; the Moon, I fay,
they obferved there, and the Day and the Night,
and the Stars ferenely bright, and the blazing Me-
teors wandering in the Dark, the flying Light-
ning, the Clouds, the Dew, the Rain, the Snow,
the Thunder, the Hail, the dreadful Noifes, the
Threatnings and loud Roarings of the Sky.
Unuappy Race of Men! to afcribe fuch E-
vents, to charge the Gods with fuch diftracted
Rage. What Sorrow have they brought upon
themfelves? What Miferies upon us? What
‘loods of Tears have they intailed upon our Po-
fterity ὃ

Nor can there be any Piety for a Wretch with
is lead veiled, to be ever turning himfelf about
owards a Stone, to creep to every Altar, to throw
imtelf flat upon the Ground, to fpread his Arms
efore the Shrines of the Gods, to iprinkle the Al-
ats abundantly with the Blood of Beafts, and to
cap Vows upon Vows. To look upon Things

ith an undifturbed Mind, this is Piety; for
when we behold the celeftial Canopy of the great

Orld, and the Heavens fpread over with fhining
tars ; when we refle&t upon the Courfes of the
un and Moon; then Doubts, that before lay quiet
nder a Load of other Evils, becin to awake, and
tow {trong within us. What! are there Gods en-
ued with fo great Power, that can direét the va-
ious Motions of all the bright Luminaries above?
of the Ignorance of Caufes gives great Uneafinels
9 the doubting Mind of Man. And hence we doubre
P2 whether

211

212

T. Lu¢GRETa, ira

ΕἸ fimul, ecque fit finis, quoad mena Mundi,
Et tanti motus bune polfint ferre laborem:
An Divinitus eterna donaia falute, |
Perpetua pofint evi labentia tratin, 1215
Tinmenfi validas evi contemnere vireis.

Preterea, cui non animus formidine Diviim
Contrahitur 2? cui non conrepunt membra pavore,
Ἐπ παῖς borvibili cim plaga torrida Tellus 1219
Contremit, 9 magnum percurrunt Murmura celum?
Non Populi, Gentefque tremunt? Regefque fuperbt
Conripiunt Divilm perculfi membra tumore,
Ne quod ob admiffum fade, didtumve fuperbe
Penarum grave fit folvendi tempus adatium ?
Summa etiam cum vis violentt per mare venit 1225
luduperatorem clafis fiiper equora verrit,
Cum validis pariter Legionibus, atque Elepbantis :
Non Divitm pacem votis adit? ac prece quafit |
Veutorum pavidus paces, animafque fecundas ° |
Nequicquam: quoniam viotenio turbine fepe 1238
Conrepius nibilo fertur minis ad vada letht:
Ulgueadeo ves bumanas Vis abdita quedam
Obterit, 9 pulebros Fafcets, fevafque Securets
Proculcare, ac ludibrio fibi babere videtur, |

Denique fub pedibus Tellus cum tota vacillat, 1295
Concuffeque cadunt urbes, dubieque minantur: ~~
Suid mirum fi fe temnunt Mortaha fecla ?
Atque poteftates magnas, mirafque relinquunt
In rebus vireis Diviim, que cuntta gubernent ὁ

[ἢ

Ομθς

“--- -

Pook V. Of the Nature o 7 bings.

whether the World hada ies and fhalt ever
have an End ; how long the Heavens (the Walls
of this Π πα) fhall be able to bear the Patioue
of fuch mighty Motions, or whether they are made
Eternal by the Gods, and fo fhall for ever rol] a
and defpife the ftrong Power of devouring Ag

BESIDES, What fear does not faint wick ἃ
Dread of the Gods? Whofe are the Limbs that
will not fhrink, when the fcorch’d Earth quakes
with the horrible Stroke of Lightning, and the
roaring Thunder fcours over the whole Fieavens?
Do not the People and the Nations fhake ? and
proud Tyrants, ftruck with Fear of thofe aveng-
ing Powers, tremble every Limb, left the difmal
Day were come, to punifh them for the Bafenefs
Bi their Crimes, and the Arrogance of their
Speeches ? And when the raging Force of a vio-
Bot Storm upon the Sea, tofies the Admurai of a
Fleet over the Waves, with all his Blephants and
his ftout Legions about him, does not He fall to
praying to the Gods for Pity? and, trembling
Upon his Knees, begs a Peace of the Winds, and
a profperous Gale In vain! for He is often
Inatched up by the Violence of the Hurricane, and
catried with all his Devotion to the Stygian Ferry.
With fuch Contempt does fome hidden Power
continually trample upon human Greainefs; it
treads with Scorn upon the gaudy Kods, and the
cruel Axes, thofe Enfigns of Empire, and makes
ἃ Sport with them.

Ανν then, when the whole Earth reels under
Our Feet, and the Cities are fhaken, and tumble
about us, or at leaft threaten to fall; what won-

weak. felves, and afcribe infinite Power and irre-
fiftible Force to the Gods, by which they direct
and govern the World?

der if Men, at fuch a time, defpife their own

3 AND

213

=

214

*Quamlibet in formam, 5 faciem decurrere rerum,

TT. Lecter eee fica

Quod fupereft, Bs, atque Aurum, Ferrumque
reperiw ft, 1240.

Et fimul argenti pondus, Plumbique poteftas:
lenis εὖ] ingenteis fyluas ardore cremdrat
Montibus in magnis, feu celi fulmine miffo,
sive quod inter fe bellum fylveftre gerentes,
Floftibus intulerant ignem formidinis erg03 1245
Sive quod inducti Terre bonitate, volebant
Pandere agros pingueis, 9 pafcua reddere rura:
sive Heras interficere, 3 ditefcere preda:
Nain fovea, aique Igni prits eft venarier ortum,
Quam fepire Plagis faltum, Canibufque ciere. 1250
Quicquid id eft, quacunque ὃ caufa flammeus ardor
Horrivili fonitu fylvas exederat altis
Ab radicibus, 8 terram percoxerat igni,
Manabat venis ferventibus in loca terre
Concava conveniens Argenti rivus 5 Auri, 1255
fiiris item €8 Plumbi , que ciim concreta videbant
Pofterius claro in terris {plendere colore,
Tollebant nitido capti, levigue lepore :
hi fimilt formata videbant effe figura,
Aique lacunarum fuerant veftigia cuique, 1260
Tum penetrabat cos, poffe bec liguefaéta calore,

Lit provfum quamivis in acuia ac tenuia poffe

Mucronum duci faftigia procudendo :

Ut fibi tela parent, fyluafque excidere poffint, 1265

Materiem levare, dolavre, ac radere tigna,

ΕἸ terebrare etiam, ac pertundere, perque forare.

Nec minus Argento facere bec Auroque parabant,

Quam validi primum violentis viribus Eris :

Nequicquam : Quoniam cedebat vitta poteftas, 1270

Nec poterat pariter durum fufferre laborem.

Nam fuit in pretio magis 423, Aurumque jacebat
Propter

00k V. Of the Nature of Things.

we lait of all Brafs, and, Geldg pl Tron,

ere difcovered ; and the Value of Silver, and
the Weight of Lead. For when whole Forefts
upon the high Hiils were confumed by Fire, whe-
ther ic came by Lightning from the rieavens, or
Men carried on a War among themielves in the
Woods, and fer them ina Blaze to terrify their
Einemies; or whether, induced by the Gcodnels
Ε΄ the Sotl,ethey re folved to inlarge their fruicful
Fields, and make yee x for their Cattle; or
whether it was to deftroy the wild Beafts, and in-
rich themfelves with their Spoiis (for the Brit way
of takin °S the Game was, by Pic -falis, and Fire
before they furrounded the Brakes with Nets, or
hunted with Dogs) ; however it was, cr whatever
was the Caufe of this raging Fire, that burnt up
the Woods to the very Roots, with frightful
Noife, and fer the Earth a boiling with its ραν:
Then Streams of Silver and Gold, of Brais and
of Lead, flowed out of the burning Veins into
hollow Places of the Earth, that were proper for
them. And when the Metal grew hard, and Men
obferved it looking beautifully and fhining bright
upon the Ground, ‘they were Charmed with 115 gay
and {parkling Luftre, and dug it up; and finding
it received the exact Shape of the hollow Moulds
in which it lay, they concluded, when it was

melted by the Heat, it would run into any Form

and Figure they pleafed, and they might draw it
into a harp Point or a fine Edge, “ane make
themfelves Tools to cut down the Woods, to
{mooth, to fquare, and to plane Timber, to pierce,
to hollow, and to bore. Thefe Inftruments they
attempted to make of Silver and Gold, no lefs,
than by powerful Blows to form the ftronger Brats 5
but in vain! for the foft ὉΠ Ἢ of thole Merals
Save way, and could not bear the Force and Vio-
Jence of the Stroke; and fo Brafs was in moit

P 4 Value,

215-

216 T. b ver ΕΝ ματος

Propter inutilitatem bebett mucrone reinfum,
Nune jacet 72s, Aurum in fummum fucceffit bonorem:

x+_ -

Sic volvenda etas commutat tempora rerum, 1275 —
Duod fuit in pretio, fit nullo denique bonore :

Porro aliud fuccedit, & ὃ contemtibus exit,
Inque dies magis appetitur, floretque repertum
Laudibus, 9 mire ft mortalets inter bonore.

Nune tibi quo pacte Ferri natura reperta 1280
Sit, facile°/t tpfum per te cognofcere, Memmt,
Arma antiqua, Manus, Ungues, Dentefq, fuerunt,
Et Lapides, 8 item fylvarum fragmina Rami,
EtFlamme, atquelenes poftquam funt coguita primum:
Pofterius Ferri vis eft, ABrifque reperta: 6284
Et prior ΖΞ γ15 erat quam Perri cognitus ufus:

Quo facilis magis eft natura, & copia mayor.

fare folum terre ivaciabant, Afreque belli
Mifcebaut fluctus, S volnera vafta ferebant,

ΕἸ pecus, aique agros adinzebant: Nam facile olits
Omnia cedebant armatis nuda 9 inerma. 12Q1
Inde minutatim procefit Perreus enfis,

Verfaque in opprobrium fpecies eff Falcts abene,

Et Fervo cepere folum projcindere terre :
Exaquataque funt creperi certamina belli. 1295

Et prius ejt reppertum in Equi confcendere cojtas,
ΕἸ moderarier bune frenis dextraque vigere 3
Quam Byugo curru bel tentare pericla:

Et bijugo prius eft, quam bis conjungere Binos,
Et quam falciferos inventum afcendere Currus. 1300
Inde boves Lucas turrito corpore tetros

Anguinanos

Boox V. Of the Nature of T ῥίηρς.
“Value, and Gold was negleéted, as a blunt, ufe-
lefs Metal, that would not hold an Edge. But
now Brafs is in no Efteem, and Gold fucceeds to
all its Honours. And thus a Courfe of flowing
Time changes the Dignity of Things: What was
highly prized is now treated with Contempt, and
what was defpifed comes into its Place, and is
every Day more eagerly perfued ; is cried up with
the greateft Applaufe, and receives the Refpect
and Admiration of Mankind.

Anp now, my Memmius, you may eafily, of
yourfelf, perceive by what means the Force of Tron
was difcovered. The firft Weapons were Tiands,
and Nails, and Teeth, and Stones, and the broken
Boughs of Trees; and then they learnt to fight
with Fire and Flame; and afterwards was the
Strength of Iron and Brafs found out. But the Ufe
of Brafs was known before the Benefit of Iron was

underftood ; for it was a Metal more eafy to work,

and in greater Plenty. With braten Shares they
plo ughed the Ground, with Arms of Brats ney
carried on the Ra 2 of War, and dealt deep
Wounds about, and feized upon their Neighbours
Cattle and their Fields ; for every thing sala and
unarmed was eafily forced to give way. Sut the
iron Sword came gradually into Ufe, and Inftru-
ments of Brafs were laid afide with Contempt. And
now they began to plough with iron, and with
Weapons of Iron to engage in the doubtful Events
of War.

Awpb Men πε learnt to mount the Horfe, with
their Left Hand to manage the Reins, and they
fought with their Right, before they tried the Dan-
gers of War in aChariot drawn by Two. They firft
ufed a Chariot with a Pair, and then they harneffed
Four, before they knew how to engage in Chariots
armed with Scythes. The Carthaginians taught the
Lybian Elephants, with their lerpentine Probofcis

and

217

218

T. Lucr & Pip Lis.

Anguimanos belli docuerunt volnera Pant

Sufferre, PF magnas Martis turbare catervas.

Sic alid ex alio peperit Difcordia triftis,

Horribile bumanis quod gentibus effet in armis : 1305
Inque dies belli terroribus addidit augmen.

Tentdrunt etiam Tauros in menere belli, .

Expertique Sues fevos funt mittere in hofteis ;

Et validos Parthi pre fe mifere Leones

Cum ductoribus armatis, fevifque magijiris, 1310
Qui moderarier bos poffent, vinclifque tenere :
Nequicquam : Quoniam permifta cede calentes
Turbabant fevi nullo difcrimine turmas,

Terrificas capitum quatientes undique criftas 5

Nec poterant Equites fremitu perterrila equoruim 1215
Peétora mulcere, &S frenis convertere in bofteis,
Tnritata Lee jaciebant corpora faltu

Undique, 3 advorfum vententibus ora petebant :

Et nec-opinanteis ἃ tergo diripiebant,

Deplexeq; dabant in terram volnere vincios: 1320
Mor fibus adfixe validis, atque unguibus uncis,
Fattabanique Sues Lauri, pedibujque terebant :

Et latera, ac ventres hauribant fubter equorum
Cornibus, ad terramque minanti mente ruebait.

At validis focios cedebant dentibus Apri, 1325
“<< Tela infratta fuo tinguentes fanguine fevi :

“In fe fratla fuo tinguentes fanguine tela:
Permiftafque dabant equituin pedttumque ruinas,
Nam tranfverfa feros exibant dentis adactus
Fumenta, aut pedibus ventos eretia petebant: 1330
Nequicquam : Quoniam ἃ nervis fuccifa videres
Concidere, atque gravi terram confiernere cafu.

Sily

Book V. Of the Nature of Thugs.

and Towers upon their Backs, to bear the Smart of
Wounds, and to diforder the embattled Ranks of
the Enemy. And thus the Rage of Difcord found
out one Art of Slaughter after another, as the
dreadful Scourges of Mankind, and increafed the
Terrors of Warevery Day. They tried the Fury
of Bulls in their Battles, and drove Boars againtt
their cruel Enemies. The Parthians placed 1 roar-
ing Lions before their Ranks, with their armed
Keepers, and fierce Leaders, to govern their Rage
and hold them in Chains: In vain! for growing
hot with the mixed Blood they had tafted, they
broke in their Fury through the Troops οἱ Friends
and Enemies without Diftinétion, fhaking their
dreadful Manes on ee Side. Nor could the
Horfemen cool their frighted Horfes, diftracted
with the Roaring of the Beats, or turn them with
the Reins againft the Foe. The Lions with Rage
{prung out, and threw their Bodies every way,
and flew upon the Faces that they met; others
they fuddenly fell on behind, and claiped within
their Paws, and with fore Wounds o’ercome, they
flung them to the Ground, and held them down
with their ftrong Teeth, and with their crocked
Claws. The Bulls would tofs the Boars, and crufh
them with their Feet, and with their Horns would
gore the Sides and Bellies of the Horfes, and in
their Rage bear them to the Earth, The Bears with
their {trong Teeth deftroyed their Friends (and cru-
elly {tained the Darts unbroken, with their Mafter’s
Blood, the Darts that broke upon themfelves were
tain τ with their own) and brought confufed Ruin
upon Man and Horie ; for thousl 1 the Horfe, by
leaping afide, would ftrive to fly the cruel Biting
of their Teeth, or, rearing up, paw’d with their
Feet the yielding Air; yet all in vain! you would
fee them, hamitrung by the Beafts, fall down,

and with their heavy Weight would fhake the
Ground.

219

T. LUcRETm® τι

Sie, quos ante domi domitos fatis effe putabant,
Effervifcere cernebant in rebus agundis,

Volneribus, clamore, fuga, terrore, tumuliu: 1225
Nec poterant ullam partem redducere eorum,
Diffugiebat enim varium genus omue ferarum -

Ut nunc fepe boves Luce ferro male matte
Diffugiunt, fera facta fuis cum multa dedere.

Sic fuit, ut facerent: Sedvix adducor, ut ante 1340
Non quierint animo prefentire, atque videre,

Quam commune malum fuerat, fedumg; futurum,
Et magis id poffis faétum contendere in Omni,

In vartis mundis varia ratione creatis,

Ouam certo atq; uno terrarum quolibet Orbi. 1345
Sed facere id non tam vincendt fpe voluerunt,
Quam dare quod gemerent bofles, ipfique perire,
Qui numero diffidebant, armifque vacabant.

Nexilis anté fuit veftis, quam Textile tegmen:
Textile poft ferrum’ft: quia ferro tela parantur: 1350
Nee ratione alia poffunt tam levia gigni
Infilia, ac fufi, 9 radi, feapique fonantes,

Et facere anté Viros lanam Natura coegit,

Quam Muliebre genus, nai longe preflat in arte,
Et follertius eff multo genus omne Virile : £355
Agricole donec vitio vertere fevert,

Ut Muliebribus id manibus concedere vellent,

Aique ipfi ρος durum fufferre laborem :

Atque opere in duro durarent membra, manufque.

Boo‘ Vv. Of the Nature of G birgs.

Ground. ‘Thefe Creatures therefore that Men faw
were tame at home, now brought into the Wars
erew mad with Wounds, with Noife, with Flying,
with Terror, and the Tumult of the Battle; nor
could they by any means be brought back or cool’d
again, but every kind flew wildly o’er the Plains ;
as when a Bull, not rightly ftruck by the Prieft’s
facrificing Axe, breaks loofe, after much Mifchief
done to all about him. Thefe were the firft Arts
of War; yet I cannot believe but the firft In-
ventors muft confider and forefee the common
Fvils and fad Calamities they muft occafion. This,
it is fafer to fay, was the Cafe in general in fome
of all the Worlds that were created in various
Manners, than to be particular and fix it upon
One only. But they made Ufe of Beafts in their
Wars, not fo much from a Hope of Victory, as
to annoy and torment their Enemies : bein
themfelves fure to die, becaufe they diftrufted
their Numbers, and were unfkilled in the Ufe of
Arms. ,
THE1R Garments were the Skins of Beafts,
pinn’d together with Thorns, before they had
learned to weave. The Art of Weaving came
in after the Difcovery of Iron, for their Tools
were made of that Metal; nor could the fmooth
Treadies, the Spindles, the Shittles, and the rat-
tling Beams be formed any other way. But Na-
ture at firft compelled the Men to Card and Spin,
before the Women undertook the Trade; for
Men by far exceed the other Sex in the Invention
of Arts, and work with greater Skill. The fturdy
Peafants at length reproached thefe Male Spinfters,
and obliged them to give up the Bufinefs into the
Women’s Hands; and then they betook them-
{elves to more laborious Employments, and hard-
en’d their Limbs and their Hands with rougher
Work.

Bur

224

22}

ἜΤ, ΕΒ ΠΝ ΒΕ

At feecimen Sationis, 5 Infitionis origa 1360
Τρία fuit rerum primim Natura creatrix.
Arboribus quoniam bacce, glandefque caduce
Tempeftiva dabant pullorum examina fubter.
Unde etiam libitunr ft fiirpers committere ramis:
Et nova defodere in terram virgulia per agros: 1305
Inde aliam, aique aliam culiuram dulcis aged
Tentabant, fructufque feros manfuefcere terra
Cernebant induleendo, blandéque colendo.
Inque dies magis in moutem fuccedere fylvas
Cogebaut, iifraque locum concedere culits:’ 1370
Prata, Lacus, Rivos, Segetes, Vinetaque leta
Cellibus, 8 campis ut baberent, atque olearum
Ceruia diftinguens inter plaga currere poffet
Per iumulos, convalleis, campofque profufa:
Ut nunc effe vides vario diftinéta lepore 1278
Omnia, que pomis interfita dulcibus ornant:
Aybuftifgue tenent felicibus obfita circitm.

Ai: liquidas avium voces imitarier ore
Ante fuit multo, quan levia carmina Cantu
Concelebrare bomines poffent, aureifque juvare. 1380
ΕἸ Lepbyrt cava per calamorum fibila primum
Agrefteis docuere cavas inflare cicutas,
inde minutaium dulceis didicere querelas,
Tibia quas fundit digitis pulfata canentui,
Avia per nemora, ac fylvas faltufque reperia, 1385
er loca paftorum deferta, atque olia dia:
Sic unui quicguid paullatim protrabit ALtas
In medium, Raticque in luminis eruit oras,
Lee amimnos ollis mulcebant atgue juvabant

Cur

Boox V. Of the Nature of Things.
But Nature herfelf (the great Mother of all
Things) firft taught Men to Sow and to Graft ;
for the Berries and the Acorns that fell from the
Trees, they obferved, produced young Shoots un-
derneath, in a proper Seafon of the Year: And
hence they began to graft fruitful Slips into the
Boughs, and to plant youre Stocks over all the
Fields. Then they tried every other Art to improve
the kindly Soil; and they found the wild Fruits
grew {weet and large, by inriching the Earth, and
dreffing it with greater Care. They employed
themfelves continually in reducing the Woods to
narrower Bounds upon the Hills, and to cultivate
the lower Places for Corn and Fruits. Thus they
had the Benefit of Meadows, of Lakes, of Rivers,
of Corn Fields, and pleafant Vineyards, upon the
Side of the Hills, and in the Dales ; and of green
Rows of Olives, regularly running between upon
the rifing Grounds, and in tie Valleys, and {pread
over all the Plains: As you fee our Country
Farms now laid out in all the Variety of Beauty,
where the {weet Apples are intermixed, and adorn
the Scene, and fruitful Trees are delightfully plant-
ed round all the Fields. |
ANpD Men attempted to imitate by the Mouth
the charming Voice of Birds, before they tried to
Sing, or to delight the Ear with tuneful Verfe:
And the foft Murmurs of the Reeds, moved by a
gentle Gale, firft taught them how to blow the
hoilow Reed, and by degrees to learn the tender
Notes; fuch as the Pipe, by nimble Fingers
preiled, fends out when fweetly fung to; the
Pipe, that now is heard in all the Woods and
Groves, and all the Lawns, where Shepherds take
their folitary Walks, and fpend their Days in In-
hocence and Fale. Thus Time by degrees draws
every thing into Ufe, and Skill and Ingenuity
raile it to Perfection, Thus Mufick foftned and
relieved

223

214

T. LuGrEwm ΤΡ. Κι
Cum faiiale cibi: nam tum funt omnia cordi. 1390
Sepe tlaque inter fe proftrati in gramine molli
Propter aque rivum, ub ramis arboris alte.
Ton magnis opibus jucundé corpora habebant : |
Prefertim cum tempeftas ridebat, 39 anni
Tempora pingebant viridanteis floribus berbas, 1395
Tum Foca, tum Sermo, tum aulces effe Cachinnt
Confuerant: azreftis enim tum Musa vigebat :
Tum cagut, atque bumeros plexts redimire coroitis,
Floribus, 9 foltis lafcivia lata monebat :
Aique exira numerum procedere membra moventets
Duriter, 8 duro terram pede petlere matrens: τοι +
Unde oriebantur Rifus, dulcefgue Cachinni,
Omnia quod nova tim magis bec, 5 mira vigebant.
Et vigilantibus bine aderant folatia fomut,
Ducere multimodis voces, & fletfere canius; 1405
Et fupera calamos unco percurrere labro:
Unde etiam vigiles nunc bec accepta tuentur,
Et numeritin fervare genus didicere 5 neque bilo
Majsrem interea capiunt dulcedin? frudium,

Oyudin Sylvefire genus capievat Tervrigenarum. 1410
Naim quod adeft prafto, nifi quid cognovimus ante
Suavius, in primis placet, pollere videtur 3 |

Pofteriorque fere mector res ula reperta

Perdit, & immutat fenfus ad prifiina queque.

Sic odium cepit Glandis: fic illa relitta 1418
Strata Cubilia funt berbis, &S frondibus aucta,

Peilis item cecidit, veftis contempla Perinat,

Quam reor invidia tali tune eff2 repertam 5

Ut

7
Boox V. Of the Nature of Things. - 225

relieved the Minds of thefe rude Swains, after

their rural Feafts ; for then the Heart’s at Eafe ;
and then they fweetly indulge their Bodies, as they
lie together on the foft Grafs, hard by a River’s
Side, under the Boughs of fome high Tree, with-
out a Heap of Wealth. Chiefly when the Spring
{miles, and the Seafon of the Year fprinkles-the
verdant Herbs with flowery Pride; then Jefts,
and {mart Conceits, and the loud Laugh went
round ; and then the ruftick Mufe fung out, and,
gay and jocund in their Sports, they crowned
their Heads, and on their Shoulders hang Garlands
of Flowers and Leaves, and with unequal Steps
they rudely moved their Limbs, and fhook their
Mother Aartb with their hard Feet ; and then the
Laugh began, and pleafant Grin, at thefe {trange
Gambols, never feen before. And thus they kept
awake; and, as refrefhed by comfortable Sleep,
they {pent the Night in trolling Country Songs,
and making I Mouths to many an aukward Tune,
and running o’er the Reeds with crooked Lip.
Thefe are the Pleafures now our wanton Youth
perfue, who fit up all the Night; they learn to
dance in meafure, but receive no more Delight
than did that ruftick Race of Earth-born Swains -
fo long ago,

For while we know no better, and enjoy a
prefent Good, it wonderfully pleafes and delights
us above all Things ; but when we difcover fome-
thing more agreeable, this deftroys and changes
the Relifh of what went before. So Acorns be-
Came odious to the Palate; and the Beds of Grafs
and Lueaves were laid afide ; and Skins went out
ef Ule, and that favage fort of Cloathing was
defpifed ; and yet*, I think, he that firft wore it

* Faber feys, that the ἔτ Garment, though a worthleis
undrefied Skin of a Beait, fo pleafed thefe Earth -born Men, that
at was the Caufe of his Death who firft invented and wore it.

Ro... 1]. Θ᾿" raifed

26

ΤῸ υ PE? Vin. ve
. we ° . . |
Ut letbum infidus, qui geffit primus, oviret :
Et tandem inter eos diftraiium, fanguine mulio 14.20
Difperfiffe, neque in fructum convertere quiffe.
Tunc igitur Pelles, nunc durum, &§ Purpura curis
Exercent bominum vitam, belloque fatigant.
Quod magis in nobis (ut opinor) culpa refidit.
Frigus enim nudos fine Pellibus excruciabat 1425
Terrigenas: at nos nil ledit vefte carere
Purpurea, atque Auro, fienifque ingentibus apta ;
: dD af Η “4 , | A r
Dum Plebeia tamen fit, que defendere pofit :
Ergo bominum genus incaffum, fruftraque laborat,
Semper in curis confumit inanibus evum3;, 1430

Nimirum, quia non cognovit, que fit babend
Finis, 95 omnino quoad crefcat vera voluptas :
Idque minutatim vitam provexit in Alium,

ΕἸ belli magnos commovit funditus eftus.

At vigiles mundt magnum 9 verfatile templum
Sol 9 Luna (πὸ luftrantes lumine circum 14.36
Perdocnere bomines Annorum fempora verti :
Et certa ratione geri rem, atque ordine certo,

Jan valiais fepti degebant Turribus evum, |
ΕΣ divifa colebatur, difcretague tellus. 1440.
Tum (Mare velivolum florebat navibw? pandis :
Auxilia, 9 focios jam paito federe babebant :
Carminibus cum res zefias ceepére Peete
Tradere: nec multo prii’ funt Elementa reperta.
Proplerea quid fit pris alium refpicere wtas 1445)
Noira nequit, utifi qua ratio veffigia monftrat.

᾿

Navigia,

BooK V. Of the Nature of 7, bings.

raifed fuch Envy to himfelf, that he was treach-
eroufly flain, he was torn to Pieces, and his lea-
thern Garment ftained with his own Blood, nor
was he fuffer’d to enjoy the Fruit of his own In-
vention,

AT that time Men fought for Skins, but now
Gold and Purple employ their Cares, and fet them
together by the Ears: And, I think, we are much
more to blame of the two; for without the Ufe
of Skins, the Cold would have been very grievous
to thofe Earth-born Wretches ; but we fuffer no-
thing, if we go without Purple or Cloth of Gold,
embroider’d in the richeft Figures, fince a meaner
Drefs would as well fecure us againft the Cold.

WretTcHep therefore, and vain, are the Trou-
bles of Mankind ; they fpend their whole Life in
the Perfuit of empty Cares; and no wonder,
fince they fix no Limits to what they poflels, and
know nothing how far the Bounds of true Pleafure
may extend: snd this Ignorance carries them by
degrees into a Sea of Evils, and raifes the moft
violent Storms of War throughout the World.

But the wakeful Sun and Moon, furveying
with their Light the great and rolling Skies, have
taught Men, that the Seafons of the Year are
turned about, and that Things are carried on by
certain Rules; and in a fixed Order.

Anp now Mankind inclofed themfelves and
lived in Caftles ; the Lands were parted out, and
each enjoyed his own; the Sea was failed o’er by
crooked Ships, and Men joined together for De-
fence, and formed Alliances by certain Bonds.
he Poets then began to celebrate in Verfe the
Great Exploits, and Letters were not long before
difcover’d. What was tranfacted many Ages pait,
thofe Times knew nothing of, but what their
Realon darkly traced out.

δι 758.

227

228

T. LUCRET@, ie

Navigia, atque Agri culturas, Menia, Leges, ἡ
Arma, Vias, Vefteis, S cetera de genere borum,
Premia, delicias quoque vite funditus omnets,
Carmina, Picturas, & dedala figna polire, 1459
Ufus, & impigre fimul Experientia mentis
Paullatin docuit pedetentim progredientes.
Sic unum quicquid paullatim protrabit etas
In medium, ratioque in luminis eruit oras.
Namque alid ex alio clarefeere corde videmus 1455
Artibus, ad fummum donec ventre cacumen,

’
ΒΝ V. Of the Nature of Things. :

_ Use therefore, and the Experience of an en-
quiring Mind, led Men by degrees into the Know-
ledge of Navigation, of Agriculture ; taught them
to build Walls, to make ‘Laws, Arms, “Publick
Ways, Garments, and other Things of the fame
nature ; made them acquainted with | Poetry, Paint-
ing, and Statuary. Thus Time gradually pro-
duces every thing into Ufe, and Reafon fhews it
in a clear Light: One Art, we obierve, is refined
and polifhed by another, till they arrive at the
higheft Point of Perfection,

¢

The End of the Fifth Book.

229

CE Mee Dard SOE Ὁ
ROA ww), aA Yn OF Looe

so eo ee

memes> U Mts RE

ΟΞ ῬΗΒ

SFA TH γον

fo FZ begins with ithe Prafe of Athens, the City
ἢ where Epicurus was born, and beftows a
great Encomium upon that Philofopber. He

gives an Account of the Subject of this Book, in a
manner fuited to the Principles of an Epicurean. He
then explains the Nature of Meteors: And, left Men
foould be terrified with the Roaring of Jupiter’s
Thunder, be tells us, that Thunder is produced either
from the Collifion, or Corrafion, or Difruption of the
Clouds ; or by the Fire of Winds, either ftruggling

within the Bowels of the Clouds, or driving them —

with Violence againft each other; or that it aries
only from the Hiffing of Flames, that fall from a dry
Cloud into a wet; or, laftly, that Thunder is but the
crufbing Noife of 1: of Hail and Ice, that meet-
ag violently in the Air, are dafbed to Pieces, As
for the Lightning , which the Latins call Fulgur, be
Jays it 1: nothing but Fire forced out of Clea: either
by ibeir Collifion or other Motion, or the Seeds q
Flames that are driven out of Clouds by the Force of
Winds. And then, as iothe Thunderbolt, that other
fort of Lightning, which the Ancients call Fulmen,
be teaches, that it confifts of a fubtle and fiery Na-
ᾧ 4 ture 3

y ὃ SW
ς I) Ms

232 The ARGUMENT.

tures that it is conceived and bred in thick and high-
raifed Clouds 5 that being full ripe, it burfts out of
the Cleuds by the Force of Wind, that either breaks
tbrough them, clafbes them to Pieces, or beats from
without with great Violence againft them; that it
confifts of Aioms [0 fubtle and minute, that it is borne
along the Air with wonderful Celerity ; and that it is
moft frequent in the Vernal and Autumnal Seafons.
He derides the Juperfiitions D Deétrine of the Thufcans
and otbers, who beld, that Thunder and Lightning Ὁ
are not the Effects of natural Caufes, but proceed
merely from’ the Will of tbe offended, angry Gods ;
and that Jupiter ὙΠ ᾿ ibe Darter of Thunder :
And becaufe a Prefer, r fery Whirlwind, which
is indeed a fort of ᾿ BP ning, and all other Whirl-
coiads are ceriaii kind of Meteors, be difpuies con-
cerning them, and explains the Nature, Caufes, Mo-
tions, ana Differences of them. He then treats of q
Clouds and of Rain: Clouds, be fuppefes, are eitber
made of Ihe rougheft and Ε΄ dry Particles of ἰδὲ
fir, or of the Stean iy Vapours, and Exbalations, |
that arife from the Earth and Waters: Rain, be
jays, is generated either by Comprefion, as they calt
it, or by Tranfmutation , ὧν Compreffion, if the Force
of the Winds /queeze the Water out of the Clouds ;
by Tranfinutation, if the Clouds themfelves are
changed, and ΔἸ in falline Drops of Water. As
to the other Meteors, the Py. Snow, Wind,
Hail, and Froft, be only mentions them. He then
proceeds to the feveral forts of Earthquakes, and the
Caufes of thems, which he afcribes either to bollow
Parts of the Earth, which falling in, caufe u to
trembie , or to the tremulous Motion of the Waters,
which be fuppofes the Earth to fwim ins or to fa
terraneous and ether Winds, which either fhake the
Earth in feveral Parts, or drive it to and fro. He
obferves why the Sea does not increafe, notwithftand- ο
ing the immenfe Quantity of Water flowing 1110 ,
. (ἢ

ἾἽ
The ARGUMENT.

and imputes it eitber to the Vaftne/s of the Sea itfelf ;
or becaufe the Heat of the Sun dries up its Waters ;
or Be: the Winds, brufbing over them, bear much
of them away; or because the Clouds draw much
Moifiure from them; or, lafily, becaufe of the Dry-
nefs of the Earth itfelf, which fucks in and imbibes
the Waters of the Sea. He fearches into the Caufes
of the Burning of Mount AXtna ; and it proceeds, he
Jays, either from the Violence of the Wind, or to the
Exefiuation of the Waters of the Sea, «which entring
beneath into the Cavities of the Mountain, extrude
and force out the Seeas of the Flame that are engen-
der'd ana colleéted there, through the Openings that
are on the Top of it. He treats of the annual In-
creafe of the Nile; and afcribes it either to the
Etefian Winds, that blow full againft the Stream of
that River, and thus bindring its Courfe, caufe the
Waters to overflow, or to Heaps of Sand which the
Sea drives to the Mouths of it, and thus choaks them
up; or to the Rains and Snows that fall, and are
melied near the Fountain of the Nile. He then dif-
_puies of the Averni, and other Tracts of the Earth,
that are noxious, oe even deadly to Birds, Men,
Deer, Crows, Horfes, &c. He teaches why the
Water of fome Wells and Springs is bot in Winter and
cold in Summer 5 and explains at laree the attraétive
Power and Virtue of the Loadftone. 10 the End of
tbe Book be difcour/es briefly of the Caufe and Origin
of Plagues and Difeafes ; and conciudes bis Poem with
an eleoaj Defcription, taken from ‘Vhucydides, of
tbe Plague that raged in Athens, and alinoft laid
ewafte the cwhole Country of Attica, in tbe Time of
the Peloponnefian War.

7. Lu-

?

234

T. Lucretia Cari

Dee

RERUM NATURA. |

LiBER SE'X Tf Us

FOR ASIME frugiferos fetus mortalibus egris |
t= Dididerunt quondam preclaro nomine Athena :

Et recreaverunt vitam, Legefque rogarunt :

At prime dederunt folatia dulcia vite,
Cum genuere Virnum tali cum corde repertum, §
Omnia veridico qui quondam ex ore profudit :
Cujus 9 extinéhi propter divina reperta
Divolgata vetus, jam ad celum Gloria fertur.

Nam cum vidit Hic, ad vittum que flagitat ufus,
“* Ei per que poffent vitam conjfiftere tutam, 10

Omnis

eT ee g

Hus

P BM ard piev.
Ldu Came vat

1.1.6

I. Lucretius Carus,

OF TTHE

NATURE of THINGS.

Tek ae

mix TH OME:

ENOWNED 5 Athens τίς to wretched

Man gave the:fweet Fruits, and human
s Life refrefhed, and publifhed Laws; but
nobler far than Thefe fhe gave, when
to the World fhe fhew’d Great Epicurus, formed The Praife
with fuch a Soul ; who from his Mouth deliver’d 7 a
fublime Truths, as from an Oracle; whofe Fame*””’
for fo Divine Difcoveries, difperfed every way
abroad, was raifed after Death above the Skies.

For when He faw how little would fuffice for

neceflary Ufe, and by what {mall Provifions Life

ἃ ΤῈ 15 the general Opinion of the Ancients, that the Athe-
nians firft taught Men, who fed before upon Acorns, to
plough the Earth, and to fow Corn ; and that they were the
firt likewife who made Laws, and compelled Men to quit
their favage way of Life, and to enter into civil Society.

( | might

236 T. LuwcRE Try Lise =e

Omnia jam ferme Mortatibus effe parata :

Divitiis bomines, ὃ Honore, &8 Laude potenteis Ὁ
Affuere, atque bona Natorum excellere fama:

Nec minis effe domi ctiquain tamen Anxia corda,
Atque animum tnfeftis cogi fervire querelis : 15
Intellexit, ibi vitium Vas efficere ipfum,
Omniaque illius vitio corrumpier itits,

Que conlaia foris, S commoda cunque venirent,
Pariim quod fluxum, pertufumque effe videbat,
Ut nulla poffet ratione explerier unquam : 20
Partim quod tetro quaft confpurcare fapore

Omnia cernebal quecunque receperat intus.

Veridicis igitur purgavit pettora diftis,

Et finem flatuit Cuppedinis atque Timoris,
Expojuitque Bonum Summum, quo tendimus omnes, 2 5
Qyid foret, atque viam monfravit tramile prono,
Qua poffemus ad id reéto contendere curfu:

Quidve Mali foret in rebus mertalibw? paffim,
Quod flueret Nature vi, variéque volaret,

Seu Cafu, feu Vi, quod fic Natura pardffi: 50
Ei quibus δ᾿ portis occurrt cuique deceret :

ΕἸ genus Humanum frufira plerumque probavit
Volvere curarum trifteis in pectore fluctus.

Nam veluti Pueri trepidant, atque omnia cacis
Fu tenebris metuunt, fic Nos in luce timemus 35
Interdum iibilo que funt metuenda magis, quam
Que Pueri in teneoris pavitant, finguntque futura,
Hune igitur terrorem animt, tenebrafque neceffe ft
Non radii Solis, nec lucida tela diet -

Difcutiant, fea Nature fpecies, Ratioque : | 40
Dud magis inceptum perzam pertexere dictis,

\

»
!

:

Boox VI. Of the Nature of Things.

might be preferved ; that Nature had prepared
every thing ready to fupport Mankind ; that Men
abounded with Wealth, and were loaded with
Honour and Applaufe, and happy in their private
Concerns, in the good Character of their Children,
and yet their Minds were reftlefs at home, com-
plaining and lamenting the Mifery of their Con-
dition; He perceived the Veffel itfelf (the Mind)
was the Caufe of the Calamity, and by the Cor-
ruption of That, every thing, though ever fo good,
that was poured into it was tainted: It was ful! of
Holes, and run out, and fo could never by any
means be filled ; and whatever it received within,
it infected with a ftinking Smell. And therefore
He purged the Mind by True Philofophy, and
fet Bounds to our Defires and our Fears. He laid
open to us the chief Good, that Point of Happi-
Παίς we all aim at, in what it confifts, and fhewed
us the direct way that leads to it, and puts us into

the ftraight Road to obtain it. He taught what

Misfortunes commonly attend human Life, whe-
ther they flow from the Laws of Nature or from
Chance, whether from Neceffity or by Accident ;
and by what means we are to oppofe thofe Evils,
and ftrive againit them. And He has fully
proved, that Mankind torment themielves in vain,
and are tofied about in a tempeftuous Ocean of
Cares to no purpolfe.

For ‘as Boys tremble and fear every thing in
the dark Night, fo we in open Day fear Things
as vain, and litle to be dreaded, as thofe that Chil-
dren quake the Dark, and fancy advancing
towards thet This Terror of the Mind, this
Darknefs then, not the Sun’s Beams, nor the
bright Rays of Day can featter, but the Light of
Nature and the Rules of Reaton : and therefore
I fhall the more readily proceed to execute what
I have begun.

AND

237

Sah dD

T. LuUcCRET?1~ Drewes

Et quoniam docui, Mundi mortalia templa
Effe, 85 nativo confiftere corpore Calum :

Et quecunque in eo fiunt, fientque, neceffe

ΕΠ ea diffolui: Que reftant perecipe porro. 45
Quandoquidem femel infignem confcendere currum
Vincendi foes bortataft, aique obvia curfis

Que fuerant, funt placate converfa furore.

Catera, que fieriinTervis, caloque tuentur
Mortales, pavidis cium pendent mentibu? fepe 50
Efficiunt animos bumileis formidine Diviim,
Depreffafque premunt ad tervam, propterea quod
Tenorantia caufarum conferre Deorum
Cogit ad imperium res, (F concedere regnum: 85
Quorum operum caufas nulla ratione videre 55
Poffunt hac frert Divino numine reniur.

Nam bene qui didicere Deos fecurum agere evum:
Si tamen 1226 784 mirantur, qua ratioie

Quaque geri poffint, preferitm rebus in illis, -

Que fupera caput etberiis cernuntur in oris, 60
Rurfus in antiquas referuntur Relligiones,

Et Dominos acreis afcifcunt, omnia poffe

Quos miferi credunt, ignari quid queat effe,

Quid negueat , finita poteftas denigue cuique
Quanain fit ratione, atque alte terminus herens. 65
Quo magis errantes tota regione feruntur.

Que nifi refpuis ex animo, longegue remiltis,

Diis indigna putando, ahenague pacts eorunt,
Delibata Detiia ter te tibi numina fantia

Ss pe

Book VI. Ofthe Nature of Things. 2 10

Awnp fince I taught the Fabrick of the World
was mortal, and that the Heavens are formed of
corruptible Seeds, and whatever they do, or ever —

: will contain, muft neceffarily be diffolved ; attend
now to what remains, efpecially fince the Hope
of carrying the Prize has encouraged me to afcend
the Chariot, and engage in fo noble a Race; and

‘fince the Difficulties that once attended the Courfe
are removed, and the Roughnefs of the Way is
made favourable and eafy.

Tz various Wonders Men behold in the Earth
and in the Fieavens, perplex their Minds, trem-

bling and in Sufpenfe, and make them humble

with the Fear of the Gods, and prefs them grovel-
ing to the Ground; and being ignorant of the
Caufe of thefe Events, they are forced-to confefs
the Sovereignty, and give up every thing to the
Command of thefe Deities: And the Effects they
are unable to account for by Reafon, they imagine
were brought about by the Influence of the Gods;
for fuch as well know that the Geds lead a Life
of Tranquility and Eafe, if they fhould ftill won-
der by what Power the World is carried on, ef-
pecially in the Things they fee over their Heads
in the Fieavens above, they relapfe again into their
old Superftition ; they raife over themfelves a Set
of cruel Tyrants, who, the Wretches fancy, can
do all Things, becaufe they know nothing of what
can or what cannot be, or by what means a finite
Power is fixed to every Being, and a Boundary
immoveable which it cannot.pais. Such are more
liable to Mittakes, and to be carried widely from
the right Way.

Un ess you purge your Mind of fuch Con-
ceits, and banifh them your Breaft, and forbear
to think unworthily of the Gods, by charging
them with Things that break their Peace, thofe
facred Deities you will believe are always angry

and

240 T. LU@R ETT ΠΕ
Sepe aderunt , non quod violari fumma Detim vis 70
Poffit, ut ex ira penas petere imbibat acreis:
Sed quia Tute {101 placida cum pace quietos

Confittues magnos trarum volvere fiuctus :
Nec delubra Detin placido cuim peétore adibis :
Nec, de corpore qua fanéto Simulacra feruntur, 75
In menteis hominum Divine nuntia forme,
Sufcipere bec animi tranquilla pace valebis.
Inde videre licet, qualis jam vita fequatur’.
Quam quidem ut ἃ nobis Ratio veriffima longé
Reyjiciat, quanquam funt ἃ me mulia profata, 80 .
Multa tamen reftant, 9 funt ornanda politis
Verfibus, 9 ratio Cali, fpeciefque tenenda.

Sunt Tempeftates, 5 Fulmina clara cauenda,
Quid faciant, SF qua de caufa queque ferautur,

Ne trepides celi divifis partibus amens, 85
Onde volans lenis pervenerit, aut in ultram fe |
Verterit bine partem: quo patio per loca fepta

Tnfinudrit, 95 bine dominatus ut extulerit fe:
| Quorum operum caufas nuila ratione videre
Poffunt, ac fiert Divino numine rentur. 90
Tu mibi fupreme prefcripta ad candida calcis
Currenti fpatium premonftra callida Mufa,
Calliope, requies Hominum, Divilmque veluptas:
Te duce ut infignem capiam cum laude coronam.

Principio, —

J
Book VI. Cf the Nature of Things.

and offended with you; not that the Supreme
Power of the Gods can be fo ruffled as to be eager
to punifh feverely in their Refentrnents, but be-
caufe you fancy thofe Beings, who enjoy a State
of perfect Peace in themfelves, are fubject to An-
ger and the Extravagances of Revenge: And
therefore you will no more approach their Shrines
with an eafy Mind; no more in Tranquility and
Peace will you be able to receive the Images, the
Reprefentations of their divine Forms, that flow
from their pure Bodies, and {trike powerfully
upon the Minds of Men: From hence you may
collect what a wretched Life you are to lead.
That the Rules therefore of right Reafon may
keep thefe Evils at the greateft Diftance from us,
though { have offered many Things upon this Sub-
ject before, yet much {till remains to be obferved,

which I fhall adorn with {mootheft Verfe : And
firft, the Nature and Phaenomenons of the Hea-
vens muft be explained.

Awp now I fing of Tempefts, and the flaming
Blafts of Lightning ; how they fly, and from what
Caufe they dart through all the Air, left, when you
view the feveral Parts of Heaven, you tremble, and,
mad with Superftition, afk, whence comes this
winged Fire, and to what Quarter of the Hea-

vens does it direct its Courfe ; how does it pierce:
through Walls of Stone, and having {pent its Rage

goes out again? The Caufes of which Events,
fince Men cannot affign by the Laws of Reafon,
they mult, they fuppote, be effected by the Power
of the Gods.

Awp Thou Calliope, my fkilful Mufe, the
Joy of Men and Pleafure of the Gods, lead on
the Courfe, and guide me to the Goal ; that, by
thy Condué, I may gain a Crown, and end the
Race with Glory.

Wo. 1. R eon

242

qq. υ σεν fie Vie

Principio, Tonitru quatiuntur cerula cali, 95
Propterea quia concurrunt fublime volantes ;
LEjtherie Nubes contra pugnantibw? Ventis.

Nec fit enim fonitus cali de parte ferena,

Verim ubicunque magis denfo funt agmine Nubes,

Tain magis hinc magno fremitus fit murmure fepe.10o
Preterea, neque tam condenfo corpore Nubes

ΕΠ queunt, quam funt Lapides, ac Tigna: neque

autem )

Tam tenes, quam funt Nebule, Fumique volantes.

Nam aut cadere abrupto deberent pondere preffe,

Ut Lapides: aut, ut Fumus, conftare nequirent, 105

Nee cobibere niveis gelidas, © grandinis imbreis. |
Dant etiam fonitum patuli fuper equora mundi, |

Carbafus ut quondam magnis intenta theatris

Dai crepitum malos inter jattata, trabeifque:

Interdum perfeifja furit petulantibus Euris, 110

Et fragileis fonitus cbartarum commeditatur,

Id quoque enim genus in Tonitru cognofcere poffis,

Aut ubi fifpenfain veftem, chartafve velanteis

Verberibus venti verfant, planguntque per auras.

Lit

Boox VI. Of the Nature of Things. 243

First, > The blue Arch of Heaven is fhaken Of Thun-
with Thunder, becaufe the airy Clouds, flying 4.
aloft, are forced by adverfe Winds, and {trike
together ; for where the Sky is clear, you hear no
Noife; but where the Clouds are thick, and
drive in Troops, thence comes the louder Sound ᾿
and Murmur through the Air.

Besipes, the Clouds are not fo folid in their
Contexture as Stones and Wood, nor fo thin as
Mifts and fying Smoke ; for then, depreffled by
their own Weight, they would either fall abruptly
down as Stones, or like Smoke they would dil-
perfe, and not be able to keep in the chilling
snow and Showers of Hail. .

Tuey ‘ give the Crack through the wide Space
of Heaven, as Curtains ftrained upon the Pofts and
Beams in lofty Theatres, when ruffled by the
boifterous Winds and blown to Pieces, they make
a rattling Noife like Paper torn. This Thunder,
you obferve, will found like Cloaths fpread out, or
flying Sheets, when toffed by Strokes of Wind
they roll and flurter through the Sky.

> The Poet begins his Explanation of Meteors; and firft
of Thunder, the varicus Motions and Differences of which
he refolves feveral Ways: He fays, firft, that the Noife of
Thunder is made by the Collifion of Clouds that are driven
and dafhed again{ft one another by adverfe Winds ; and if it
be objected that Clouds are rare and thin Bodies, and there-
fore very improper and unlikely to make fo great a Noile,
he anfwers, that the Clouds do not equal Stones and Wood.
in Denfity, nor, on the other hand, are fo rare as Miit and
smoke, for fen indeed they mon vanifh away ; but they
are ever of a middle Nature, between both, and denie
enough to contain Hail and Snow.

© He obferves, that one fingle Cloud, driven by the Wind,
15 fometimes rent afunder by ‘the 1 Violence of the Blatt, afd
makes a Noife like the Rafting of Curtains that are hung at
a large ‘Theatre ; for the Rowan Theatres were uncover ἃ at
Top, and, to keep off the Sun or Rain from the Spectators,
Curtains were forcad over then.

1Δ 5 AND

244 "J. Loewe Eira: Lieve
Fit quoque enim interaum, ut non tam concurrere

Nubes 11 5

Frontibus adverfis poffint, quam de latere ire

Diverfo motu radentes corpor? tractum :
Aridus unde aureis terget fonus ille diuque
Ducitur, exierit donec regionibus arcts.

Hoc etiam patto Tonitru conctuffa videntur = 120°
Omnia fepe gravi tremere, © divolfa repente
Maxima diffiluiffe capacis menia mundi,

Cim fubita validi Fenti conletia procella

Nubibus intorfit fefe, conclufaque ibidem

Turbine verfanti magis ac magis undique Nubem 125

Cogit, uti fiat fpiffo cava corpore circum,

Poft ubi commovit vis ejus SF impetus acer,

Tum perterricrepo fonitu dat miffa fragorem.

Nec mirum, cium plena anime Veficula parva

Sipe ita dat pariter fonitun difplofa repenté. ΤῊΝ
Eft etiam ratio, citm Venti nubila perfiant,

Cur fomtus faciant : etemm ramofa videmus

Nubila fepe modis multis, atque afpera ferrt.

Scilicet ut crebram fyluam chim flamina Cauri

Perflani, dant fonituin frondes, ramique fragorem.135

Fit queque, ut interdum validi vis incita venti
Perfcindat nubem perfringens impete recto,

Nain quid poffit ibi flatus, manifefia docet res.

Flic, uli lenior eft, in terra citin tamen alta
Arbufia evolvens radicibus baurit ab imis, 140
Sunt etiam fluéius per nubila, qui quafi murmur

Dant iufringends graviter : quod item fit in alis
Plumunvius, magnoque mari, chm frangilur efit.
Fit

a

7

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things. 245

ΑΝ fometimes the Clouds will not directly
meet, and engage Front to Front, but in their
different Motions will rudely fhock the Sides of
one another as they pafs. Hence comes that dry
crafhing Sound we hear, that Jafts for fome Time,
before it breaks its clofe Prifon and roars out.

Att Things, you fee from hence, will fhake
and tremble at the dreadful Clap. And the Hea-
vens (the mighty Walls of this wide World) are
torn and burf{t afunder in a Moment, when a col-
lected Force of reftlefs Wind gets fuddenly within ¢
a Cloud, and there inclofed it rolls furioufly about, -
and ftretches the hollow Space, {till more and
more, until the Sides grow thick and are condenfed ;
and when it fummons its whole Strength, and rages
to eet free, then comes the frightful Break, it flies
abroad with horrid Noife; nor is this f{trange,
when a {mall Bladder full of Wind, will likewife
give a nughty Crack when it is fuddenly burft.

Wen the Winds ftrike violently upon the
Clouds, this may produce ἃ ΝΟ δ ; for we fee the
branched Clouds, with their rough Edges, are
driven about in various Manners ; as the Blafts of
South Weft Winds, blowing hard upon the thick.
Woods, the Boughs give a Sound, and the Branches
rattle through the Air. |

Anp fometimes the violent Force of a fierce
Wind will beat direétly, with all its Rage, upon
a Cloud, and cut it afunder. That the Winds will
fhacter the Clouds, is evident by Experience ; for
here below, where their Power is much weaker,
they will overturn the ftrongeft Trees, and_tear
them up by the Roots.

Anp then, the Clouds, like Waves, roll about
in the wide Ocean of the Air, and caufe a roaring
Noife by dafhing together. The fame happens
in large Rivers, and in the wide Sea, when it is

R 3 _ broken

Ἔ LU@GR ETT! Em ia

Fit quoque, ubi ὃ nube in nubem vis tnciait ardens
Fulminis: bec multo fi forte bumore recepit 145
Jznem, continuo ut magno clamore trucidet :

Ut calidis candens ferrum δ fornacibus olim

Stridit, ubi in gelidum properé demerfimus imbrem. Ὁ
Aridior porro fi Nubes accipit ignem,

ΟἼΗ ingenti foniu fuccenfa repente: E50
Lauricomos ut ft per monteis flamma vagetur,
Turbine ventorum comburens impete magno.

Nee res ulla magis, quam Phelt Delpbica Laurus
Terribili (ΗΠ: famma crepitante crematur.

"52.172 ἢ ὭΡΩΝ ‘ ap 7. ἘΠ Τρ; “-
Deinique fepe Geli multus fragor, atque ruina 158
Grandinis, in magnis fonitum dat Nubibus alte.
Ventis entm cum confercit, franguntur in aréium
Concreti monies nimborum, €8 grandine mifti.

Puleit item, Nubes ignis cum femina multa
Excuffere fuo concurfu, feu Lapidem fi 160
Percutiat Lapis, aut Lerrum, nam tum quoque lumen
Exfiltt, &S claras feintillas diffupat ignis.

Sed Tonitrum fit uti poft auribus accipiamus,
Hulgere quam cernant oculi, quia femper ad aurets

Taras

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things. 247

broken and rages with the Tide. And fometimes

ὁ τῆς fiery Force of Lightning, falls from one Cloud

into another: If a Cloud full of Moifture receives

this Fire, it extinguifhes it with a great Noite ;

as a red-hot fron, juft taken out of the glowing
Heat, hiffes when we plunge it haftily into cold
Water: Butif a dry Cloud receives the Flame, it

takes fire inftantly, and rattles in the Air; as when

a Fire, raging with mighty Force, 1s driven by
rufhing Winds upon a Hill cover’d with Laurels,

and fets all ina Blaze ; for nothing burns with a more
dreadful Noife and crackling Flame, than the
Leaves of the Delpbick Laurel, facred to Apollo. And

laftly, Pieces of Ice and Showers of Hail, inclofed

in mighty Clouds, will often found hikeThunder ; for

when the Winds have driven and preffed them clofe,

thefe mountainous Clouds, being condenfed, will

burft and difcharge their Weight of Ice and Hal.

Ir © lightens when the Clouds, by violent Ligtraingy

Sirokes in meeting, beat out many Seeds of Fire,

and itrike as Flint and Steel, or Stone and Stone ;

for then the Light leaps out, and fcatters fhining
Sparks of Fire.

Bur we never hear the Thunderclap till we ΤΡ Ἂν rhe

have feen the Lightning; for the Images of £¢g¢ ἐς

; _ _ oe . feen before
Things approach our § Ears much flower than. pm

the Thun«

ὁ He fays, that Lightning falling from a dry Cloud into’)

a Wet, hiffes like red-hot Iron when plunged into the Smithy.
This was particularly the Opinion of Azaxagoras.

¢ Lightning may be {truck out of harden’d Clouds, dafh’d
againft one another, as Fire is out of Iron, Flint, or Wood ;
for we are to fuppofe, that fome Seeds of Fire are lurking
in the Clouds, as well as in thofe other ‘Things.

f 'The Reafon is, becavfe the Materia Subtilis in lucid
Bodies, which is the Medium by which we fee, confifts of
Particles that are much lefs, and more folid, than thofe of
the Air, the Medium by which we hear ; and confequently Ν
the Motion of that fubtle Matter is more quick than that of
the Air, becaufe more Strength is requifite to overcome the
Refiitance of a greater body than that of a lefs.

R 4 they

248

T. Lue eer —

Tardius adveniunt, quam vifum que moveant res.165

Id licet bine etiam cognofcere: cedere fiquem

Ancipiti videas ferro procul arboris aucium,

Ante fit ut cernas ittum, quam plaga per aureis

Det fonitum: fic Fulgorem quoque cernimus ante

Quam Tonitrum accipimus, pariter qui mittilur igni,

E fimili caufa, &F concurfu natus eodem : 178
Hoe etiam pactto volucri loca lumine tingunt

Nubes, & tremulo tempeftas impete fulgit.

Ventus ubi invafit Nubem, €8 verfatus ibidem

Fecit, ut ante, cavam, docui, fpiffefcere Nubem, 175

Mobiitate fua fervifeiwt 9 ut oiniia motu

Percalefatta vides ardefcere: plumbea vero

Glaus etiam longo cur/u volvenda liquefcit.

Ergo fervidus Hic Nubem cum perfeidit atram,

Diffapat ardoris quaft per viin expreffa repente 180

Semina, que faciunt nictantia fulgura flamme : .

inde Sonus fequitur, qui tardius adlicit AUF 15,

Quam que perveniuni oculos ad lumina noftros.

Scilicet boc denfis fit nubibus, & fimul alie

Hxftructis aliis alias fuper impete miro. 185
Wee tit fit fraudi, quod nos inferne videmus

Quam fint lata magis, quam furfum exftrucla quid

EXLENE 3

Contemplator enim εἶτ montibus adfimilata

Nubila portabunt Venti tranfuerfa per auras :

Aut ubt per magnos monteis cumulata videbis 190

Infuper effe aliis alia, atque urgere fuperna

In ftatione locata fepultis undique ventis:

Tum poteris magnas moleis cognofcere eorum,

Spe=

Boox VI. Of the Nature of Zhiigs.

they reach our Eyes. This you prove, when you
obferve a Fellow at a Diftance 15 cutting down a
Tree, you fee the Blow before you hear the Stroke :
And fo we fee the Lightning before we hear the
Thunder, though the Noife and the Flame fly out
together, and proceed from the fame Caufe, the
fame Shock and Burfting of the Clouds.

— ἊΝ fo ὅ the Clouds will blaze with winged
Fire, and Tempefts wil! fhine bright with trem-
bling Flame, when the Winds get within a Cloud,
and roll about, and make it hollow (as [ faid be-
fore) till it grows condenfed, and then by Motion
kindles and breaks out into a Flame; for Things
made hot by Motion, we fee, will fall on fire,
and leaden Bullets, in a Jong Courfe through the
Air, have melted as they fled: Therefore this
fiery Wind, when it has burft the Sides of this dark
Cloud, forces and inftantly fcatters many Seeds of
Fire, which makes the fudden Flafh of Lightning
all abroad. ‘Then comes the Noife that flowly
moves the Ear, and later than the Lightning
ftrikes our Sight. This happens when the Clouds
are thick, and roll on Heaps, one Pile above
another, with wondrous Swittnefs through the Air.

249

Nor muft you think this falfe, becaufe the Téicé
Clouds, to us that ftand below, feem rather broad ©/#4s.

than deep, or raifed on Heaps; for fee how the
Winds will whirl along the Air thefe rolling Clouds,
rainfed Mountain-high ; and on the Mountain-Tops
the Clouds, obferve, are higher fome than others,
and piled on Heaps; and, when the Winds are full,
the higher Row will prefs the Lower down: Then

you may judge of their prodigious Weight, and.

8 As Thunder is caufed by the Winds breaking and tearing
the Clouds, fo Lightning is made by the fame Winds, that
by the Swiftnefs of their Motion grow hot, and kindie into
Flames, as they are agitated and whirled about in the Bowels
of the Clouds.

VICW

250

ToLUuUcRETN Wir

Speluncafque velut faxis pendentibu’ firuétas
Cernere, quas Venti cm, tempeftate ceorta, 195
Complerunt, magno indignantur murmure clauft
Nubibus, in caveifque ferarum more minantur :
Nune bine, nune illine fremitus per Nubila mittunt :
Querentefque viam circumverfantur, &F ignis
Semina convoluunt.é Nubibus: atque ita cogunt 200
Multa, rotantque cavis flammam fornacibus intis,
Donec divolfa fulferunt nube corufci.

Hac etiam fit uti de caufa mebilis ille
Devolet in terram liquidi color aureus ignis,

Semina quod Nubeis ipfas permulta neceffe’ft 205
fenis habere: etentm cum funt bumore fine ullo,
Flammeus eft plerumque celos SS fplendidus ollis.
Duippe etenim Solis de lumine multa neceffe */t
Concipere, ut merito rubeant, igneifque profundant.
Hafce igitur cum Ventus agens contrufit in unum 210
Compreffitque locum cogens: expreffa profundunt
Semina, que faciunt flamme fulgere colores.

Fulvit item, εἰπε rarefcunt quoque Nubila celi,
Nam citm Ventus eas leviter diducit eunteis,
Diffolvitque, cadant ingratis dla neceffe*ft RIE
Semina, que faciunt fulgorem: tum fine tetro
Terrore, 5 Soniiu fuleit, nuiloque tumultu.

Oued

Boox VI. Ofthe Nature of Things.
view their hollow Caverns, form’d as it were in
hanging Rocks,where inaVempeft the rough Winds
are fhut, and fcorn to be confined, and roar with
horrid Noife, like favage Beafts within their Dens
chain’d down. They grumble here and there, on
every Side, within the Clouds, and ftriving to get
free, roll évery way about, and as they move cojlec&
the fiery Seeds in great Abundance, and in the
heated Caverns tofs them about, until che Clouds
burft, and then they flafh in thining Flame.

Awp for this Reafon, perhaps, the Lightning
(that {wift and golden Stream of purett Fire) flies
down upon the Earth, becaufe the Clouds mutt
needs contain within themfelves Plenty of fiery
Seeds.; and fuch as are without all Moiiture, look
bright and of a fiery Colour; for they muft re-
ceive many fiery Particies from the Sun, and there-
fore cannot but look red, and fend out Flame.
Thefe, when the Force of Winds have prefled
and driven into a narrow Space, the fiery Seeds,
being fqueezed, fly out, and make that glaring
Flame to fhine abroad.

Or ἢ it lightens, becaufe the Clouds above are
rarefied ; for when the Winds blow on them as they
pafs, and gently ftretch them out, and wear them
thin, the Seeds of Fire that make the Light muft
needs fall out; but then it fhines without much
Noife and Terror, and caufes no Confufion in the

Sky. »

h He faid before, that the Seeds of Fire that are in the
Clouds, are driven out by the Strength and Violence of the
Wind ; but now obferves, that if they are not driven out in
that manner, yet they mui of neceflity fall down when the
Clouds grow thin, and break and open of themfelves: And
that from’ thence proceeds the mild and gentle Lightning,
whofe Splendor dazzles the Eyes, though no Thunder invade
ghe Ear,

Now

251

25

"ἃ

TILUCRETTI ΤΠ ΝΕ

Quod fupereft, quali natura predita conftent
Fulmina, declarant ittus, 9 inufta vapore
Signa, noteque graveis balantes Sulfuris auras. 220
Tents eatin funt bec, non Venti figna, neque Imbris.
Preterea, per fe accendunt queque iecta domorum,
Et celeri flamma dominantur in edibus ipfis.
Hunc tibi fubtilem cum primis ignibus ignem
Conftituit natura minutis, mobilibufque 225
Corporibus, cui nil omnino obfiftere poffit.
Tranfit enim valde Fulmen per fepta domorum,
Clamor uti, ac Voces: tranfit per faxa, per era:
Et liquidum puntio facit @s in tempore, & aurum.
Curat item ut vafts integris Vina repente 2 29
Diffugiant, quia nimirum facile omnia circum
Conlaxat, rareque facit lateramina vafts,
Adveniens calor ejus ut infinuatur in ipfum: &8
Mobiliter folvens differt primordia Vini:
Quod Solis vapor etatem nou poffe videtur 235
Efficere, ufgueadeo pollens fervore corufco:
Tanto mobilior vis, 8 dominantior hec eft.

Nune ea quo pacto gignantur, δ impete tanto
Fiant, ut poffint itu difcludere Turreis,
Difturbare domos, avellere ρα, trabeifque, 240
Et Mouumenta viriim demoliri, atque ciere,
Exanimare Homines, Pecudes profiernere paffim :
Cetera de genere boc qua vi facere omnia poffiit,
Expediam, neque Te in promiffis plura morabor.

Fulnine

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things.

Now of what Seeds the ‘ Lightning is com-
poled, its Strokes will fhew, and Marks of Fire
it leaves behind, and Steams of ftinking Sulphur
in the Air; for thefe are Signs of Fire, not Wind
or Rain; for Lightning will fet on fire whole
‘Towns, and with fwift Flames confume the Houfes
to the Ground. Natnre has formed this fubtle Fire
of Seeds of Heat the moft minute, and Particles
moit apt to move, which nothing can refift. It
paffes forcibly through the Walls, as Voice and
Sound. [t flies through Stones and Brafs, and in
a Moment melts both Brafs and Gold. It has
{trange Power to draw the Liquor out, and leave
the Veffel whole: This it does by loofening the
Contexture of the Cafk, and by widening its Pores
every way, that fo its Heat may more eafily find
a Paffage through; and then, by the Swiftnels of
its Motion, it diffolves the Body of the Liquor,
{catters its Seeds, and forces it out: And this the
Heat of the Sun is not able to do in an Age; fo
much ftronger is the Force of this bright Flame,
its Motion more {wift, and its Power more irre-
fiftible.

But how thefe Fires are formed, and how they 726

273

rage with fo great Force, as by their Strokes to Strength
Bat down a to overturn Houfes, to tear a T bist

up Pofts and Beams, to fhake and tumble down“
Monuments of Stone, to {trike Men dead, and kill
whole Herds at once; by what Power they caufe
fuch Scenes of Ruin, This I fhall now explain,
as I promifed, and keep you no longer in Sufpente.

i Having treated of the Corufcation of Lightning, which
the Latins called Fulgur, he 15 now going to difpute con-
cerning the Fulzex, by which the Ancients meant the Light-
ning that falls and does Mifchief upon the Earth, commonly
called the Thunderbolt. ‘The Poet fpeaks confufedly upon
this Occafion, and often ufes the one for the other.

You

54

τι Ret? Lease

Filmina gignier ὃ craffis, alteque putandum’ ft 245

Nubibus exftructis : nam calo nulla fereio,

Nec leviter denfis mittuntur nubibus unguam.

Nan: dubio procul boc fieri manifefta docet res,
Dubd tune per totum concrefcunt Aéra nubes
Unidique, uti tenebras omnes deberunta reamur 250
Liquiffe, 9 magnas cli compleffe cavernas :
Ufgueadeo tetra nunverum notte coorta

Impendent atre formidimis ora fuperie,

Crm commoliri tempefras Fuimina ceptat.

Preterea, perfepe niger guoque per mare Nimbus,
Ut picis ὃ cla demiffum flumen, in undas 259
Sic cadit, 89 fertur tenebris procul, 9 trabit atram
Fulininibus gravidam tempefialem, atque procellis,
Ignibus, ac ventis cumprimis tpfe repletus :
in terra guoque ut horrefcant, ac tecla requirant. 260
Sic igitur fupera nofirum caput effe putanaume ft
Tempeftaiem allan: neque enim caligine lainia
Obruerent terras, wifi inedificata fuperue
Multa foreat multis exemto Nubia fole :

Nee tanto peffent hac terras opprimere imbri, . 265
Iiumina abundare ut facercit, campofqiue natare,
Si nen exfiructis foret alte Nubibus ether.

His igitur Ventis, atque Ionibus omnia plena
Sunt 5 ideo pafim fremitus, S fuleura fiunt:
Quippe etenim fupera docut, permulia vaporis 270
Semina babere cavas nubeis: δ multa neceffe pr
Concipere ex Solis radits, ardoreque eortin.

Fic ubt Ventus eas idem qui cogit in untian

Forté locum quemvis, expreffit multa vaparis
Semina, feque fimul cum eo comsmifcuit igii : 29 5
Infinuaius ibi Vortex verfatur in alto,

Lt calidis acuit Pulinen fornacibus intis.

ivam

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things.

You are to obferve then, that Thunder is pro-
duced from thick Clouds, raitfed high one above
another in the Air; for the Thunder never roars
in a clear Sky, nor is difcharged from Clouds
that are not thick and condenfed : and this ts cvi-
dent from common Obfervation. The Clouds
thicken every way over all the Heavens, as if the
whole Mafs of Darknefs had left the Shades of
Fell, and filled the fpacious Hollows of the Sky ;
and this dark Heap of Clouds fpreads a dreadful
Night over our Heads, and makes us tremble
here below. TVhefe are the Signs when a Tempeft
is forging Thunder in the Air.

Besripes, a black Cloud 15 often obferved at
Sea, below the dark Regions of the Clouds, that
falls from the Sky like a Stream of flowing Pitch
into the Water; and being full of Fire and Wind,
draws a black Tempeft with it, loaded with Storms
and Thunder ; fo that thofe at Land tremble, and
fly for Shelter to their Houfes. Thofe Clouds
then, you muft think, are high above our Heads :
They could not overwhelm the Earth with fo much
Darknefs, were they not railed on Heaps above,
and driven between Us and the Sun’s Light; nor
could they load the Earth with fo great Showers,
and make the Rivers fwell and drown the Plains,
unlefs the Clouds were raifed on Heaps in the up-
per Regions of the Air.

Tuese Clouds are fully charged with Wind
and’ Fire, and thence the Lightnings flafh and
Thunders roar; for, as I faid above, thefe hol-
low Clouds are full of fiery Seeds, and many they
receive from the Sun’s Rays, and borrow from
their Heat: And when the Wind compels them
to retreat to clofer Room, it drives out many
Seeds of Fire, and mingles with the Flame.
Then the loud Tempeft rolls along the Sky, and
in its heated Entrai!s forms and points the Thun-

der.

>

256

T. LUGCRE im sae

Nam duplici ratione accenditur, Ipfe βία nam
Mobilitate calefeit, SF ἐ contagibus ignis.

Inde ubi percaluit vis Venti, vel gravis Ignis, 280, ~

Impetus inceffit: maturum tum quaft Fulnen
Perfeindit (ὐπὸ Nubem, ferturque corufcis

Omnia luminibus luftrans loca percitus ardor :

Quem gravis infequitur Scnitus, difplofa repente
Opprimere ut cali videantur templa fiuperne. 285
Inde tremor Terras graviter pertentat, S altum
Murmura percurrunt celun: nam tota fere tum
Tempeftas concuffa tremit, fremitufque moventur :
Quo de concuffu fequitur gravis Imber, {SF uber,
Omnis uti videatur in Imbrem vertier Aiher, 2909
Aique ita precipitans ad diluviem revocare : |
Tantus difcidio nubis, ventique procella,

Mittitur ardenti Sonitus cum provolat 1ctu,

Eft etiam chm uts extrinfecus incita Venti
Tucidit in validam maturo fulmine Nubem: 295
Quam citm perfeidit, extemplo cadit igneus ille
Vortex, quod patrio vocitamus nomine Pulmen.

Hoc fit idem in parteis alias, quacunque tuliwt vis.

Fit queque ut interdum Venti vis miffa fine ten,
Iznefcat tamen in patio, longoque meatit, 300
Dum venit, amitlens in curfu corpora quedam
Grandia; que nequeunt pariler pencirare per auras:
Mique alia ex ipfo conradens Aere portat
Parvula, que faciunt ignem commifta volando :
Non alia longé ratione, ac pluinbea Jepe 305

‘ervida fit Glans in curfit, cum multa rigoris

Corpora dimittens iznem coucepit it auris,

fit

Book VI. Of the Naturé of Things.
der. This Wind 1s fet on fire, emher by the Ra-
pidity of its own Motion, or catches from the fiery
Seeds within the Cloud; and when it is raging
hot, and in a Flame, it co! Wee atl its Pury, and then
the ripen’d Thunder inftantly fplits and barfts the
Cloud. The fiery Tempeft blazes all abroad with
Darts of flafhing Light, followed by frightful
Noife, as if the Temples of the Gods above were
rent afunder. The Earth below trembles dreadfully
at the Shock, and the Joud Murmurs fcour through
all the Heavens ; for the whole Tempeft thakes,
and roars aloud. ‘Then grievous Showers in great
Abundance follow the Keneniicn. as if the Skies
were all diflolved in Rain, and poured down Inun-
dations from above. So dreadful is the Clap that
flies abroad with red-hot Lightning, when the
Clouds burft, and Storms of fiery Wind rage
through the Air.

Or elfe, * the Lightning flies when, from
without, a furious Wind beats hard upon a Cloud,
replete with Thunder ripe for Birth ; which, when
it bur{ts the fiery Vortex, falls (we in our Language
call it Thunder) and makes its way where the
Strokes moft prevailed.

SOMETIMES a furious Wind will barft the
Cloud before ’tis fet on fire, but kindles as it flies
in its long Paffage through the Air; for in its
Courfe it throws off the heavy Seeds that lay be-
hind, and could not make their Way ; and brufh-
ed and carried off other fmall Seeds from the Air,
which join and fall on fire as they fy: Juftasa
Ball of Lead melts in its Courfe, and throwing

off the cold and ftubborn Seeds, takes fire and

foftens in the-Air,

k If the Wind that is pent up in the Cloud cannot break

through, it may be aflifted by other Winds from without ;
and ἊΝ whatever means the Cloud be opened, the Flame that
is ripe for Birth will necefl irily fall down.

mp1. 11, | 5 AND

-ῳ

!

257

258

T. Lucreti Lis. VE

Fit quoque, ué ipfius Plage vis excitet ignem,
Frigida cum Venti pepulit vis miffa fine igni :
Nimirum quia citm vebementi percultt icin, 410
Confluere ex ipfo poffunt elementa Vaporis 5
ΕἸ fimul ex illa, que tum res exciptt ittum,
Ut lapidem ferro cum cedimus, evolat Ignis:
Nec quod frigida vis fit ferri, boc fecius illa
Semina concurrunt calidi fulgoris ad ictum: 315
Sic igitur quogue res accenadi Fulinine debet,
Opportuna fuit fi forte, && idonea fiammis.
Nec temeré omnino plané vis frigida Vents
Effe poteft, ex quo tanta vi immiffa fuperne*ft :
Quin prius in curfu fi non accenditur igni, 320
Alt tep-fatta tamen veniat commifia calore.

Muobilitas autem fit Fulminis, & gravis iftus,
Et celert ferme pergunt fic Fulmina lapfu :
Nubibus ipfa qudd cmuino priits incita fe Vis
Conligit, €F magnum conamen fumit eund. 22}
Inde, ubi non potuit Nubes capere wmpetis autium,
Exprimitur vis, aique ideo volat impete miro,
Ut validis que de Tormentis miffa feruntur.

Adde guod ¢ parvis, ac levibus eft elementis :
Nec facile’/t tali nature obfiftere quicquam: 4320
Inter enim fugit, ac penetrat per rara viarum.
Non igitur multis offenfibus in remorando

Fafiiat: bane ob rem celeri volat impete labens.

Deinde,

Boox VI. Of the Nature of Things.

Awp the Fury of the! Stroke, perhaps, may
raife a Fire, when the Force of a cold Wind, un-
kindled, beats hard with all its Power; for then the
Seeds of Fire may flow together upon the Violence
of the Stroke, not only from the Wind, but from
the Thing it ftrikes; as when we ftrike the Flint
with Steel, the Fire flies out ; and though the Iron
be by Nature cold, yet when it feels the Blow the
hot Seeds of Fire will fpread abroad: And thus,
whatever the Lichtning falls upon may eafily be
fet on fire, if it be in its Nature fit and difpofed
to burn. Nor can the Wind be fuppofed to be
perfectly cold, fince it is difcharged from above
with fo much Violence ; and if it be not inflamed
as it drives through the Air, yet it muft have fome
Degree of Heat when it comes to the Earth.

Tue Swiftnefs and heavy Stroke of the Thun-
der, and the Violence of its Fall, proceed from

ence. ‘The Wind, fhut up within a Cloud, rages
in all its Strength, and ftrugeles hard to get frees
and when the Cloud can no longer bear the’Fury
of its Efforts, it breaks out and flies abroad with
mighty Force, as Stones and Darts from mighty
Kingines thrown.

Besipes, the Thunder is formed of fmall and
fmooth Seeds, fo fubtle, that nothing can with-
ftand its Force; it gets between and pierces
through the fmalleft Pores; it meets with nothing
that can divert its Paflage, and therefore flies
abroad with the fwifteft Motion.

1 If the Wind beats furioufly upon any thing, the Seeds of
Fire may flow together upon the Stroke, as well out of the

Wind as out of the Thing it ftrikes ; thus the Wind takes
fire, and Lightning is made. But that fuch a Confluxion of

the Seeds of Fire may be made in that manner, is evident

from the Striking of Flint and Iron. And the Objection of
the Winds being cold (though even that can by no means be
granted, by reafon of the Swiftnefs of their Motion) is of
no Weight; for the Nature of Iron is full as cold, yet Fire
will fparkle out wien we ftrike it.

53 AND

=e

60

T.Lucretm Lis Va

Deinde, guod omnino natura Pondera deorfum
On ia nituntur : cum plaga fit addita vero, 335
Mobilitas duplicatur, SS impetus ille gravefcit :
Ut vebementiis, (2 citius, quecunque morantur
Obvia, difcutiat plagis, itinerque fequatur.
Denique, quod longo venit impete, fumere debet
Mobilitatem, etiam atque etiam que crefcit eundo, 340
Et validas auget vireis, F roborat iétum,
Nam facit, ut, que fint illins Semina cunque,
E regione locum quafi in unum cunéta ferantur,
Omita conjiciens in eum volventia curfum.
Forfan 8 ex ipfo veniens trabat Aére quedam 345
Corpora, que plagis intendunt mobilitatem.
incolumeifque venit per res, atque integra tranfitt
Mulia, foraminibus liguidis quia travelat Ignis.
Multaque perfringit, cum corpora Pulminis ipfa
Corporibus rerum inciderint, qua texta tenentur. 320
Diffolvunt perro facile AZs, Aurumque repente
Confervefacit 5 ὃ parvis quia facta minute
Corporibus vis eff, 9 levibus ex elementis,
Que facile infinuantur, 8 infinuata repente
Diffolvunt nodos omnets, 85 vincla relaxant. 355
Autumnoque magis ftellis fulgentibus alta
Concutitur Cali domus undique, totague Tellus :
Lit cum tempora fe Veris florentia pandunt.
Frizor- enim defunt Ignes, Ventique Calore
Deficiunt, neque funt tam denfo corpore Nubes. 360

| Luter utrumque igitur cim Celi tempora conjtant,

Tum varie caufe concurrunt Fulminis ommes.

Nam

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things.

AND then, fince all Bodies of Weight naturally
defcend, when Blows or outward Force is added
to their innate Gravity, their Motion doubles,
and the Violence of the Strokes drive them down-
wards with the greater Speed, and confequently
they beat through every thing that obftriéts their
Motion much cone and aaa more Vehemence
perfue their Courfe.

Awp, laftly, the greater the Diftance is from
whence a Body defcends, its Swiftnefs in propor-
tion increafes ; it {till gathers Strength as it moves,
erows more violent, and the Blow 15 the heavie
when it falls ; for all its Seeds are driven down by
that Length of Violence to one Point, and unite
all their Powers in the fame Motion ; or perhaps
they carry with them other Seeds in their Paffage
through the Air, which beat them on, and keep
them fteady in their Defcent.

Tue Lightning makes its Way and paffes
through Bodies that are Rare, and leaves them
fafe and unhurt; but other Bodies it rends afunder,
becaufe its fiery Seeds ftrike through their folic
Corpuicles which hold them together: And there-
fore it eafily diffolves Brafs and Gold, becaufe it
confifts of exceeding {mail and fmooth Particles,
which work themfelves without Difficulty into the
very Principles, and in an inftant meit the whole
Contexture, and loofen the Tics and Bonds by
which they were fecured.

ANp in Autumn, and when the flowery Seafon
of the Spring difplays its Beauty, then the high
Palaces of Heaven with all its fhining Stars, and
the whole Earth, are fhaken moft with Thunder;
for in the Winter there wants Fire, and in Sum-
mer there is no Suppiy of Wind, nor will the
Clouds grow thick in too much ideat: But in
the middle Quarters of the Year, all Things
concur to make the T hunder roar. Thofe Seafons

De are

261

262

¥. EKucarerpr ΤῊΣ
Nam fretus ipfe anni permifcet Frigus, δ ABftum :

Quorum utrumgue opus eft fabricanda ad Fulmina
novis,

Ut difcordia fit rerum, magnoque tumultu 365
fenibus, 85 Ventis furibundus fluétuet Aer.

Prima Caloris enim pars, & poftvema Rigoris,
Tempus id eft Vernum: quare puguare neceffe’ft
Diffimiles inter fe res, turbaregue miftas.

Et Calor extremus primo cum Frigore mifilus 270
Voivitur, Autumui quod fertur nomine tempus.

Hic quoque confligunt Eltemes Afiatibus acres.
Propterea funt bec Bella anni nominitanda :

Nec mirum?ft in eo fi tempore plurima fiunt
Pulmina, tempeftafque cietur turbida celo, 395
Ancipiti quoniam belio turbatur utringue,

Hinc Flammis, illinc Ventis, Humoreque mifto.

Hoc eft igifert naturam fulmints ipfam
Perfpicere, S qua vi faciat rem quamque videre:
Non Lyrrhena retro volventem carmina frufira 380
indicia occulia Diviiin perquirere mentis,

Gude volans Ignis pervenerit, aut in utram fe
Verterit bic partem, quo paéo per loca fepta
Infinudrit, && bine deminatus ut extulerit fe,
QDuidve nofcere queat de celo fulminis ictus. 385

Quod fi Fupiter atque alti fulgentia divi
Terrifico quatiunt fonitu caleftia templa,

ΕἸ jaciunt ignets, quo cuigue’/t cumque voluptas,
Cur, quibus incautum foelus averfabile cumque’ ft,
Non faciunt, 1211 flammas ut Fulguris balent 390
Peitore perfixo, documen mortalibus acre ?

Lit

.

'

Boox VI. Of the Nature of Things.

are made up of Heat and Cold blended together ;
of both thefe is formed the Thunder; that fo thefe
jarring Elements may raife the greater Combutti-
ons, and the tormented Air tofs with more Con-
fufion by the Strokes of Wind and Fire; for the
End of Winter and the Beginning of Summer
make the Spring: And then the Heat and Cold,
two Enemies fo oppofite, muft needs engage, and
when they meet and mix, raife ftrange Confufions
in the Air: And then the End.of Summer and
the Beginning of Winter bring on the Autumn ;

_now the retiring Heat and coming Cold engage

again. Thefe are the Times, we fay, when the
Klements go forth to war. Where is the Won-
der, if loud Thunders roar in Seafons fuch as
thefe, and dreadful Tempefts rattle in the Sky,
fince the Elements rage every way with doubtful
War, on one fide Fire, on the other furious Winds
with mingled Rain?

FRom hence you muft colle& the true Principles
of Thunder, and difcover how it works and: fends
abroad its Fires; πὶ for ’tis in vain to look back
into old Zufcan Legends, and from thence inquire
into the fecret Purpofes of the Gods, from what
Quarter of the Heavens the Lightning flies, and
to what Part it points its forked Beams, and how
it pierces through the Walls of Houfes, and hav-
ing {pent its Rage it finds a Paffage our, and
what Evil it portends by flafhing from the Sky.

For if Great Fupiter, and the reft of the Gods,
delight to fhake the fhining Battlements of Heaven
with horrid Noife, and throw about thefe Fires as
pleafe themfel ves, why arenot thofe fhot through who
love to act flagitious Crimes, and why their Hearts
not ftruck with fiery Bolts, as dreadful Monuments

m Here the Poet infults the College of Augurs and Sooth-
fayers of Rome, who, from the Tufcans, pretended to teach
Divination as if it had been a Science.

5. to

|

263

264

T. Lucret@® ie Ve

Et potiis nulla fibt turpis confeiw’ ret
Volvitur in flammis innoxius, ingue peditur,
Turbine celefii fubito conreptus igni ?
Cur etiam loca [οἷα petunt, frufiaque laborant? 395
An con brachia fuefaciunt, firmantque lacertos ;
In terraque Patris cur telum perpetiuntur
Obtundi 2 cur Ipfe finit, neque parcit in bofteis ?
Denique, cur nunguam colo jacit undique puro
Fupiter in terras Fulmen, foniiufque profundit ? 400
An fimul ac Nubes fucceffere, Ipfe in eas tum
Defcendit, prope ut bine teli determinet ictus ὃ
in Mare qua porro mitiit ratione ὃ guid undas
Arguit, &F liquidam molem, campofque natantes ?
Preterea, fi vult caveamus Pulminis iétum, 405
Cur dubitat facere, ut poffimus cernere miffum ὃ
Si nec-opinanteis autem ΟΠ opprimere 101],
Cur tonat ex ula parte, ut vitare queamus ὃ
Cur tenebras ants, & fremitus, 85 murmura concit 2
Et finul in multas parteis qua credere pofis 410
Mittere2 an boc aufis nunquam contendere facium,
Ut fierent idius uno fub tempore plures ?
At fepeft numero factum, frerique necefe fr,
Ut pluere in multis regionibus, ( cadere Imbrets,
Pulmina fie uno fiert fub tempore muilta, 415

Poftvemd,

Book VI. Ofthe Nature of Things.
to future Times? Why rather are the Good and
Innocent fcorched with thefe Blafts, and tortured
in the Flames, and caught up in thefe Whirlwinds
of the Air, and in the Fire confumed ?

Anp why do They fpend their Shafts on foli-
tary Places, and fatigue themfelves in vain? Is
it to exercife their Arms, to try their Strength?
Or why do they permit their Father’s Bolts to be
blunted againft the bare Karthe Why does He
fuer this himfelf, and not rather referve his Stores
to blaft his Enemies? Why does not Zeve vouch-
fafe to roar with Thunder, and fmite the Earth with
his Bolts in a clear Sky ? When the Clouds fpread
over the Heavens, does he defcend within them,
in order to be nearer, and to throw his Darts
with a furer Aim? Why does he fend his Fires
upon the Sear Why does he chaftife the Waves,
the wide Ocean, or the Plains cover’d with Water?

Besipes, if He would have us avoid the
stroke of his Thunderbolts, why does not he
contrive that we may fee them as they fly?-If He
refolves to blaft us with his Fire before we are
aware, why does he firft Aafh out his Lightning
from that Quarter whence his Bolts are to be dif.
charged, that we may avoid them ἢ ὁ Why does he
give us Notice, by raifing Darknefs, Noiles, and
Murmurs in the ΠΗ

AND then, how think you he is able to caft
fo many Darts in many various Places at once?
Will you offer to fay this 15 never done, and infilt
there are never more Darts than One fying about
at the fame Time? It is certain that Numbers of

them are thrown together, and it cannot be other-

wife ; for as the Rain and the Showers fall upon
many Countries at once, fo many Strokes of Thun-
der are difcharged at the fame Time.

Iw

26

266

~

T. Lucrerir Dee
Poftremd, cur fanéta Deiim delubra, fuasque
Difcutit infefto preclaras Fulmine fedes :
Et bene facta Detim frangit fimulacra ? fuifque
Demit imaginibus violento voluere bonorem ?
Altaque cur plerumque petit loca? plurimaque bujus
Montibus in fummus veftigia cernimus Ignis? 421
Quod fupereft, facile*ft ex bis cognofcere rebis,

Πρητήρας (7411 quos ab re nominitarunt, |
In mare qua miffi veniant ratione fuperne.
Nain fit, ut interdum tanquam demiffa columna 425
In mare de celo defcendat, quam Freta circum
Fervifcunt graviter fpirantibus incita flabris :
Et quecunque in eo tum funt deprenfa tumultu
Navigia, in fummum veniunt vexata periclum.
Hoc fit, ubi interdum non quit vis incita Venti 430
Rumpere, quam cepit nubem ; fed deprimit, ut fit
In mare de clo tanquam demiffa columua.
Paullatim, quafi quid pugno, brachique fuperné
Conjeciu trudatur, & extendatur in undas :
Oram chm difcidit, bine prorumpitur in mare Venti
Vis, © fervorem mirum concinnat in undis. 436
Verfabundus enim Turbo defcendit, 9 illam

Deducit tariter lento cum corpore nubem.

Quam

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things.

In the laft place: Why does He with his
deadly Thunder beat down the facred Temples of
the other Gods, and the ftately Fabricks devoted
to Himfelf? Why does he dafh to Pieces the cu-
rious Statues of the other Deities, and deftroy
with furious Strokes the Honours offered to his
own Images? Why does he level his Shafts at
lofty Places, for we difcover many Traces of this
Fire upon the Tops of higheft Mountains ὃ

Ir is eafy, from what has been obferved, to’

apprehend the Caufe of thofe Whirlwinds (which
the Greeks, from the Nature of the Thing, juftly
call ® Prefters) and how they defcend from above,
and fall into the Sea. They are fometimes feen
to deicend from the Air into the Water like a
Pillar; and the Sea, raging about with violent
Blafts of Wind, feems to boil, and 15 exceedingly
toffed ; and whatever Ships are caught within the
Reach of the Hurricane, are in the utmoft Dan-
ger of being caft away. This happens when the
Force of the Wind, impetuoufly whirling within
the Cloud, is not able to break it, but drives it on,
fo that it falls like a Column let down into the Sea.
This Defcent is gradual, as if it was thraft by
fome Hand or Arm, and fpread over the Waters.
When the Cloud bu:fts, the Fury of the Wind
breaks out among the Waves, and violently whirl-
ing round takes fire, and raifes a wonderful Heat
and Fermentation in the Waters; for a rolling
Whirlwind defcends with the Cloud, which being
flow in its Motion, it bears along with it through

n A Prefter (he obferves) is a Wind impetuoufly whirled
about, and that takes fire by the Continuance and Vehemence
of the Agitation: If this Wind burft out of the Clouds, and
move violently in a ftraight Line, it kindles into Lightning
only; but if the Cloud be fo tough that it cannot break
through, but bears it down into the Sea, and there impetu-
oufly whirling round in the ‘Waves at length takes fire, it
becomes a Prefter, the fure Deftruction of Sailors. :

the

4

rd

67

2638

i

ἐ Lu@gerim Gee
Quam fimul ac gravidam detrujit ad equora Pontt,
Ille in aquam fubité totum fe inimiutlil, <P omne 440
Excitat ingenti fomtu Mare fervere cogens.

Fit quoque, ut involvat venii fe nubibus ipfe
Vortex, conradens ex Are femina nubis,

Et quafi demiffum celo Preftéra imitetur.

Lic ubi fe in terras demifit, diffolvitque : 4 ὃ
Turbinis immanem vim promovit, atque procelle.
Sed guia fit raré omnind, monteifque neceffe ft
Ojficere 11 Terris: apparet crebrius idem

Profpeciu Maris in magno, celoque patenti.

Nubila concrejcunt, ubi corpora multa volando 450
Hoc fuper in Cali [patio cotre repente
Afperiora, modis que poffint indupedita
Exiguis, tamen inter fe comprenfa.tenert.

Hec faciunt primum parvas confiftere Nubeis ;

Inde ea comprendunt inter fe, congue grevantur, 455
Et conjungendo crefcunt, ventifque feruntur
Ujqueadeo, donec Tempeftas fava coorta*ft.

‘Fi quoque uti Montis vicina cacumina celo
Quam fint queque magis, tanto magis edita fument
Affidue fulue Nubis caligine craffa : a
Propterea, quia cum confiftunt Nubila primi

Ante

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things.
the Air; and when it has thruft the heavy Body
of the Cloud into the Sea, it plunges furioufly with
it into the Water, and with a dreadful Noile fets
πὸ Element in ablaze.

Ir fometimes happens that a Whirlwind, as it
pafics through the Air, will {crape off fome Seeds
from the Bodies of the Clouds; and rolling itfelf
within, will look ‘like a Prefer defcending from
above into the Sea. When this Vortex of Wind
falls upon the Earth, it burfts out without being
kindled into Flame ; it whirls with mighty l’orce,
and raifes a Tempeft, and bears down every thing
before it. This fort of Whirlwind is not common
at Land; for the high Hills hinder its Deicent,
and break its Force; but it appears frequently in
the wide Sea, and in the open Air.

Now for the Origin of ° Clouds: Thefe are
formed when certain rough and hooked Seeds, as
they fly about, at length unite in the higher Re-
gion of the Air that is above us; but are held
together loofely, and not bound in any cloie and
ftrict Embrace. Of thefe the thin and {mall Clouds
are firft produced; and many of them meeting
together, and preffing clofe, make the large and
heavy Clouds, which the Winds drive every way
abroad, till they break out into a raging Storm.

Ano then, ? the nearer the Tops of the Mountains
approach the Sky, the higher they are, the more they
fmoke, and appear cover’d with the thick Darknels
of a yellow Cloud; becaufe the Mifts that arife are fo

° Certain rough and heoky Atoms, that are flying to and
fro in the Air, meet and join together: Thefe form the thin
Clouds firft; and thefe thin Clouds condeniing and joining
with one another, make the thick and heavy Clouds.

P Clouds frequently feem to rife from the Tops of high
Mountains, becaufe fome thin Mifts and watery Steams, that
are too fubtle to be feen, are driven up thither by the Wind ;
where joining together, and growing ‘thick, they become
vifble.

thin

69

2

'φ᾿

T. LutGanrrfr Lis. va)

Ante videre oculi quam poffint tenuia, Venti
Portantes cogunt ad fumma cacumina Montis.

Hic demum fit, uti turba majore coorta,
Condenfa, ac flipata fimul cernantur, Sudo 465

Vertice de Montis videantur furgere in etbram.
“© Nam loca declarat furfum ventofa patere
“6 Res ipfa, 85 fenfus, Monteis chim afcendimus altos.
Preterea, permulta Mari quoque tollere toto
Corpora Naturam, declarant littore veftes ‘470
Sufpenfe, ciim concipiunt humoris adbefum.
Quod mais ad nubeis augendas multa videntur
Poffe quoque ὃ faljo confurgere momine ponti.
Preterea, fluvits ex omnibus, & fimul ipfa 475
Surgere de terra nebulas, aftumque videmus :
Que velut batitus, bine ita furfum expreffa feruntur,
Suffundunique fua Calum caligine, & altas
Sufficiunt nubeis paullatim conveniundo,
Ureet enim quoque figniferi fuper AAtheris eftus, 480
Et quafi denfando fubtexit cerula nimbis. ΄
Fit quoque, ut bune veniant in ceium extrinfecus
illa
Corpora, que faciunt Nubeis, nimbofq, volanteis.
Funumerabilem enim numerum, fummamg; Profundt
Effe injinitam docui: Quantaque volarent 485
Corpora mobilitate, oftendi, qudmque repente
Immemorabile per fpatium tranfire folerent.
Haud ivitur mirum ft, fi parvo tempore fape
Tam magnos Monteis tempeftas, aique tenebre
Cooperiant Maria, ac Terras, impenfa fuperne. 490
Undique quandoquidem per caulas atheris omneis,

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things.

thin and fubtle, that before they are difcovered by
the Eye, they are carried aloft by the Winds to
the Tops of the higheft Hills: And fince they
unite there in larger Bodies, and fhew thick and
condenfed, they feem to rife from the Tops of
thefe Hills into the Air; for when we afcend a
high Mountain, the Thine itfelf and Senfe de-
monftrate, that the Winds tend to the higheft
Places, and reign there.

Besipes, that Nature raifes many Exhalations
from the wide Sea, is plain, by obferving, thar
Garments expanded upon the Shore will foon be
wet; and therefore, to form fuch vaft Bodies of
Clouds, many Seeds are thrown off and arife from
the Motion of the falt Waters.

Anp we fee that Mifts and watery Particles rife
from all the Rivers, and from the Earth itfelf;
which, like a Vapour, are from thence fqueezed out
and carried upwards, and cover the whole Heavens
with Darknefs ; and uniting together by degrees,
are fufficient to produce the Clouds: For the Seeds
that are continually defcending from above in a
confufed Manner, continually beat thefe Mitts upon
the Back, and by condenfing and preffing them
clofe, form them into Clouds over all the Sky.

It may be, lhkewife, that Seeds from without, -
y ve, ) >

from the immenie Space of the Univerfe, may
flow hither, and unite in the Production of the
fiying Clouds; for I have proved before, that thefe
Seeds are without Number, and that the Void 18
Infinite. I have fhewn how fuddenly, and with
whatCelerity they pafs through this boundlefs Space,
It is no wonder therefore, that Vempefts and dark
Clouds are in fo fhort a Time frequently {pread
over the whole Heavens, and cover the high
Mountains, the Seas and the Earth, with fo quick
a Motion; fince, from every Quarter, through
all the Paffages of the Aur, through all the

; Breathing-

271

272

TY. Ἐ συ ΘΕ Ware
Et quafi per magmi circum fpiracula mundi
Exitus, introitufque elementis redditus extat.

Nunc age, quo patto Pluvius concrefcat in altis
Nubibus bumor, & in terras demiffus ut Imber 495
Decidat, expediam. Primitm jam femina Aquai
Mulia funul vincam confurgere nubibus ipfis
Omnibus ex rebus, paritergue ita crefcere utrafque,
Et Nubeis, 8 Aquam, quecunque in nubibus extat,
Ot pariter nobis corpus cum fanguine crefcit, 500
Sudor item atque bumor quicunque eft denique membris.
Coucipiunt eliam multum quoque fepe marinum
Flumorem, veluti pendentia vellera lane
Cum fupera magnum ventt mare nubila portant.
Confimili rattone ex omnibus amnibus bumor 505
Tollitur in nubets: quo cum bené femina aquarum
Mulia modis multis convenere undique adaudta :
Conferte nubes vt ventt mittere certant
Dupliciter : nam vis venti contrudit, & ipfa
Copia nimborum, turba majore coorta, 510
Ureet, SF ὃ fupero premit, ac facit effluere Imbreis.

Preterea, cum rarefcunt quoque Nubila ventis,
Aut-diffolvuntur Solis fuper iéta calore :

Muittunt bumoreim pluvium, flillantque, quafi ignt
Cera fuper calido tabefcens multa liquefcat. δῚ 8
Sed vebemens imber fit, ubi vebementer utrogue

Nubila vi cumulata premuntur, 8 impete venti.

At rvetinere din pluvie, lonzumque morari
Confiterunt, ubi multa fuerunt Semina aquarum 3
Aique aliis alie Nubes, nimbique rizantes 520

Tnfup er

Boox VI. Of the Nature of Things. 273
Breathing- Bracks: I may fay, of the Univertfe,

the Seeds can make their Way hither and unite,

or withdraw and fly away again.

Anp now I fhall explain in what Manner the Raiz.
Rain is formed within the Clouds above, and falls
down in Showers upon the Earth. 1 fhall firft
fhew, that many Seeds of Rain are raifed from
évery thing, together with the Clouds ; and that
they increafe together, both the Clouds and the
Rain contained within, in the fame manner as the
Blood increafes in proportion with our Bodies, or
as Sweat or any other Moifture diffufed through
the Limbs. The Clouds likewife, like hanging
Fleeces of Wooll, fuck up many Particles of fale
Water, when the Winds drive them over the
open Sea: And by the fame Rule a Quantity of
Moifture is raifed into the Clouds from all the
Rivers; and there thefe many Seeds of Waters
meeting from all Parts, and uniting varioufly to-
gether, the Clouds being full, are obliged to dif-
charge their Load of Moiture for two ) Reafons : 5
either the Force of Winds drives them clofe ; sak
the Number of them, raifed one above another,
preffes them τως from above with their own
Weight, and makes the Showers to pour down.

Besrpes, when the Clouds are made rare and
thin by the Winds, or are diffelved by the Heat
of the Sun ftriking upon them, they difcharge
their rainy Moifture and drop, as Wax diffoives
and melts over a hor Fire.

But expect a violent Storm of Rain when thefe S¢erzs.
Clouds, heaped up, are preffed, not only by their
own Weight, but driven clofe by the Stroke of
"Winds from without.

THE Rains uled to confine us long at home, Cyypant
and to laf for fome Time, when there are Seeds Severs,
of Moifture in Abundance; when the dropping
Clouds are railed on Heaps above, and are driven

moO L. dd, ἐν every

27 4

T. bw qretm Lis ig
Tufuper, atque omni volgo de parte feruntur :
Terraque cum fumaus bumorem tola rebalat.
Hine ubi Sol radts tempeftatem inter opacam
Adverfa fulfit nimborum afpergine contra :
Tum color in nigris exitit subibus Arqut, δ.
Cetera, que furfum crefcunt, furfumg; creantur :
Lit que concrefcunt in nubibus omnia, prorfum
Omnia, Nix, Venti, Granado, gelideque Prune,
ΕἸ vis magna Geli, magnum duramen aquarum :
Lt mora, que fluvios paffim refrenat eunteis: 530
Perfacile’ft tamen bec reperire, animoque videre,
Omnia quo patto fiant, quareve creentur,
Cum bene cognoris, dlementis reddita que ΠΗ].
Nunc. age, que vrais Lerrai motibus extet,
Percipe: Et in prunis Terrain fac ut effe rearis 535
Subler item, ut fupera’ jt, Ventis, atque undique ple-
nan
Speluncis, multofque lacus, multafcue lacunas
in gremio gerere, 9 rupeis, deruptaque fona:
Multague fub terco Terrai ᾿ ὩΣ Leta
Vokvere vi flactus, fubmerfaque faxa putanduur ft. 540
Judigue eniin fimilem effe fui, res poftulat ipfa.
fis 1eitur rebus fubjunctis, fuppofitifque :
Terra fuperne tremit magnis concufja ruinis
Subter, ubi ingenteis freluncas fubruit etas,
ἌΣ cadunt toti montes, inagnoque repenie 545
Concuffu, late differpunt inde tremeres :
Lt merito, quowiam plaufiris coucuffa tremifcunt
Tela viam propter non mazno poudere tcta.
Nec minis exfuitant, uot currus ia CGUEML TIS
Ferratos utrinque rotarum fuccutit orbeis, 550

far

ἃ

Boox ΥἹἱ. Of the Nature of Things. 175
every way abroad; and when the Earth, tho-
roughly foaked, fends back the Vapours into the
vir. | | ,
ANnpD when the Sun, in a dark Storm of Rain, Rainzbow,
ftrikes with its Beams directly upon an oppofite
Cloud, full of Moifture, then you fee the Colours
of the Rainbow drawn upon the black Clouds.
Ano al! other Appearances which are formed
and increafe in the upper Region of the Air, and
all Meteors that are raifed in the Clouds; the
Snow, the Winds, che Hail, and chilling Frofts ;
and the ftrong Ice, that hardens the Surface of the
Waters, and ftops and binds up the Current of
the Rivers as they flow ; it is eafy to account for
all thefe, and to apprehend their Caufes, and how
they are produced, if you confider well the Virtue
and Power of the Seeds from whence they fpring.
Learn now the Canfe of Earthquakes: And £arth-
firft, you are to fuppofe that the Earth 1s the fame quakes.
below as it is above, that it is every way full of
Winds and Caverns, and that it holds within its
Bowels many Lakes, and Pools, and Rocks, and
broken Stones. You muft believe that many hid-
den Rivers flow with rapid Waves within, and
roll the ragged Rocks along their Tide; for the
Laws of Nature require that the Earth within and
without fhould be the fame.
Tuts. being premifed and fuppofed: ‘The Earth
rembles and fhakes above with dreadful Ruin,
when Age has tumbled in thefe mighty Caverns ;
for then whole Mountains fink, and in a Moment,
with the horrid Shock, fpread frightful Trem-
blings all abroad: And no wonder, fince whole
Houfes by the Highway-fide will quake as Carts,
with no great Weight, pafs through the Streets ; :
and fo they ftart as Chariots fwittly drive with
mettled Horfes, they fhake at every Jumping of
the Wheel.
Be THis

Ny

1. LUG μετ Fiera

Fit guoque, ubi magnas in aque, vafiafque lacunas
Gicha vetuftate δ terra provelvitur ingens,
Ut jactelur aqua, fluétu quoque terra vacillet :

Ut vas in terra non quit confiare, nifi humor
ΤΗΣ in dubio fluclu jactarier tits. 559
Preterea, Ventus cum per loca fubcava terre

Coulecius parti ex una procumbit, & urget

Obnixus mazius {peluncas viribus altas 3

incumbit tellus quo Venti prona premit vis :

Tum fupera terram que funt exfirudla domorum, 560

Ad ceélumque magis quanto funt edita queque,

Inclinata minent in eandem predita partem :

Protracteque irabes unpendent ire parate :

Et metuunt magni Naturam credere Mundi

Exitiale aliguod tempus, clademque manere, 565

Cim videant tantaim Lerrarum incumbere molen,

Quod nifi refpirent Venti, non ulla refrenet

Res, neque ao exitio poffit reprendere eunteis:

Nunc quia vefpirant alternis, 1156 gravefcunt,

it quafi conlect δ id es repulft. 570

Sepius banc ob KenL Mi wv Terra ruinas,

Quam facit : ae enim, retroque recellit,

Ki recipit prolapfa fuas fe in pondere fedets :

fac igitur ratione vacillant omnia tecta,

Summa magis medits, media imis, ima perbilum. δῆς
ΕΠ bec ejufdem aueque magni caufa tremoris,

΄»

Ventus ubi, atque Anime fubitd vis maxima quedam,

Lut

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things.

Tuts happens likewife, when great Weights of
Earth, loofen’d by Time, plunge down into thefe
deep and mighty Lakes ; for then the Waters rage,
and the Earth reels and {taggers with the Shock ;
as a Veffel on the Ground cannot ftand frm, un-
Jefs the Liquor ceafes to ferment and tofs within.

Bestpes, when Winds, collected in the Ca-
verns of the Earth, direct their Force one Way,
and beat with Fury on thefe hollow Places, the
| Barth inclines that Way where the Winds point
their Stroke; and our Buildines, raifed above,
ned that Way too; the Highett thake the moft ;
the hanging Beams ftart from the Wall, and
threaten to fly out: And yet Men are afraid to
think that Nature has fixed a fatal Time when this
great World fhall be deftroyed, and fall to Ruin,
although they fee the heavy Mafs of Earth lean-
ing Aaa tumbling to Pieces. And did not the
Winds take Time to breathe, nothing could
check their Fury, or keep them from deftroying
every thing before them: But ac they ceafe by
turns, then rage again, and fterm with double
Force, and are again repelled. Hence it is that
the Earth oftner threatens us with Ruin than adctu-
ally effects it: It inclines only, and then falls
back ; and though moved afide, fettles with all
"5 Weight again in its former Place. For this
Reafon all our Houfes tremble and reel; the
Higheit fhake the moft, the Middle lefs, the
Loweft little or nothing

THE great 4 Tremblings of the Earth may arife
yet from another Caufe ; when Wind or violent

Blafts

1 This Inclination and fluCtuating Motion of the Earth, 1
often attended with a violent Beating and Succuffion of it ;
for 1f the Wind break through the Caverns, and cleave the
Marth, then Cities, Hlands, €3c. with all their Inhabitants,
are ingulphed and Ὁ a up in the hideous Chatm ; but
af the Wind does not break through, there is then one a

Te ‘Trembling,

277

T. DucReTii, £ipVigg
Aut extrinfecus, aut ipfa a tellure coorta
In loca fe cava Tervai conjecit, ibigue
Speluncas inter magnas fremit anté tumuliu: 580
Verfabundaque portatur, poft incita cum vis
Exagitata foras erumpiur, & fimul artam
Dijfindens terram megnum concinnat biatum :
In Tyria Sidoue quod accidit, 8 fuit ΖΞ οἷς
In Peloponnefo: Quas extius bic animaz 585
Difturbat urbeis, € Terre motus obortus !
Multaque preterea ceciderunt mania magnis
Motibus in terris, 5. multe per mare peffum
Subfedere fuis pariter cum civibus urbes,
Qudd nifi prorumpit, tamen impetus ipfe Animal 590
Lit fera vis Venti per crebra foramina terre
Difpertitur, ut Horror, 5 incutit inde tremorem:
Frigus uti noftros penitus cum ventt in artus,
Concutit invilos cogens tremere atque moveri.
Ancipits trepidant igitur terrcre per urbeis: 595
Teita fupernue tiument, metuunt inferne, cavernas |
Terrai ne diffolvat Natura repente:
Neu diftraéta fuum late difpandat biatum :
Ldque fuis confufa velit complere ruinis.

Proinde licet, quamvis celum terramque reantur
Incorrupta fere'eterne mandata faluti: Gor
Aitamen titerdum prefens vis ipfa pericli
Subditat bune fiimulum quadam de parte timoris,

Ne pedibus raptim Tellus fubtratia feratur

ΙΝ

Rook VI. Cf the Nature of Things. 179

Blafts (raifed either from without or within the
Earth itfelf) throw themfelves furioufly into thefe
hollow Caverns, and in thefe vaft Dens roar and
tofs themfelves about ; and when they have rolled
within, and raged with all their Might, they
break abroad at laft, and cleave the folid Earth,
and make a hideous Chafm. This happened at
Sidon, a City of the Tyriaus, and at ge in Pe-
lopounefus. What Cities has this Eruption of the
Wind deftroyed? What Earthquakes has it pro-
duced? At Land, the Walls of many Towns
have tumbled down by thefe violent Concuffions ;
and many Cities, with all its Inhabitants, have
funk together into the Sea. But if the Wind does
Hot break through, yet the Fury and raging
Force of its Blafts are fcattered through the:many
Pores of the Earth like a fhivering Cold, and
caufe a Shuddering in its Bowels; as the Cold,
when it feizes upon our Limbs, makes us fhake
againit our Will, and tremble all over. Then
Men ftageer with doubtful Fear in all the Cities ;
they are in dread of their Houfes above them, and
of the Earth under their Feet ;- left Nature fhould
inftantly break to Pieces the Caverns below ; left
the divided Earth fhould open wide its Jaws,
and fill them with the utter Defolation of Men and
Houtes.

Even Thofe who think the Heavens and the
Barth are Eternal, and will be preferved fafe for
ever, yet the prefent Dread of impending Danger
{tagyvers them, and ratfes terrible Apprehenfions,
Jeft the Earth fhould inftantly fail under their
Feet, and fink into the great Abyfs; left the Dif-
folution of the Univerfe, from the very Founda-

Prembling, Or as it were a Shuddering of the Earth, which
is caufed by the chilling Wind that 18 ‘diftuled through al] its
Pores.

T 4 tion,

T. Lucretiz Lrz.VI.
In baratbrum, rerumque fequatur predita Summa 605
Funditus, 8 fiat Mundi confufa ruina.

Nunc ratio reddunda, augmen cur nefciat AEquor,
Principio, Mare mirantur non reddere majus
Naturam, quo tantu’ fuat decurfus aquarum,
Omnia quo veniant ex omni Flumina parte. 610
Adde vagos imbreis, tempeftatefque volanteis :
Omnia que maria, ac terras fpargunique, rigantque.
Adde [μος fonteis: tamen ad Maris omnia fummam
Guttai vix inflar erunt unius ad augmen:

Oud minus eft mirum, Mare non augefcere magnum.

Preterea, magnam Sol partem detrabit effu. 616
QDuippe videmus enim vefieis humore madenteis,
Exficcare fuis radus ardentibv? Solem.

At Pelage mulia, © late fubftracia videmus.
Proinde licet quamvis ex uno quoque loco Sol 620
Humoris parvam delibet ab aquore partem:
Largiter in tanto {patio tamen auferet undis.

Tum porro Venti magnam quogue tollere partent
Humoris poffunt verrentes equora pontt :

Una notte vias quoniam perfepe videmus 625
Siccari, mollifque luti concrefcere cruftas.

Preterea,

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things. 281

tion, fhould follow, and the Fabrick of the World
fhould fall into Ruin and Confufion.

Anp now we are to account why the Waters The Sea
of the " Sea are never increafed. And farft, Men 72 a-
wonder that Nature does not inlarge the Bounds “7:
of the Sea, in proportion to the Falls of Water,
and the Streams of fo many Rivers that from all
Parts flow into it; befides the wandering Showers
and flying Storms, that pour down and difcharge
themfelves upon the Land and Seas, you may add
the Fountains and Springs likewifle: But All
Thefe, compared to the Vaftnefs of the Sea, are
hardly more than one Drop of Water, and there-
fore can contribute little to its Increafe. No
wonder then, that the wide Sea rolls within the
fame Bounds. |

AND then, the Sutt licks up a great Part of its
Water with its Heat; for we fee ane Sun dries a
Garment, dropping wet, with its burning Rays.
And the Sea, we know, is widely fpread, and
expofed to the Influence of his Beams.. And
though the Sun draws up but a very little Quan-
tty of Moitture from ever ry Part of the Sea, yet,
within fo vait a Circumference, a great Store of
Water muft be drawn off,

Tue Winds -Jlikewile, brufhing over the Sur-
face of the Sea, carry off a large Part; for we
obferve the Roads are frequently dried in one
Night, and the foft Dirt grows hard.

* The Sea does not increafe, becaufe the Gulph into which
the Rivers difembogue their Streams, 1s 10 vate thatall their
Waters, together with the Rain, Sie. Haul, Se. feem not
to add one Drop to the Sea. - T he Sun drinks up a great deal
of its Moifture ; the Winds brufh off and carry away no {mall
Quantity ; ; the Clouds take fome away. As the ut run
into the Sea, fo they are re-conveyed from thence, ‘rom
through the ΕἾ. Veins of the Earth, back to their own
Springs. ‘Thus the Waters roll in a. revolvmg Coerie, and
therefore no wonder the Sea does not increafe.

BESIDES,

4$2

T. Lwer fir eevee.

Preterea, docui multuin quoque tollere Mubeis
Humorem magno conceptum ex equore ponti :
Et palfim toto terrarum fpargere in orbe,
Cim pluit in terris, €8 venti nubila portant. 610
Poftremod, quomiam raro cum corpore Telius
Eft, <9 conjunttas oras maris undique cingit :
Debet, ut in mare de terris venit bumor aquat,
In terras itidem manare ex equore falfo ;
Percolatur enim virlls, retrogue remanat 625
Matertes humoris, 5 ad caput ammnibus omnis
Confiuit: tae fuper terras redit agmine dulei,

Qua via fecta femel liquide pede detulit uxdas.
Nune vatio que fit, per fauceis montis ut lune
Exfpirent ignes tnterdum turbine tanto, 640

Expediam: neque 6117), media de clade coorta
Hamme teimpefias Siculiim dominata per agros
Finitimis ad fe convertit gentibus ora, Ὁ

Fumida cum cel feintillare omnia templa
Cernentes pavida complebant pettora cura, 645
Quid moliretur rerum Natura novarum.

Fiifce tibi rebus late ft, alteque videndum,

ΕἸ longé cunétas in partets difpiciendum,

Ut reminifcaris, Summam rerum effe profundam,
Et videas, cvlum Summai totius unum 650
Quam fit parvula pars, J quam multefima confiet :
Et quota pars HomoTerrai fit totius unus.

Quod bene propofitum fi plané contueare,

Ac videas plane 5 mirari multa relinguas.

Nua

Book VL Ofthe Nature of Things. 283

’'Bestpes, | have fhewn that the Clouds fack
up a great deal of Moifture from the wide Sea,
and then fcatter it down over the whole Earth,
when the Rain falls, and the Winds iia the
Clouds through the Sky.

basn a Since the Earth is of a rare Con-
texture, and full of Pores, and every way fur-
rounds the Body of the Sea which joins to it, it
ε΄. that, as the Waters flow from the Earth

nto the Sea, fo they muft return from thence into
re Earth again. In thete fubterraneous Pafiages
the faline Particles are {trained off, and the ee
ters flow back, and unite together at the Fountain
..Heads; from whence they © slide fweetly, with
their collected Strength, over “the Earth, through
thofe Channels where the Streams firft cut their
liquid Way,

Now learn the Caufe why Fires break out, 7/¢ Burz-
with fo much Fury, from the Jaws of Mo anting of
fztna , for we are not to Ὁ “fuch ΑἹ Tempett ι ed
of Fire rages over the Plains of Sicily, and brings
fuch Deftruétion with it from the Gods, as if re
only raifed the Admiration of all the neighbour-
ine People, who teeing the whole Fleavens fpark-
ling with Fire, and full of Smoke, trembled with
anxious Concern, and woncder’d what new Pde-
nomenon Nature was going to produce, The
Reafon of thefe Events. requires a deeper and a
wider Search. Yeu muft enter further into all
their Parts, and then you will recollect that the
Univerfe of Things is Infinite; and obferve how
pall adeart (τατος one of a Thoufand) is one
Heaven, in comparifon cf the Whole, and what
a poor Pittance of the whole Earth is one Mun,
Ii you confider this well, and obferve clofely,
you will ceafe wondering at many Things which
now Γαι your Admuration.

For

1. Lo @k πὴ τι τ.
Num quis enim noftriim miratur, fiquis in arius 655
Accepit calido Febrim fervore coortam,
Aut aliuin quemvis Morbi per membra dolorem ὃ
Obturgefcit enim fubito Pes, arripit acer
Sepe dolor Denteis, oculos invadit in ipfos :
Exiflit facer Ignis, © urit corpore ferpens 669
Quamcungue arvipuit partem, repitque per artus.
Nimirum, quia funt multarum Semina rerum :
ki (πῆς bec Tellus nobis Calumque mali fert,
Unde queat vis immenft procrefcere morbi.
Sic igitur 1011 cwlo, terreque putandui ft 665
Ex infinito fatis omnia fuppeditare,
Unde repente queat Tellus concuffa moveri,
Perque mare, SS terras rapidus percurrere Turbo,
Ienis abundare Atineus, flammefcere Calum.
Id quoque enim fit, 5 ardefcunt celeftia templa, 670
Ut Tempeftates pluvie graviore coortu
Sunt, ubi forte ita fe tetulerunt Semina aquarum.,
At nimis eft ingens Incendi turbidus ardor.
Scilicet, €F fluvius, qui non eft, maximus eu°/t
Qui non anté aliquem majorem vidit : &P ingens 675
Arbor, Homogue videtur: 8 omnia de genere omni,
Maxima quae vidit quifque, bac ingentia fingit :
Cum tamen omma cum Calo, Terraque, Marique
Nil fint ad Summam Summai totius omnem. -
lunc tamen, tla modis quibus inritata repenté 680
lamina fords vafiis Aine fornacibus effiet,

Expediam.

Book VI. Of the Naiureof Things. 285

For where is the Wonder with any of Us, if a
Man receives the burning Heat of a Fever within
his Veins, or feels the Anguifh of any other Diteafe
in bis Limbs? For our Foot often {wells of a fudden :
a fharp Pain frequently feizes upon our Teeth,
and attacks our Eyes. There is fuch a Thing as
the " Holy Fire, that {preads over the Body, and
burns the Parc it fixes upon, and creeps over the
Limbs. Nothing ftrange! for the Seeds of Things
are in great Abundance, and the-Karth and the
Fleavens afford fuficient Supplies of hurtful Seeds,
from whence the {Πατρεῖς Difeafes may be produced
in Us: And therefore you muft think, that large
Store of Seeds may flow from the Infinite Space,
and fupply the Earth and the whole Heavens.
Thefe may caufe thofe fudden and violent Trem-
blings of the Earth, that rapid Whirlwinds fcour
along the Land and Sea, and that there is abun-
dant Fuel for the Flames of ina, and that the Sky
is all in a Blaze : for this happens, and the Hea-
vens are on fire, when the Seeds of Flame unite, as
the Storms of Rain are the more violent when the
Seeds of Water are collected and joined together.

Bur you will fay, the Fire of tua is too
@reat.and impetuous. By the fame Rule a River,
not very large, appears a mighty Stream to one
who never faw a greater; and fo a Man or a
Tree feems prodigious 3 and all other Bodies that
we fee, we imagine are extraordinary ; when,
alas! all Beings, with the Heavens, the Earth,
and the Sea together, are nothing to the vaft Uni-
meric of All.

Awnp now I fhall explain by what Means the 24e —
raging t Flame burfts fuddenly abroad from the vaft ?7¢##g

a out of
ClY Flames.
‘Commonly called St. Anthony’s Fire.
t.The Eruption from Mount -2¢ya is caufed by the Force
ef Wind. The Seeds of that Wind come from the Infinite
Univerfe,

To. Luorrrar ive

Expediam. Primitm totius fubcava montis

Eft natura, feré filicum fuffulta cavernis :

Omnibus ef perro in fpeluncis Ventus & Aes.

Veutus enim fit, ubt eft agitando percilus Aér, 685
Flic ubi percaluit, calefecitque omnia circum

Saxa furens, qua contingit, Terramque: € ab ollis
Excuffit calidum flammis velocibus ignem :

Tollit fe, ac retits ita faucibus ejicit alle,

Funditque araorem longe, longeque favillam 690
Differt, 5 craffa volvit calisine fumum:
Extruditqde fimul mirando pondere faxa:

Ne dubites, quin bec Animai turbida fit vis.
Preterea, magna ex parti Mare montis ad ejus
Radices frangit fluétus, eftumque reforbet. 695

Ex boc ufque mari Spelunce Montis ad altas
Perveniunt fubter fauceis: Hac ire fatenduin’ ft,

$6 Bit penetrare mari pentius res cogit aperto:

Atque effiare foras, ideoque extollere fiammas,
O

|
Ω

Saxague fubjectare, 5 avene tollere nimbes.,

In fummo funt ventigeni Cratéres, ut ipfi

Nominitant, Nos quas Fauceis perbibemus, & Ora,
Sunt aliquot quoque res, quarum unam dicere caufom

Non fatis eft, vertm plurets, unde una tamen fit.

Book VI. Of the Nature of £bings.
fiery Entrails of this Mountain. And firft, Nature
has formed the whole Mountain hollow within, and
fupports thefe Cavities by Arches of Stone. Now
all Caverns are filled with Wind and Air; for
Aur, when it is violently moved, becomes Wind 5
and this Wind, when it is grown hot, and, fu-
rioufly whirling about, has inflamed the Stones
and: the Earth by beating upon them, and from
them has ftruck out Sparks of Fire with rapid
Flame, then it raifes infelf up, and throws itfelf
violently, out of the open Jaws at the Top, into
the Air; then it pours the Fire abroad, and
{preads the burning Embers ali about, and belches
dufky Clouds of rolling Smoke, and fhoots out
Rocks of wondrous Weight. ‘This, no doubt, is
done by furious Blafts of Wind within.

Besipes, the Sea, for a great Way, cafhes its
Waves again{t the Roots of this Mountain, and
then again v fucks up its Tide. The Waters prefs i into
thefe Caverns that lie directly under thofe open
Jaws above; this you muft allow’; and the Flames,
yielding to the driving Flood, there force their
Paflage out, and fly abroad, and caft the Fire on
hich, : and throw out Rocks, aad raife whole Clouds
BE Sand; for on the Summit there are certain
Batons, where Wind is generated: The Greeks
call them fo; we call them Moutbs and Jaws.

THERE are fome Things, obferve, for which
it As not fufhiicient to affign a Reafon, but many ;

Univerfe, and gathering together in the Mountain, drive out
either the Flames that lurk within the Boweis of the Moun-
tain, or thofe they ftrike and force out from the very Stones
of it; or elfe that Wind rufhes in at the Hollows that are av
the Foot of the Mountain, and whole Hntrances are open,
when the eobing Sea leaves the Shore (for tne Sea wafhes the
Foot of the Mountain) and blows out the Flames. He fays,
at Inft, that Winds are bred in the very Lloilows of the Moun-
tain. And then he gives many Reafons; that, among them,
one at lealt may be true and certain.

out

2 ὃ 7

ὃ ὃ

SB
rot

1. Lucr writ ieee.
Corpus ut exanimum fi quod procul ipfe jacere "ΟΡ
Confpicias Hominis : fit ut omneis dicere caufas
Conveniat letbi, dicatur ut iftius una.
Nam neque cum ferro, neque frigore vincere polis.
Interiifjz, neque ad morbo, neque forte veneno:
Verium aliquid genere effe ex bec, quod Concio dicat,710
Scimus: Item in multis boc rcbus dicere babemus.
Nilus in eftati crefcit, campifque redundat
Unicus in terris Atgypts totus amiuts.
Is rigat igyptum medium per fepe calorem,

43 .

Aut quia fant eftate Aquilones oftia contra 7

fount
σι

Anni tempore eo, quo Etefia flabra feruntur :
Et contra fluvium flantes remorantur, 9 uadas
Cogentes furfus replent, coguntque mauere,
Nam dubio procul bec adverfo flavra feruntur
Flumine, que gelidis a fiellis Axis aguntur, 7

th
9

Tile ex eftifera parti venit amnis ab Auftro

Inter nigra viriim, percoéiaque fecla calore,
Exoriens μεμιὰς media ab regione diet.

Eft quoque, uti poffit magnus congeftus arene

Fluctious adverfis oppilare oftia contra, "2s

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things. 289
out of which One only is the True: As when you
fee the dead Body of a Man, lying at a Dittance
upon the Ground, you are to recollect all the
Caules which poflibly might occafion his Death;
in order to find out the right ; for you cannot di-
rectly fay, whether he died by the Sword, or by
Cold, or by Difeafe, or perhaps by Poifon, though
we know it was by one of thefe, and every one
thinks fo. The fame Method you are to obferve
in many other Cafes.

Tue Nile, the only οὐ River-in all Egypt, in- Te Over-
creafes in the Summer, and overflows the Fields, #22*"#8 a
It waters the Country of Egypt about the middle ον
of Summer, either becaufe in Semmer the North
Winds are oppofite to the Mouths of the River,
at the Seafon when the Etefia’s blow, and beating
hard againft the Scream itop the Current, and
driving the Waters upwards fill the Channel, and
force back the Flood, for without doubt thofe
Northern Winds blow directly againft the Tide.
The River flows from the warm Climate of the
South, and divides the Country of the black 4-
thiopians, that are thoroughly fodden with the Sun’s
Heat, and rifes far in the moft Southern Part of
the World.

Awnp it may be, that great Heaps of Sand,
that are raifed againft the Stream, choak the

" He affigns natural Caufes for the Overflowing of the Nile.

He fays, firft, that the Etefiax or Annual Winds, which
blow conitantly from the North, at a certain Seafon of the
Year, repel and drive back the Stream of the River that
comes from the South, and are the Cauie that it flis up its
Channel, and overflows its Banks. If it fhould be objected,

into the Mouths of the Nv/e, choak them up, and thus caufe
the Inundation. He 2dds two other Reaions; the Rains
that fall at the Sources of the River, and the Melting of the
Snows.

Peo, il. | U Mouths

go

τι, δὰ απ εἰ Giese

Cum Mare permotum ventis ruit 11:15 arenam,
uo fit utt pacto liber minus exiius amt,
Εἰ proclivus item fiat minits impetus undis,

fy quoque, uli pluvie forfan magis ad caput ejus
Tempore eo fant, quo Etefia flabra Aquilonum 750
Nubila conjiciunt in eas tunc omma partets.

Scilicet ad mediam regionem ejecta diet
Cum convenerunt, ibi ad altos denique monteis
Contrufe nubes coguntur, vique premuntur.

Forfit 8 Aethiopum penitus de montibus altis 735
Crefcat, ubi in campos albas defcendere ningueis
Tabificis fubigit radius Sol omnia luftrans.

Nune age, Averna tibi que fint loca cumque la-

cufgue,
Expediam, quali natura preaita conftent.
Principio, quod Averna vocantur, nomen id ab re 740
Impofitum’ft, quia funt Avibus contraria cunclis,
Ε regione ea quad loca cum advenere volantes,
Reng obliia pernarum vela remittunt,
Precipitefque cadunt molli cervice profufe
Ln ierram, fi forté ita fert natura locorum: “48
ful in aquam, fi forté lacus fubftratus Averno’ ft.
Qualis apud Cumas locus eft montemque Vefeoum,
Oppleti calidis ubi fumant fontibus audtus.
δ} (S Atheneis in menibus, arcis in ipfo

Vertice,

BooK VI. Of the Nature of Things.

Mouths of the River, when the Sea, by the Vio-
lence of the Winds, drives the Sand into the
Channel, and ftops it up. By this means the
Paffages of the River are more confined, and the
Current of the Water is flower and of lefs Force.

Or perhaps the Rains are more violent near
the Head of the River, at that Seaton of the Year
when the L£tefian Winds blow from the North,
and drive all the Clouds to the more Southern
Parts. When the Clouds meet in that warm Quar-
ter, they are condenfed and preffed hard againft
the high Mountains, and by that Force the Rain
is {queezed out.

Or, laftly, the Increafe of the River may pro-
ceed from the high Mountains of the -A¢hiopians,
when the Sun, that fearches all Things with his
diffolving Rays, forces the melted Snow to defcend
into the Plains.

AND now the Nature of that Place or Lake we 74,

291

call * Avernan, 1 fhall next explain. And firft, 4verzi.

It takes its Name from its Effect, becaufe ’tis
fatal to the Life of Birds ; for when the Feather’d-
kind fly to this Place, their Flight is ftopped,
they flutter in the Air, and fall with hanging
Wing and bended Head upon the Earth, if haply
it be Earth, or in the Water if it be a Lake. At
Cum@ there is a Place like This, and on the
Mount Vefuvius, which, filled with burning Sul-
phur, throws out Smoke. Another of the fame
there is within τῆς Walls of Atbezs, upon the Top

* One of thefe Averni is at Cue, another near Minerwva’s
Temple in Athens, and a Third in Syria. ‘Thefe Places were
fuppoied to be the Entrances to Hell to the Palace of Pluto,
and through them the Mazes or Souls of the Dead are faid to
pats to the fubterraneous Abodes. ‘They were {fo called from
the Greek "Aopv-, derived from the Privative Particle @, and
py a Bird ; becaute the noxious Vapours that exhaled from
the 4verni were fo poifonous, that they firuck dead the Birds
that flew over them.

UZ ο

r+,

5.3

T. "LL wee @ Tee "re VF

Fertice, Palladis ad templum Tritonidos alne, 750

Oud nunguam pennis appellunt corpora rauce

Coriices, non cim fumant Altaria donis :

Uyqueadeo fugitant uon iras Palladis acreis

Pervigili caufa, Graimm ut cecinere poete :

Seca naiura loci boe opus efficit ipfa fua vi. er
lu Syria quogue fertur item locus effe, videri,

Quadrupedes quoque quo fimul ac veftigia primizm

Intuderint, graviter vis cogat concidere ipfa,

Manibus ut fi fint Divis mactata repente.

Omnia que naturalt ratione geruntur, 760

Et quibus ὃ caufis fiant, apparet origo:

Fanua ne bis Orci potiits regionibus effe

Credatur péfia, bine Animas Acheruntis in ovas

Ducere forté deos Maneis tnferné reamur : _

Naribus altpedes ut Cervi [epe putantur 765

Ducere de latebris ferpentia fecla ferarum.

Quod procul ἃ vera quam fit ratione repulfum,

Percipe, namque ipfa de re nunc dicere conor:
Principio bec dico, quod dixi fepe quoque ante,

ti Lerva cujufque modi rerum effe figuras: “70

Mulia homint qué funt vitalia: multaque morbos

Incutere, (9 Mortem que poffint accelerare :

Hit magis effe alts alias Animantibus aptas

Res ad vilai rationem ofendimus ante,

Propter difimilem naturam, diffimileifque 755

Texturas inter jefe, primafque figuras :

Mulla meant inimica per aureis, multa per ipfas,

Lufinuant nareis tnfefia atgue afpera cdore :

Nee {επί multa pari tadiu vitanda, nec autem

Afpetiu fugienda, faporeque triftia que fint. 80

ieiide videre licet quai multe frit Homini res

Acriter iifefto fenfi, fpurcaque, gravelque.

Arboripus

Boox VI. Cf the Nature of Things.

of that hich T Tower, near which the kind Triteniax
Pallas has her Temple: Here the hoarfe Ravens
never fteer their Flight, noc when the Altars
{moke with laughter ie ictims: ‘They do not
thun this Tower to fy the Rage of angry Pallas
for their officious Care, as ¥ Grecian Poets fing ;
but ’tis the noxious Nature of the Place that drives
them heace.,

THEY iay there’s fuch a Place as This in Syria ;
where Beafts no fooner venture: with their Feet,
but the pernicious Vapour ftrikes them dead, as
if by fudden Stroke they fell a Sacrifice to the
Infernal Geds, All thefe Things proceed from
natural Caufes; and what thefe Caufes are will
foon appear, by tracing out their μὰν Hi p icit
you fhould think in Places fuch as Thefe Hell-
Gates are fixed, and fancy that the Gods below
draw throuch thefe Paffages departed Souls into
the Infernal Shades ; as the fwift Deer are faid by
Smelling to draw out the lurking Serpents from
their Holes. But how abfurd to Reafon are fuch
Thoughts, obferve, for now I am going to explain.

pop firft, ΤΥ, πὸ ) ave omen faid belone,
that in the Earth are Seeds of Things of every
Shape ; many that prolong the Life cf Man, and
many that infli¢t Difeafe and haften Death. And
I have fhewn that there are other Seeds peculiarly
difpofed to ferve the Ufe of other Creatures, and
fupport their Life; becaufe thefe Seeds are dif-
ferent in their Nature, they vary in their Pexture

and their Shape. Many hurtfal Seeds pafs through
the Ears, and many fharp and ftinking Seeds
affeét the Nofe ; fome are offenfive to the ouch,
fome to be avoided by the Sight, and others bitter
to the Tafte. And thus you fee how many Things
there are deadly, dilitafteful, odious to the Senfe.
¥ This refers to the Story of Coronzs in Ovid's Metamorph,

“ib. i.
De Some

te tages

ΞῪ

a

9
»

2Q

4

Ἔ. LuCpecTrm iWiewe

Arboribis primum certis gravis umbra tributa ft,

Ujqueadeo, capitis faciant ut fepe dolores,

Si quis eas fubter jacutt profiratus in berbis. 735
ΕΠ etiam in magnis Heliconis montibus arbos

Floris odore hominem tetro confiteta necare.

Scilicet hac ideo Terris ex omnia furcunt

Multa modis multis multarum Semina rerum,

Quod permiyta gerit Tellus, difcretaque tradit. 790
Notiurnumque recens extinétum Lumen, ubi acri

Nidore offendit nareis confopit ibidem,

Dericere ut prouos qui morbus fepe fuévit.
Caftoreeque gravi Mulier fopita recumbit,

Et mantbus nitidum teneris opus efflutt etj, “Ὃς:

ΕΣ

Lempore 60 ft odorata ft quo menftrua folvit.
Mutltaque praterea languentia membra per artis
Solvunt, aique Animam labefaétant fedibus intus.
Denique, fi in calidis etiam cunere lavacris,
Plenor {S folio in fueris ferventis aquai : 800
Quam facile in medio fit uti des fepe ruinas ὃ
Carbonum@ue gravis vis, atgue edor infinuatur.
Quam facile in cerebrum, nifi aquam precepimus ante?
Mi cum membra hominis percepit fervida febris,
Tum fit odor Vini plage maétabilis inftar. 805
Nonne vides etiam terra quoque Sulfur in ipfa
Giginer 2? 9 tetro concrefcere odore Bitumen ?
Denique δὶ Argenti venas, Aurique fequuntur,
Terrai penitus fcrutantes abdita ferro :

Qualeis

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things.

Some * Trees are fo pernicious by their Shade,
that they affect the Head with grievous Pain, if
one les on the Grafs beneath the Boughs.

THERE 158 Tree that grows on the hich Hill
of Helicon, whofe Bloffoms by their Smell give
prefent Death ; for in the Earth are Seeds of every
Kind, varioufly mixed, which She with curious
Art feparates, and applies to Things, as each in
. 115 own Nature moft requires. |

A Lamp, juft extinguifhed, is by its Smell fo
offenfive to the Nofe, that it ftupifies, as if a Man
were ftruck down by a Fit of an AE πὶ

A Woman will fall dead afleep at the naufeous
Sinmell of an Ointment, made of the Tefticles of
the Beaver; her fine Work will drop from her
tender Fingers, efpecially if fhe {mells it when her
Fluors are upon her.

Besrpes, there are many Things that intirely
diffolve the feeble Limbs all over the Body, and
fhake the very Sou! within out of her Place.

Ir you ftay long in a warm Bath, and continue
in the Veffel of hot Water when the Belly is full,
how apt will you be to faint before you get out?

Tre fuffocating Power of Char coal, and its
filing Smell, how foon do they find a Paflage
into the Brain, unlefs you have drank plentifully
of Water before?

Wuewn a burning Fever has feized upon the
δι δον. the Smell of Wine is like a Stroke that
takes away the Senfe.

Don’t you obferve likewife, that Sulphur and
Bitumen, with its noxious Smell, are generated in
the Bowels of the E’arth itfelf Ὁ

Awnp fo, when Men perfue the Veins of Gold
and Silver, and with their Tools dig in the very

gay, δῶ. Xvi. ae 12. fays, that the Shade of the
Walnut-tree offends the Head, and that no Plants will thrive

wnder it. ;
U4 Entrails

20

»

ἦ

: T. lInwoe ery τ τ

Qualeis enfpirat Scaptefila fubter oderes ? 810
Ovidve mah fit ut exbalent Murata metalla ἢ
Quas Heminum redduut facies? qualeifque colores ὃ
Nenie vides, audifve perire in tempore parvo
Quam foleant, SF quam vitai copia defit,
Qyos opere in tali cobibet vis magna? necefle?ft &15
Hos igitur tellus omnets exafiueLafius 3
Expireique foras in aperla, promplaque Celt.

Sic €F Averna loca Alitibus fummittere debent
tt bm vin, de-terra que furgit in auras,
Ui [patiuin cali quadam de parte venenet : $20
Que fimul ac primtim peunis delata fit Ales,
Pay halur ibt ceco courepta VELCIO,
Ut cadat ὃ regione leci, qua dirigit aus:
Quo cum conruiut, tes eadem vis iliius eftus:

KReiliguias vite memoris ex oni ihe aufert, 828
Quippe etenim primo quaft quendam couciet ΘΙ ΗΠ:

; ‘often ins fil, uti ὁ 71 jam cecidlere venent
dn fentets ipfos, 1 vn) i queque Vita vomenda,
f ἢ plerea qued magna ll fit copia circum,

Fit quogue ut interdum vis bec, atque eftus Averii,
Aire gui inter aveis cungue fe terramque: —
Difeutiat, prope uti leeus bine linquatur INAIIS
ἔν μ715 ubi ὃ ῬΘΟΊΟΠΦ loci ventre ego
Claudicat extem irlo pennarum nifus tants :

Et conamen utringue alarum proaitur emie, 8
Fite ubi nidtari nequeunt, infifier reque alts,

Scilicet in terrain delabi pondere cegit

Natura; vacuum prope jain per inane jacentes
Difperzunt Animas per caulas cerporis cmneis.

Lrigidior porro tit puteis Eftate fit iumor, 840

Rarefeit quia Terra calore, CS femina Jiqua

forte vaporis babet, propere dimittit in aur as.

Quo magis eft izitur Tellus affedia calcre:

ἤτον fil frigidior, qui in terra°ft abditus, Humor.

SS)
NR

Frigore

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things. 1097
Entrails of the Earth, what hurtful Vapours do

the Mines exhale? What deadly Damps flow from

the golden Ore? How wretchedly the Miners

look? How wan their Colour? Have you not

feen or heard how foon they die, how fhort their —

Life is who are condemned to this fad Servitude?

The Earth then muft needs belch out thefe poi-

fonous Exhalations, and fend them all abroad,

and taint the open Air.

Tue Avern thus throw out thefe deadly
Steams, fo fatal to the Birds. They rife out of
the Earth into the Air, and to fome Diftance blaft
the lower Skies. Here, when the Bird arrives
upon the Wing, this latent Poifon feizes on his
Blood; his Flight is ftopt, and down he falls ;
the Force of thefe Effluvia carries of the fmall
Remains of Life from all his Limbs, and firikes
him dead.. Thefe Vapours firft excite a fort of
Boiling in all his Veins ; and when he drops into
the Fountain whence the Poifon { iprings, he. digsis
for there the noxious Vapours rage the moft.

Or elie, fometimes, the Force and rifing Blafts
of thefe 4verni difpel the Air that lies between the
Birds and the Earth, and the intermediate Space
Deeames a Void. Here, when the Binder
ried by their Flight, immediately they flutter in
the Air, they clap their Wings in vain, their Pi-

uons, flag, and when they can no longer bear
Sees up, Nature maft drive them down upon the
Earth with all their Weight ; and as they, help-
lefs, in the Vacuum lie, they breathe their Soul
abroad through every Pore.

Tre Water in fome Wells, we find, is cold i μὰν cote
in Summer; becaufe the Earth 15 rarefied. by the 5
Sun’s Heat, and by that means the Seeds of Fire
it contains within, break fwiftly out into the Air:
And therefore ae more the Earth is affected by
ene Efeat, the ovlder will the Water ἘΞ that is

inclofed

298

T. Luck een Gait

Frigore cum preiniiur porro ovis terra, coitque, 845
Et quafi concrefeit: Fit feuicet, ut coéundo
Exprimat ia puteos, fiquem geri Τρία, Calorem.

Eft apud Ammonts fanum fons luce diurna
Frigidus, at calidus neéturno tempore fertur :
Hune bomines fontem nimis admirantur, 89 acri 850
Sole putant Jubter terras fervifcere raplim,
Nox ubi terribili tervas caligine texit :
Quod nimis a vera’ ft longe raiione remotum :
Quippe ubi Sol nudam contrecians corpus aquaz,
Non quierit calidum fupera de veddere parte, 855
Cin juperum lumen tanto fervore fruatur :
Qui queat bic fubter tam craffo corpore terram,
Percoquere bumorem, ‘S calido fociare vaport ¢
Prefertim cum vix poffit per fepta domorum
Infinuare fuum radiis ardentibus aftum ? 860

Que ratio eft igitur 2 nimirum terra magis quod
Rara tenet circum bunc Fontem, quam catera tellus.
Multaque funt igms prope femina corpus aquai.
Hine, ubi roriferis terrain nox obruit umbrts,
Extemplo fubtus frigefcit terra, coilque. 865
Hae ratione fit, ut, tanguam comprefja manu fit,
Exprimat in Fontem, que Semina cumgue babet 1011,
Que calicum faciunt laticis taéium atgue faporem.
inde ubi Sel radts terram dimovit obortis,

oY

Et rarefecit calido mifcente vapore :
\

Ruvfis

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things.

inclofed within. But when the Earth 15 contracted
with the Cold, when its Surface grows clofe, and
its Pores are ftopped, this Reftraine hinders the
Heat from flying out 3 it is then fqueezed together
into the Wells, and the Water becomes hot.
THERE is a Fountain, near the Temple of Fz-
piter Ainmon, that is cold in the Day, and hot by
Night. Men ftrangely wonder at the Quality of
this Spring, and imagine that when the Night ha
{oread her dreadful Darknels o’er the World, the
Water is warmed by the violent Heat of the Sun
through the Body of the Earth. Burt this Reaton is
far from being true; for if the Sun, ftriking upon
the open Body of the Water, is not able to warm
even the Surface of it, when it receives the Force
of his defcending Rays with all their Heat, how
can Ete warm the Water, and infufe his Heat
through fo thick a Body as the Earth; efpecially,
fince he 15 fcarce able, with his fcorching Beams,
to pierce through the Walls of our Houfes?
Wat then is the Reafon? Doubtlefs This ;
becaufe the ἃ Earth, near this Fountain, 1s more
rare and ipungy than it is in other Places, and
contains within it many Seeds of Fire near the Body
of che Water itfelf. Here,when the Night has fpread
the World with dewy Shades, the Earth below
crows inftantly cold, and is contracted ς by this
Means it 15 compreffed, as with your Eland, and
{queezes out thofe Seeds of Fire into the Spring,
which make the Water warm to Feel and Tafte.
But when the San has driven away the Night
with his bright Rays, and with his Heat has rare-
fied the Earth, and made it loofe, thele Seeds of

4 The Earth being orn: by the Geldof thetient,
{queezes out and tran{mits into the Water thofe Sceds of Files,
by means of which the Water grows hot; but being loofened
by the Heat of the Pee ‘fhe receives again into her Dowels
ΠΤ fore Seeds ; and thus the Water becomes cold.

Fire

my

oo

¥. Lure ey Ἢ
Rurfus in antiguas redeunt primordia fedets
Tenis, & in tervram cedit calor omnis aquai :
Frigidus hauc οὗ rem fit Fons ia luce diurna,
Preterca, Solis radiis jaftatur aquai
Humor, 5 in luct tremuls rarefcit ab effu: 875
Propterea fit uts que femina cunque kabet ignis,
Dimittat: quafi fepe gelum, quod continet in fe,
ἈΠ, ὅθ᾽ exoluit glaciem, nodofque relaxat.
Frigidus eft etiam Fons, fupra quem fita Jepe
Stupa jacit flammas concepto protinus ignt : SéO
Teaaque comfmilt ratione accenfa per undas
Conlucet, quocungue natans wmpellitur auris:
Nimirum quia funt in Aqua perimulta vaports
Semina, de Lerraque neceffe*ft funditus ipfa
Ieuis corpora per totum confurgere Fontem, δ ὃ
Et fimul exfpirare foras, exireque in auras,
Non tam viva tamen, calidus queat ut 5671 Lens,

δ:
ῳ

Preterea, difperfa foras erumpere cogit
Vis per Aquam fubito, furfumgue ea conciliari:
Quod genus endo mari fpirat Fons, dulcis aquai 850
Dui featit, & falfas circum fe dimovet uudas,
Et multis aliis prebet regionibus equor
Utilitatem oportunam fitientibu? Nautis,
Quod dulceis inter falfas intervomit undas.
Sic igitur per cum poffunt erumpere Fontem, 80
Et featere illa foras in fiupam Semina: quo citm

5
8

Couveniunt, aut cium tedai corpori adbcrent,

“Ai ‘defe Hus

Boox VI. Of the Nature of Things.
Fire return into their former Place, and all the
Ffeat that warm’d the Spring retires within, the
Farth again; and fo the Fountain in che Day is
cold.

Besipzs, the Water in the Day is ftronaly
moved by the Sun’s Rays, and by his trembling
a of Heat grows rare, and fo lets out the

eeds of Fire it held by Night; juft as by the
i eat it fhakés off Seeds of Cold, and ‘melts the
Ice,.and loofens al} its Bonds. |

Tuere likewile is a cold Spring, over which
if you place Tow or Flax, it immediately takes
fire, and is allin a Blaze. A Torch, newly ex-
tinguifhed, in the fame manner, gently drawn
over the Surface, is lighted by this Water, and
flames out at every 5 Breath of Air. And no won-
der; for there are many Seeds of Fire in the Wa-
ter itfelf, and many mutft needs rife out of the
Warth, and afcend through all the Fountain, and
flow abroad, and make their Way into the Air ;
but yet they are not fo hot as to fet the Spring
en fire.

Besipes, the innate Force of ae Seeds, dit-
perfed through the Water, compels them to move
upwards, and to unite upon the Surface; as we
fee fometimes a Fountain of {weet Water bubb’e
up in the Middle of the Sea, and beat off the fait
Wavwes that are about it. The Séa affords many
of thefe Springs, that bring a feafonable Relief
to the thirfty Mariners, by throwing out Streams
of frefh Water among the fale >, The Seeds of
Fire may in the fame manner break through the
Water of this Fountain, and flew out into the Tow.
Here, when they unite and {tick to the body of

’ The Seeds off Fire rifing up to the Surface of the Water,
may there be condenfed and gather’d together, in fuch a man-
ner, as to kindle any Combuftibles that are apt 4o take fire,
if they are advanced to them. —

the

301

302

T. Leck & Tar Ge.
Ardefcunt facile extemplo: quia multa quogue in fe
Semina babent ignis flup@e tedeque tenentes.

Nonne vides etiam, notturna ad lumina Lychnum
Nuper ubi extinéium admoveas, accendier ante ΟΟΣ
Quam tetigit flammam ? tedamque pari ratione ?
Multaque praterea, prius ipfo tacia vapore
Eminus ardefcunt, quam cominus imbuat ipnis.

Hoc igitur fiert quoq; in illo Fonte putandum ft. 905

Quod fupereft, agere incipiam qua feaere fiat
Nature, Lapis bic ut ferrum ducere poffit,

Quem Magneta vocant patrio de nomine Grait,
Magnetum quia fit patrus in fimbus ortus,

Hune

Book VI. Ofthe Nature of Things. 303

the Torch, they immediately fall into a Flame ;
for Flax and Tow contain many Seeds of Fire
within, which make them eafily difpofed to burn. ©

Have not you obferved,when you hold a Candle
newly extinguifhed, to another that is lighted, it
catches Gre before it touches the Flame? A Torch
likewife, by that fame Rule, will do the fame; and

any other Things wili take fire at a Diftance, be-
fore the Flame reaches them. And this you may ᾿
Imagine is the Cafe of the Fountain abovementioned,

Anp now I fhall begin to thew by what Power oF she
of Nature it is that the Stone (which the Greeks Loadfoue.
call ἃ “ Magnet, from the Country that produces
it, for it is found in the Region of the Maguetes:)
has the Virtue to attract Iron.

Men

¢ The Poet, in order to explain the attractive Virtue of
this Stone, premifes four chief Pofitions, which though he
has proved them already, yet he thinks fit to inculcate again
in this Place. 1. That certain Corputfcles are continually fow-
ing off from all Things. 2. That no concrete Body is fo fo-
lid as not to contain fome empty little Spaces. 3. ‘That the
Corpuifcles that are emitted from ‘Things, do not agree with

all Things alike, and in the fame manner, and produce not \
the fame Effects on them. 4. That the void little Spaces
are not alike in all Things, but differ in Size and Figure, and
therefore cannot be fit for all Bodies indifferently. ‘This being
premifed, he proceeds to explain how the Loadftone attracts
Iron, or the lron is conveyed to the Loaditone. Many Par-
ticles (he fays) flow from the Loaditone, and difipate the
Air all around it; and thus many void little Spaces are made.
Bat when the Iron is placed within the Sphere of that difi-
pated Air, there being a great deal of empty Space between
that and the Loaditone, the Corpulcies of the Iron leap more
freely forward into that Void (for the Seeds of ail Bodies fly
forward on a fudden into the empty Space) and for that
Reafon are carried towards the Louditone. Now they can-
not tend that Way, without dragzing along with them their
coherent Seeds (for the Seeds of iron are moft intricately in-
tangled and twined together) and confequently the whole
Mais of Iron. But becaufe the Iron moves any way upwards,
downwards, acrofs, or in any Obliguity, without the leait
Diftin@ion, according as it is placed to the Loadftone, he
jays,

304

TT. DvuecReT Oper

Hunc bomines Lapidem mirantur, quippe catenam
Spe ex annellts reddit pendentibus ex fe. OI
Ouingue etenim licet mterdum, plureifque videre
Ordine demiffos levibus jaéfarier auris,

Unus ubi ex uno dependet fubler adberens ;
Ex alioque alius Lapidis vim, vinclaque nofeit: 915
Ujqueadeo permananier vs pervalet 6115.

Hoc genus in vebus firmandum ft mulla prits, quam

Ipfius rey rationem reddere poffts :
Et nimium longis ambagibus eft adeundum :
Quod magis attentas aureis, animumque repofco. 920

Principio, emnibus ἃ rebus, quafcunque videmus,
Perpclid fluere, ac milli, fpargigue neceffe*ft
Corpora, φῆ feriaat oculos vifmque laceffant :
Perpetuoque, fiuunt cretis ab rebus odores,

Frigus ut ἃ fluviis, Calor a fole, Abfius ab undis 925
seequoris exefor merorum littora propter :

Nec vari ceffant jonitus manare per Aures,

Denique in Os falfi venit humor fepe faporis,

Cum mare verfamur propter 5 dilttaque contra
Cum tuimur mifceri Abfintbia tangit Amaror: 930
Ujqueadeo omnibus ab rebus res quaque fiuenter
Fertur, 9 in cunétas dimittitur undique parteis:
Nec mora, nec requies inter datur ulla fluendt,

Pertetue

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things.

Men are amazed at the Qualities of this Stone;
for it will make a Chain of feveral little Rings of
Iron, without a Link between, to hang together
intirely from itfelf; you may fometimes fee Five
or more hanging ftraight down, and play in the
gentle Air, as they ftick clofe and depend at the
Bottom one upon anothers; the Ring that follows
feels the Attraction and Power of the Stone from
that above it. So ftrongly is the Virtue of the
Magnet communicated to the feveral Rings; it
acts with fo great a Force.

Iw Inquiries of this Nature many Things are
to be firft proved, before we can fix upon the true
Caufe; we mutt trace the Subject through many
Jong and intricate Difficulties; and therefore I
beg you will hear me with a willing Mind, and
with the clofeft Attention.

Awp firft, Certain Seeds muft neceffarily flow,
be fent out, and continually difperfed abroad, from
all Things whatever we fee, which mutt ftrike upon
the Eye, and affect the Sight.» From fome Bodies
a Train of Smells are alway flying off. So Cold is
emitted from the Rivers; Heat from the Sun; a
falt Vapour from the Water of the Sea, that eats
through Walls alone the Shore; and variousSounds
are always flying through the Air. And as we
walk upon the Strand, a briny Tafte frequently
offends our Mouth; and when we fee a Bunch of
Wormwood bruifed, the Bitternefs ftrikes upon
the Palate. So plain it is that fomething is con-
tinually flowing off from all Bodies, and is {fcat-
tered all about. There is no Intermifion, the Seeds

fays, that this could not be, but by reafon that the empty
Space that is made by Corpufcles that flow froin the Maguer,
and into which all Bodies, that otherwife tend only down-
wards, are protruded indifcriminately by the Strokes and
Blows of other Bodies. ‘This in general is what he obferves
concerning the Loaditone.

.S

Wee, 1], Χ, never

3°)

206

T. Lweae prow Wis. Ve

Perpetud quoniam fentinius, (S omnia femper
Cernere, Odorart licet, ἘΠ fentire Soncrem. 935
Nune omnes repetam quam raro corpore fint res,
Comimemorare, quod in primo quoque carmine claret,
Quippe etenim, quamquam multas boc pertinet ad res

Nofcere, cum primis banc ad rem protinus ipfam, ,

Oua de differere aggredior, firmare neceffe*fi 940

Nil a in prompiu, mifi miftum Corpus fnani.

Principio fit, ut in Speluncis faxa fuperne

Sudent bumore, 85 guttis manantibu? ftillent :

Manat item nobis ὃ toto corpore Sudor,

Crefcit barba, pilique per omnia membra, per arius:

Diditus in venas cibus omueis, auget, alitque 946

Corporis extremas quoque partets nnguiculofque.

Frigus item tranfire per @s, calidumque vaporem

Sentiunus : fentimus item tranfire per aurum,

Alque per at ‘Gouge cum pocula plena tenemus. 950

Denique | per diffepta domorum faxea voces

Pervolitant, Ὁ permanat 0495, Mriguique, } de

fgnis: quin Ferri quoque vim penetrareé fig

Undique qua τε um corpus lorica coercet 3

Morbida vis quecunque extrinfecu ae Os 5

it tempefiates terra cwlogue cocrtic

£, cele ΤΑ repente faceffunt,

Quandoguiden 111 elt, non Taro corbore HexUunt.
Hue accedit, uti non ΣΌΣ gue jaciuniur

Compora cunque ab rebus, eodeim predita fenfu, gGo

Atque eodem pacto rebus fint ommuus apta.

Principio, Terram, Sol excoquit, πο facit ares

At glaciem diffoluit, &P altis montibus αἰϊὸ

Lixftruéias ningueis radiis tabefcere cogit,

Denique cera liquefeit im es pijta vapore, 965

Tenis item acai ‘acit @5, aurumque refolvit :

At coria, 9 carnem trabit, 9 conducit in unum.

Humor

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things. 107
never ceafe to flow, becaufe the Senfe 15 continu-
ally affected, we ftill continue to Feel, to See,
to Smell and Hear. |

Now I fhall repeat what I have proved at large
in the firft Book of this Poem, that no Bodies are
perfectly folid; for though it is proper to know
this upon many Accounts, yet it 15 of principal Ufe
in the Subject I now offer to explain. In this place
it is neceffary to eftablifh this Truth, that there
is nothing in Nature but Body mixed with Void.

Ἄν firft, In the deep Caverns of the Earth, |
the Rocks above will fweat with Moifture, and
weep with owing Drops; and,Sweat will flow
from all our Bodies, and through every Pore.
The Beard will grow, and Hairs fpread o’er our
Members and our Limbs. Nature divides our Food
through all the Veins; it feeds and nourifhes the
extreme Parts, our yery Nails. Wefindthat Cold -.
and Heat will pafs through Brafs, will make their
Way through Gold and Silver. We know, by
feeling the Outfide of the Cup, whether the Juice
within be hot or cold. And, laitly, Sounds will
pierce Stone Walls of Houfes ; and fo will Smells,
and Cold, and Heat. The Force of Fire, thrown
from without, will pafs through Iron, and fcorch
the Soldiers Limbs, though arm’d about with Coats
of Mail. And Tempetts, rifing from the Earth
or Skies, and fent from thence, will ftrike through
every thing before them; for nothing in Nature
is without fome Void.

Besitpes, all Seeds that are thrown off from Bo-
dies, are not the fame in Quality and Shape, nor do
therefore they equally agree to Things they {trike
or act upon; for firft the Sun burns up and dries the
Earth, but thaws and melts the Snows io deep upon
the Mountain-tops. And Wax will drop when
placed before the Fire, and Brafs will ron, and Gold
diffolve by Heat; but Skins and Flefh it dhrinks

Ae and

308 TT. Lucan prev 35. ΔΙ

Humor aque porro ferrum condurat ab igni,
At coria, €8 carnem nellit durata calore: .
Barbigeras oleafter eo juvat ufque Capellas, 970 |
Diffluat ambrofia quafi vero, &F netfare tinttus:

At μερὶ eft, Homini fronde bac quod amarius extet.
Denique Amaracinum fugitat Sus & timet omne
Unguentum , nam, fetigeris fubus acre venenum’ft,
Quod nos interdum tanquam recreare videtur. 975
Ai contra Nobis Caenum teterrima chm fit.
Spurcities, cadem Subus bec res munda videtur,
Infatiabiliter toti ut volvantur ibidem.

Hoc etiam fupereft, ipfa quam dicere de re
Avgredior, quod dicenduim priits effe videtur. 980.
Mulia foramina cum varus fint reddita rebus,
Diffimilt inter fe natura predita debent
Efe, &8 habere fuam naturam queque, viafqte,
Quippe eientin varit fenfus Animantibus infunt,
Quorum quifque fuam propri¢ rem percipi in fe. 985
Naim penetrare alia fonitus, aliaque faporem
Cernimus ὃ fuccis, alia Nidoris cdores,

Propter diffimilem naturam, textaque rerum:
Preterea manare aliud per Saxa videtur :

Atgq; aliud per Ligna: aliud tranfire per Aurum: 990
Argentoque foras aliud, Vitroque meare,

Nam fluere hae Species, illac Calor ire videtur :
Atque aliis aliud citius tranfinitiere eddem,

Scilicet id fieri cogit Natura viarum,

Multimodis varians, ut paullo oftendimus ante. 995
Quapropter bené ubi bec confirmata atque locata
Omnia conftiterint nobis prepofta, parata:

Quod fupereft, facilé bine ratio reddetur, 95 omnis
Caufa patefiet, que Ferri pelliciat vim.

~

\

Principio,.

Boox VI. Of the Nature of Things.

and fhrivels up. Water will harden Steel, made

weak by Fire ; but foftens Skins and Fiefh, made,

hard by Heat. Leaves of wild Olive pleafe the
bearded Goats, as if they flow’d with Juice of
Netiar or Ambrofia, when nothing ts more bitter
than that Leaf to us. The Swine fly every
{trong Perfume, and fear the Smell of every Oint-
ment; ’tis fharpeft Poifon to the Briftly Race,
but cheers our Spirits with a fweet Delight: And
then, to roll in Mud is the moft odious Filthinefs
to us, to them a cleanly Pleafure; they are never
tired of wallowing in the Mire.

But before I enter fuily upon the Subject be-
fore us, it is proper firft to premife, that fince
there are many Pores of little Spaces in all Com-
pound Bodies, it is neceffary that thefe Paffages
fhould be of different Natures, and fhould vary
feverally in their Size and Figure; for all Crea-
tures are formed with different Organs, every one
of which has an Object proper and peculiar to it-
felf. Sounds, we perceive, make their -Paflage
one Way, and Taite another, and Smell another,
according to the different Nature and Texture of
the Things that ftrike the Senfe. One Thing, we
find, will make its Way through Stones, another
through Wood, another will pierce through Gold,
another through Silver, and another will fly
through Glafs. This the Images flow through,
through Thefe the Heat; and fome Seeds will
fooner pierce through the fame Pores than others :
This is owing to the different Figures of thefe
Paffages, which vary wonderfully in Shape, as
we faid before. Thefe Things therefore, being
fully proved and laid down, and every thing made
ready and eafy for the Grand Inquiry, we fhall
eafily difcover the Reafon, and open every Caufe
that moves and inyites the Iron to the Stone.

X 3 ANd

309

310

j
T. LWeRETT: Ἐν

Principio, fluere ὃ Lapide boc permulta neceffe’ ft
Semina, five Aftum, qui difcutit Aéra plagis: 100%
Inter qui Lapidem, Ferrumque’ft cunque locatus.
Floc ubt inaniter fpatium, multufque vacefit
In medio locus: extemplo primordia Ferri
In vacuum prolapfa cadunt conmjuncia, fit utque 1005
Annulus ipfe fequatur, eatque ita corpore tolo.
Nec res ulla magis primoribus ex elementis
Indupedita fuis arélé counexa coberet,
Quam validi Ferri nature frigidus borrer.
Quod minus eft mirum, quod paullo dinimus ante,101@
Corpora fi nequeunt de Ferro plura coorta ;
in vacuum ferri, quin Annulus ipfe fequatur :
Quod facit SF fequitur donec pervénit ad ipfum
Fam Lapidem, cecifgue in eo compagibus ῥα ἢ.
Hoc fit item cunéias in parteis, unde vacefit 101%
Cungue locus, five ex tranfverfo, five fuperie,
Corpora continuo in vacuum vicina feruntur.
Quippe agitantur enim plagis aliunde, nec ipfa
Sponte fua furfum poffunt confurgere in auras,

Htuc accedit item, quare queat id magis eff@: 1020

ὦ ig

Book VI, O f the Nature of Things.

Anp firft, ὁ Many Seeds or Effluvia are con-
tinually flying off from the Stone, and by their
Blows difperfe and drive away the Air that jies
between the Magnet and the Iron: his Space
being empty, and a Void made between, the Cor-
puicles of the iron rufh out fuddenly in a Train,
all linked together, into this Vacuum; fo that the
whole Body of the Iron Ring, to which they are
joined, immediately follows; for nothing is made
up of Seeds more intangled and conneéted toge-
ther, than the cold and tough Subitance of Iron,
And therefore (as we faid before) it is the lefs to
be wonder’d, if the Seeds cannot fly off from the
Tron into the Void, bat thofe before muft draw
on thofe behind, and the whole Ring follows at
lait ; which it does, and continues to move, till
it comes clofe to the Srone, and, fixed by fecret
Bonds, fticks to it. And thefe Effuvia of the
Iron, that lic neareft the Stone, rufh into the Void
every way, pp riaias or acrofs, wherever the Space
is empty; for they are driven by the Force of
other Seeds; nor have they any Power to move
upwards by their own natural Motion.

You may add another Reafon to account for

“Fle fays, that ma τὰ Corpuicles flow as well from the
Leadftone as from the 1 ron, but the greater Quantity and
the more ftrong from the Maonet- Hence it comes to pais
that the Air is “always di fperfed 2 and driven away to a greater
Diftance round about the Loadftone, and confequent y that
fewer empty little Spaces are made around the tron; and
becaufe when the iron is placed within the Sphere (as they
fay) of the Air that is removed and driven away, there muft
be a great deal of void Space between that and the Load-
fiene: The Corpufcles of the Iron fly the more freely into
that empty Space, and -therefore neceflarily towards the
Magnet ; but thofe Corpufcles of the lron cannot hurry the
Way.in a great Quantity, without dragging along with them
the Particles that adhere to them, rand by coniequence the

ware Mafs of Iron.
Χ A ᾿ this

211

212

T. Ewone ory τὰ.

“© Hee quoque res adjuimento, motuque juvatur :
Θεὸ fimul a fronte eft Anneli rarior Aér
Faétus, inanitufque locus magis ac vacuatus.
Coutinud fit, ult qui poft eft cunque locatus
Aér, ἃ tergo quaft provebat atque propellat. 1025
Semper enim circum pofilus res verberai Aér.
Sed tali fit uti propellat tempore Ferrum,
Parte quod ex una fpatium vacat, ‘8 capil in fe.
Flic, ubi, quem memoro, per crebra foramina Ferr’ ft
Parvas ad parteis fubtiliter infinuatus : 1030
Trudit 95 impellit, quafi Navim velaque Ventus. '

Denique res omnes debent in corpore babere
Aéra, quandoquidem rare funt cerpore, {8 Aer
Omnibus eft rebus circumdatus appofitufque.
Hie igitur, penitus quiin Perro’ft abditus Aer, 1035
Sollicito motu femper jaclatur, eoque
Verberat Aiellum dubio procul: © ciet intus
Scilicet: atque eddem fertur, quo precipitavit
Fam femel, €F quamquam in partem conamina fumfit.

Fit quoque ut a Lapide boc Ferri naiura recedatio4@

luterdum, fugere, aique fequi confueta viciffim.
Exfultare etiam Samothracia ferrea vidi :

Et ramenta fimul Ferri furere mtus abents

In Scaphiis, lapis bic Magnes cium fubditus effet :
Ujqueadeo fugere a Saxo geflire videtur. 1045

LEE

Book VI. Of the Nature of ἤ bings.
this Experiment, which is, that the ὁ Iron is
driven forward, and affifted in its Motion from
without ; for the Air before the Steel being more
rare, and the Space between more empty and void
than it was, hence it is that the Air that is behind
{trikes upon the Back of the Ring, and drives and
forces it on; for the Air that furrounds all Bodies,
beats upon them with continual Blows; but then
only it drives on the Iron, when the Space is empty
on that Side, and fit to receive it. The Air there-
fore, which I obferve, entering intd the many Pores
of the Iron, and fubtilly conveying itfelf into the
little Paffages, thrufts and forces it on, as a Ship
is driven by Wind and Sails,

Awp then, all Things muft contain within
fome Parts of Air; for all Bodies are rare, and
full of Pores, and Air furrounds and pierces
through every thing. This Air therefore that lies
concealed in the Body of the Iron, is always tofs’d
with violent Motion, and beats upon the Ring,
and agitates it within; and fo the Iron is carried
on towards the Void, to which it was moving,
and whither all its Force was firft directed.

But fometimes the Subftance of the [ron will
fiy from the Magnet; it will withdraw fome-
times, as well as prefs towards it: For I have feen
little Samotbraciau Rings af Iron, and Filings of
Steel, put into a brafen Pot; and the Stone be-
ing applied to the Bottom of the Veffel, the Iron
will leap and dance upwards; {fo eager is it to be
gone, and avoid the Stone. And this great A-

Me The Motion of the Iron is affifted by the outward Air,
which, fince it is always driving forward, and that too with
more Force, the more there is of it cannot but pufh on the
Tron into that Place where there is leaft Air, and confequent-
ly moft Void, which muft be towards the Loadftone. This
Motion is likewife affifted by the inward Air, which, by rea-
‘fon of its continual Motion and Agitation, is always driving
forward, towards that Place that is moft void and empty. °

verfion

31}

314

T. Lvuéxrae rr: Wee

Aare inter pofito difcordia tanta creatur,
Propierea, quia nimirum pris eftus ubi ris
Precepit, Ferrique vias poffedit apertas :
Pofterior Lapidis venit eftus, 5 omnia plena
Invenit inFerro: neque habet qua tranet, ut ante.1050
Cogitur offenjare igitur pulfareque fluélu
Ferrea texia fuo 5 quo patto refpuit ab fe,
Aique per ΖΕ: ἀραὶ, fine eo que fepe reforbet.
Illud in bis vebus mivari mitte, quod eftus
Non valet ὃ Lapide boc alias tmpellere item res: 1055
Pondere enim frete partim fiant, qued genus Aurum
Ac partim Raro quia funt cum corpore, ut @eftus
Pervolet intaitus, nequeunt impellier ufquam 3
Lignea materies in quo geuere effe videtur.
Inter utrafque igitur Ferri natura locata, 1060
feris ubi accepit quedam corpufcula: tum fit,
Iunpellant ut eam Magnesi femina faxi.
Nec tamen bec ita funi aliarum rerum aliena,

᾿ « « i ae te
Ut mibi mulia parum genere.cx boc fuppeditentur,
. Que memorare queam inter fe fingulariter apta, 1063

Sana vides primtm fola coolefcere Calce :

Glutine materies Taurino ita jungitur una,

Ui vitio vene tabularum fepius hifcant,

Quam laxare queant compages taurca vinela,
Vitigeni latices in Aquat fontibus audent 1079

Mifceri,

Boox VI. Of the Nature of Things.

verfion arifes from the Interpofition of the Brafs ;
for when the Particles of the Brafs have entered
and filled up the open Pores of the Iron, then
come the Effuvia of the Loadftone ; and finding
tne’ Paflages of the Iron full, and no more open
for them to pierce through as before, they beat
upon the Bits of Iron, and drive them forward
with all their Force. And thus the Particles of
the Stone, paffing through the Brafs, throws the
Iron from it, which otherwife it would take to its
Embrace.

Do not be furprifed * to find that the Efluvia
of the Stone do not drive awav other Bodies from
it in the fame manner, for fome remain unmoved
upon the Account of their Weight; Gold is of
this Sort: Others becaufe they are rare, and their
Pores are wide, fo that the Particles that fly off
from the Stone pafs through without touching,
and therefore can have no Power to move them;
οὗ this Kind is the Texture of Wood. ‘The Nz2-
ture of Iron is placed between thefe Two; and
when its Pores are full of thofe braten Particles,
then it 1s that the EMuvia of the Magnet beat upon
it and drive it of.

Nor 15 the friendfhip between the Loadftone
and the Steel fo fingular a Cafe ; I can produce
Inftances of many Things, whofe Natures are pe-
culiarly fit and fuited to each other. And firlt,
You obferve that Stones are cemented together
only by Lime ; and Boards are fo joined together
by Glue, made of the Ears and Genitals of Bulls,
that the folid Wood of a Table will fooner fplit,
than the ftrong Joints of the Glue will ftart or fall
afunder. Wine will mingle with Spring Water,

f The Reafon why other Bodies do not move in this man-
ner, 1s becaufe they are.too heavy to be moved; or if they
are light, they are often ‘too rare; fo that the Corpufcles of
the Magzet find a free and open Paffage through them.

ῳ " when

f

7}}

316

T. Lucretil Lis. VI.
Mifceri, cium Pix nequeat gravis, & leve Olivum :
Purpureufque colos Couchyli mergitur und
Corpore cuin Lane, dirimi qui ion queat ujquams
Non fi Neptuni fluiiu renovare operam Ges:
Non, mare fi totum velit eluere cmnibus undis. 1075
Denique res Auro Argentum concopulat una,
Atrique @s Plumbo fit uti jungatur ab albo.
Cetera jam quain inulta licet reperire ? quid ergo?
Nec tibi tam longis opus eft ambagibus ufquam,
Nec me tam multam bic operam confumere par eft :
Sed breviter paucis reftat comprendere mulia. 108%
Quorum ita texture ceciderunt mutua contra,
Lit cava conveniant plenis bec illius, illa
Hujufque s inter fe junciura borum optima conftat.
Eft etiam, quafi ut annellis, bamifque plicata 1085
Inter fe quedan: poffint coplata tener :
Quod magis in Lapide hoc fieri Ferroque videtur.
Nunc, ratio que fit Morbis, aut unde repente
Mortiferam poffit cladem conflare coorta
Morbida vis Hominum generi, Pecudumqgue caiervis,
Expediam. Primum multarum femina rerum 109%
Effe fupra docui, que fint vitalia nobis :
Et contra, que fint morbo, mortique, neceffe*/t
Mulia volare; ea cium caf funt forte coorta,
Et perturbarunt culum, fit morbidus Aer. 109%
Aique ea vis omnis Morborum, peftilitafque,
Aut extrinfecus, ut nubes nebuleque fuperné
Per culum veniunt, aut tpfa fepe coorta

Boox VI. Ofthe Nature of Things. 317

when heavy Pitch and fmooth Oil will not. The
purple Colour of the Murex incorporates fo into
the Body of Wooll, that it can never be taken
out; no, not if you ftrive to recover it to its na-
tive Whitenefs by all the Waves of the Sea, not
if you wafh it in all the Water of the Ocean.
There is buc one Mineral that will foulder Gold
and Silver together ; and Brafs is joined only by
white Lead. Wow many Things of this Nature
might be produced? To what Purpofe? I would
by no means lead you fo far out of the Way, nor
give myfelf fo much Trouble in fuch Inquiries.
I have many Things yet to explain, but 1 fhall
be as fhort as poffible.

Taose Things whofe Textures fo mutually
anfwer to one another, that the Cavities of this
Thing agree with the Plenitudes of That, and
the Cavities of That with the Plenitudes of This,
may be conjoined moft eafily, and in the ftricteft
Manner. And fome Things may ve fo joined to
others, as if they were faftned together by ὅ Hooks
and Rings; and in this Manner it is that the
Loadftone feems to be connected to the Steel.

Now I fhall teach from whence Difeafes {pring, of
and whence arife the peftilential Blafts, that fpread P/agues.
their deadly Potfon, and deftroy both Man and
Beat. And firft (as I have faid) The Seeds of
many Things are ever flying through the Air;
fome are Sound and Vital τὸ Mankind, and others
bring ‘on Difeafe and Death: Thefe when they
arife and taint the Sky, the Air becomes infected.
Now the morbid Force of all Difeafes, every
Peftilence comes either from without, as Clouds
and Mitts fall from the Heavens above; or rifes

8. On the Surface of the Magnet there are Hooks, and of
the Surface of the Steel little Rings, which the Hooks catch
hold of.

from

3148

Ὑ. Lower Een 1 ΠΥ
De terra furgunt, ubi putrorem bumida nalta*ft,
Intempeftivis Pluctifque, CF Solibus icta. 110G
None vides etiam cel novitate, és aquarium
Tentari, procul ἃ patria guicungue demcgue
Adveniunt 2 Ideo quia longe diferepat Acr.
Nam quid Britannum calum differre putanuts,
Et quod in Aigypte}?, qua mundi claudicat Axis? 1105
Onidve quod ti ed differre a Gadibus, atque
Ufque cd nigra viritiin, perceilaque fecla catore.
Que cium quatuer inter fe diverfa videits,
Quatusr a ventis, 9 calt partibus effe,
Tuin color &S facies bominum diflare videntur 1110
Largiter, © morbi generatim fecla tenere.

Eft Elepbas morbus, qui propter flumina Niti
Gienitur Algypto in media, neque praterea ufquam.
Atibide tentantur Greffus, Oculique in Acheis

Finibus, inde altis alius locus eft inimicus 1115
Partibus, ac membris: Varius concinnat id Aer.

Proinde ubi fe Celum, quod nobis forté alienum’ ft,
Commovet, algue Aer timimicus ferpere capit:

Ut nebula, ac nubes paullatim repit, 95 omne

Gua graditur, conturbat, © immutare coaélat. 1120
Fit quoque, ut in nofirum chm véxit deniq, celum,
Corrumpat, recdatque fui fimile atque ahenunt.

Hee tgitur fuoito clades nova, 1 peftilitala Ue,
tut in agitas cadit, aut fritges perfiait in ipfas,

Aut alios bominim pafius, pecudumg; cibaits: 1126

Ast etiam fifpenfa manet vis Acre in info:

.

Book VI. Ofthe Nature of Things.

from the Earth itfelf, when drenched by fierce
unfeafonable Showers, and pierced by the Sun’s
{corching Beams, it fends unwholfome Vapours
through the Air. Have you not feen that thofe
who fearch out foreign Lands, and Jeave their
Country and their native Homes, contract new
Pains from the ftrange Water, and the Air they
breathe ? The mighty Difference of the Air oc-
cafions This; for don’t you think the Air of
Britain is widely different from the Air of Egypt,
where the North Pole is never feen? or that the
Air of Pontus differs from that of Gades and 44-
thiopia, where the black Race of Men are tho-
roughly fodden with the Sun’s Heat? The Four
Quarters of the Air, we may fuppofe, are different
in their Temper and their Quality, becaufe they are
oppoled to the Ifour Quarters of the Earth, where
Men, we find, in every Region widely difagree

in Face and Complexion, and are tormented with

Difeafes peculiar to the Countries where they live.

Tuk Leprofy was known firft in Egypt, near
the River Nile, and no where elfe. The Atheni-
ans are tortured with the Gout, the Acheans with
fore Eyes. So every Country is an Enemy to one
Part and Member of the Body or other; and This
_ mutt be imputed to the Air.

Anp when the morbid peftilential Air of a
Country, remote from us, moves from its firft
Abode, and the fatal Vapour begins to advance,
it creeps firft by degrees like a Cloud or Mift, and
difturbs and changes every thing’as it goes; and
when it comes to the Climate where we live, it
corrupts Ps thing, and makes it like itfelf, and
therefore deadly and deitructive to Us.

Turs wafting’ Plague, thefe fad infectious
Blafts, fall eicher in-the Water, or fx upon the
Fruits or other Food of Men, or on the Proven-
der of Cattle; or they may hang fufpended in the

Air

Ψ»

320

,
ΤΙ τ Ὁ ΒΕΓ ae.

Et cium foiranteis miftas bine ducunus auras,

Mla quogue in corpus pariter forvere neceffe ft.

Confimnilt ratione venit Bubus quoque fepe

Peftilitas, etiam pecubus balantibus egror, 1130

Nec refert utruim nos in loca deveniamus

Nobis adverfa, €8 cali mutemus amictum:

An ceelum nobis ultré natura cruentum ~

Deferat, aut aliquid, quo now confuevimus uti:

Quod ios adventu poffit tentare recenti. 1138
- Hee ratio quondam morborum, (8 morlifer eftus

Finibw Cecropiis funeftos reddidit agros,

Vaftavitqie vias, exbaufit civibus urbem,

Naim penitus veniens Algypti ὃ finbus ortus,

Aéra permenfuts mullum, campo/ys natanteis, 140

Incubuit tandem populo Pandionis : omnes

Inde catervatim morbo mortique dabantur.

Principio, caput incenfim fervore gerebait :
Et duplicets oculos fuffufa luce rubenteis,
Sudabant etiam fauces inirinfecus atro 1148

a

Sanguine, €F ulceribus vocis via fepta coibat ;

Atque animi interpres manabat lingua cruore,
Debilitata malis, motu gravis, afpera tatiu:

Inde, ubi per fauceis pettus complerat, €9 ipfitm
Morbida vis in cor mafium confluxerat egris: 1150
Omnia tum vero vitai clauftra lababant,

Spiritus ore foras tetrum velvebat odorem,

Raucida quo perclent projecta cadaver a ritt

Alque animi prorfum vires totus, 9 emie

Languebat

: Boox Vi. Of the Nature of Thmgs. 3.21
Air above, that when we draw our Breath we
needs muft fuck this Poifon, mingled with it, into
our Bodies. In the fame Manner the Peftilence
feizes on the Cattle, and the Contagion infects the
Sheep. And the Danger is the fame, whether we
change our Climate, and travel into a Country
where the Air is pernicious to us; or whether
Nature of her own accord brings the cruel In-
fection from abroad, or introduces a Difeafe we
are not ufed to, which upon its firft Approach
may prove hurtful to Us.

Owce fucha Plague as This, fuch deadly Blafts, 7
poifon’d the Coaits of } Athens, founded by Ce-*/ τ a
crops: It raged through every Street, unpeopled “a
all the City; for coming from.far (from Eeype,
where it firft began) and having pafied through a
long Tract of Air, and o’er “the wide Sea, 6
fixed at laft upon the Subjects of King Pandion,
Men foon, by Heaps, fell Victims to the Rage
of Death and the Difeafe.

Tae Head was firft attack’d with furious
Heats, and then the Eyes turn’d bloodfhot and
inflamed ; the Jaws within fweated with black
Bloods ; the Throat (the Paffage of the Voice)
was ftopt by Ulcers; the Tongue (the Interpre-
ter of the Mind) o’erflowed with Gore, and, faul-
ter’d with the Difeafe, [εἶς rough, and τε
could move. And when the Poifon, through the
Jaws, had filled the Breait, and flowed into the
miferable Stomach, then all the Springs of Life
began to fail; the Breath fent out a filthy Smell.
“broad, like fhe rank Stench of rotten Carcafes ;
the Powers of all the Soul and all the Body flag

h He defcribes that memorable Plague that broke out in
Attica, in the firft Year of the Peloponucfian War, and waited
the whole Country, as well as the City of Athens, called
Cecropid, from Cecrops who built it. ‘This Plague is no lefs

accurately than elegantly defcribed by Thucydides, who was
himfelf both a Spectator and Sharer of it.

on. 11. ¥ and

Luck ETT! =e. Vn

Languebat corpus, letht jam limine in ipfo. TI55
Entolerabilibufque malis erat anxius anguor
Afidué comes, S gemitu conimifta querela,
Singultufque frequens nottem perfepe, diemque,
Conripere affidue nervos 5 membra coaétans,
Diffelvebat eos, defeffos ante, fatigans. 1160
i nimio cuiguain poffes ardore tuert

Corporis in fummo fummain fervifcere partem :
Sed potiits tepidum manibus proponere tactum,
His ia ie quafi inuflis cmne rubere
Corpus, ut eft per membra Sacer cum diditur ignis.1165
Intima pars homini vero flagravit ad offa:
ςς Flagravit fiomacho flamma, ut fornacibus intis,
Nil adeo poffet cuiquam leve, tenueque membris
Veritere in utiitatem: ad ventum &8 frigora femper
In fiuvios partim gelidos ardentia morbo 1170
Membra dabant, nudum jacientes corpus in undas.
Multi precipites lympbis putealibus alte ,

_ Inciderunt, ipfo venientes ore patente.

Infedabiliter fitis arida corpora merfans
Le quabat multum parvis inet imbrem. τι
_ Wee requies erat ulla mali, defeffa jacebant
Corpora, muffabai tacito Medicina timore,
Quippe patentia cum totas ardentia noéteis

Lumina verfarent oculorum expertia fomno,

Multag;, preterea mortis tum fiena dabantur, 1189
Perturbata Animi mens in merore, metuque,

Trifce fupercilium, furiofus voltus, & acer,
Sollicite porro pleneque fonoribus aures,

Creber fpiritus, aut ingens, raroque coortus,
Sudorifg, madens per collum fplendidus bumos, 1180
Tenuia fputa, minuta, croci continéta colore,
Salfaque per fauceis raucas vix edita tuff :

fn manibus vero nervi trabier, tremere artus:

A

a

Book VI. Cf the Nature of Things.

and grow faint, as in the Gates of Death. To
thefe innumerable Evils followed clofe a fad Di-

ftrefs and Sinking of the Mind, loud Sighs with _

bitter Moans ; and frequent Sobbings, all the Day
and Night, twitch’d and convulied the Nerves
and every Limb, and loofen’d every Joint, and
forely rack’d the Wretches, tired out with Pains
before. Yet you could not perceive, by the Touch,
that the Surface of the Body was inflamed with
any extraordinary Heat ; it felt only warm to the
Hand, and looked red all over with burning Pu-
ftules, as when the Sacred Fire fpreads o’er the
Limbs: But all within was in a Flame, that
pierced the very Bones; the Heat raged in the
Stomach, as in a Furnace; no Garment, ever fo
light or thin, could be endured upon their Limbs;
they rufhed into the Wind and Cold; iome plung-

ed their Bodies, fcorched with the Difeafe, in

Rivers, and naked threw themfelves in chilling
Streams ; fome ran with open Mouths, and head-
Jong Jeap’d into deep Wells ; the parching Thirft,
infatiable, fo burnt their Bodies, it made whole
Showers of Water feem no more than afew Drops.

Tse Pain was without Intermiffion, without
End; the Body lay quite fpent, ftretched out 5
the burning Eyes wide open, and, without Sleep

for many a reftlefs Night, rolled dreadfully about.

The Phyfician mutters to himfelf in filent Fear,
and leaves the Patient in Defpair, for many Signs
of coming Death appeared: The Mind diftracted
with Dread and Horror; a ftern Brow ; a Coun-
tenance fierce and furious; the Ears tormented
with a buzzing Noife ; the Breath thick, or deep
and feldom drawn; a frothy Sweat, flowing in
Abundance over the Neck; the Spittle thin and
dry, and yellow as Saffron, and the falc Matter
could fcarce be brought up through the Jaws by

‘coughing ; a Contraction of the Nerves in the

Y2 Hands,

ae

T. LUCRE TID eve

A pedibufque minutatim fuccedere frigus

Non dubitabat, item ad fupremum denique tempus

Compreff@ nares, nafi primoris acumen * 119%

Tenue, cavatioculi, cava tempora, frigida pellis,

Duraque,. inborrebat ritium, frons tenta minebat :

Nec nimiod rigida poft firats morte jacebant :

Offaveque feré candenti lumine folis, 1195

Aut etiam nona reddebant lampade vitam. |
Quorum fiquis (ut eft) vitdrat funera letht,

Ulceribus tetris, © nigra proluvie alvi ;

Pofteriits tamen bunc tabes letbumque manebat :

Aut etiam mulius capitis cum fape dolore 1200

Conruptus fanguis plenis ex naribus tbat:

Huc bominis tote vires corpufque fluebat.

Profluvium porro qui tetri fanguinis acre |

Exierat, tamen in nervos huic morbus &F artus

Ibat, &F in parteis genitaleis corporis ipfas. 1205

Et graviter partim metuentes limina lethi

Vivebant ferro privati parte virih:

Et manibus fine nonnulli pedibufque manebant

In vita tamen, && perdebant lumina partim:

Ujqueadeo mortis metus bis incefferat acer. 1210

Atque etiam quofdam cepere oblivia rerum

Cunctarum, neque fe poffent cognofcere ut ipfi.
Multaque bumi cum inbumata jacerent corpora

fipra

Corporibus, tamen alituum genus atque ferarum

Aut procul abjiliebat, ut acrem exiret odorem:1215

Aut, ubi guftarat, languebat morte propinqua,

Nec tamen omnino temereé illis folibus ulla

Comparebat avis, nec noctibus fecla ferarum

Exibant fylvis: Languebant pleraque morbo,

Et moriebantur : cium primis fida canum vis 1220

Strata vis animam ponebat in omnibus egram,

Extorquebat enim vitam vis morbida membris,

lTncomitate

Book VI. Of the Nature of Things.

Hands, and a Trembling over all the Limbs, and
a Coldnefs creeping up gradually from the Feet ;
the Noftrils pinched in, as at the Point of Death;
the Nofe fharp; the Eyes funk; the Temples
hollow ; the Skin cold and hard; a frightful Di-
{tortion of the Mouth, and the Skin of the Fore-
head {tretched and fhining. Nor did the Wretches
lie long under the cold Hands of Death, for they
expired commonly upon the eighth, or at fartheft
upon the ninth Day.

But if any of the Infected, as fome did, efcap-
ed with Life, either the filthy Ulcers breaking,

or by a moft offenfive Loofenefs, they fell at laft

into a Confumption, and then died ; or Streams.

of corrupted Blood, with grievous Head-ach, flow-
ed from his anthed Noi. and thus his Streneth
and Life ran out, and the Wretch bled to Death.
Such as efcaped a fharp Flux of filthy Blood δὲ
the Nofe, the Poifon pierced into their Nerves and
Limbs, and feized upon their very Genitals ; and
fome were fo terrified at the Approach of Death,
that they fuffered the Virile Member to be cut off,
to preferve Life. Some remained alive without
Hands and Feet, and fome loft their Eyes; fo
terrible was the Fear of Death to thefe miferable
Wretches. Some were feized with an intire For-
getfulnefs of every thing; they did not fo much
as know themfelves.

WHEN Heaps of Bodies lay one upon another,
unburied, upon the Ground, yet the Birds of Prey,
and the wild Beafts, either kept at a Diftance to
avoid the noifome Stench, or if they tafted they
foon died. At that Time no Birds appeared a-
broad in the Day, nor did the wild Beafts leave
the Woods by Night; many of them were infect-
-ed with the Difeafe,. and fell down dead; the
faithful Dogs efpecially lay gafping out their in-
fected Breath in every Street, for the Poifon drove

ace our

37)

.,.)

yt

T Lucrerit Ἢ

Tncomitaia rapi certabant funera vafta:
Nec ratio remed? communis certa dabatur :
Nam qued alis dederat vitaleis Aéris auras 1226
Volvere in ore licere, &S celi templa tueri: :
Floc altis erat exitio, lethuimque parabat.

Illud in bis rebus miferandum 8 magnopere unum
Atrumnabie erat, quod ubi fe quilque videbat
Implicitum morbo, morti damnatus ut effet, 1220

Deficiens anima mefio cum corde jacebat

Fiuiiera refpettans, animam (2 mittebat ibidem. ‘
Tdgue vel in primis cumulabat funere funus :

- Quippe etenim nullo ceffabant tempore apifei

« ails alios avidi contagia morbi : 1235
Nam quicungue fuos fugitabant vifere ad egros,
Vilat nimiutm cupidi, morlifque timentes,

Penibat paullo poft turpi.morie malaque

Deferios, opis experteis, incuria madlans,

Lanigeras tanguam pecudes, {3 bucera fecla. 1240
Qui fuerant autem prefld, coutagibus ibant,

Aigue labore, pudor quem tuim cogebat obire,

Blandaque lafforuim vow mifta voce querele.

Optimus boc lethi genus ergo quifque fubibat :

Inque altis chum populum fepelire fuorune 1245
Certantes, lacrymis laffi luétuque redibant.

Inde bonam partem in leftum mercre dabantur :

- Nec poterat quifquam veperiri, quem neq; morbvus,

Nec mors, πες luétus tentaret tempore tal,

!

Praterea,

ἜΘ τ

Βοοκ VI. Of the Nature of Things.

out Life from every Limb. The many Funerals of
the Dead were hurried away without Order, and
unattended. Nor was there any certain Remedy to
be applied ; for what was of Service to fome, and
relieved the Patient, and preferved Life, was fa-
tal and brought Death to others.

But the moft wretched and deplorable Thing
of all, at this Time, was, that when once a Per-
fon found himfelf infected with the Difeafe, as if
the Sentence of Death had paffed upon him, his

τ Spirits failed him, he fell into Melancholy and

Deipair, thought of nothing but Death, and fo
gave up the Ghoft. :

ΠΑΝ Funerals were heaped one upon another,
becaufe the. fierce Contagion of the Difeafe incef-
fantly raged, and carried on the Infection. And
if any one, too fond of Life, and fearing to die,

avoided to vifit the miferable Sick, the fame

Want of Help was foon his own Punifhment ;
he died in a filthy and deplorable Manner, aban-
don’d, and without Affiftance, and perifhed by
Negleét, like the wretched Beafts of the Field.
Anp Thefe who were compell’d by Shame,
and by the moving Cries and piteous Moans of
their Friends, to attend them in their Diftrefs,
were feized by the Infection, and died by the Di-
feafe and the Fatigue. Indeed the moft Pious
among them loft their Lives in this manner: And
when they had endeavoured to bury the Bodies of
whole Families of their Friends, among thofe of

the Friends of others, they returned, wearied with .

Grief and Weeping, and moft of them took to
their Beds for Sorrow. And there was not One
to be found who, in this calamitous Time, had
not erievoufly fuffered, either by the Difeafe, or
by Death, or by the moft bitter Pain and Anguifh
of Mind.

¥ oi Brsipks,

3

9

&

7

328 T. LucgR ea) Tipe

Preterea, jam paftor, S armentarius omnis, 1250
Et robuftus item curvi moderator aratri,
Languebant, penitufque cafis contrufa jacebant
Corpora, paupertate SS morbo dedita morti.
Exanimis pueris fuper exanimata parentum
Corpora nonnunquam poffes, retroque videre 1255
Mairibus, 8 patribus natos fuper edere vitam:

Nec minimum partim ex agris egroris in urbem |
Confluxit, langueus guem contulit Agricolarum
Copia, conveniens ex omni morbida parti. | |
Oininia complebant loca tectaque quo mage eos tum1260
Confertos ita acervatim mors accumulabat.

Mulia filt profiraia viam per, proque voluta
Corpora fiianos ad aquarum firaia jacebant,
Lnterclufa anima nimia ab dulcedine aquat.

Multa; per populi pafim loca promta, viafg, 1265
Languica femianimo tum corpore membra videres,
Horrida pedore, 3 pannis cooperta perire
Corporis inluvie: Pellis fuper offibus una,

Ulceribus tetrisprope jam, fordique fepulta.

Omitia aeniq; fanéia Deitin delubra replérat 1270.
Corporibus mors exanimis, onerataque pafjim
Cuncia cadaveribus Celeftum templa manebant :

fofpitibus loca que complerant Aidituenies. |
Nec jam relligio Divitm, nec Numina magni
Pendebautur: Enim ΠΣ Dolor exfuperabat. 1275

Nec mos ille Sepulture remanebat in urbe,
it pritts bic populus femper confuerat bumari,
Perturbatus enim totus trepidabat, €P-unus

Quique

Boox VI. Of the Nature of ὦ hings.

Bestpes, the Shepherds and the Herd{men,
and the lufty Ploughman pined away with the In-
fection; their Bodies lay miferably ftretched out
in their clofe narrow Huts, and died of Poverty
and the Difeafe. You might frequently fee the
dead Parents lying over their dead Children, and
again, the Children expiring upon the Bodies of
their wretched Mothers and Fathers.

Nor was it a fmall Addition to this Plague
that was brought from the Country to the City 9
for the infected Peafants flock’d hither in Multi-
tudes from all Parts, and carried the Sickneis along
with them. They filled all the Houfes, and all
Places ; and as they were pent up clofe together,
Death had the greater Power to flay them on
Heaps. Many Bodies lay along in the Streets,
cafping for Thirft; and rolling to the publick
Conduits, they drank infatiably, and were fuffo-
cated with Water: Others you might fee in the
Highways and common Places, languifhing, with
their Bodies half dead, horrible with Filth, co-
ver’d with Rags, and rotting with the Corruption
of the Limbs; there was nothing but Skin upon
the Bones, and that putrefied with eating Ulcers,
and buried in Naftinefs. :

Anp laftly, Death had filled all the Temples
of the Gods with dead Bodies, all the Shrines of the
celeftial Deities were loaded every where with Car-
cafes. The Priefts furnifhed thefe Places with
fuch wretched Guefts, Nor was there any Reve-
rence paid to the Geds, their Divinities were no
more regarded ; for the prefent Calamity over-
came every thing.

Nor did the People any longer obferve that
Caftom of Sepulture they had ever followed,
which was, to bury their Dead in the City; they

were all diftracted and amazed, and every one:

buried

329

4
8)

6

TFT. LUcReETtTI | Tae

QDuifque fuum pro re cenfortem maftus humabat.
Multaque vis fubita, S paupertas borrida fuafit.

Namque fuos confanguineos aliena regorum

| Infuper inftru€ta ingenti clamore locabant,

Subdebantque faceis, multo cum fanguine fepe
Kinantes potins quam corpora defererentur.

1281

Boox VI. Of the Nature of Things.
buried his wretched Friend as the Exigency of
Things would permit.

Awp fudden Rage, and dreadful Poverty,
drove Men into many outrageous Actions: They
would place their Relations, with violent Outcries,
upon the Funeral Piles that were raifed for others,
and light the Fire ; and often quarrel, with much
Lofs of Blood, rather than forfake the Bodies of
their Friends.

Ε ΒΞ...

3

ny

Jd

'

InveEx 20 the Second Volume.

A
Cademicks, 4.5.
fi quinoétial Line,
17}

“ther defcribed, 135. Its
conftant Motion, 157.

f&tna, the Burning of that
Mountain, 283.

Air, its Ufe in Refpiration,
81. [ts various Changes,
5.

Air in all Bodies, 313. The
Difference of Air, 319.

Ambition, the Fruits of it,
205.

Amour, the Misfortunes at-
tending it, 95.

Animals, how preferved,
157.

Anthony’s Fire, 285.

Arcefilas, 4.3.

Athens reformed Mankind,
225.

Atoms, their various Mo-
tions to produce the
World, 151.

Averii, their Nature, 291.

Their talects, 567.

Autumn, the Seafon for

Thunder, 261.
Β

Barrennefs, the Caufe of it,
103.

Beafts, their Dreams, ὃς.
Beafts ufed in War, 219.
‘Lhe State of Beafts hap-

‘pier than Man, 131.

Birds the ΠΗ Animals, 183.
Bodies not folid, 307.
Boys, the Effect of making

themfelves giddy, 39.
Drajs, eee, 2.15.
ς

Centaurs, their Nature ex-
plained, 65. No fuch
Things, 180.

Certainty of our Senfes, 43.

Chaos, all Things made out
of it, 149.

Child, why like Parents
or Grandfathers, tro.
When born, deftitute
and miferable, 131.

Clouds, whence formed,15 2.
‘Their meeting cau'es
‘Thunder, 245. How
produced, 249. ‘Their
Origin explained, 269.

Cock trightful toa Lion, 63.

Colour dilcharged from the
Surface of Bodies, 13.

Convex, an Account of
Convex Glalfes, 31.

Creation of the World, an
Account of it, 127.

Day, the Length and Short-
nefs of the Days, 171.
Death, all Things fubject

πὸ.
Demscritus, his Opinion of
the Spheres, τὸς
Diffance of Objects difco-
ver d, 20 Ὁ
| Dogs,

ΓΝ ΘΙ ΝΣ

Dogs, their Dreams, 85.
Dreams, theCaufes of them,
83.F rightful Dreams,87.
mognk, ts Ule, 77.
Pryden, his Detfcription of
Enjoyment, 107.
E

Earth, of itfelf unfruitful,
120. its various Changes,
133. cKlow produced,155.
Why it does not fall,159.
Is united to the other

Parts of the World, σι.

Is continually changing,
185.

Earthquakes, 275.

Eccho, its Nature, 53.

Echipfes, the Reafon of
‘iem, 170.

Effiuvia of the Loadftone,

II. :

E aie fubject to change,
133. Che continual fight-
ing of the Elements,145.

Elephants ufed in War,
2 17.

Enjoyment defcribed, 105.

Epicurus, his Opinion of
the Members of the Bo-
dy, 73- His Praifes ce-
Hebrated, 11% 235.

Eternal, how Things are
eternal, 1482.

Eyes offended by the Sun,
ΟΝ το Eyes, 219.
a

Fancies in our Sleep, 43.
‘They feem real, 67.
Fate, all Uhings fubject to

ΟΡ χῶ.
Fever, the Nature of it, 59.
Fire perifhes and is renew-
oay037. How it firft
began, 203.

Flame, the Breaking-out
of Flames, 285.

Folly of praying to the
Gods, 20am

Food, different agreeable to
different Palates, 57.

Form explained,11. Forms
compofed of Images that
flow from Bodies, 15.
In what Manner they are
reflected, 19. TheFomne -
of the Gods, 209.

Fountain, cold by Day and
hot by Night, 299.

G

Garments, the firft Ufe of
fineriew 227.

σίας, Images reflected by
a Glafs, 19. How they
appear in a Glafs, 20.
How they pafs from one
Glafs to another, 31.

Gods, they live at Eafe, 11g.
‘The Fear of the Gods,
209. ‘They are Terrors

~ to Mankind, 239.

Gold firft difcover’d, 215.

Government, the Original
Of ἡ 207:

Gout, 310.

Grafting invented, 222.

H

Fleat of the Sun explained,
TO τω

Fleaven not the Seat of the
Gods, 125. The Hea-
vens have a Beginning
and End, 139. The
Formation of the Hea-
vers, 180.

Ffellebare, its Nature, 59.

Flerbs firft produced, 181.

Hercules, his Exploits,115. .

ffor fe

ΑΓ epee on

Horfe feems to move up-
wards in a River, 41.
The Neighing of Horfes,
203.

Hounds, their Dreams, 85.

Hunger, the Reafon of it,

io
{

Faundice, the Effects of the
- Yellow-Jaundice, 23.
Image, theImages of ‘Chings
defcribed, 9. Always
fiowing from the Surface
of Bodies, rz. Not dif-
covered by the Eye, 13.
Their fubtle Nature, 15.
The Swiftnefs of their
Motion,21. Why tranf-
pofed in a Glafs, 29.
Why they move with
us, 33. Ihe fine Con-
texture of Images, “ὅς.
They affect the Mind
when we fleep, 67.
Imagination, the Caufe of
mos:
Tron, its Ue, 217. How
drawn by the Loaditone,

ΓΕ
K

Knowledge derived from the
Peimics, 75.
Ι,

Lands, their firft Divifion,
205.

Leprofy, 319.

Light continually emitted
from the Sun, 10.

Lightning, the Caufes of it,
241. Is feen before we
hear the ‘Phunder, 247.
Of what Seeds formed,
253. Pailes through Bo-
dies, Ζ26ι.

Limbs not made for proper
Wis, 7

Lion terrified by a Cock,
63.

Loadftone, it’s Nature and
Qualities, 303.

Love, the Caufe of it, 87.
A Caution againft it, gt.
‘The Inconveniences of

Ὁ Love, 93. Its original
State, 193.

Lover, a Defcription of a
paffionate Lover, qt.
Lovers are blind and par-
tial, Ὁ.

Luft in Animals, rot.

Magnet, its Virtue, 205.
Its Power of Attraction,
215

Many the Origin of Man
and Beaft, 183. ~The
State of the fir Men,
τ τ:

Matuta, 169.

Meat, different to different
Palates, τι

Memory, 67.

Metals, their firft Difco-
Vel azar

Meteors, their Caufe, 243.

Mind moved by the Image
of Things, 67. Purged
by Philofophy, 237.

Miftrefs, the Extravagancy
of keeping a Mifirels,
95. Ihe Character of
a Miftrefs, 90.

Monfters, why thought of,
65. ‘heir Production,
15.

Joon, how formed, 153.
Is no bigger than the
appears, 163. She bor-

rows

1" @e F

rows Light from the Sun,
175. Rolls round her
Axis, 177. A Moon
may be created every
Pay, Ha:

Move, why we move as we
picalc Se

Mufick firlt invented, 223.

N

Names, how firft impofed,
100.

Nature faid to make the
World, 127.

Night, why it fucceeds the

Day, 169.

Nile, the Overflowing of
that River, 289.

Noje, in what Manner af-
Peceed, 61.

O
Oljeés in the Light feen
by us in the Dark, 35.

_ The Eyes contract to fee
a {mall Odject, 71.
a

Palates, the Difference of
them, 57.
Pan, his Office, §3.
Particles on the Surface of
Bodies, 23.
Phaeton, his Fate, 147.
Phafes of the Moon, 177.
Plagues, their Nature, 317.
The Plague of Athens,
bin
Plays feem to be feen in the
sleep, 85.
Poem, the Method of it, 7.
Pores of unequal Size, 54.
Predigies defcribed, 17.
Prefters, their Nature and
ΕΝ. 267.
R

Ram, the Caufe of it, 273.

Rainbow, how formed,27 5.
Religion, the Original of it,

2.09.

Riding the Horfe firft ufed,

217.
5

Scylla, no fuch Creature,
180.

Sea, how produced, 155,
It does not increafe, 281.

Seafous for Thunder, 263.

Seed, an Account of the
Human Seed, 89. The
Reafon of its different
Efieetsy avo.

Seeds, their various Sorts in
the Earth, 293. Con-
tinually flowing from Bo-
dieS3 305.

Senfes, their Certainty, 37.
Are not to be contra-
dicted, 45.

Shadows, why move with
us,

Showers, how produced,
27 ae

Siybt caufed by the Images
of Things, 25.

Skis, the firft Garments,
ps

Sleep, Images in our Sleep
defcribed, 69. The Na-
tureand Effects of Sleep,
79. Sleep when the Bel-
ly is full, 83.

Siell, the Nature of it, 61.
Of what Seeds compo-
fed, 63:

Scul proved mortal, roy.
‘The World thought en-
dued' with a rational
ΟΠ 121. Sowkcanneg
act without the Body,
£22.

Scund

i i.

Sound explained, 40.

Sowing invented, 223.

Spinning firft in Life, 221.

Sports ἢ ΣΟ], 225:

Stars feem τὸ ftand fill,
39. Why they move,
1577 ime Wenner δὲ
their Motion, 159.

State, the original State of
Mankind, 197.

Storms, the Caufe of them,

272

Subtlety of Images, 17.

Summer Solftice, 167.

Sun feems to rife out of
te oCasgAn. wen Acg
count of its Light, 137.

τς How it was formed,
153. Is no bigger than
it Mppears to De, 162.
Is the great Fountain of
Light, 165. His Courfe
particularly explained,
169g. The Rifing of the
Sun, 171. j

Surface of Bodies affected
by th¢Air, Bie

Swiftnefs oF thelmages, 21.

a

Tafte, tne Nature of it ex-
plained, 57

Tempeft, the Caufes of it,

Ἄς Ὁ

Think, why we think on
what we will, 60.

Thirft, the Caufe of it, 75.

Thunder, the Reafon of it,
243. he Forte ofits
253. The Swiftnefs ie
stroke of ‘Chunder,259.

Towers {quare , appear
round, 325.

Trees, when ἕω. 18 2

Ω) E ca . Le

1; emblings of theEar th gE
Lropicks of Cancer and Ca-

pr 1COrn, 17%. -
U

,
Voice, an Account of it,
4g. Particularly explain-
ed, 51. It pafles through ~
Doors, 55.
Ufe and Experience, 290.
Ww

Vater, its various Changes,
1: '
Vells, cold in Summer,

iy Se (
iVhirlwind, its Nature, |
2.59.
Winds, the Occafion of |

Thunder, 245. (ilies
burft .and drive ΟΝ
Clouds, 257. Are the
Caufe of Earthquakes,
2 te

Wake the Formation of
them,49. Reverberated,
53. Whe dirt ΒΕ of
Words, 201.

IYorld not without Begin-
ning or,End, 117. Is
mortal, 119. Is not an
Animal, 123. Was not
made for Man, 125.
Not made by an intel-
ligent Being, 129. Is
of a new Creation, 141.
it may be burnt, 147.
How it began, 149.
The Nature of its In-
fancy, 185.

Xe

Youth » Sher” Perfuitees,
Love, 87.
Z,

Lodiack, 173.

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Ex Libris
PERCY STAFFORD ALLEN
huius Collegi Praesidis

1924-1933

POD Se

YT. LUCRETI CARL
DE RERUM NATURA

LIBRI SEX

LT. LUCRETI CARL
DE RERUM NATURA

LIBR vss

TRANSLATED BY

H. A. J. MUNRO

FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE

LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
CAMBRIDGE DEIGHTON BELL AND CO

1900

T. LUCRETI CARL
DE RERUM NATURA

LIBRI SHX

WITH NOTES AND A TRANSLATION

BY

H. A. J. MUNRO

FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE

TRANSLATION

LONDON

GEORGE BELL AND SONS
CAMBRIDGE DEIGHTON BELL AND CO

1900

First Edition 1864. Second Edition 1866. Third Edition 1875.
LPourth Revised Edition 1886. Reprinted 1891, 1898, 1900.

Camoridge :
PRINTED ΒΥ. ἃ Ceo ὦ CLAN.

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

I--29

LUCRETIUS

ON THE NATURE OF THINGS

BOOK FIRST

Mother of the Aeneadae, darling of men and gods, iIncrease-
giving Venus, who beneath the gliding signs of heaven fillest with
thy presence the ship-carrying sea, the corn-bearing lands, since
through thee every kind of living things is conceived, rises up
and beholds the hght of the sun. Before thee, goddess, flee the
winds, the clouds of heaven; before thee and thy advent; for
thee earth manifold in works puts forth sweet-smelling flowers ;
for thee the levels of the sea do laugh and heaven propitiated
shines with outspread light. For soon as the vernal aspect of
day is disclosed, and the birth-favouring breeze of favonius un-
barred is blowing fresh, first the fowls of the air, o lady, shew
sions of thee and thy entering in, throughly smitten in heart by
thy power. Next the wild herds bound over the glad pastures
and swim the rapid rnvers: mi such wise each made prisoner by
thy charms follows thee with desire, whither thou goest to lead
it on. Yes, throughout seas and mountains and sweeping rivers
and leafy homes of birds and grassy plains, striking fond love into
the breasts of all thou constrainest them each after its kind to
continue their races with desire. Since thou then art sole mis-
tress of the nature of thmgs and without thee nothing rises up
into the divine borders of light, nothing grows to be glad or
lovely, faim would I have thee for a helpmate in writing the verses
which I essay to pen on the nature of things for our own son of
the Memmii, whom thou, goddess, hast willed to have no peer,
rich as he ever is in every grace. Wherefore all the more, o lady,
lend my lays an everliving charm. Cause meanwhile the savage
M. IIL. A

2 i 29—76

works of war to be lulled to rest throughout all seas and lands;
for thou alone canst bless mankind with calm peace, seeing that
Mavors lord of battle controls the savage works of war, Mavors
who often flings himself into thy lap quite vanquished by the
never-healing wound of love; and then with upturned face and
shapely neck thrown back feeds with love his greedy sight gazing,
goddess, open-mouthed on thee; and as backward he reclines, his
breath stays hanging on thy lips. While then, lady, he is reposing
on thy holy body, shed thyself about him and above, and pour
from thy lips sweet discourse, asking, glorious dame, gentle peace
for the Romans. For neither can we in our country’s day of
trouble with untroubled mind think only of our work, nor can the
illustrious offset of Memmius in times hke these be wanting to the
general weal. ᾿
%

for what remains to tell, apply to true reason unbusied ears and a
keen mind withdrawn from cares, lest my gifts set out for you
with stedfast zeal you abandon with disdain, before they are
understood. For I will essay to discourse to you of the most
high system of heaven and the gods and will open up the first-
beginnings of things, out of which nature gives birth to all things
and increase and nourishment, and into which nature likewise
dissolves them back after their destruction. These we are accus-
tomed in explaining their reason to call matter and begetting
bodies of things and to name seeds of things and also to term first
bodies, because from them as first elements all things are.

When human life to view lay foully prostrate upon earth
crushed down under the weight of religion, who shewed her head
from the quarters of heaven with hideous aspect lowering upon
mortals, a man of Greece ventured first to ft up his mortal eyes
to her face and first to withstand her to her face. Him neither
story of gods nor thunderbolts nor heaven with threatening roar
could quell: they only chafed the more the eager courage of his
soul, filling him with desire to be the first to burst the fast bars
of nature’s portals. Therefore the living force of his soul gained
the day: on he passed far beyond the flaming walls of the world
and traversed throughout in mind and spirit the immeasurable
universe ; whence he returns a conqueror to tell us what can, what
cannot come into being; in short on what principle each thing

76—120 1 3

has its powers defined, its deep-set boundary mark. Therefore
religion is put under foot and trampled upon in turn; us his
victory brings level with heaven.

This is what I fear herein, lest haply you should fancy that
you are entering on unholy grounds of reason and treading the
path of sin; whereas on the contrary often and often that very
religion has given birth to sinful and unholy deeds. Thus in
Aulis the chosen chieftains of the Danai, foremost of men, foully
polluted with Iphianassa’s blood the altar of the Trivian maid.
Soon as the fillet encircling her maiden tresses shed itself in equal
lengths adown each cheek, and soon as she saw her father standing
sorrowful before the altars and beside him the ministering priests
hiding the knife and her countrymen at sight of her shedding
tears, speechless in terror she dropped down on her knees and
sank to the ground. Nor aught in such a moment could it avail
the luckless girl that she had first bestowed the name of father on
the king. For hfted up in the hands of the men she was carried
shivering to the altars, not after due performance of the customary
rites to be escorted by the clear-ringing bridal song, but in the
very season of marriage, stainless maid mid the stain of blood, to
fall a sad victim by the sacrificing stroke of a father, that thus a
happy and prosperous departure might be granted to the fleet.
So great the evils to which religion could prompt !

You yourself some time or other overcome by the terrgr-speak-
ing tales of the seers will seek to fall away from us. Ay indeed
for how many dreams may they now imagine for you, enough to
upset the calculations of life and trouble all your fortunes with
fear! And with good cause; for if men saw that there was a
fixed limit to their woes, they would be able in some way to with-
stand the religious scruples and threatenings of the seers. As it
is, there is no way, no means of resisting, since they must fear
after death everlasting pains. For they cannot tell what is the
nature of the soul, whether 1t be born or on the contrary find its
way into men at their birth, and whether 1t perish together with
us when severed from us by death or visit the gloom of Orcus and
wasteful pools or by divine decree find its way into brutes in our
stead, as sang our Ennius who first brought down from delightful
Helicon a crown of unfading leaf, destined to bright renown
throughout Italian clans of men. And yet with all this Ennius

A 2

4 I 120—162

sets forth that there are Acherusian quarters, publishing it in
immortal verses; though in our passage thither neither our souls
nor bodies hold together, but only certain idols pale in wondrous
wise. From these places he tells us the ghost of everliving Homer
uprose before hin and began to shed salt tears and to unfold in
words the nature of things. Wherefore we must well grasp the
principle of things above, the principle by which the courses of the
sun and moon go on, the force by which every thing on earth pro-
ceeds, but above all we must find out by keen reason what the
soul and the nature of the mind consist of, and what thing it is
which meets us when awake and frightens our minds, if we are
under the influence of disease; meets and frightens us too when
we are buried in sleep ; so that we seem to see and hear speaking
to us face to face them who are dead, whose bones earth holds in
its embrace. Nor does my mind fail to perceive how hard it is to
make clear in Latin verses the dark discoveries of the Greeks,
especially as many poimts must be dealt with in new terms on
account of the poverty of the language and the novelty of the
questions. But yet your worth and the looked for pleasure of
sweet friendship prompt me to undergo any labour and lead me
on to watch the clear nights through, seeking by what words and
in what verse I may be able in the end to shed on your mind so
clear a light that you can thoroughly scan hidden things.

This terror then and darkness of mind must be dispelled not
by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the
aspect and the law of nature; the warp of whose design we shall
begin with this first principle, nothing is ever gotten out of
nothing by divine power. Fear in sooth holds so in check all
mortals, because they see many operations go on in earth and
heaven, the causes of which they can in no way understand,
believing them therefore to be done by power divine. For these
reasons when we shall have seen that nothing can be produced
from nothing, we shali then more correctly ascertain that which
we are seeking, both the elements out of which every thing can be
produced and the manner in which all things are done without the
hand of the gods.

If things came from nothing, any kind might be born of any
thing, nothing would require seed. Men for instance might rise
out of the sea, the scaly race out of the earth, and birds might

162—206 I 5

burst out of the sky; horned and other herds, every kind of wild
beasts would haunt with changing brood tilth and wilderness alike.
Nor would the same fruits keep constant to trees, but would
change; any tree might bear any fruit. For if there were not be-
getting bodies for each, how could things have a fixed unvarying
mother? But in fact because things are all produced from fixed
seeds, each thing is born and goes forth into the borders of light
out of that in which resides its matter and first bodies; and for
this reason all things cannot be gotten out of all things, because
in particular things resides a distinct power. Again why do we
see the rose put forth in spring, corn in the season of heat, vines
yielding at the call of autumn, if not because, when the fixed
seeds of things have streamed together at the proper time, what-
ever is born discloses itself, while the due seasons are there and
the quickened earth brings its weakly products in safety forth into
the borders of light? But if they came from nothing, they would
rise up suddenly at uncertain periods and unsuitable times of year,
inasmuch as there would be no first-beginnings to be kept from a
begetting union by the unpropitious season. No nor would time
be required for the growth of things after the mecting of the seed,
if they could increase out of nothing. Little babies would at once
grow into men and trees in a moment would rise and spring out
of the ground. But none of these events it is plain ever comes to
pass, since all things grow step by step [at a fixed time], as is na-
tural, [since they all grow] from a fixed seed and in growing pre-
serve their kind; so that you may be sure that all things increase
in size and are fed out of their own matter. Furthermore without
fixed seasons of rain the earth is unable to put forth its gladdening
produce, nor again if kept from food could the nature of living
things continue its kind and sustain life; so that you may hold
with greater truth that many bodies are common to many things,
as we see letters common to different words, than that any thing
could come into being without first-beginnings. Again why could
not nature have produced men of such a size and strength as to be
able to wade on foot across the sea and rend great mountains with
their hands and outlive many generations of living men, if not
because an unchanging matter has been assigned for begetting
things and what can arise out of this matter is fixed? We must
admit therefore that nothing can come from nothing, since things

6 I 200— 247

require seed before they can severally be born and be brought out
into the buxom fields of air. Lastly since we see that tilled
grounds surpass untilled and yield a better produce by the labour
of hands, we may infer that there are in the earth first-beginnings
of things which by turning up the fruitful clods with the share
and labouring the soil of the carth we stimulate to rise. But if
there were not such, you would see all things without any labour
of ours spontaneously come forth in much greater perfection.
Moreover nature dissolves every thing back into its first bodies
and does not annihilate things. For if anght were mortal in all
its parts alike, the thing in a moment would be snatched away to
destruction from before our eyes; since no force would be needed
to produce disruption among its parts and undo their fastenings.
Whereas in fact, as all things consist of an imperishable seed, na-
ture suffers the destruction of nothing to be seen, until a foree has
encountered it sufficient to dash things to pieces by a blow or to
pierce through the void places within them and break them up.
Again if time, whenever it makes away with things through age,
utterly destroys them eating up all their matter, out of what does
Venus bring back into the light of life the race of living things
each after its kind, or, when they are brought back, out of what
does earth manifold in works give them nourishment and inerease,
furnishing them with food each after its kind? Out of what do
its own native fountains and extraneous rivers from far and wide
keep full the sea? Out of what does ether feed the stars? For
infinite time gone Ly and lapse of days must have eaten up all
things which are of mortal body. Now if in that period of time
gone by those things have existed, of which this sum of things
is composed and recruited, they are possessed no doubt of an
imperishable body, and cannot therefore any of them return
to nothing. Again the same force and cause would destroy all
things without distinction, unless everlasting matter held them
together, matter more or less closely linked in mutual entangle-
ment: a touch in sooth would be sufficient cause of death, inas-
much as any amount of force must of course undo the texture
of things in which no parts at all were of an everlasting body.
But in fact; because the fastenings of first-begimnings one with
the other are unlike and matter is everlasting, things continue
with body uninjured, until a force is found to encounter them

247—288 I 7

strong enough to overpower the texture of each. A thing there-
fore never returns to nothing, but all things after disruption go
back into the first bodies of matter. Lastly rains die, when father
ether has tumbled them into the lap of mother earth; but then
goodly crops spring up and boughs are green with leaves upon the
trees, trees themselves grow and are laden with fruit; by them in
turn our race and the race of wild beasts are fed, by them we see
glad towns teem with children and the leafy forests ring on all
sides with the song of new birds; through them cattle wearied
with their load of fat lay their bodies down about the glad pas-
tures and the white milky stream pours from the distended udders ;
through them a new brood with weakly hmbs frisks and gambols
over the soft grass, rapt in their young hearts with the pure new
milk. None of the things therefore which seem to be lost is
utterly lost, since nature replenishes one thing out of another and
does not sutter any thing to be begotten, before she has been re-
eruited by the death of some other.

Now mark me: since I have taught that things cannot be
born from nothing, cannot when begotten be brought back to
nothing, that you may not haply yet begin in any shape to
mistrust my words, because the first-beginnings of things can-
not be seen by the eyes, take moreover this hst of bodies which
you must yourself admit are in the number of things and cannot
be seen. First of all the force of the wind when aroused beats
on the harbours and whelms huge ships and scatters clouds;
sometines in swift whirling eddy it scours the plains and straws
them with large trees and scourges the mountain summits with
forest-rending blasts: so fiercely does the wind rave with a shrill
howling and rage with threatening roar. Winds therefore sure
enough are unseen bodies which sweep the seas, the lands, ay
and the clouds of heaven, tormenting them and catching them
up in sudden whirls. On they stream and spread destruction
abroad in just the same way as the soft liquid nature of water,
when all at once it is borne along in an overflowing stream, and
a great downfall of water from the high hills augments it with
copious rains, flinging together fragments of forests and entire
trees; nor can the strong bridges sustain the sudden force of
coming water: in such wise turbid with much rain the river
dashes upon the piers with mighty foree: makes havoe with loud

8 I 288—333

noise and rolls under its eddics huge stones: wherever aught
opposes its waves, down it dashes it. In this way then must the
blasts of wind as well move on, and when they hke a mighty
stream have borne down in any direction, they push things be-
fore them and throw them down with repeated assaults, some-
times catch them up in curling eddy and carry them away in
swift-circling whirl, Wherefore once and again I say winds are
unseen bodies, since in their works and ways they are found to
rival great rivers which are of a visible body. Then again we per-
ceive the different smells of things, yet never see them coming to
our nostrils; nor do we behold heats nor can we observe cold with
the eyes nor are we used to see voices. Yet all these things must
consist of a bodily nature, since they are able to move the senses ;
for nothing but body can touch and be touched. Again clothes
hung up on a shore which waves break upon become moist, and
then get dry if spread out in the sun. Yet it has not been seen
in what way the moisture of water has sunk into them nor again
in what way this has been dispelled by heat. The moisture there-
fore is disperse into smali particles which the eyes are quite unable
to see. Again after the revolution of many of the sun’s years a ring
on the finger 1s thinned on the under side by wearing, the drip-
ping from the eaves hollows a stone, the bent ploughshare of iron
imperceptibly decreases in the fields, and we behold the stone-
paved streets worn down by the feet of the multitude; the brass
statues too at the gates shew their right hands to be wasted by
the touch of the numerous passers by who greet them. These
things then we sce are lessened, since they have been thus worn
down; but what bodies depart at any given time the nature of
vision has jealously shut out our seeing. Lastly the bodies which
time and nature add to things by little and little, constraining
them to grow in due measure, no exertion of the eyesight can
behold; and so too wherever things grow old by age and decay,
and when rocks hanging over the sea are eaten away by the
gnawing salt spray, you cannot see what they lose at any given
moment. Nature therefore works by unseen bodies.

And yet all things are not on all sides jammed together and
kept in by body: there is also void in things. To have learned
this will be good for you on many accounts; it will not suffer
you to wander in doubt and be to seek in the sum of things and

333—378 I 9

distrustful of our words. If there were not void, things could
not move at all; for that which is the property of body, to let
and hinder, would be present to all things at all times; nothing
therefore could go on, since no other thing would be the first
to give way. But in fact throughout seas and lands and the
heights of heaven we see before our eyes many things move in
many ways for various reasons, which things, if there were no
void, I need not say would lack and want restless motion: they
never would have been begotten at all, since matter jammed on
all sides would have been at rest. Again however solid things
are thought to be, you may yet learn from this that they are of
yare body: in rocks and caverns the moisture of water oozes
through and all things weep with abundant drops; food distri-
butes itself through the whole body of living things; trees grow
and yield fruit in season, because food is diffused through the
whole from the very roots over the stem and all the boughs.
Voices pass through walls and fly through houses shut, stiffening
frost pierces to the bones. Now if there are no void parts, by
what way can the bodies severally pass? You would see it to be
quite impossible. Once more, why do we see one thing surpass
another in weight though not larger in size? For if there is just
as much body in a ball of wool as there is in a lump of lead,
it is natural it should weigh the same, since the property of body
is to weigh all things downwards, while on the contrary the nature
of void 15 ever without weight. Therefore when a thing is just
as large, yet 15 found to be hghter, it proves sure enough that it
has more of void in it; while on the other hand that which is
heavier shews that there is in 1t more of body and that it con-
tains within it much less of void. Therefore that which we are
seeking with keen reason exists sure enough, mixed up in things;
and we call 1t void.

And herein I am obliged to forestall this point which some
raise, lest 1t draw you away from the truth. The waters they
say make way for the scaly creatures as they press on, and open
liquid paths, because the fish leave room behind them, into which
the yielding waters may stream; thus other things too may move
and change place among themselves, although the whole sum be
full. This you are to know has been taken up on grounds wholly
false. For on what side I ask can the scaly creatures move for-

10 I 379—423

wards, unless the waters have first made room? again on what
side ean the waters give place, so long as the fish are unable to
go on? ‘Therefore you must either strip all bodies of motion
or admit that in things void is mixed up from which every thing
gets its first start im moving. Lastly if two broad bodies after
contact quickly spring asunder, the air must surely fill all the
void which is formed between the bodies. Well however rapidly
it stream together with swift-circling currents, yet the whole space
will not be able to be filled up in one moment; for it must occupy
first one spot and then another, until the whole is taken up. But
if haply any one supposes that, when the bodies have started
asunder, that result follows because the air condenses, he is mis-
taken; for a void is then formed which was not before, and a void
also is filled which existed before; nor can the air condense in
such a way, nor supposing it could, could it methinks without
void draw into itself and bring its parts together.

Wherefore however long you hold out by urging many ob-
jections, you must necds in the end admit that there is a void in
things. And many more arguments I may state to you in order
to accumulate proof on my words; but these slight footprints are
enough for a keen-searching mind to enable you by yourself to
find out all the rest. For as dogs often discover by smell the
lair of a mountain-ranging wild beast though covered over with
leaves, when once they have got on the sure tracks, thus you in
eases like this will be able by yourself alone to see one thing after
another and find your way into all dark corners and draw forth
the truth. But if you lag or swerve a jot from the reality, this
I can promise you, Memmius, without more ado: such plenteous
draughts from abundant wellsprmgs my sweet tongue shall pour
from my richly furnished breast, that I fear slow age will steal
over our limbs and break open in us the fastnesses of life, ere the
whole store of reasons on any one question has by my verses been
dropped into your ears.

But now to resume the thread of the design which I am weay-
ing in verse: all nature then, as it exists by itself, is founded on
two things: there are bodies and there is void in which these
bodies are placed and through which they move about. For that
body exists by itself the general feeling of mankind declares; and
unless at the very first belief in this be firmly grounded, there

424—467 I Il

will be nothing to which we can appeal on hidden things in order
to prove anything by reasoning of mind. Then again, if room and
space which we cal! void did not exist, bodies could not be placed
anywhere nor move about at all to any side; as we have demon-
strated to you a little before. Moreover there is nothing which
you can affirm to be at once separate from all body and quite
distinct from void, which would so to say count as the discovery
of a third nature. For whatever shall exist, this of itself must
be something or other. Now if it shall admit of touch in however
shght and small a measure, it will, be it with a large or be it with
a little addition, provided it do exist, increase the amount of body
and join the sum. But if it shall be intangible and unable to
hinder any thing from passing through it on any side, this you
are to know will be that which we call empty void. Again what-
ever shall exist by itself, will ether do something or will itself
suffer by the action of other things, or will be of such a nature
as things are able to exist and go on in. But no thing can do
and suffer without body, nor aught furnish room except void and
vacancy. Therefore beside void and bodies no third nature taken
by itself can be left in the number of things, either such as to
fall at any time under the ken of our senses or such as any one
can grasp by the reason of his mind.

For whatever things are named, you will either find to be
properties linked to these two things or you will see to be ac-
eidents of these things. That is a property which can in no case
be disjoined and separated without utter destruction accompany-
ing the severance, such as the weight of a stone, the heat of fire,
the fluidity of water. Slavery on the other hand, poverty and
riches, hberty war concord and all other things which may come
and go while the nature of the thing remains unharmed, these
we are wont, as it 15 right we should, to call accidents. Time also
exists not by itself, but simply from the things which happen the
sense apprehends what has been done in time past, as well as
what 15 present and what is to follow after. And we must admit
that no one fecls time by itself abstracted from the motion and
calm rest of things. So when they say that the daughter of
Tyndarus was ravished and the Trojan nations were subdued in
war, we must mind that they do not force us to admit that these
things are by themselves, since those generations of men, of whom

12 I 467—509

these things were accidents, time now gone by has irrevocably
swept away. For whatever shall have been done may be termed
an accident in one case of the Teucran people, in another of the
countries sinply. Yes forif there had been no matter of things
and no room and space in which things severally go on, never had
the fire, kindled by love of the beauty of Tyndarus’ daughter,
blazed beneath the Phrygian breast of Alexander and lighted up
the famous struggles of cruel war, nor had the timber horse un-
known to the Trojans wrapt Pergama in flames by its night-
issuing brood of sons of the Greeks; so that you may clearly
perceive that all actions from first to last exist not by themselves
and are not by themselves in the way that body 15, nor are terms
of the same kind as void is, but are rather of such a kind that
you may fairly call them accidents of body and of the room in
which they severally go on.

Bodies again are partly first-beginnings of things, partly those
which are formed of a union of first-beginnings. But those which
are first-beginnings of things no force can quench: they are sure
to have the better by their solid body. Although 10 seems dif
ficult to believe that aught can be found among things with a
solid body. For the hghtning of heaven passes through the walls
of houses, as well as noise and voices; iron grows red-hot in the
fire and stones burn with fierce heat and burst asunder; the hard-
ness of gold is broken up and dissolved by heat; the ice of brass
melts vanquished by the flame; warmth and piercing cold ooze
through silver, since we have felt both, as we held cups with the
hand in due fashion and the water was poured down into them.
So universally there is found to be nothing solid in things. But
yet because true reason and the nature of things constrains,
attend until we make clear in a few verses that there are such
things as consist of solid and everlasting body, which we teach are
seeds of things and first-beginnings, out of which the whole sum
of things which now exists has been produced.

First of all then since there has been found to exist a two-fold
and widely dissimilar nature of two things, that is to say of body
and of place in which things severally go on, each of the two must
exist for. and by itself and quite unmixed. For wherever there
is empty space which we call void, there body is not; wherever
again body maintains itself, there empty void no wise exists.

S10—555 I 13

First bodies therefore are solid and without void. Again since
there is void in things begotten, solid matter must exist about
this void, and no thing can be proved by true reason to conceal
in its body and have within it void, unless you choose to allow
that that which holds it in is solid. Again that can be nothing
but a union of matter which can keep in the void of things.
Matter therefore, which consists of a solid body, may be ever-
lasting, though all things else are dissolved. Moreover if there
were no empty void, the universe would be solid; unless on the
other hand there were certain bodies to fill up whatever places
they occupied, the existing universe would be empty and void
space. Therefore sure enough body and void are marked off
in alternate layers, since the universe is neither of a perfect
fulness nor a perfect void. There are therefore certain bodies
which can vary void space with full. These can neither be
broken in pieces by the stroke of blows from without nor have
their texture undone by aught piercing to their core nor give way
before any other kind of assault; as we have proved to you a
little before. For without void nothing seems to admit of being
crushed in or broken up or split in two by cutting, or of taking in
wet or permeating cold or penetrating fire, by which all things are
destroyed. And the more anything contains within it of void, the
more thoroughly it gives way to the assault of these things.
Therefore if first bodies are as I have shewn solid and without
void, they must be everlasting. Again unless matter had been
eternal, all things before this would have utterly returned to
nothing and whatever things we see would have been born anew
from nothing. But since I have proved above that nothing can
be produced from nothing, and that what is begotten cannot be
recalled to nothing, first-beginnings must be of an imperishable
body, into which all things can be dissolved at their last hour,
that there may be a supply of matter for the reproduction of
things. Therefore first-beginnings are of solid singleness, and in
no other way can they have been preserved through ages during
infinite time past in order to reproduce things.

Again if nature had set no limit to the breaking of things,
by this time the bodies of matter would have been so far reduced
by the breaking of past ages that nothing could within a fixed
time be conceived out of them and reach its utmost growth of

14 I 5536—Cor

being. For we see that anything is more quickly destroyed than
again renewed; and therefore that which the long, the infinite
duration of all bygone time had broken up demolished and de-
stroyed, could never be reproduced in all remaiming time. But
now sure enough a fixed limit to their breaking has been set,
since we sce cach thing renewed, and at the same time definite
periods fixed for things each after its kind to reach the flower of
their age. Moreover while the bodies of matter are most solid,
it may yct be explained in what way all things which are formed
soft, as air’ water earth fires, are so formed and by what force
they severally go on, since once for all there is void mixed up
in things. But on the other hand if the first-beginnings of things
be soft, it cannot be explained out of what enduring basalt and
iron can be produced; for their whole nature will utterly lack
a first foundation to begin with. TF irst-beginnings therefore are
strong in solid singleness, and by a denser combination of these
all things can be closely packed and exhibit enduring strength.
Again if no limit has been set to the breaking of bodies, never-
theless the several bodies which go to things must survive from
eternity up to the present time, not yet assailed by any danger.
But since they are possessed of a frail nature, it 1s not consistent
with this that they could have continued through eternity ha-
rassed through ages by countless blows. Again too since a limit of
growing and sustaining life has been assigned to things each after
its kind, and since by the laws of nature 1t stands decreed what
they can each do and what they cannot do, and since nothing 15
changed, but all things are so constant that the different birds
all in succession exhibit in their body the distinctive marks of
their kind, they must sure enough have a body of unchangeable
matter also. For if the first-beginnings of things could in any
way be vanquished and changed, it would then be uncertain too
what could and what could not rise into being, in short on what
principle each thing has its powers defined, its deep-set boundary
mark; nor could the generations reproduce so often each after its
kind the nature habits, way of life and motions of the parents.
Then again since there is ever a bounding point [to bodies,
which appears to us to be a least, there ought in the same way to
be a bounding point the least conceivable] to that first body which
already is beyond what our senses can perceive: that paint sure

601—646 I 15

enough is without parts and consists of a least nature and never
has existed apart by itself and will not be able in future so to
exist, since it is in itself a part of that other; and so a first and
single part and then other and other similar parts in succession fill up
in close serried mass the nature of the first body; and since these
cannot exist by themselves, they must cleave to that from which
they cannot in any way be torn. First-beginnings therefore are of
solid singleness, massed together and cohering closely by means of
least parts, not compounded out of a union of those parts, but,
rather, strong in everlasting singleness. From them nature allows
nothing to be torn, nothing further to be worn away, reserving
them as secds for things. Again unless there shall be a least, the
very smallest bodies will consist of infinite parts, inasmuch as the
half of the half will always havea half and nothing will set bounds
to the division. Therefore between the sum of things and the
least of things what difference will there be? There will be no
distinction at all; for how absolutely infinite soever the whole sum
is, yet the things which are smallest will equally consist of infinite
parts. Now since on this head true reason protests and denies
that the mind can believe 1t, you must yield and admit that there
exist such things as are possessed of no parts and are of a least
nature. And since these exist, those first bodies also you must
admit to be solid and everlasting. Once more, if nature creatress
of things had been wont to compel all things to be broken up into
least parts, then too she would be unable to reproduce anything
out of those parts, because those things which are ennched with
no parts cannot have the properties which begetting matter ought
to have, I mean the various entanglements weights blows clashings
motions, by means of which things severally go on.

For which reasons they who have held fire to be the matter of
things and the sum to be formed out of fire alone, are seen to have
strayed most widely from true reason. At the head of whom
enters Heraclitus to do battle, famous for obscurity more among
the frivolous than the earnest Greeks who seek the truth. For
fools admire and lke all things the more which they perceive to
be concealed under involved language, and determine things to be
true which can prettily tickle the ears and are varnished over
with finely sounding phrase.

For I want to know how things can be so various, if they are

16 J 646—689

formed out of fire one and unmixed: it would avail nething for
hot fire to be condensed or rarefied, if the same nature which the
whole fire has, belonged to the parts of fire as well. The heat
would be more intense by compression of parts, more faint by
their severance and dispersion. More than this you cannot think
it in the power of such causes to effect, far less could so great a
diversity of things come from mere density and rarity of fires.
Observe also, if they suppose void to be mixed up in things, fire
may then be condensed and left rare; but because they see many
things rise tp in contradiction to them and shrink from leaving
unmixed void in things, fearing the steep, they lose the true road,
and do not perceive on the other hand that if void is taken from
things, all things are condensed and out of all things is formed
one single body, which cannot briskly radiate anything from it, in
the way heat-giving fire emits light and warmth, letting you see
that it is not of closely compressed parts. But if they haply
think that in some other way fires may be quenched in the union
and change their body, you are to know that if they shall scruple
on no side to do this, all heat sure enough will be utterly brought
to nothing, and all things that are produced will be formed out
of nothing. For whenever a thing changes and quits its proper
limits, at once this change of state 15 the death of that which was
before. Therefore something or other must needs be left to those
fires of theirs undestroyed, that you may not have all things abso-
lutely returning to nothing, and the whole store of things born
anew and flourishing out of nothing. Since then 1m fact there are
some most unquestionable bodies which always preserve the same
nature, on whose going or coming and change of order things
change their nature and bodies are transformed, you are to know
that these first bodies of things are not of fire. For it would
matter nothing that some should withdraw and go away and
others should be added on and some should have their order
changed, if one and all they yet retained the nature of heat ; for
whatever they produced would be altogether fire. But thus me-
thinks it is: there are certain bodies whose clashings motions orde>
position and shapes produce fires, and which by a change of order
change the nature of the things and do not resemble fire nor any-
thing else which has the power of sending bodies to our senses
and touching by its contact our sense of touch.

6yo—7 33 I 17

Again to say that all things are fire and that no real thing
except fire exists in the number of things, as this same man does,
appears to be sheer dotage. For he himself takes his stand on
the side of the senses to fight against the senses and shakes their
authority, on which rests all our belief, ay from which this fire as
he calls it is known to himself; for he believes that the senses
ean truly perceive fire, he does not believe they can perceive all
other things which are not a whit less clear. Now this appears
to me to be as false as it is foolish: for to what shall we appeal ?
what surer test can we have than the senses, whereby to note
truth and falsehood? Again why should any one rather abolish
all things and choose to leave the single nature of heat, than
deny that fires exist, while he allows any thing else to be? it
seems to be equal madness to affirm either this or that.

For these reasons they who have held that fire 15 the matter of
things and that the sum can be formed out of fire, and they who
have determined air to be the first-beginning in begetting things,
and all who have held that water by itself alone forms things, or
that earth produces all things and changes into all the different
natures of things, appear to have strayed exceedingly wide of the
truth; as well as they who make the first-beginnings of things
twofold coupling air with fire and earth with water, and they who
believe that all things grow out of four things, fire earth and air
and water. Chief of whom is Agrigentine Empedocles: him within
the three-cornered shores of its lands that island bore, about which
the Ionian sea flows in large cranklings, and splashes up brine
from its green waves. Here the sea racing in its straitened frith
divides by its waters the shores of Italia’s lands from the other’s
coasts; here is wasteful Charybdis and here the rumblings of
Aetna threaten anew to gather up such fury of flames, as again
with force to belch forth the fires bursting from its throat and
carry up to heaven once more the lightnings of flame. Now
though this great country is seen to deserve in many ways the
wonder of mankind and is held to be well worth visiting, rich in
all good things, guarded by large force of men, yet seems it to
have held within it nothing more glorious than this inan, nothing
more holy marvellous and dear. The verses too of his godlike
genius cry with a loud voice and set forth in such wise his glorious
discoveries that he hardly seems born of a mortal stock.

M. III. B

18 734—778

Yet he and those whom we have mentioned above immea-
surably inferior and far beneath him, although, the authors of
many excellent and godlike discoveries, they have given responses
from so to say their hearts’ holy of holies with more sanctity and
on much more unerring grounds than the Pythia who speaks out
from the tripod and laurel of Phoebus, have yet gone to ruin in
the first-beginnings of things: it 1s there they have fallen, and,
great themselves, great and heavy has been that fall; first because
they have banished void from things and yet assign to them mo-
tions, and allow things soft and rare, air sun fire earth, living
things and corn, and yet mix not up void in their body; next, be-
cause they suppose that there is no limit to the division of bodies
and no stop set to their breaking and that there exists no least
at all in things; though we see that that is the bounding point
of any thing which seems to be least to our senses, so that from
this you may infer that because the things which you do not see
have a bounding point, there is a least in them. Moreover since
they assign soft first-beginnings of things, which we see to have
birth and to be of a body altogether mortal, the sum of things
must in that case revert to nothing and the store of things be
born anew and flourish out of nothing: how wide now of the truth
both these doctrines are you will already comprehend. In the
next place these bodies are in many ways mutually hostile and
poisonous; and therefore they will either perish when they have
met, or will fly asunder just as we see, when a storm has gathered,
lightnings and rains and winds fly asunder.

Again if all things are produced from four things and all again
broken up into those things, how can they be called first-begin-
nings of things any more than things be called their first-begin-
nings, the supposition being reversed? For they are begotten
time about and interchange colour and their whole nature without
ceasing. But if haply you suppose that the body of fire and of
earth and air and the moisture of water meet in such a way that
none of them in the union changes its nature, no thing I tell you
can be then produced out of them, neither living thing nor thing
with inanimate body, as ἃ tree; in fact each thing amid the med-
Jey of this discordant mass will display its own nature and air will
be seen to be mixed up with earth and heat to remain in union
with moisture. But first-beginnings ought in begetting things to

779—822 J 19

bring with them a latent and unseen nature in order that no
thing stand out, to be in the way and prevent whatever is pro-
duced from having its own proper being.

Moreover they go back to heaven and its fires for a beginning,
and first suppose that fire changes into air, next that from air
water 15 begotten and earth is produced out of water, and that all
in reverse order come back from earth, water first, next air, then
heat, and that these cease not to interchange, to pass from heaven
to earth, from earth to the stars of ether. All which first-begin-
nings must on no account do; since something unchangeable must
needs remain over, that things may not utterly be brought back to
nothing. For whenever a thing changes and quits its proper
limits, at once this change of state is the death of that which was
before. Wherefore since those things which we have mentioned a
little before pass into a state of change, they must be formed out
of others which cannot in any case be transformed, that you may not
have things returning altogether to nothing. Why not rather hold
that there are certain bodies possessed of such a nature, that, if
they have haply produced fire, the same may, after a few have
been taken away and a few added on and the order and motion
changed, produce air; and that all other things may in the same
way interchange with one another ?

‘But plain matter of fact clearly proves’ you say ‘that all things
grow up into the air and are fed out of the earth; and unless the
season at the propitious period send such abundant showers that
the trees reel beneath the soaking storms of rain, and unless the
sun on its part foster them and supply heat, corn trees and living
things could not grow’. Quite true, and unless solid food and soft
water should recruit us, our substance would waste away and life
break wholly up out of all the sinews and bones; for we beyond
doubt are recruited and fed by certain things, this and that other
thing by certain other things. Because many first-beginnings
common to many things in many ways are mixed up in things,
therefore sure enough different things are fed by different
things. And it often makes a great difference with what
things and in what position the same first-beginnings are
held in union and what motions they mutually impart and
receive; for the same make up heaven sea lands rivers sun, the
same make up corn trees and living things; but they are mixed

B2

20 " 822—864

up with different things and in different ways as they move. Nay
you see throughout even in these verses of ours many elements
common to many words, though you must needs admit that the
lines and words differ one from the other both in meaning and in
the sound wherewith they sound. So much can elements effect
by a mere change of order; but those elements which are the first-
beginnings of things can bring with them more combinations out
of which different things can severally be produced.

Let us now also examine the homoeomeria of Anaxagoras as the
Greeks term-it, which the poverty of our native speech does not
allow us to name in our own tongue; though it is easy enough to
set forth in words the thing itself. First of all then, when he
speaks of the homocomeria of things, you must know he supposes
bones to be formed out of very small and minute bones and flesh
of very small and minute fleshes and blood by the coming together
of many drops of blood, and gold he thinks can be composed of
grains of gold and earth be a concretion of small earths, and fires
can come froin fires and water from waters, and everything else he
fancies and supposes to be produced on a like principle. And yet
at the same time he does not allow that void exists anywhere in
things, or that there is a limit to the division of things. Where-
fore he appears to me on both these grounds to be as much mis-
taken as those whom we have already spoken of above. Moreover
the first-beginnings which he supposes are too frail; if first-begin-
nings they be which are possessed of a nature like to the things
themselves and are just as lable to suffering and death, and which
nothing reins back from destruction. For which of them will hold
out, so as to escape death, beneath so strong a pressure within the
very jaws of destruction? fire or water or air? which of these ?
blood or bones? Not one methinks, where everything will be just
as essentially mortal as those things which we see with the senses
perish before our eyes vanquished by some force. But I appeal to
facts demonstrated above for proof that things cannot fall away to
nothing nor on the other hand grow from nothing. Again since
food gives increase and nourishment to the body, you are to know
that our veins and blood and bones [and the like are formed of
things foreign to them in kind]; or if they shall say that all foods
are of a mixed body and contain in them small bodies of sinews
and bones and veins as well and particles of blood, it will follow

86 4—903 i 2]

—_

that all food, solid as well as liquid, must be held to be composed
of things foreign to them in kind, of bones that is and sinews and
matter and blood mixed up. Again if all the bodies which grow
out of the earth, are in the earths, the earth must be composed of
things foreign to it in kind which grow out of these earths. Apply
again this reasoning to other things, and you may use just the
same words. If flame and smoke and ash are latent in woods,
woods must necessarily be composed of things foreign to them in
kind. Again all those bodies, to which the earth gives food, it
increases [out of things foreign to them in kind which rise out of
the earth: thus too the bodies of flame which issue from the woods,
are fed] out of things foreign to them in kind which rise out of
these woods.

Here some slight opening is left for evasion, which Anaxagoras
avails himself of, choosing to suppose that all things though latent
are mixed up in things, and that is alone visible of which there
are the largest number of bodies in the mixture and these more
ready to hand and stationed in the first rank. This however is far
banished from true reason. [or then 10 were natural that corn too
should often, when crushed by the formidable force of the stone,
shew some mark of blood or some other of the things which have
their nourishment in our body. For like reasons it were fitting
that from grasses too, when we rub them between two stones, blood
should ooze out; that waters should yield sweet drops, in flavour
like to the udder of milk in sheep; yes and that often, when clods
of earth have been crumbled, kinds of grasses and corn and leaves
should be found to lurk distributed among the earth in minute
quantities ; and lastly that ash and smoke and minute fires should
be found latent in woods, when they were broken off. Now since
plain matter of fact teaches that none of these results follows, you
are to know that things are not so mixed up in things; but rather
seeds common to many things must in many ways be mixed up
and latent in things. ;

‘But it often comes to pass on high mountains’ you say ‘that
contiguous tops of tall trees rub together, the strong southwinds
constraining them so to do, until the flower of flame has broken
out and they have burst into a blaze’. Quite true and yet fire is
not innate in woods; but there are many seeds of heat, and when
they by rubbing have streamed together, they produce conflagra-

22 I 993—947

tions in the forests. But if the flame was stored up ready made
in the forests, the fire could not be concealed for any length of
time, but would destroy forests, burn up trees indiscriminately.
Do you now see, as we said a little before, that it often makes a
very great difference with what things and in what position the
same first-beginnings are held in union and what motions they
mutually impart and receive, and that the same may when a little
changed in arrangement produce say fires and a fir? just as the
words too consist of elements only a little changed in arrangement,
though we denote firs and fires with two quite distinct names.
Once again, if you suppose that whatever you perceive among
visible things cannot be produced without imagining bodies of
matter possessed of a like nature, in this way, you will find, the
first-beginnings of things are destroyed: it will come to this that
they will be shaken by loud fits of convulsive laughter and will
bedew with salt tears face and cheeks.

Now mark and learn what remains to be known and hear it
more distinctly. Nor does my mind fail to perceive how dark the
things are; but the great hope of praise has smitten my heart with
sharp thyrsus, and at the same time has struck into my breast
sweet love of the muses, with which now inspired I traverse in
blooming thonght the pathless haunts of the Pierides never yet
trodden by sole of man. I love to approach the untasted springs
and to quaff, I love to cull fresh flowers and gather for my head a
distinguished crown from spots whence the muses have yet veiled
the brows of none; first because I teach of great things and essay
to release the mind from the fast bonds of religious scruples, and
next because on a dark subject I pen such lucid verses o’erlaying
all with the muses’ charm. For that too would seem to be not with-
out good grounds: just as physicians when they purpose to give
nauseous wormwood to children, first smear the rim round the
bowl with the sweet yellow juice of honey, that the unthinking
age of children may be fooled as far as the lips, and meanwhile
drink up the bitter draught of wormwood and though beguiled yet
not be betrayed, but rather by such means recover health and
strength ; so I now, since this doctrine seems generally somewhat
bitter to those by whom it has not been handled, and the multitude
shrinks back from it in dismay, have resolved to set forth to you
our doctrine in sweet-toned Pierian verse and o’erlay it as it were

τ»»Ο

947—987 I 23

with the pleasant honey of the muses, if haply by such means I
might engage your mind on my verses, till you clearly perceive
the whole nature of things, its shape and frame.

But since I have taught that most solid bodies of matter fly
about for ever unvanquished through all time, mark now, let us
unfold whether there is or 1s not any limit to their sum; likewise
let us clearly see whether that which has been found to be void, or
room and space, in which things severally go on, 1s all of it altoge-
ther finite or stretches without limits and to an unfathomable depth.

Well then the existing universe is bounded in none of its
dimensions ; for then it must have had an outside. Again it is
seen that there can be an outside of nothing, unless there be
something beyond to bound it, so that that 1s seen, farther than
which the nature of this our sense does not follow the thing.
Now since we must admit that there is nothing outside the sum,
it has no outside, and therefore 1s without end and limit. And it
matters not in which of its regions you take your stand ; so invari-
ably, whatever position any one has taken up, he leaves the uni-
verse just as infinite as before in all directions. { Again if for the
moment all existing space be held to be bounded, supposing a
man runs forward to its outside borders and stands on the utmost
verge and then throws a winged javelin, do you choose that when
hurled with vigorous force it shall advance to the point to which
it has been sent and fly to a distance, or do you decide that some-
thing can get in 108 way and stop it ? for you must admit and adopt
one of the two suppositions; either of which shuts you out from
all escape and compels you to grant that the universe stretches
without end? For whether there is something to get m its way
and prevent its coming whither it was sent and placing itself in
the point intended, or whether it is carried forward, in either case
it has not started from the end. In this way I will go on and,
wherever you have placed the outside borders, I will ask what
then becomes of the javelin. The result will be that an end can
no where be fixed, and that the room given for flight will still
prolong the power of flight. Lastly one thing is seen by the eyes
to end another thing; air bounds off hills, and mountains air, earth
linuts sea and sea again all lands; the universe however there is
nothing outside to end.

24 Ι 988 —1027

Again if all the space of the whole sum were enclosed within
fixed borders and were bounded, in that case the store of matter
by its sohd weights would have streamed together from all sides
to the lowest point nor could anything have gone on under the
eanopy of heaven, no nor would there have been a heaven nor sun-
light at all, masmuch as all matter, settling down through infinite
time past, would he together in a heap. But as it 1s, sure enough
no rest is given to the bodies of the first-begiunings, because there
is no lowest point at all, to which they might stream together as
it were, and where they might take up their positions, ΑἹ] things
are ever going on in ceaseless motion ‘on all sides and bodies of
matter stirred to action are supplied from beneath out of infinite
space. Therefore the nature of roum and the space of the un-
fathomable void are such as bright thunderbolts cannot race through
in their course though ghding on through endless tract of time,
no nor lessen one jot the journey that remains to go by all their
travel: so huge a room is spread out on all sides for things with-
out any bounds in all directions round.

Again nature keeps the sum of things from setting any limit to
itself, since she compels body to be ended by void and void in turn
by body, so that either she thus renders the universe infinite by
this alternation of the two, or else the one of the two, in case the
other does not bound it, with its single nature stretches neverthe-
less immeasurably. [But void I have already proved to be infi-
nite ; therefore matter must be infinite: for if void were infinite,
and matter finite] neither sea nor earth nor the glittering quarters
of heaven nor mortal kind nor the holy bodies of the gods could
hold their ground one brief passing hour; since forced asunder
from its union the store of matter would be dissolved and borne
along the mighty void, or rather I should say would never have
combined to produce any thing, since scattered abroad it could
never have been brought together. For verily not by design did
the first-beginnings of things station themselves each in its right
place guided by keen intelligence, nor did they bargain sooth to
say what motions each should assume, but because many in num-
ber and shifting about in many ways throughout the universe they
are driven and tormented by blows during infinite time past, after
trying motions and unions of every kind at length they fall into

1027—1068 Ι 25

arrangements such as those out of which this our sum of things
has been formed, and by which too it is preserved through many
great years when once it has been thrown into the appropriate
motions, and causes the streams to replenish the greedy sea with
copious river waters and the earth, fostered by the heat of the sun, ~~
to renew its produce, and the race of living things to come up and
flourish, and the gliding fires of ether to hve: all which these
several things could in no wise bring to pass, unless a store of
matter could rise up from infinite space, out of which store they
are wont to make up in due season whatever has been lost. ~~
For as the nature of living things when robbed of food loses. its
substance and wastes away, thus all things must be broken up, as
soon as matter has ceased to be supplied, diverted in any way
from its proper course. Nor can blows from without hold together
al] the sum which has been brought into union. They can it is
true frequently strike upon and stay a part, until others come and
the sum can be completed. At times however they are compelled
to rebound and in so doing grant to the first-beginnings of things
room and time for flight, to enable them to get clear away from
the mass in union. Wherefore again and again I repeat many
bodies must rise up; nay for the blows themselves not to fail,
there 1s need of an infinite supply of matter on all sides.

And herein, Memmuus, be far from believing this, that all
things as they say press to the centre of the sum, and that for
this reason the nature of the world stands fast without any strokes
from the outside and the uppermost and lowest parts cannot part
asunder in any direetion, because all things have been always
pressing towards the centre (if you can believe that anything can
rest upon itself); or that the heavy bodies which are beneath the
earth all press upwards and are at rest on the earth, turned topsy-
turvy, just hke the images of things we see before us in the waters.
In the same way they maintain that hving things walk head
downwards and cannot tumble out of earth into the parts of
heaven lying below them any more than our bodies can spon-
taneously fly into the quarters of heaven; that when those see
the sun, we behold the stars of night; and that they share with us
time about the seasons of heaven and pass nights equal in length
to our days. But ‘groundless [error has devised such dreams]

26 I 1r0o68—I1112

for fools, because they have embraced [false principles of reason. ]
For there can be no centre [where the universe is] infinite;
no nor, even if there were a centre, could anything take up a
position there [any more on that account] than for some quite
different reason [be driven away.] For all room and space, which
we term void, must through centre, through no-centre alike give
place to heavy bodies, in whatever directions their motions tend.
Nor is there any spot of such a sort that when bodies have reached
it, they can lose their force of gravity and stand upon void; and
that again which is void must not serve to support anything, but
must, as its nature craves, continually give place. Things cannot
therefore in such a way be held in union, o’er-mastered by love of
a centre.

Again since they do not suppose that all bodies press to the
centre, but only those of earth, and those of water, [both such as
descend to the earth in rain] and those which are held in by the
earth’s body, so to say, the fluid of the sea and great waters from
the mountains; while on the other hand they teach that the
subtle element of air and hot fires at the same time are carried
away from the centre and that for this reason the whole ether
round bickers with signs and the sun’s flame is fed throughout
the blue of heaven, because heat flying from the centre all gathers
together there, and that the topmost boughs of trees could not
put forth leaves at all, unless from time to time [nature supplied]
food from the earth to each [throttghout both stem and boughs,
their reasons are not only false, but they contradict each other.
Space I have already proved to be infinite; and space being
infinite matter as I have said must also be infinite}}lest after the
winged fashion of flames the walls of the world should suddenly
break up and fly abroad along the mighty void, and all other
things follow for hke reasons and the innermost quarters of heaven
tumble in from above and the earth in an instant withdraw from
beneath our feet and amid the commingled ruins of things in it
and of heaven, ruins unloosing the first bodies, should wholly pass
away along the unfathomable void, so that in a moment of time
not a wrack should be left behind, nothing save untenanted space
and viewless first-beginnings. For on whatever side you shall
first determine first bodies to be wanting, this side will be the

{112--π1117 I 27

gate of death for things, through this the whole crowd of matter
will fling itself abroad.

If you will throughly con these things, then carried to the end
with slight trouble [you will be able by yourself to understand
all the rest.] For one thing after another will grow clear and
dark night will not rob you of the road and keep you from sur-
veying the utmost ends of nature: in such wise things will light
the torch for other things.

I—29

LUCRETIUS

ON THE NATURE OF THINGS

BOOK SECOND

It is sweet, when on the great sea the winds trouble its waters,
to behold from land another’s deep distress; not that it is a
pleasure and delight that any should be afflicted, but because it is
sweet to see from what evils you are yourself exempt. It is sweet
also to look upon the mighty struggles of war arrayed along the
plains without sharing yourself in the danger. But nothing
is more welcome than to hold the lofty snd serene positions
well fortified by the learning of the wise, from which you may
look down upon others and see them wandering all abroad and
going astray in their search for the path of life, see the contest
among them of intellect, the rivalry of birth, the striving night
and day with surpassing effort to struggle up to the summit of
power and be masters of the world. O miserable minds of men!
o blinded breasts! in what darkness of life and in how great
dangers is passed this term of life whatever its duration! not
choose to see that nature craves for herself no more than this,
that pain hold aloof from the body, and she in mind enjoy a
feeling of pleasure exempt from care and fear? Therefore we see
that for the body’s nature few things are needed at all, such and
such only as take away pain. Nay, though more gratefully at
times they can minister to us many choice delights, nature for her
part wants them not, when there are no golden images of youths
through the house holding in their right hands flaming lamps for
supply of hght to the mghtly banquet, when the house shines not
with silver nor glitters with gold nor do the pannelled and gilded
roofs reecho to the harp, what time, though these things be want-

— “«

29—-72 . II 29

ing, they spread themselves in groups on the soft grass beside
a stream of water under the boughs of a high tree and at no great
cost pleasantly refresh their bodies, above all when the weather
smiles and the seasons of the year besprinkle the green grass with
flowers. Nor do hot fevers sooner quit the body, if you toss about
on pictured tapestry and blushing purple, than if you must lie
under a poor man’s blanket. Wherefore since treasures avail
nothing m respect of our body nor birth nor the glory of kingly
power, advancing farther you must hold that they are of no service
to the mind as well; unless may be when you see your legions
swarm over the ground of the campus waging the mimicry of war,

_ strengthened flank and rear by powerful reserves and great force

of cavalry, and you marshall them equipped in arms and animated
with one spirit, thereupon you find that religious scruples scared
by these things fly panic-stricken from the mind; and that then
fears of death leave the breast unembarrassed and free from care,
when you see your fleet swarm forth and spread itself far and
wide. But if we see that these things are food for laughter and
mere mockeries, and in good truth the fears of men and dogging
cares dread not the clash of arms and cruel weapons, if unabashed |
they mx among kings and kesars and stand not in awe of the
glitter from gold nor the brilliant sheen of the purple robe, how
can you doubt that this is wholly the prerogative of reason, when
the whole of life withal is a struggle in the dark? For even
as children are flurried and dread all things in the thick darkness,
thus we in the daylight fear at times things not a whit more
to be dreaded than those which children shudder at in the dark
and fancy sure to be. This terror therefore and darkness of mind
must be dispelled not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts
of day, but by the aspect and law of nature.

Now mark and I will explain by what motion the begetting
bodies of matter do beget different things and after they are begot-
ten again break them up, and by what force they are compelled
so to do and what velocity is given to them for travelling through
the great void: do you mind to give heed to my words. For verily
matter does not cohere inseparably massed together, since we see
that everything wanes and perceive that all things ebb as it were
by length of time and that age withdraws them from our sight,
though yet the sum is seen to remain unimpaired by reason that

30 II 72—314

the bodies which quit each thing, lessen the things from which
they go, gift with increase those to which they have come, compel
the former to grow old, the latter to come to their prime, and yet
abide not with these. Thus the sum of things 15 ever renewed and
mortals live by a reciprocal dependency. Some nations wax, others
wane, and in a brief space the races of living things are changed
and like runners hand over the lamp of life.

If you think that first-beginnings of things can lag and by
lagging give birth to new motions of things, you wander far astray
from the path of true reason: since they travel about through
void, the first-beginnings of things must all move on either by
their own weight or haply by the stroke of another. For when
during motion they have, as often happens, met and clashed, the
result is a sudden rebounding in an opposite direetion; and no
wonder, since they are most hard and of weight proportioned
to their solidity and nothing behind gets in their way. And that
you may more clearly see that all bodics of matter are in restless
movement, remember that there 1s no lowest point im the sum of
the universe, and that first bodies have not where to take their
stand, since space is without end and limit and extends immea-
surably in all directions round, as I have shewn m many words
and as has been proved by sure reason. Since this then is a
certain truth, sure enough no rest is given to first bodies through-
out the unfathomable void, but driven on rather in ceaseless and
varied motion they partly, after they have pressed together,
rebound leaving great spaces between, while in part they are so
dashed away after the stroke as to leave but small spaces between.
And all that form a denser aggregation when brought together
and rebound leaving trifling spaces between, held fast by their
own close-tangled shapes, these form enduring bases of stone and
unyielding bodies of iron and the rest of their class, few in num-
ber, which travel onward along the great void. All the others
spring far off and rebound far leaving great spaces between: these
furnish us with thin air and bright sunhght. And many more
travel along the great void, which have been thrown off from the
unions of things or though admitted have yet 1 no case been able
likewise to assimilate their motions. Of this truth, which I am
telling, we have a representation and picture always going on
before our eyes and present to us: observe whenever the rays are

115—157 Ἰ1 31

let in and pour the sunlight through the dark chambers of houses:
you will see many minute bodies in many ways through the apparent
void mingle in the midst of the light of the rays, and as in never-
ending conflict skirmish and give battle combating in troops and
never halting, driven about in frequent meetings and partings; so
that you may guess from this, what it is for first-beginnings of
things to be ever tossing about in the great void. So far as it
goes, a small thing may give an illustration of great things and
put you on the track of knowledge. And for this reason too 1ὖ is
meet that you should give greater heed to these bodies which are
seen to tumble about in the sun’s rays, because such tumblings
imply that motions also of matter latent and unseen are at the
bottom. For you will observe many things there impelled by un-
seen blows to change their course and driven back to return the
way they came now this way now that way in all directions round.
All you are to know derive this restlessness from the first-begin-
mings. For the first-beginnings of things move first of themselves ;
next those bodies which form a small aggregate and come nearest
so to say to the powers of the first-beginnings, are impelled and
set in movement by the unseen strokes of those first bodies, and
they next in turn stir up bodies which are a little larger. Thus
motion mounts up from the first-beginnings and step by step issues
forth to our senses, so that those bodies also move, which we can
discern in the sunlight, though it is not clearly seen by what blows
they so act.

Now what velocity is given to bodies of matter, you may
apprehend, Memmuus, in few words from this: when morning first
sprinkles the earth with fresh light and the different birds flitting
about the pathless woods through the buxom air fill all places with
their clear notes, we see it to be plain and evident to all how
suddenly the sun after rising is wont at such a time to overspread
all things and clothe them with his light. But that heat which
the sun emits and that bright light pass not through empty void ;
and therefore they are forced to travel more slowly, until they
cleave through the waves so to speak of air. Nor do the several
minute bodies of heat pass on one by one, but closely entangled
and massed together; whereby at one and the same time they are
pulled back by one another and are impeded from without, so that
they are forced to travel more slowly. But the first-beginnings

32 ΗΠ 157—198

which are of solid singleness, when they pass through empty void
and nothing delays them from without and they themselves, single
from the nature of their parts, are borne with headlong endeavour
towards the one single spot to which their efforts tend, must sure
enough surpass in velocity and be carried along much more swiftly
than the light of the sun, and race throngh many times the extent
of space in the same time in which the beams of the sun fill the
heaven throughout. * nor follow up the several first-begimnings to
see by what law each thing goes on.

But some in opposition to this, ignorant of matter, believe that
nature cannot without the providence of the gods in such nice
conformity to the ways of men vary the seasons of the year and
bring forth crops, ay and all the other things, which divine
pleasure the guide of life prompts men to approach, escorting them
in person and enticing them by her fondlings to continue their
races through the arts of Venus, that mankind may not come to an
end. Now when they suppose that the gods designed all things
for the sake of men, they seem to me in all respects to have
strayed most widely from true reason. For even if I did not know
what first-beginnings are, yet this, judging by the very arrange-
ments of heaven, 1 would venture to affirm, and led by many other
eircumstances to maintain, that the nature of the world has by no
means been made for us by divine power: so great are the defects
with which it stands encumbered. All which, Memmius, we will
hereafter make clear to you: we will now go on to explain what
remaims to be told of motions.

Now methinks is the place, herein to prove this point also that
no bodily thing can by its own power be borne upwards and travel
upwards; that the bodies of flames may not in this manner lead
you into error. For they are begotten with an upward tendency,
and in the same direction receive increase, and goodly crops and
trees grow upwards, though their weights, so far as in them 15, all
tend downwards. And when fires leap to the roofs of houses and
with swift flame lick up rafters and beams, we are not to suppose
that they do so spontaneously without a force pushing them up.
Even thus blood discharged from our body spirts out and springs
up on high and scatters gore about. See you not too with what
force the liquid of water spits out logs and beams? the more
deeply we have pushed them sheer down and have pressed them

198— 241 If 7

in, many of us together, with all our might and much painful
effort, with the greater avidity 1t vomits them up and casts them
forth, so that they rise and start out more than half their length.
And yet methinks we doubt not that these, so far as in them is,
are all borne downwards through the empty void. In the same
way flames also ought to be able, when squeezed out, to mount
upward through the air, although their weights, so far as in them
is, strive to draw them down. See you not too that the nightly
meteors of heaven as they fly aloft draw after them long trails of
flames in whatever direction nature has given them a passage ?
Do you not perceive stars and constellations fall to the earth ?
The sun also from the height of heaven sheds its heat on all
sides and sows the fields with light; to the earth therefore as
well the sun’s heat tends. Lightnings also yon see fly athwart
the rains: now from this side now from that fires burst from
the clouds and rush about; the force of flame falls to the earth
all round.

This pomt too herein we wish you to apprehend: when bodies
are borne downwards sheer through void by their own weights, at
quite uncertain times and uncertain spots they push themselves a
little from their course : you just and only just can call it a change
of inchnation. If they were not used to swerve, they would all
fall down, like drops of rain, through the deep void, and no clashing
would have been begotten nor blow produced among the first-
beginnings: thus nature never would have produced aught.

But if haply any one believes that heavier bodies, as they are
carried more quickly sheer through space, can fall from above on
the hghter and so beget blows able to produce begetting motions,
he goes must widely astray from true reason. For whenever bodies
fall through water and thin air, they must quicken their descents
in proportion to their weights, because the body of water and
subtle nature of air eannot retard everything in equal degree, but
more readily give way, overpowered by the heavier: on the other
hand empty void cannot offer resistance to anything in any direc-
tion at any time, but must, as its nature eraves, continually give
way; and for this reason all things must be moved and borne
along with equal velocity though of unequal weights through the
unresisting void. Therefore heavier things will never be able to
fall from above on lighter nor of themselves to beget blows

M. ΠΙ. C

34 II 242—283

sufficient to produce the varied motions by which nature carries on
things. Wherefore again and again I say bodies must swerve a
little ; and yet not more than the least possible ; lest we be found
to be imagining oblique motions and this the reality should refute.
For this we see to be plain and evident, that weights, so far as in
them is, cannot travel obliquely, when they fall from above, at
least so far as you can perceive ; but that nothing swerves in any
case from the straight course, who 15 there that can perceive ?
Again if all motion is ever linked together and a new motion
ever springs from another in a fixed order and first-beginnings do
not by swerving make some commencement of motion to break
through the decrees of fate, that cause follow not canse from ever-
lasting, whence have all living creatures here on earth, whence, I
ask, has been wrested from the fates the power by which we go
forward whither the will leads each, by which likewise we change
the direction of our motions neither at a fixed time nor fixed place,
but when and where the mind itself has prompted? For beyond
a doubt in these things his own will makes for each a beginning
and from this beginning motions are welled through the linbs.
See you not too, when the barriers are thrown open at a given
moment, that yet the eager powers of the horses cannot start
forward so instantaneously as the mind itself desires? the whole
store of matter through the whole body must be sought out, in
order that stirred up through all the frame it may follow with
undivided effort the bent of the mind; so that you see the begin-
ning of motion is born from the heart, and the action first com-
mences in the will of the mind and next is transmitted through
the whole body and frame. Quite different is the case when we
move on propelled by a stroke inflicted by the strong might and
strong compulsion of another ; for then it is quite clear that all the
matter of the whole body moves and is hurned on agamst our
inclination, until the will has reined it in throughout the limbs.
Do you see then in this case that, though an outward force often
pushes men on and compels them frequently to advance against
their will and to be hurried headlong on, there vet 1s something in
our breast sufficient to struggle against and resist 1? And when
too this something chooses, the store of matter is compelled some-
times to change its course through the limbs and frame, and
after it has been forced forward, is reined in and settles back into

283—326 II 35

its place. Wherefore m seeds too you must admit the same,
admit that besides blows and weights there is another cause of
motions, from which this power of free action has been begotten
in us, since we see that nothing can come from nothing. For
weight forbids that all things be done by blows through as it
were an outward force; but that the mind itself does not feel
an internal necessity in all its actions and is not as it were over-
mastered and compelled to bear and put up with this, is caused
by a minute swerving of first-beginnings at no fixed part of space
and no fixed time.

Nor was the store of matter ever more closely massed nor held
apart by larger spaces between; for nothing is either added to
its bulk or lost to it. Wherefore the bodies of the first-begin-
nings in time gone by moved in the same way in which now
they move, and will ever hereafter be borne along in like manner,
and the things which have been wont to be begotten will be be-
gotten after the same law and will be and will grow and will wax
in strength so far as is given to each by the decrees of nature.
Aud no force can change the sum of things; for there is nothing
outside, either into which any kind of matter can escape out of
the universe or out of which a new supply can arise and burst
into the universe and change all the nature of things and alter
their motions.

And herein you need not wonder at this, that though the
first-beginnings of things are all m motion, yet the sum is seen
to rest in supreme repose, unless where a thing exhibits motions
with its individual body. For all the nature of first things lies
far away from our senses beneath their ken; and therefore since
they are themselves beyond what you can see, they must withdraw
from sight their motion as well; and the more so that the things
which we can see, do yet often conceal their motions when a great
distance off. Thus often the woolly flocks as they crop the glad
pastures on a hill, creep on whither the grass jewelled with fresh
dew summons and invites each, and the lambs fed to the full
gambol and playfully butt; all which objects appear to us from
a distance to be blended together and to rest like a white spot
ona green hill. Again when mighty legions fill with their move-
ments all parts of the plains waging the mimicry of war, the
glitter then lifts ttself up to the sky and the whole earth round

C2?

36 1 326—367

gleams with brass and beneath a noise is raised by the mighty
trampling of men and the mountains stricken by the shouting
reecho the voices to the stars of heaven, and horsemen fly about
and suddenly wheeling scour across the middle of the plains,
shaking them with the vehemence of their charge. And yet
there is some spot on the high hills, seen from which they appear
to stand still and to rest on the plains as a bright spot.

Now mark and next in order apprehend of what kind and
how widely differmg in their forms are the beginnings of all
things, how varied by manifold diversities of shape; not that a
scanty number are possessed of a hke form, but because as a rule
they do not all resemble one the other. And no wonder; for
since there is so great a store of them that, as I have shewn, there
is no end or sum, they must sure enough not one and all be
marked by an equal bulk and like shape, one with another. Let
the race of man pass before you in review, and the mute swim-
ming shoals of the sealy tribes and the blithe herds and wild
beasts and the different birds which haunt the gladdening
watering spots about river-banks and springs and pools, and
those which flit about and throng the pathless woods: then go
and take any one you like in any one kind, and you will yet
find that they differ in their shapes, every one from every other.
And in no other way could child recognise mother or mother
child; and this we see that they all can do, and that they are
just as well known to one another as human beings are. Thus
often in front of the beauteous shrines of the gods a calf falls
sacrificed beside the incense-burning altars, and spirts from its
breast a warm stream of blood; but the bereaved mother as she
ranges over the green lawns knows the footprints stamped on the
ground by the cloven hoofs, scanning with her eyes every spot
to see 1f she can anywhere behold her lost youngling: then she
fills with her moanings the leafy wood each time she desists from
her search and again and again goes back to the stall pierced to
the heart by the loss of her calf; nor can the soft willows and
grass quickened with dew and yon rivers gliding level with their
banks comfort her mind and put away the care that has entered
into her, nor can other forms of calves throughout the glad pas-
tures divert her mind and ease it of its care: so persistently she
seeks something special and known. Again the tender kids with

36; —408 II 12

their shaking voices know their horned dams and the butting
lambs the flocks of bleating sheep: thus they run, as nature
craves, each without fail to 105 own udder of milk. Lastly in the
case of any kind of corn you like you will yet find that any one
grain is not so similar to any other in the same kind, but that
there runs through them some difference to distinguish the forms.
On a like principle of difference we see the class of shells paint
the lap of earth, where the sea with gentle waves beats on the
thirsty sand of the winding shore. Therefore again and again
I say it 1s necessary for hke reasons that first-beginnings of things,
since they exist by nature and are not made by hand after the
exact model of one, should fly about with shapes in some cases
differmg one from the other.

It is mght easy for us on such a principle to explain why the
fire of hghtning has much more power to pierce than ours which
is born of earthly pimewood: you may say that the heavenly fire
of lightning subtle as it is is formed of smaller shapes and therefore
passes through openings which this our fire cannot pass born as
10 is of woods and sprung from pine. Again light passes through
horn, but rain is thrown off. Why? but that those first bodies
of hght are smaller than those of which the nurturing liquid of
water 1s made. And quickly as we see wines flow through a
strainer, sluggish oil on the other hand is slow to do so, because
sure enough it consists of elements either larger in size or more
hooked and tangled in one another, and therefore it is that the
first-beginnings of things cannot so readily be separated from each
other and severally stream through the several openings of any
thing.

Moreover the liquids honey and milk excite a pleasant sen-
sation of tongue when held in the mouth; but on the other hand
the nauseous nature of wormwood and of harsh centaury writhes
the mouth with a noisome flavour; so that you may easily see
that the things which are able to affect the senses pleasantly,
consist of smooth and round elements; while all those on the
other hand which are found to be bitter and harsh, are held in
connexion by particles that are more hooked and for this reason
are wont to tear open passages Into our senses and in entering In
to break through the body.

All things in short which are agreeakle to the senses and all

38 1 408---452

which are unpleasant to the feeling are mutually repugnant,
formed as they are out of an unlike first shape; lest haply you
suppose that the harsh grating of the creaking saw consists of
elements as smooth as those of tuneful melodies which musicians
wake into life with nimble fingers and give shape to on strings ;
or suppose that the first-beginnings are of like shape which pass
into the nostrils of men, when noisome carcases are burning,
and when the stage is fresh sprinkled with Cilician saffron, while
the altar close. by exhales Panchaean odours; or decide that the
pleasant colours of things which are able to feast the eyes are
formed of a seed like to the seed of those which make the pupil
smart and force it to shed tears or from their disgusting aspect
look hideous and foul. For every shape which gratifies the senses
has been formed not without a smoothness in its elements; but on
the other hand whatever is painful and harsh, has been produced
not without some roughness of matter. There are too some
elements which are with justice thought to be neither smooth nor
altogether hooked with barbed points, but rather to have minute
angles slightly projecting, so that they can tickle rather than
hurt the senses; of which class tartar of wine is formed and the
flavours of elecampane. Again that hot fires and cold frost have
fangs of a dissimilar kind wherewith to pierce the senses, is
proved to us by the touch of each. For touch, touch, ye holy
divinities of the gods, the body’s feeling is, either when an
extraneous thing makes its way in, or when a thing which is born
in the body hurts it, or gives pleasure as it issues forth by the
birth-bestowing ways of Venus, or when from some collision the
seeds are disordered within the body and distract the feeling by
their mutual disturbance; as if haply you were yourself to strike
with the hand any part of the body you please and so make trial.
Wherefore the shapes of the first-beginnings must differ widely,
since they are able to give birth to different feelings.

Again things which iook to us hard and dense must consist of
particles more hooked together, and be held in union because
welded all through with branch-like elements. In this class first
of all diamond stones stand in foremost line inured to despise
blows, and stout blocks of basalt and the strength of hard iron
and brass bolts which scream out as they hold fast to their
staples. Those things which are liquid and of fluid body ought

451—493 1Π 39

to consist more of smooth and round elements; for the several
drops have no mutual cohesion and their onward course too has
a ready flow downwards. All things lastly which you see disperse
themselves in an instant, as smoke mists and flames, if they do
not consist entirely of smooth and round, must yet not be held
fast by closely tangled elements, so that they may be able to
pierce the body and enter 1t with biting power, yet not stick
together: thus you may easily know, that whatever we see the
senses have been able to allay, consists not of tangled but of
pointed elements. Do not however hold it to be wonderful that
some things which are fluid you see to be likewise bitter, for
instance the sea’s moisture: because it is fluid, it consists of
smooth and round particles, and many rough bodies mixed up
with these produce paims; and yet they must not be hooked so
as to hold together: you are to know that though rough, they
are yet spherical, so that while they roll freely on, they may at
the same time hurt the senses. And that you may more readily
bcheve that with smooth are mixed rough first-beginnings from
which Neptune’s body is made bitter, there is a way of separating
these, and of seeing how the fresh water, when it is often filtered
through the earth, flows by itself into a trench and sweetens ; for
it leaves above the first-beginnings of the nauseous saltness, mas-
much as the rough particles can more readily stay behind in the
earth.

And now that I have shewn this, I will go on to link to ita
truth which depends on this and from this draws its proof: the
first-beginnings of things have different shapes, but the number of
shapes is finite. If this were not so, then once more it would
follow that some seeds must be of infinite bulk of body. For in the
same seed, in the single small size of any first body you like the
shapes cannot vary much from one another: say for instance that
first bodies consist of three least parts, or augment them by a few
more ; when to wit in all possible ways, by placing each in turn at
the top and at the bottom, by making the right change places
with the left, you shall have tried all those parts of one first body
and found what manner of shape each different arrangement gives
to the whole of that body, if after all this haply you shall wish
still to vary the shapes, you will have to add other parts; it will
uext follow that for like reasons the arrangement will require

40 i 493—535

other parts, if haply you shall wish still again to vary the shapes.
From all this it results that increase of bulk in the body follows
upon newness of the shapes. Wherefore you cannot possibly
believe that seeds have an infinite variety of forms, lest you foree
some to be of a monstrous hugeness, which as I have above shewn
cannot be proved. Moreover I tell you barbaric robes and radiant
Mehboean purple dipped in Thessalian dye of shells [and the hues
which are displayed] by the golden brood of peacocks steeped in
laughing beauty would all be thrown aside surpassed by some new
colour of things; the smell of myrrh would be despised and the
flavours of honey, and the melodies of the swan and Phoebean
tunes set off by the varied play of strings would in like sort be
suppressed and silenced; for something ever would arise more
surpassing than the rest. All things likewise might fall back into
worse states, even as we have said they might advance to better ;
for reversely too one thing would be more noisome than all other
things to nostril ear and eye and taste. Now since these things
are not so, but a fixed limit has been assigned to things which
bounds their sum on each side, you must admit that matter also
has a finite number of different shapes. Once more from summer
fires to chill frosts a definite path is traced out and in lke manner
is again travelled back; for every degree of cold and heat and
intermediate warmths he between those extremes, filang up in
succession the sum. Therefore the things produced differ by finite
degrees, since at both ends they are marked off by points, one at
one, another at the other end, molested on the one hand by
flames, on the other by stiffening frosts.

And now that I have shewn this, J will go on to link to ita
truth which depends on this and from this draws its proof: the
first-beginnings of things which have a like shape one with the
other, are infinite in number. For since the difference of forms 15
finite, those which are like must be infinite or the sum of matter
will be finite, which I proved not to be the case, when I shewed in
my verses that the minute bodies of matter from everlasting
continually uphold the sum of things through an uninterrupted
succession of blows on all sides. For though you see that some
animals are rarer than others and discern a less fruitful nature in
them, yet in another quarter and spot and in distant lands there
may be many of that kind and the full tale may be made up; just

536-577 Π AI

as we see that in the class of four-footed beasts snake-handed ele-
phants are elsewhere especially numerous; for India is so fenced
about with an ivory rampart made out of many thousands of these,
that its inner parts cannot be reached, so great is the quantity of
brutes, of which we see but very few samples. But yet though I
should grant this point too: be there even as you will some one
thing sole in its kind existing alone with a body that had birth,
and let no other thing resemble it in the whole world; yet unless
there shall be an infinite supply of matter out of which it may be
conceived and brought into being, it cannot be produced, and,
more than this, it cannot have growth and food. For though I
should assume this point also that birth-giving bodies of some one
thing are tossed about in finite quantity throughout the universe,
whence, where, by what force and in what way shall they meet
together and combine in so vast a sea, such an alicn medley of
matter? They have methinks no way of uniting; but even as
when great and numerous shipwrecks have occurred, the great sea
is wont to tumble about banks rudders yards prow masts and
swimming oars, so that poop-fittings are seen floating about along
every shore and utter to mortals a warning to try to shun the
snares and violence and guile of the faithless sea, and never at any
time to trust to it, when the winning face of calm ocean laughs
treacherously ; thus too if you shall once decide that certain first-
beginnings are finite, different currents of matter must scatter and
tumble them about through all time, so that they can never be
brought into union and combine, nor abide in any union nor grow
up and increase. But plain matter of fact shews that each of
these results manifestly does take place, that things can be brought
into being and when begotten advance in growth. It 15 clear then
that in any class you like the first-beginnings of things are infinite,
out of which all supplies are furnished.

Thus neither can death-dealing motions keep the mastery
always nor entomb existence for evermore, nor on the other hand
can the birth and increase giving motions of things preserve them
always after they are born. Thus the war of first-beginnings
waged from eternity is carried on with dubious issue: now here
now there the life-bringing elements of things get the mastery
and are o’ermastered in turn: with the funeral wail blends the
cry which babies raise when they enter the borders of hght; and

42 II 578—619

no night ever followed day nor morning mght that heard not
mingling with the sickly infant’s cries wailings the attendants on
death and black funeral.

And herein it is proper you should keep under seal, and guard,
there consigned, in faithful memory this truth, that there is nothing
whose nature is apparent to sense, which consists of one kind of
first-beginnings ; nothing which 15 not formed by a mixing of seed.
And whenever a thing possesses in itself in larger measure many
powers and properties, in that measure 1t shews that there are in
it the greatest number of different kinds and varied shapes of
first-beginnings. First of all the earth has in her first bodies ont
of which springs rolling coolness along replenish without fail the
boundless sea, she has bodies out of which fires rise up; for in
many spots the earth’s crust 1s on fire and burns, though head-
strong Aetna rages with fire of surpassing force. Then too she
has bodies out of which she can raise for mankind goodly crops
and joyous trees, out of which too she can supply to the moun-
tain-ranging race of wild beasts rivers leaves and glad pastures.
Wherefore she has alone been named great mother of gods and
mother of beasts and parent of our body.

Of her the old and learned poets of the Greeks have sung, that
[borne aloft on high-raised] seat in a chariot she drives a pair of
lions, teaching that the great earth hangs in the expanse of air
and that earth cannot rest on earth. To her chariot they have
yoked wild beasts, because a brood however savage ought to be
tamed and softened by the kind offices of parents. They have en-
circled the top of her head with a mural crown, because fortified
in choice positions she sustains towns; adorned with which em-
blem the image of the divine mother is carried now-a-days through
wide lands in awe-inspiring state. Her different nations after
old-established ritual term Idacan mother, and give for escort
Phrygian bands, because they tell that from those lands corn first
began to be produced throughout the world. They assign her
galli, because they would shew by this type that they who have
done violence to the divinity of the mother and have proved un-
grateful to their parents, are to be deemed unworthy to bring a
living offspring into the borders of hight. Tight-stretched tambour-
ines and hollow cymbals resound all round to the stroke of their
open hands, and horns menace with hoarse-sounding music, and

620—664 Π 43

the hollow pipe stirs their minds in Phrygian mood. They carry
weapons before them, emblems of furious rage, meet to fill the
thankless souls and godless breasts of the rabble with terror for
the divinity of the goddess. Therefore when first borne in pro-
cession through great cities she mutely enriches mortals with a
blessing not expressed in words, they straw all her path with brass
and silver presenting her with bounteous alms, and scatter over
her a snow-shower of roses, o’ershadowing the mother and her
troops of attendants. Here an armed band to which the Greeks
give the name of Phrygian Curetes, in that it haply joins in the
game of arms and springs up in measure all dripping with blood,
shaking with its nodding the frightful crests upon the head, re-
presents the Dictaean Curetes who, as the story is, erst drowned in
Crete that infant ery of Jove, when the young band about the
young babe in rapid dance arms in hand to measured tread beat
brass on brass, that Saturn might not get him to consign to his
devouring jaws and stab the mother to the heart with a never-
healing wound. For these reasons they escort in arms the great
mother, or else because they mean by this sign that the goddess
preaches to men to be willing with arms and valour to defend
their country and be ready to be a safeguard and an ornament to
their parents. All which, well and beautifully as it is set forth
and told, is yet widely removed from true reason. For the nature
of gods must ever in itself of necessity enjoy immortality together
with supreme repose, far removed and withdrawn from our con-
cerns; since exempt from every pain, exempt from all dangers,
strong in its own resourees, not wanting aught of us, it 15 neither
gained by favours nor moved by anger. And here if any one
thinks proper to call the sea Neptune and corn Ceres and chooses
rather to misuse the name of Bacchus than to utter the term that
belongs to that liquor, let us allow him to declare that the earth
is mother of the gods, if he only forbear in earnest to stain his
mind with foul religion. The earth however is at all time without
feeling, and because it receives into it the first-beginnings of
many things, it brings them forth in many ways into the light of
the sun.

And so the woolly flocks and the martial breed of horses and
horned herds, though often cropping the grass from one field be-
neath the same canopy of heaven and slaking their thirst from

44 iif 664—-705

one stream of water, yet have all their life a dissimilar appearance
and retain the nature of their parents and severally imitate their
ways each after its kind: so great 15. the diversity of inatter in
any kind of herbage, so great in every river. And hence too any
one you please out of the whole number of hving creatures 1s
made up of bones blood veins heat moisture flesh sinews; and
these things again differ widely from one another and are com-
posed of first-beginnings of unlike shape. I*urthermore whatever
things are set on fire and burned, store up im their body, if nothing
else, at least those particles, out of which they may radiate fire
and send out light and make sparks fly and scatter embers al]
about. If you will go over all other things by a lke process of
reasoning, you will thus find that they couceal in their body the
seeds of many things and contain elements of various shapes.
Again you see many things to which are given at once both colour
and taste together with smell; especially those many offerings
[which are burned on the altars]. These must therefore be nade
up of elements of different shapes; for smell enters in where colour
passes not into the frame, colour too in one way, taste in another
makes its entrance into the senses; so that you know they differ
in the shapes of their first elements. Therefore unlike forms
unite into one mass and things are made up of a mixture of seed.
Throughout moreover these very verses of ours you see many ele-
ments common to many words, though yet you must admit that
the verses and words one with another are different and composed
of different clements; not that but few letters which are in com-
mon run through them or that no two words or verses one with
another are made up entirely of the same, but because as a rule
they do not all resemble one the other. Thus also though in other
things there are many first-beginnings common to many things,
yet they can make up one with the other a quite dissimilar
whole; so that men and corn and joyous trees may fairly be said
to consist of different elements.

And yet we are not to suppose that all things can be joined
together in all ways; for then you would see prodigies produced
on all hands, forms springing up half man half beast and some-
times tall boughs sprouting from the living body, and many
limbs of land-creatures joined with those of sea-animals, nature
too throughout the all-bearing lands feeding chimeras which

705-48 Il 45

breathed flames from noisome mouth. It is plain however that
nothing of the sort is done, since we see that all things pro-
duced from fixed seeds and a fixed mother can in growing pre-
serve the marks of their kind. This you are to know must take
place after a fixed law. For the particles suitable for each thing
from all kinds of food when inside the body pass into the frame
and joining on produce the appropriate motions; but on the
other hand we see nature throw out on the earth those that
are alien, and many things with their unseen bodies fly out of
the body inpelled by blows: those I mean which have not been
able to join on to any part nor when inside to [66] in unison
with and adopt the vital motions. But lest you haply suppose
that living things alone are bound by these conditions, such a
law keeps all things within their hmits. For even as things
begotten are in their whole nature all unlike one the other, thus
each must consist of first-beginnings of unlike shape; not that
a scanty number are possessed of a hke form, but because as a
rule they do not all resemble one the other. Again since the
seeds differ, there must be a difference in the spaces between,
the passages, the counexions, the weights, the blows, the clash-
ings, the motions; all which not only disjoin living bodies, but
hold apart the lands and the whole sea, and keep all heaven
away from the earth.

Now mark, and apprehend precepts amassed by my welcome
toil, lest haply you deem that those things which you see with
your eyes to be bright, because white are formed of white
principles, or that the things which are black are born from black
seed ; or that things which are steeped in any other colour, bear
that colour because the bodies of matter are dyed with a colour
hike to it. For the bodies of matter have no colour at all either
like to the things or unlike. But if haply it seems to you that
no impression of the mind can throw itself into these bodies, you
wander far astray. For since men born blind who have never
beheld the light of the sun, yet recognise bodies by touch, though
linked with no colour for them from their first birth, you are to
know that bodies can fall under the ken of our mind too, though
stained with no colour. Again whatever things we ourselves
touch in the thick darkness, we do not perceive to be dyed with
any colour. And since I prove that this is the case, 1 will now

46 II 748—788

shew that there are things [which are possessed of no colour].
Well any colour without any exception changes into any other;
and this first-beginnings ought in no wise to do: something
unchangeable must remain over, that all things be not utterly
reduced to nothing. For whenever a thing changes and quits
its proper limits, at once this change of state is the death of that
which was before. Therefore mind not to dye with colour the
seeds of things, that you may not have all things altogether
returning to nothing.

Moreover if no quality of colour is assigned to first-beginnings
and they are yet possessed of varied shapes out of which they
beget colours of every kind and change them about by reason
that 1t makes a great difference with what other seeds and in
what position the seeds are severally held in union and what
motions they mutually impart and receive, you can explain at
once with the greatest ease why those things which just before
were of a black colour, may become all at once of marble white-
ness; as the sea, when mighty winds have stirred up its waters,
is changed into white waves of the brightness of marble: you
may say that when the matter of that which we often see to
be black, has been mixed up anew and the arrangement of its
first-beginnings has been changed and some have been added
and some been taken away, the immediate result 1s that it
appears bright and white. But if the waters of the sea con-
sisted of azure seeds, they could in no wise become white; for
however much you jumble together seeds which are azure, they
can never pass into a marble colour. But if the seeds which
make up the one unmixed brightness of the sea are dyed some
with one, some with other colours, just as often out of different
forms and varied shapes something square and of a uniform
figure is made up, in that case it were natural that as we see
unlike forms contained in the square, so we should see in the
water of the sea or in any other one and unmixed brightness
colours widely unlike and different to one another. Moreover
the unlike figures do not in the least hinder or prevent the whole
figure from being a square on the outside; but the various colours
of things are a let and hindrance to the whole things being of a
uniform brightness.

Then too the reason which leads and draws us on sometimes

788—831 1 47

to assign colours to the first-beginnings of things, falls to the
ground, since white things are not produced from white, nor
those which are black from black, but out of things of various
colours. For white things will much more readily rise up and be
born from no colour than from a black or any other colour which
thwarts and opposes it.

Moreover since colours cannot exist without light and first-
beginnings of things do not come out into the light, you may
be sure they are clothed with no colour. For what colour can
there be in total darkness? nay it changes in the lhght itself
- according as its brightness comes from a straight or slanting
stroke of light. After this fashion the down which encircles and
crowns the nape and throat of doves shews itself in the sun: at
one time it is ruddy with the hue of bright pyropus; at another
it appears by a certain way of looking at 1t to blend with coral-
red green emeralds. The tail of the peacock when it is saturated
with abundant hght, changes in like fashion its colours as it
turns about. And since these colours are begotten by a certain
stroke of light, sure enough you must believe that they cannot
be produced without it. And since the pupil receives mto it
a kind of blow, when it is said to perceive a white colour, and
then another, when it perceives black or any other colour, and
since it 15 of no moment with what colour the things which you
touch are provided, but rather with what sort of shape they are
furnished, you are to know that first-beginnings have no need of
colours, but give forth sensations of touch varying according to
their various shapes.

Moreover since no particular kind of colour is assigned to par-
ticular shapes and every configuration of first-beginnings can exist
in any colour, why on a hke principle are not the things which
are formed out of them in every kind o’erlaid with colours of
every kind? For then it were natural that crows too in flying
should often display a white colour from white wings and that
swans should come to be black from a black seed, or of any other
difterent colour you please.

Again the more minute the parts are into which anything is
rent, the more you may perceive the colour fade away by little
and little and become extinct; as for instance if a piece of purple
is torn into small shreds: when it has been plucked into separate

48 II 830—869

threads, the purple, and the scarlet far the iost brilhant of
colours, are quite effaced; from which you inay infer that the
shreds part with all their colour before they come back to the
seeds of things.

Lastly sinee you admit that all bodics do not utter a voice
nor emit a smell, for this reason you do not assign to all sounds
and smells. So also since we eannot perceive all things with
the eyes, you are to know that some things are as much denuded
of colour as others are without smell and devoid of sound, and
that the keen-discerning mind can just as well apprehend these
things as it ean take note of things which are destitute of other
qualities.

But lest haply you suppose that first bodies remain stripped
of colour alone, they are also wholly devoid of warmth and cold
and violent heat, and are judged to be barren of sound and drained
of moisture, and emit from their body no seent of their own. Just
as when you set about preparing the balmy liquid of sweet mar-
joram and myrrh and the flower of spikenard which gives forth
to the nostrils a scent like nectar, before all you should seek,
so far as you may and ean find it, the substance of scentless oil,
such as gives out no perfume to the nostrils, that it may as little
as possible meddle with and destroy by its own pungency the
odours mixed in its body and boiled up with it; for the same
reason the first-beginnings of things must not bring to the be-
getting of things a smell or sound of their own, since they cannot
discharge anything from themselves, and for the same reason
no taste either nor cold nor any heat moderate or violent, and
the like. For as these things, be they what they may, are still
such as to be hable to death, whether pliant with a soft, brittle
with a crumbling, or hollow with a porous body, they must all
be withdrawn from the first beginnings, 1f we wish to assign to
things nnperishable foundations for the whole sum of existence
to rest upon: that you may not have things returning altogether
to nothing.

To come to another point, whatever things we perceive to
have sense, you must yet admit to be all composed of senseless
first-beginnings: manifest tokens which are open to all to ap-
prehend, so far from refuting or contradicting this, do rather
themselves take us by the hand and constrain us to believe

870 — 909 II 49

that, as I say, living things are begotten from senseless things.
We may see in fact living worms spring out of stinking dung,
when the soaked earth has gotten putridity after excessive rains ;
and all things besides change in the same way: rivers leaves
and glad pastures change into cattle, cattle change their sub-
stance into our bodies, and often out of these the powers of wild
beasts and the bodies of the strong of ‘wing are increased.
Therefore nature changes all foods into hving bodies and engen-
ders out of them all the senses of living creatures, much in the
same way as she dissolves dry woods into flames and converts
all things into fires. Now do you see that 1t 1s of great moment
in what sort of arrangement the first-beginnings of things are
severally placed and with what others they are mixed up, when
they impart and receive motions ?

Then again what is that which strikes your mind, affects
that mind and constrains it to give utterance to many dif-
ferent thoughts, to save you from believing that the sensible
is begotten out of senseless things? Sure enough it is because
stones and wood and carth however mixed together are yet
unable to produce vital sense. This therefore it will be well to
remember herein, that I do not assert that the sensible and
sensations are forthwith begotten out of all elements without
exception which produce things; but that it 15 of great moment
first how minute the particles are which make up the sensible
thing and then what shape they possess and what in short they
are in their motions arrangements and positions. None of which
conditions we find in woods and clods; and yet even these
when they have so to speak become rotten through the rains,
bring forth worms, because bodies of matter driven from their
ancient arrangements by a new condition are combined in the
manner needed for the begetting of living creatures. Next
they who hold that the sensiblé can be produced out of sen-
sible elements, accustomed thus to derive their own sense from
elements [which are sensible] in their turn, [do thus render their
own seeds mortal,] when they make them soft; for all sense is bound
up with flesh sinews and veins; which in everything we see to
be soft and formed of a mortal body. But even suppose that these
things can remain eternal: they must yet I presume either have
the sense of some part or else be decmed to possess a sense

RY. ITI. D

50 1 909—949

similar to the entire living ereatures. But the parts cannot
possibly have sense by themselves alone; for all sense of the
different members has reference to something else; nor can the
hand when severed from us nor any other part of the body
whatever by itself maintain sensation. It remains to assume
that they resemble the entire living creatures. In this case it
is necessary that they should feel the things which we feel in
the same way as we do, in order that they may be able in all
points to work in concert with the vital sense. How then can
they be called first-beginnings of things and shun the paths of
death, seeing that they are hving things, and that living things
are one and the same with mortal things? Nay granting they
could do this, yet by theis meeting and union they will make
nothing but a jumble and medley of living things; just you are
to know as men cattle and wild beasts would be unable to beget
any other thing by all their mixing with one another. But if
haply they lose from their body their own sense and adopt an-
other, what use was it to assign what is again withdrawn? more-
over, the instance to which we had before recourse, inasmuch as
we see the eggs of fowls change into living chicks and worms
burst forth, when putridity has seized on the earth after exces-
sive rains, you are to know that sensations can be begotten out
of no-sensations.

But if haply any one shall say that sense so far may arise
from no-sensation by a process of change, or because it 1s brought
forth by a kind of birth, it will be enough to make plain and
to prove to him that no birth takes place until a union of ele-
ments has first been effected, and that nothing changes without
their having been united. Above all senses cannot exist Im any
body before the nature itself of the living thing has been
begotten, because sure enough the matter remains scattered
about in air rivers earth and things produced from earth, and
has not met together and combined in appropriate fashion the
vital motions by which the all-discerning senses are kindled into
action in each living thing.

Again a blow more severe than its nature can endure, pro-
strates at once any living thing and goes on to stun all the senses
of body and mind. For the positions of the first-beginnings are
broken up and the vital motions entirely stopped, until the

949—989 II SI

matter, disordered by the shock through the whole frame, unties
from the body the vital fastenings of the soul and scatters it
abroad and forces it out through all the pores. For what more
can we suppose the infliction of a blow can do, than shake from
their place and break up the union of the several elements ?
Often too when the blow is inflicted with less violence, the re-
maining vital motions are wont to prevail, ay, prevail and still
the huge disorders caused by the blow and recall each part
into 105 proper channels and shake off the motion of death now
reigning as it were paramonnt in the body and kindle afresh the
almost lost senses. For in what other way should the thing be
able to gather together its powers of mind and come back to
life from the very threshold of death, rather than pass on to the
goal to which it had almost run and so pass away ?

Again since there is pain when the bodies of matter are
disordered by any force throughout the living flesh and frame
and quake in their seats within, and as when they travel back
into their place, a soothing pleasure ensues, you are to know
that first-beginnings can be assailed by no pain and ean derive
no pleasure from themselves; since they are not formed of any
bodies of first-beginnings, so as to be distressed by any novelty
in their motion or derive from it any fruit of fostering delight;
and therefore they must not be possessed of any sense.

Again if in order that living creatures may severally have
sense, sense 1s to be assigned to their first-beginnings as well,
what are we to say of those of which mankind is specifically
made? sure enough they burst into fits of shaking laughter
and sprinkle with dewy tears face and cheeks and have the cun-
ning to say much about the composition of things and to enquire
next what their own first-beginnings are; since like in their
natures to the entire mortals they must in their turn be formed
out of other elements, then those others out of others, so that
you ean venture nowhere to come to a stop: yes, whatever you
shall say speaks and laughs and thinks, I will press you with
the argument that it is formed of other things performing these
same acts. But if we see these notions to be sheer folly and
madness, and a man may laugh though not made of laughing
things, and think and reason in learned language though not
formed of thoughtful and eloquent seeds, why cannot the things

Ip

52 II 9g89—1032

which we see to have sense, just as well be made up of a mixture
of things altogether devoid of sense ?

Again we are all sprung from a heavenly seed, all have that
same father, by whom mother carth the giver of increase, when
she has taken in from him liquid drops of moisture, conceives
and bears goodly crops and joyous trees and the race of man,
bears all kinds of brute beasts, in that she supplies food with
whieh all feed their bodies and lead a pleasant life and continue
their race; wherefore with good cause she has gotten the name
of mother. That also which before was from the earth, passes
back into the earth and that which was sent from the borders
of ether, is carried back and taken in again by the quarters of
heaven. Death does not extinguish things im such a way as to
destroy the bodies of matter, but only breaks up the union
amongst them, and then joins anew the different elements with
others; and thus it comes to pass that all things change their
shapes and alter their colours and receive sensations and in a
moment yield them up; so that from all this you may know it
matters much with what others and in what position the same
first-beginnings of things are held in union and what motions
they do mutually impart and receive, and you must not sup-
pose that that which we see floating about on the surface of
things and now born, then at once perishing, can be a property
inherent in everlasting first bodies. Nay in our verses them-
selves it matters much with what other elements and in what
kind of order the several elements are placed. If not all, yet
by far the greatest number are alike; but the totals composed
of them are made to differ by the position of these elements.
Thus in actual things as well when the clashings motions ar-
rangement position and shapes of matter change about, the things
must also change.

Apply now, we entreat, your mind to trne reason. For a
new question struggles earnestly to gain your ears, a new aspect
of things to display itself. But there is nothing so easy as
not to be at first more difficult to believe than afterwards;
and nothing too so great, so marvellous, that all do not gradu-
ally abate their admiration of it. Look up at the bright and
unsullied hue of heaven and the stars which it holds within
it, wandering all about, and the moon and the sun’s light of

1032-1071 II 33

dazzling brilliancy : if all these things were now for the first time,
if I say they were now suddenly presented to mortals beyond all
expectation, what could have been named that would be more
marvellous than these things, or that nations beforehand would
less venture to believe could be? nothing, methinks: so wondrous
strange had been this sight. Yet how little, you know, wearied
as all are to satiety with seeing, any one now cares to look up into
heaven’s glittering quarters: Cease therefore to be dismayed by
the mere novelty and so to reject reason from your mind with
loathing: weigh the questions rather with keen judgment and if
they seem to you to be true, surrender, or if they are a falsehood,
gird yourself to the encounter. For since the sum of space is un-
limited outside beyond these walls of the world, the mind seeks
to apprehend what there is yonder there, to which the spirit ever
yearns to look forward, and to which the mind’s immission reaches
in free and unembarrassed flight.

In the first place we see that round in all directions, about
above and underneath, throughout the universe there is no bound,
as I have shewn and as the thing of itself proclaims with
loud voice and as clearly shines out in the nature of bottomless
space. In no wise then can it be deemed probable, when space
yawns illimitable towards all points and seeds in number num-
berless and sum unfathomable fly about in manifold ways driven
on in ceaseless motion, that this single earth and heaven have
been brought into being, that those bodies of matter so many in
number do nothing outside them; the more so that this world
has been made by nature, just as the seeds of things have
chanced spontaneously to clash, after being brought together in
manifold wise without purpose, without foresight, without result,
and at last have filtered through such seeds as, suddenly thrown
together, were fitted to become on each occasion the rudiments
of great things, of earth sea and heaven and the race of living
things. Wherefore again and again I say you must admit that
there are elsewhere other combinations of matter like to this
which ether holds in its greedy grasp.

Again when much matter is at hand, when room is there
and there is no thing, no cause to hinder, things sure enough
must go on and be completed. Well then if on the one hand
there is so great a store of seeds as the whole life of living

54 il 107I—1110

creatures cannot reckon up, and if the same force and nature
abide in them and have the power to throw the seeds of things
together into their several places in the same way as they are
thrown together into our world, you must admit that in other
parts of space there are other earths and various races of men
and kinds of wild beasts.

Moreover in the sum of all there is no one thing which is
begotten single in its kind and grows up single and sole of its
kind; but a thing always belongs to some class and there are
many other things in the same kind. First in the case of living
things, most noble Memmius, you will find that in this sort has
been begotten the mountain-ranging race of wild beasts, in this
sort the breed of men, in this sort too the mute shoals of scaly
creatures and all bodies of fowls. Wherefore on a like principle
you must admit that earth and sun moon sea and all things else
that are, are not single in their kind, but rather in number past
numbering; since the deep-set boundary-mark of life just as
much awaits these and they are just as much of a body that
had birth, as any class of things which here on earth abounds in
samples of its kind.

If you well apprehend and keep in mind these things, nature
free at once and rid of her haughty lords is seen to do all things
spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the gods. For
I appeal to the holy breasts of the gods who in tranquil peace
pass a calm time and an unruffled existence, who can rule the
sum, who hold in his hand with controlling force the strong
reins, of the immeasurable deep? who can at once make all the
different heavens to roll and warm with ethereal fires all the
fruitful earths, or be present in all places at all times, to bring
darkness with clouds and shake with noise the heaven’s serene
expanse, to hurl lightnings and often throw down his own tem-
ples, and withdrawing into the deserts there to spend his rage
in practising his bolt which often passes the guilty by and
strikes dead the innocent and unoffending ?

And since the birth-time of the world and first day of being
to sea and earth and the formation of the sun many bodies have
been added from without, many seeds added all round, which the
great universe in tossing to and fro has contributed; that from
them the sea and lands might increase and from them heaven’s

IIIO—IISI Il 55

mansion might enlarge its expanse and raise its high vaults far
above earth, and that air might rise up around. For all bodies
from all quarters are assigned by blows each to its appropriate
thing and all withdraw to their proper classes; moisture passes
to moisture, from an earthy body earth increases and fires forge
fires and ether ether, until nature parent of things with finish-
ing hand has brought all things on to their utmost limit of
growth. And this comes to pass when that which is infused
into the life-arteries is no more than that which ebbs from
them and withdraws: at this point the life-growth in all things
must stop, at this point nature by her powers checks further
increase. For whatever things you see grow in size with joyous
increase and mount by successive steps to mature age, take to
themselves more bodies than they discharge from themselves,
while food is readily infused into all the arteries and the things
are not so widely spread out as to throw off many particles and
occasion more waste than their age can take in as nourishment.
For no doubt it must be conceded that many bodies ebb away
and withdraw from things; but still more must jom them, until
they have touched the utmost point of growth. Then piece by
piece age breaks their powers and matured strength and wastes
away on the side of decay. For the larger a thing is and the
wider, as soon as its growth is stopped, at once it sheds abroad
and discharges from it more bodies in all directions round; and
its food is not readily transmitted into all its arteries and 1s not
enough, in proportion to the copious exhalations which the thing
throws off, to enable a like amount to rise up and be supplied.
For food must keep all things entire by renewing them, food must
uphold, food sustain all things: all in vain, since the arteries
refuse to hold what is sufficient, and nature does not furnish the
needful amount. With good reason therefore all things perish,
when they have been rarefied by the ebb of particles and suc-
cumb to blows from without, since food sooner or later fails
advanced age, and bodies never cease to destroy a thing by
thumping it from without and to overpower it by aggressive
blows. In this way then the walls too of the great world around
shall be stormed and fall to decay and crumbling ruin. Yes and
even now the age is enfeebled and the earth exhausted by bear-
ing scarce produces little living creatures, she who produced all

56 II 1152—1174

races and gave birth to the huge bodies of wild beasts. For
methinks no golden chain let down to carth from heaven above
the races of mortal beings, nor did the sea and waves which lash
the rocks produce them, but the same earth bare them which
now feeds them out of herself. Moreover she first spontaneously
of herself produced for mortals goodly corn-crops and joyous
vineyards ; of herself gave sweet fruits and glad pastures; which
now-a-days scarce attain any size when furthered by our labour:
we exhaust the oxen and the strength of the husbandinen; we
wear out our iron, scarcely fed after all by the tilled fields; so
niggardly are they of their produce and after so much labour
do they let 1t grow. And now the aged ploughman shakes his
head and sighs again and again to think that the labours of
his hands have come to nothing; and when he compares pre-
sent times with times past, he often praises the fortunes of his
sire and harps on the theme, how the men of old rich in piety
comfortably supported life on a scanty plot of ground, since the
allotment of land to each man was far less of yore than now.
The sorrowful planter too of the exhausted and shrivelled vine
impeaches the march of time and wearics heaven, and compre-
hends not that ail things are gradually wasting away and passing
to the grave, quite forspent by age and length of days,

I—2Q

LUCRETIUS

ON THE NATURE OF THINGS

BOOK THIRD

Thee, who first wast able amid such thick darkness to raise on
high so bright a beacon and shed a light on the true interests of
life, thee I follow, glory of the Greck race, and plant now my
footsteps firmly fixed in thy imprinted marks, not so much from
a desire to rival thee as that from the love I bear thee I yearn to
imitate thee; for why need the swallow contend with swans, or
what likeness is there between the feats of racing performed by
kids with tottering limbs and by the powerful strength of the
horse? Thon, father, art discoverer of things, thou furnishest us
with fatherly precepts, and like as bees sip of all things in the
flowery lawns, we, o glorious being, in like manner feed from out
thy pages upon all the golden maxims, golden I say, most worthy
ever of endless life. For soon as thy philosophy issuing from a
godlike intellect has begun with loud voice to proclaim the nature
of things, the terrors of the mind are dispelled, the walls of the
world part asunder, I see things in operation throughout the
whole void: the divinity of the gods is revealed and their tran-
quil abodes which neither winds do shake nor clouds drench
_with rains nor snow congealed by sharp frosts harms with hoary
fall: an ever cloudless ether o’ercanopies them, and they laugh
with light shed largely round. Nature too supplies all their
wants and nothing ever impairs their peace of mind. But on
the other hand the Acherusian quarters are nowhere to be secn,
though earth is no bar to all things being descried, which are
In operation underneath our feet throughout the void. At all
this a kind of: godlike delight mixed with shuddering awe comes

58 Ill 420-74

over me to think that nature by thy power is laid thus visibly
open, is thus unveiled on every side.

And now since I have shewn what-hke the beginnings of all
things are and how diverse with varied shapes as they fly sponta-
neously driven on in everlasting motion, and how all things can be
severally produced out of these, next after these questions the nature
of the mind and soul should methinks be cleared up by my verses
and that dread of Acheron be driven headlong forth, troubling as
it does the life of man from its inmost depths and overspreading
all things with the blackness of death, allowing no pleasure to be
pure and unalloyed. For as to what men often give out that
diseases and a life of shame are more to be feared than Tartarus
place of death, and that they know the soul to be of blood or
it may be of wind, if haply their choice so direct, and that they
have no need at all of our philosophy, you may perceive for the
following reasons that all these boasts are thrown out more for
glory’s sake than because the thing is really believed. These
very men, exiles from their country and banished far from the
sight of men, live degraded by foul charge of guilt, sunk in a
word in every kind of misery, and whithersoever the poor wretches
are come, they yet do offer sacrifices to the dead and slaughter
black sheep and make libations to the gods manes and in times
of distress turn their thoughts to religion much more earnestly.
Wherefore you can better test the man in doubts and dangers and
mid adversity learn who he is; for then and not till then the
words of truth are forced out from the bottom of his heart: the
mask is torn off, the reality is left. Avarice again and blind lust
of honours which constrain unhappy men to overstep the bounds
of right and sometimes as partners and agents of crimes to strive
night and day with surpassing effort to struggle up to the summit
of power,—these sores of life are in no small measure fostered by
the dread of death. For foul scorn and pinching want in every
ease are seen to be far removed from a life of pleasure and 86-
curity and to be a loitering so to say before the gates of death.
And while men driven on by an unreal dread wish to escape far
away from these and keep them far from them, they amass wealth
by civil bloodshed and greedily double their riches piling up
murder on murder; cruelly triumph in the sad death of a
brother and hate and fear the tables of kinsfolk. Often like-

fae 14 ΠῚ 59

wise from the same fear envy causes them to pine: they make
moan that before their very eyes he is powerful, he attracts
attention, who walks arrayed in gorgeous dignity, while they
are wallowing in darkness and dirt. Some wear themselves to
death for the sake of statues and a name. And often to such
a degree through dread of death does hate of life and of the
sight of daylight seize upon mortals, that they commit. self-
murder with a scrrowing heart, quite forgetting that this fear
is the source of their cares, [this fear which urges men to every
sin], prompts this one to put all shame to rout, another to burst
asunder the bonds of friendship, and in fine to overturn duty
from its very base; since often ere now men _ have betrayed
country and dear parents in seeking to shun the Acherusian
quarters. For even as children are flurried and dread all things
in the thick darkness, thus we in the daylight fear at times
things not a whit more to be dreaded than what children shud-
der at in the dark and fancy sure to be. This terror therefore
and darkness of mind must be dispelled not by the rays of the
sun and glittermg shafts of day, but by the aspect and law of
nature.

First then I say that the mind which we often call the un-
derstanding, in which dwells the directing and governing prin-
ciple of life, is no less part of the man, than hand and foot and
eyes are parts of the whole hving creature. [Some however
affirm] that the sense of the mind does not dwell in a distinct
part, but is a certain vital state of the body, which the Grecks
call harmomia, because by it, they say, we hve with sense, though
the understanding is in no one part; just as when good health
is said to belong to the body, though yet it is not any one part
of the man in health. In this way they do not assign a distinct
part to the sense of the mind; in all which they appear to me
to be grievously at fault in more ways than one. Oftentimes the
body which is visible to sight, is sick, while yet we have pleasure
in another hidden part; and oftentimes the case is the very re-
verse, the man who 15. unhappy in mind feeling pleasure in his
whole body ; just as if, while a sick man’s foot is pained, the head
meanwhile should be in no pain at all. Moreover when the hmbs
are consigned to soft sleep and the burdened body lies diffused
without sense, there is yet a something else in us which during

60 III If£4—156

that time is moved in many ways and admits into it all the mo-
tions of joy and unreal cares of the heart. Now that you may
know that the soul as well is in the lhmbs and that the body is
not wont to have sense by any harmony, this 1s a main proof:
when much of the body has been taken away, still hfe often stays
in the limbs; and yet the same life, when a few bodies of heat
have been dispersed abroad and some air has been forced out
through the mouth, abandons at once the veins and quits the
bones: by this you may perceive that all bodies have not fune-
tions of like importance nor alike uphold existence, but rather
that those seeds which constitute wind and heat, cause life to
stay in the hmbs. Therefore vital heat and wind are within the
body and abandon our frame at death. Since then the nature
of the mind and that of the soul have been proved to be a part
as it were of the man, surrender the naine of harmony, whether
brought down to musicians from high Helicon, or whether rather
they have themselves taken it from something else and transferred
it to that thing which then was in need of a distinctive name ;
whatever it be, let them keep it: do you take m the rest of my
precepts.

Now I assert that the mind and the soul are kept together
in close union and make up a single nature, but that the direct-
ing principle which we call mind and understanding, is the head
so to speak and reigns paramount in the whole body. It has a
fixed seat in the middle region of the breast: here throb fear and
apprehension, about these spots dwell soothing joys; therefore
here is the understanding or mind. All the rest of the soul dis-
seminated through the whole body obeys and moves at the will
and inclination of the mind. It by itself alone knows for itself,
rejoices for itself, at times when the impression does not move
either soul or body together with it. And as when some part
of us, the head or the eye, suffers from an attack of pain, we do
not feel the anguish at the same time over the whole body, thus
the mind sometimes suffers pain by itself or is inspirited with joy,
when all the rest of the soul throughout the hmbs and frame is
stirred by no novel sensation. But when the mind is excited by
some more vehement apprehension, we see the whole soul feel
in unison through all the limbs, sweats and paleness spread over
the whole body, the tongue falter, the voice die away, a mist

156—108 1Π OI

cover the eyes, the ears ring, the hmbs sink under one; in short
we often see men drop down from terror of mind; so that any-
body may easily perceive from this that the soul is closely united
with the mind, and, when it has been smitten by the influence of
the mind, forthwith pushes and strikes the body.

This same principle teaches that the nature of the mind and
soul is bodily; for when it 15 seen to push the hmbs, rouse the
body from sleep, and alter the countenance and guide and turn
about the whole man, and when we see that none of these effects
can take place without touch nor touch without body, must we
not admit that the mind and the soul are of a bodily nature ?
Again you perceive that our mind in our body suffers together
with the body and feels in unison with it. When a weapon with
a shudder-causing force has been driven in and has laid bare bones
and sinews within the body, if it does not take hfe, yet there
ensues a faintness and a lazy sinking to the ground and on the
ground the turmoil of mind which arises, and sometimes a kind
of undecided inclination to get up. Therefore the nature of the
mind must be bodily, since it suffers from bodily weapons and
blows.

I will now go on to explain in my verses of what kind of body
the mind consists and out of what it is formed. First of all I say
that it 15 extremely fine and formed of exceedingly minute bodies.
That this is so you may, if you please to attend, clearly perceive
from what follows: nothing that is seen takes place with a ve-
locity equal to that of the mind when 10 starts some suggestion
and actually sets it agoing; the mind therefore is stirred with
greater rapidity than any of the things whose nature stands out
visible to sight. But that which is so passing nimble, must con-
- sist of seeds exceedingly round and exceedingly minute, in order
to be stirred and set in motion by a small moving power. Thus
water is moved and heaves by ever so small a force, formed as it
is of small particles apt to roll. But on the other hand the nature
of honey is more sticky, its hquid more sluggish and its movement
nore dilatory; for the whole mass of matter coheres more closely,
because sure enough it is made of bodies not so smooth fine and
round. <A breeze however gentle and light can force, as you may
see, a high heap of poppy seed to be blown away from the top
downwards; but on the other hand eurus itself cannot move a

62 ΠΠ 198—242

heap of stones. Therefore bodies possess a power of moving in
proportion to theiy smallness and smoothness; and on the other
hand the greater weight and roughness bodies prove to have, the
more stable they are. Since then the nature of the mind has
been found to be eminently easy to move, it must consist of
bodies exceedingly small smooth and round. The knowledge of
which fact, my good friend, will on many accounts prove useful
and be serviceable to you. The following fact too likewise demon-
strates how fine the texture is of which its nature is composed,
and how small the room is in which it can be contained, could it
only be collected into one mass: soon as the untroubled sleep of
death has gotten hold of a man and the nature of the mind and
soul has withdrawn, you can pereeive then no dimimution of the
entire body either in appearance or weight: death makes all good
save the vital sense and heat. ‘Therefore the whole soul must
consist of very small seeds and be inwoven through veins and
flesh and sinews; inasmueh as, after it has all withdrawn from
the whole body, the exterior contour of the limbs preserves itself
entire and not a tittle of the weight is lost. Just in the same
way when the flavour of wine is gone or when the delicious aroma
of a perfume has been dispersed into the air or when the savour
has left some body, yet the thing itself does not therefore look
smaller to the eye, nor does aught seem to have been taken from
the weight, because sure enough many minute seeds make up
the savours and the odour in the whole body of the several
things. Therefore, again and again I say, you are to know that
the nature of the mind and the soul has been formed of exeeed-
ingly minute seeds, since at its departure it takes away none of
the weight.

We are not however to suppose that this nature 15 single.
For a eertain subtle spirit mixed with heat quits men at death,
and then the heat draws air along with it; there being no heat
which has not air too mixed with it: for since its nature is rare,
many first-beginnings of air must move about through it. Thus
the nature of the mind is proved to be threefold; and yet these
things all together are not sufficient to produce sense; since the
fact of the case does not admit that any of these can produce
sense-giving motions and the thoughts which a man turns over
in mind, Thus some fourth nature too must be added to these:

242—283 Π|Ι 63

it is altogether without name; than it nothing exists more nimble
or more fine, or of smaller or smoother elements: it first trans-
mits the sense-giving motions through the frame; for it is first
stirred, made up as it is of small particles; next the heat and
the unseen force of the spirit receive the motions, then the air;
then all things are set in action, the blood is stirred, every part
of the flesh is filled with sensation; last of all the feeling is trans-
mitted to the bones and marrow, whether it be one of pleasure
or an opposite excitement. No pain however can lightly pierce
thus far nor any sharp malady make its way in, without all things
being so thoroughly disordered that no room is left for life and
the parts of the soul fly abroad through all the pores of the body.
But commonly a stop is put to these motions on the surface as it
were of the body: for this reason we are able to retain life.

Now though I would fain explain in what way these are mixed
up together, by what means united, when they exert their powers,
the poverty of my native speech deters me sorely against my will:
yet will I touch upon them and in summary fashion to the best of
my ability: the first-beginnings by their mutual motions are inter-
laced in such a way that none of them can be separated by itsclf,
nor can the function of any go on divided from the rest by any
interval; but they are so to say the several powers of one body.
Even so in any flesh of living creature you please without excep-
tion there 1s smell and some colour and a savour, and yet out of all
these is made up one single bulk of body. Thus the heat and
the air and the unseen power of the spirit mixed together produce
a single nature, together with that nimble force which trans-
mits to them from itself the origin of motion; by which means
sense-giving motion first takes its mse through the fleshly frame.
For this nature lurks secreted in its inmost depths, and nothing
in our body is farther beneath all ken than it, and more than this
it is the very soul of the whole soul. Just in the same way as the
power of the mind and the function of the soul are latent in our
limbs and throughout our body, because they are each formed of
small and few bodies: even so, you are to know, this nameless
power made of minute bodies 15 concealed and is moreover the
very soul so to say of the whole soul, and reigns supreme in the
whole body. On a like principle the spirit and air and heat must,
as they exert their powers, be mixed up together through the

64 III 284—325

frame, and one must ever be more out of view or more prominent
than another, that a single substance may be scen to be formed
from the union of all, lest the heat and spirit apart by themselves
and the power of the air apart by itself should destroy sense and
dissipate it by their disunion. Thus the mind possesses that heat
which it displays when it boils up in anger and fire flashes from
the keen eyes; there is too much cold spirit comrade of fear,
which spreads a shivermg over the hmbs and stirs the whole
frame; yes and there is also that condition of still air which has
place when the breast 1s calm and the looks cheerful. But they
have more of the hot whose keen heart and passionate mind lightly
boil up in anger. Toremost in this class comes the fierce vio-
lence of lions who often as they chafe break their hearts with their
roaring and cannot contain within their breast the billows of their
rage. Then the chilly mind of stags is fuller of the spirit and
more quickly rouses through all the flesh its icy currents which
cause a shivering motion to pass over the hmbs. But the nature
of oxen has its life rather from the still air, and never does the
smoky torch of anger applied to it stimulate 1t too much, shedding
over 1t the shadow of murky gloom, nor is it transfixed and stif-
fened by the icy shafts of fear: it lics between the other two, stags
and cruel hons. -And thus it is with mankind: however much
teaching renders some equally refined, it yet leaves behind those
earllest traces of the nature of each mind; and we are not to sup-
pose that evil habits can be so thoroughly plucked up by the roots,
that one man shall not be more prone than another to keen anger,
a second shall not be somewhat more quickly assailed by fear,
a third shall not take some things more meekly than is right. In
many other points there must be differences between the varied
natures of men and the tempers which follow upon these; though
at prescnt I am unable to set forth the hidden causes of these
or to find names enough for the different shapes which belong
to the first-beginnings, from which shapes arises this diversity of
things. What herein I think I may affirm is this: traces of the
different natures left behind, which reason is unable to expel from
us, are so exceedingly slight that there 1s nothing to hinder us
from living a hfe worthy of gods.

Well this nature is contained by the whole body and 15 in turn
the body’s guardian and the cause of its existence; for the two

328 —305 Ill 65

adhere together with common roots and cannot it is plain be riven
asunder without destruction. Even as it is not easy to pluck the
perfume out of lumps of frankincense without quite destroying its
nature as well; so it 15 not easy to withdraw from the whole body
the nature of the mind and soul without dissolving all alike.
With first-beginnings so interlaced from their earliest birth are
they formed and gifted with a life of joint partnership, and it is
plain that the faculty of the body and of the mind cannot feel
separately, each alone without the other’s power, but sense is
kindled throughout our flesh and blown into flame between the
two by the joint motions on the part of both. Moreover the body
by itself is never either begotten or grows or, it is plain, continues
to exist after death. For not in the way that the liquid of water
often loses the heat which has been given to it, yet 1s not for
that reason itself riven in pieces, but remains unimpaired,—not
in this way, I say, can the abandoned frame endure the separation
of the soul, but riven in pieces it utterly perishes and rots away.
Thus the mutual connexions of body and soul from the first
moment of their existence Jearn the vital motions even while hid
in the body and womb of the mother, so that no separation can
take place without mischief and ruin. Thus you may see that,
since the cause of existence les in their jomt action, their nature
too must be a jot nature.

Furthermore if any one tries to disprove that the body feels
and believes that the soul mixed through the whole body takes
upon it this motion which we name sense, he combats even mani-
fest and undoubted facts. For who will ever bring forward any
explanation of what the body’s feeling is, except that which the
plain fact of the case has itself given and taught tous? But when
the soul it is said has departed, the body throughout is without
sense; yes, for it loses what was not its own peculiar property
in life; ay and much else it loses, before that soul is driven
out of it.

Again to say that the eyes can see no object, but that the
soul discerns through them as through an open door, is far from
easy, since their sense contradicts this; for this sense e’en draws it
and forces it out to the pupil: nay often we are unable to perceive
shining things, because our eyes are embarrassed by the lights.
But this 1s not the case with doors; for, because we ourselves see,

Μ. 1{Π|. Ε

66 ΠΙΊ 366—404

the open doors do not therefore undergo any fatigue. Again if
our eyes are in the place of doors, in that case when the eyes
are removed the mind ought it would seem to have more power of
secing things, after doors, jambs and all, have been taken out of
the way. .

And herein you must by no means adopt the opinion which
the revered judgment of the worthy man Democritus lays down,
that the first-beginnings of body and mind placed together in
successive layers come in alternate order and so weave the tissue
of our limbs. For not only are the elements of the soul much
smaller than those of which our body and flesh are formed, but
they are also much fewer in number and are disseminated merely
in scanty number through the frame, so that you can warrant no
more than this: the first-beginnings of the soul keep spaces be-
tween them at least as great as are the smallest bodies which, if
thrown upon it, are first able to excite in our body the sense-
giving motions. Thus at times we do not feel the adhesion of dust
when it settles on our body, nor the impact of chalk when it
rests on our limbs, nor do we feel a mist at night nor a spider's
slender threads as they come against us, when we are caught in
its meshes in moving along, nor the same insect’s flimsy web when
it has fallen on our head, nor the feathers of birds and down
of plants as it flies about, which commonly from exceeding
lightness does not lightly fall, nor do we feel the tread of every
creeping creature whatsoever nor each particular foot-print which
gnats and the lke stamp on our body. So very many first-
beginnings must be stirred in us, before the seeds of the soul
mixed up in our bodies feel that these have been disturbed, and
by thumping with such spaces between can clash unite and in
turn recoil.

The mind has more to do with holding the fastnesses of life
and has more sovereign sway over it than the power of the soul.
For without the understanding and the mind no part of the soul
ean maintain itself in the frame the sinallest fraction of time, but
follows at once in the other’s train and passes away into the air
and leaves the cold limbs in the chill of death. But he abides in
life whose mind and understanding continue to stay with him:
though the trunk is mangled with its hmbs shorn all round about
it, after the soul has been taken away on all sides and been

404—445 I 67

severed from the limbs the trunk yet lives and inhales the
ethereal airs of life. When robbed, if not of the whole, yet of a
large portion of the soul, it still lmgers in and cleaves to life; just
as, after the eye has been lacerated all round if the pupil has
continued uninjured, the hving power of sight remains, provided
always you clo not destroy the whole ball of the eye and pare close
round the pupil and leave only it; for that will not be done even
to the ball without the entire destruction of the eye. But if that
middle portion of the eye, small as 1t 15, is eaten into, the sight is
gone at once and darkness ensues, though a man have the bright
ball quite unimpaired. On such terms of union soul and mind are
ever bound to each other.

Now mark me: that you may know that the minds and
light souls of living creatures have birth and are mortal, I will
go on to set forth verses worthy of your attention, got together
by long study and invented with weleome effort. Do you mind
to link to one name both of them alike, and when for instance
I shall choose to speak of the soul, shewing it to be mortal,
believe that I speak of the mind as well, inasmuch as_ both
make up one thing and are one united substance. First of all
then since I have shewn the soul to be fine and to be formed of
minute bodies and made up of much smaller first-beginnings
than is the liquid of water or mist or smoke:—for it far sur-
passes these in nimbleness and is moved, when struck by a far
slenderer cause; inasmuch as it is moved by images of smoke
and mist; as when for instance sunk in sleep we see altars steam
forth their heat and send up their smoke on high; for beyond
a doubt images are begotten for us from these things :—well
then since you see on the vessels being shattered the water flow
away on all sides, and since mist and smoke pass away into air,
believe that the soul too is shed abroad and perishes much more
quickly and dissolves sooner into its first bodies, when once it
has been taken out of the limbs of a man and has withdrawn.
For, when the body that serves for its vessel cannot hold it,
if shattered from any cause and rarefied by the withdrawal of
blood from the veins, how can you believe that this soul can
be held by any air? how can that air which is rarer than our
body hold it in?

Again we perceive that the mind is begotten along with

E

Lo

68 1:1 4.387

the body and grows up together with it and becomes old along
with it. For even as ehildren go about with a tottering and
weakly body, so slender sagacity of mind follows along with it;
then when their life has reached the maturity of confirmed
strength, the judgment too is greater and the power of the mind
more developed. Afterwards when the body has been shattered
by the mastering might of time and the frame has drooped
with its forces dulled, then the intellect halts, the tongue dotes,
the mind gives way, all faculties fail and are found wanting at
the same time. It naturally follows then that the whole nature
of the soul is dissolved, like smoke, into the high air; since we
see it is begotten along with the body and grows up along with
it and, as I have shewn, breaks down at the same time worn
out with age.

Moreover we see that even as the body is hable to violent
diseases and severe pain, so 15 the mind to sharp eares and grief
and fear; it naturally follows therefore that it is its partner in
death as well. Again in diseases of the body the mind often
wanders and goes astray; for it loses its reason and drivels in
its speech and often in a profound lethargy 15 carried into deep
and never-ending sleep with droopimg eyes and head; out of
which it neither hears the voiees nor can recognise the faces of
those who stand round ealling it back to hfe and bedewing with
tears face and cheeks. Therefore you must admit that the
mind too dissolves, since the infeetion of disease reaches to it;
for pain and disease are both forgers of death: a truth we have
fully learned ere now by the death of many. Again, when the
pungeut strength of wine has entered into a man and its spirit
has been infused into and transmitted through his veins, why
is it that a heaviness of the limbs follows along with this, his
legs are hampered as he reels about, his tongue falters, his
mind is besotted, his eyes swim, shouting hiecuping wranglings
are rife, together with all the other usual coneomitants, why is
ull this, if not beeause the overpowering violence of the wine
is wont to disorder the soul within the body? But whenever
things can be disordered and hampered, they give token that if
a somewhat more potent cause gained an entrance, they would
perish and be robbed of all further existence. Moreover 1t often
happens that some one constrained by the violence of disease

488—528 ΠῚ 69

suddenly drops down before our eyes, as by a stroke of light-
ning, and foams at the mouth, moans and shivers through his
frame, loses his reason, stiffens his muscles, is racked, gasps for
breath fitfully, and wearies his limbs with tossing. Sure enough,
because the violence of the disease spreads itself through his
frame and disorders him, he foams as he tries to eject his soul,
just as in the salt sea the waters boil with the mastering might
of the winds. A moan too is forced out, because the limbs are
seized with pain, and mainly because seeds of voice are driven
forth and are carried in a close mass out by the mouth, the road
which they are accustomed to take and where they have a well- .
paved way. Loss of reason follows, because the powers of the
mind and soul are disordered and, as I have shewn, are riven and
forced asunder, torn to pieces by the same baneful malady. Then
after the cause of the disease has bent its course back and the
acrid humours of the distempered body return to their hiding-
places, then he first gets up like one reeling, and by little and
little comes back mto full possession of his senses and regains
his soul. Since therefore even within the body mind and soul
are harassed by such violent distempers and so miserably racked
by sufferings, why believe that they without the body in the open
air can continue existence battling with fierce winds? And since
we perceive that the mind is healed like the sick body, and
we see that it can be altered by medicine, this too gives warn-
ing that the mind has a mortal existence. For it is natural that
whosoever essays and attempts to change the mind or seeks to
alter any other nature you like, should add new parts or change
the arrangement of the present, or withdraw in short some tittle
from the sum. But that which is immortal wills not to have
its parts transposed nor any addition to be made nor one tittle
to ebb away; for whenever a thing changes and quits its proper
limits, this change 15 at once the death of that which was be-
fore. Therefore the mind, whether it is sick or whether it is
altered by medicine, alike, as I have shewn, gives forth mortal
symptoms. So invariably is truth found to make head against
false reason and to cut off all retreat from the assailant and by
a two-fold refutation to put falsehood to rout.

Again we often sce a man pass gradually away and limb by
limb lose vital sense; first the toes of his feet and the nails

7) rie 528—568

turn livid, then the feet and shanks die, then next the steps of
chilly death creep with slow pace over the other members. There-
fore since the nature of the soul is rent and passes away and
does not at one time stand forth in its entireness, it must
be reckoned mortal. But if haply you suppose that it can
draw itself in through the whole frame and mass its parts to-
gether and in this way withdraw sense from all the limbs, yet
then that spot into which so great a store of soul is gathered,
ought to shew itself in possession of a greater amount of sense.
But as this is nowhere found, sure enough as we said before, it
is torn in pieces and scattered abroad, and therefore dies. More-
over if I were pleased for the moment to grant what is false
and admit that the soul might be collected in one mass in the
body of those who leave the light dying piecemeal, even then
you must admit the soul to be mortal; and it makes no differ-
ence whether it perish dispersed in air, or gathered into one
lump out of all its parts lose all feeling, since sense ever more
and more fails the whole man throughout and less and less of
life remains throughout.

And since the mind is one part of a man which remains
fixed in a particular spot, just as are the ears and eyes and the
other senses which guide and direct life; and just as the hand
or eye or nose when separated from us cannot feel and exist
apart, but in however short a time wastes away in putrefaction,
thus the mind cannot exist by itself without the body and the
man’s self which as you see serves for the mind’s vessel or any
thing else you choose to imagine which implies a yet closer
union with it, since the body is attached to it by the nearest
ties.

Again the quickened powers of body and mind by their
joint partnership enjoy health and hfe; for the nature of the
mind cannot by itself alone without the body give forth vital
motions nor can the body again bereft of the soul continue to
exist and make use of its senses: just, you are to know, as the
eye itself torn away from its roots cannot see anything when
apart from the whole body, thus the soul and mind cannot it is
plain do anything by themselves. Sure enough, because mixed
up through veins and flesh, sinews and bones, their first-begin-
nings are confined by all the body and are not free to bound

568—608 III 7]

away leaving great spaces between, therefore thus shut in they
make those sense-giving motions which they cannot make after
death when forced out of the body into the air by reason that
they are not then confined in a like manner; for the air will be
a body and a living thing, if the soul shall be able to keep
itself together and to enclose in it those motions which it used
before to perform in the sinews and within the body. Moreover
even while it yet moves within the confines of hfe, often the
soul shaken from some cause or other is seen to wish to pass
out and be loosed from the whole body, the features are seen
to droop as at the last hour and all the limbs to sink flaccid
over the bloodless trunk: just as happens, when the phrase is
used, the mind is in a bad way, or the soul is quite gone;
when all is hurry and every one is anxious to keep from parting
the last tie of life; for then the mind and the power of the soul
are shaken throughout and both are quite loosened together
with the body; so that a cause somewhat more powerful can
quite break them up. Why doubt I would ask that the soul
when driven forth out of the body, when in the open air, feeble
as it 1s, stript of its covering, not only cannot continue through
eternity, but is unable to hold together the smallest fraction of
time? Therefore, again and again I say, when the enveloping
body has been all broken up and the vital airs have been forced
out, you must admit that the senses of the mind and the soul are
dissolved, since the cause of destruction is one and inseparable for
both body and soul.

Again since the body is unable to bear the separation of the
soul without rotting away in a noisome stench, why doubt that
the power of the soul gathering itself up from the inmost depths
of body has oozed out and dispersed like smoke, and that the
crumbling body has changed and tumbled in with so total a
ruin for this reason because its foundations throughout are stirred
from their places, the soul oozing out abroad through the frame,
through all the winding passages which are in the body, and all
openings? so that in ways manifold you may learn that the
nature of the soul has been divided piecemeal and gone forth
throughout the frame, and that it has been torn to shreds within
the body, ere it glided forth and swam out into the air. For no
one when dying appears to feel the soul go forth entire from his

75 Τω 608—649

—

whole body or first mount up to the throat and gullet, but all
feel it fail in that part which hes in a particular quarter; just
as they know that the senses as well suffer dissolution each in its
own place. But if our mind were immortal, it would not when
dying complain so much of its dissolution, as of passing abroad
and quitting its vesture, ike a snake.

Again why are the mind’s understanding and judgment never
begotten in the head or feet or hands, but cling in all alike to one
spot and fixed quarter, if it be not that particular places are
assigned for the birth of everything, and [nature has determined]
where each is to continue to exist after it is born? [Our body
then must follow the same law] and have such a manifold organi-
sation of parts, that no perverted arrangement of its members
shall ever shew itself: so invariably effect follows causc, nor 1s
flame wont to be born in rivers nor cold in fire.

Again if the nature of the soul is immortal and can feel when
separated from our body, methinks we must suppose 1t to be pro-
vided with five senses; and in no other way can we picture to
ourselves souls below flitting about Acheron. Painters therefore
and former generations of writers have thus represented souls
provided with senses. But neither eyes nor nose nor hand can
exist for the soul apart from the body nor can tongue, nor can
ears perceive by the sense of hearing or exist for the soul by
themselves apart from the body.

And since we perceive that vital sense is in the whole body
and we see that it is all endowed with life, if on a sudden any
force with swift blow shall have cut it in twain so as quite to
dissever the two halves, the power of the soul will without doubt
at the same time be cleft and cut asunder and dashed in twain
together with the body. But that which is cut and divides into
any parts, you are to know disclaims for itself an everlasting
nature. Stories are told how scythed chariots reeking with in-
discriminate slaughter often lop off limbs so instantaneously that
that which has fallen down lopped off from the frame is seen to
quiver on the ground, while yet the mind and faculty of the man
trom the suddenness of the mischief cannot feel the pain; and
because his mind once for all is wholly given to the business of
fighting, with what remains of his body he mingles in the fray
and carnage, and often perceives not that the wheels and de-

649—691 TI az

vouring scythes have carried off among the horses’ feet his left
arm shield and all; another sees not that his mght arm has
dropped from him, while he mounts and presses forward. An-
other tries to get up after he has lost his leg, while the dying foot
quivers with its toes on the ground close by. The head too when
cut off from the warm and living trunk retains on the ground the
expression of life and open eyes, until 1t has yielded up all the
remnants of soul. To take another case, if, as a serpent’s tongue
“is quivering, as its tail is darting out from its long body, you
choose to chop with an axe into many pieces both [tail and body],
you will see all the separate portions thus cut off writhing under
the fresh wound and bespattering the earth with gore, the fore
part with the mouth making for its own hinder part, to allay with
burning bite the pain of the wound with which it has been smit-
ten. Shall we say then that there are entire souls in all those
pieces ἢ why from that argument it will follow that one living
creature had many souls in its body; and this being absurd,
therefore the soul which was one has been divided together with
the body; therefore each alike must be reckoned mortal, since
each is alike chopped up into many pieces.

Again if the nature of the soul is immortal and makes its
way into our body at the time of birth, why are we unable to
remember besides the time already gone, and why do we retain
no traces of past actions? If the power of the mind has been so
completely changed, that all remembrance of past things is lost,
that methinks differs not widely from death; therefore you must
admit that the soul which was before has perished and that which
now is has now been formed.

Again if the quickened power of the mind is wont to be put
into us after our body is fully formed, at the instant of our birth
and our crossing the threshold of hfe, it ought agreeably to this
to live not in such a way as to scem to have grown with the body
and together with its members within the blood, but as in a den
apart by and to itself: the very contrary to what undoubted fact
teaches ; for it is so closely united with the body throughout the
veins flesh sinews and bones, that the very teeth have a share of
sense ; as their aching proves and the sharp twinge of cold water
and the crunching of a rough stone, when it has got into them
out of bread, Wherefore, again and again I say, we must believe

74 | at 691—733

souls to be neither without a birth nor exempted from the law of
death; for we must not believe that they could have been so
completely united with our bodies, if they found their way into
them from without, nor, since they are so closely inwoven with
them, does it appear that they can get out unharmed and unloose
themselves unscathed from all the sinews and bones and joints.
But if haply you believe that the soul finds its way in from
without and is wont to ooze through all our hmbs, so much the
more it will perish thus blended with the body; for what oozes
through another is dissolved, and therefore dics. As food dis-
tributed through all the cavities of the body, while it is trans-
mitted into the limbs and the whole frame, is destroyed and
furnishes out of itself the matter of another nature, thus the soul
and mind, though they pass entire into a fresh body, yet in oozing
through it are dissolved, whilst there are transmitted so to say
into the frame through all the cavities those particles of which
this nature of mind is formed, which now is sovereign in our body,
being born out of that soul which then perished when dispersed
through the frame. Wherefore the nature of the soul is seen to
be neither without a birthday nor exempt from death.

Again are seeds of the soul left in the dead body or not? If
they are left and remain in it, the soul cannot fairly be deemed
immortal, since it has withdrawn lessened by the loss of some
parts; but if when taken away from the yet untainted limbs it
has fled so entirely away as to leave in the body no parts of
itself, whence do carcases exude worms from the now rank flesh
and whence does such a swarm of living things, boneless and
bloodless, surge through the heaving frame? But if haply you
believe that souls find their way into worms from without and
can severally pass each into a body and you make no account
of why many thousands of souls meet together in a place from
which one has withdrawn, this question at least must, 1t seems, be
raised and brought to a decisive test, whether souls hunt out
the several seeds of worms and build for themselves a place to
dwell in, or find their way into bodies fully formed so to say.
But why they should on their part make a body or take such
trouble, cannot be explained; since being without a body they
are not plagued as they flit about with diseases and cold and
hunger, the body being more akin to, more troubled by such

733-774 cl 75

infirmities, and by its contact with it the mind suffering many
ills. Nevertheless be it ever so expedient for them to make
a body, when they are going to enter, yet clearly there is no
way by which they can do so. Therefore souls do not make for
themselves bodies and limbs; no nor can they by any method
find their way into bodies after they are fully formed; for they
will neither be able to unite themselves with a nice precision
nor will any connexion of mutual sensation be formed between
them.

Again why does untamed fierceness go along with the sullen
brood of hons, cunning with foxes and proneness to flight with
stags? and to take any other instance of the kind, why are all
qualities engendered in the hmbs and temper from the very com-
mencement of life, if not beeause a fixed power of mind derived
from its proper sced and breed grows up together with the whole
body? Ifit were immortal and wont to pass into different bodies,
living creatures would be of interchangeable dispositions ; a dog
of Hyrcanian breed would often fly before the attack of an antlered
stag, a hawk would cower in mid air as it fled at the approach of
a dove, men would be without reason, the savage races of wild
beasts would have reason. for the assertion that an immortal
soul is altered by a change of body is advaneed on a false prin-
ciple. What is changed is dissolved, and therefore dies: the
parts are transposed and quit their former order; therefore
they must admit of being dissolved too throughout the frame, in
order at last to die one and all together with the body. But
if they shall say that souls of men always go into human bodies,
I yet will ask how it is a soul can change from wise to foolish,
and no child has diseretion, and why the mare’s foal is not so
well trained as the powerful strength of the horse. You may
be sure they will fly to the subterfuge that the mind grows
weakly mn a weakly body. But granting this is so, you must
admit the soul to be mortal, since changed so completely through-
out the frame it loses its former life and sense. Then too in
what way will it be able to grow in strength uniformly with its
allotted body and reach the coveted flower of age, unless it shall
be its partner at its first beginning? or what means it by passing
out from the limbs when decayed with age? does it fear to re-
main shut up in a crumbling body, fear that its tenement, worn

70 [ΠῚ 774—826

out by protraeted length of days, bury it in its rums? Why an
immortal bemg incurs no risks.

Again for souls to stand by at the unions of Venus and the
birth-throes of beasts seems to be passing absurd, for them the
immortals to wait for mortal limbs in number numberless and
struggle with one another in forward rivalry, which shall first and
by preference have entrance in; unless haply bargains are struck
among the souls on these terms, that whichever im its flight shall
first come up, shall first have right of entry, and that they shall
make no trial at all of each other’s strength.

Again a tree cannot exist m the ether, nor clouds in the deep
sea nor can fishes live in the fields nor blood exist in woods nor
sap in stones. Where each thing can grow and abide 15 fixed and
ordained. Thus the nature of the mind cannot come into being
alone without the body nor exist far away from the sinews and
blood. But if (for this would be much more hkely to happen than
that) the force itself of the 1mnd might be in the head or shoul-
ders or heels or might be born in any other part of the body, it
would after all be wont to abide in one and the same man or
vessel. But since in our body even it is fixed and seen to be
ordained where the soul and the mind can severally be and grow,
it must still more strenuously be denied that it can abide and be
born out of the body altogether. Therefore when the body has
died, we must admit that the soul has perished, wrenched away
throughout the body. To link forsooth a mortal thing with an
everlasting and suppose that they can have sense in common and
can be reciprocally acted upon, is sheer folly; for what can be
conceived more incongruous, more discordant and inconsistent
with itself, than a thing which is mortal, lmked with an immortal
and everlasting thing, trymg in such union to weather furious
storms? But if haply the soul is to be accounted immortal for
this reason rather, because it is kept sheltered from death-bring-
ing things, either beeause things hostile to its existence do not
approach at all, or because those which do approach, 11 some
way or other retreat discomfited before we can feel the harm
they do, [manifest experience proves that this can not be true].
For besides that it sickens in sympathy with the maladies of the
body, it is often attacked by that which frets 1t on the score
of the future and keeps it on the rack of suspense and wears

826—866 Ill 7G

it out with cares; and when ill deeds are in the past, remorse for
sins yet gnaws: then there is madness peculiar to the mind and
forgetfulness of all things; then too it often sinks into the black
waters of lethargy.

Death therefore to us is nothing, concerns us not a jot, since
the nature of the mind is proved to be mortal; and as in time
gone by we felt no distress, when the Poeni from all sides came
together to do battle, and all things shaken by war’s troublous
uproar shuddered and quaked beneath high heaven, and mortal
men were in doubt which of the two peoples it should be to
whose empire all must fall by sea and land alike, thus when we
shall be no more, when there shall have been a separation of
body and soul, out of both of which we are each formed into a
single being, to us, you may be sure, who then shall be no
more, nothing whatever can happen to excite sensation, not if
earth shall be mingled with sea and sea with heaven. And
even supposing the nature of the mind and power of the soul do
feel, after they have been severed from our body, yet that is
nothing to us who by the binding tie of marriage between body
and soul are formed each into one single being. And if time
should gather up our matter after our death and put it once
more into the position in which it now is, and the light of life
be given to us again, this result even would concern us not
at all, when the chain of our self-consciousness has once been
snapped asunder. So now we give ourselves no concern about any
self which we have been before, nor do we feel any distress on
the score of that self. For when you look back on the whole
past course of immeasurable time and think how manifold are
the shapes which the motions of matter take, you may easily
credit this too, that these very same seeds of which we now are
formed, have often before been placed in the same order in
which they now are; and yet we cannot recover this in memory:
a break in our existence has been interposed, and all the motions
have wandered to and fro far astray from the sensations they
produced. [or he whom evil is to befal, must in his own person
exist at the very time it comes, if the misery and suffering are
haply to have any place at all; but since death precludes this,
and forbids him to be, upon whom the ills can be brought, you
may be sure that we have nothing to fear after death, and

78 ΠῚ 867—903

that he who exists not, cannot become miserable, and that it
matters not a whit whether he has been born into life at any
other time, when immortal death has taken away his mortal life.

Therefore when you see a man beimoaning his hard case,
that after death he shall either rot with his body laid in the
grave or be devoured by flames or the jaws of wild beasts, you
may be sure that his ring betrays a flaw and that there lurks in
his heart a secret goad, though he himself declare that he does
not believe that any sense will remain to him after death. He
does not methinks really grant the conclusion which he pro-
fesses to grant nor the principle on which he so professes, nor
does he take and force himself root and branch out of life, but
all unconsciously imagines something of self to survive. For
when any one in life suggests to himself that birds and beasts
will rend his body after death, he makes moan for himself: he
does not separate himself from that self, nor withdraw himself
fully from the body so thrown out, and fancies himself that
other self and stands by and unpregnates it with his own sense.
Hence he makes much moan that he has been born mortal, and
sees not that after real death there will be no other self to re-
main in life and lament to self that his own self has met death,
and there to stand and gneve that his own self there lying is
mangled or burnt. For if it is an evil after death to be pulled
about by the devouring jaws of wild beasts, I cannot see why
it should not be a cruel pain to be laid on fires and burn in
hot flames, or to be placed in honey and stifled, or to stiffen
with cold, stretched on the smooth surface of an icy slab of
stone, or to be pressed down and crushed by a load of earth
above.

‘Now no more shall thy house admit thee with glad wel-
come, nor a most virtuous wife and sweet children run to be
the first to snatch kisses and touch thy heart with a silent joy.
No more mayst thou be prosperous in thy doings, a safeguard
to thine own. One disastrous day has taken from thee luckless
man in luckless wise all the many prizes of life’. This do men
say; but add not thereto ‘and now no longer does any craving
for these things beset thee withal’. For if they could rightly
perceive this in thought and follow up the thought m words,
they would release themselves from great distress and appre-

903-942 Tit 79

hension of mind. ‘Thou, even as now thou art, sunk in the
sleep of death, shalt continue so to be all time to come, freed
from all distressful pains; but we with a sorrow that would not
be sated wept for thee, when close by thou didst turn to an
ashen hue on thv appalling funeral pile, and no length of days
shall pluck from our hearts our ever-during grief’. This question
therefore should be asked of this speaker, what there is in it so
passing bitter, if 10 come in the end to slecp and rest, that any
one should pine in never-ending sorrow.

This too men often, when they have reclined at table cup
in hand and shade their brows with crowns, love to say from
the heart, ‘short is this enjoyment for poor weak men; pre-
sently it will have been and never after may it be called back’.
As if after their death it is to be one of their chiefest afflictions
that thirst and parching drought is to burn them up hapless
wretches, or a craving for any thing else is to beset them.
What folly! no one feels the want of himself and life at the
time when mind and body are together sunk in sleep; for all
we care this sleep might be everlasting, no craving whatever
for ourselves then moves us. And yet by no means do those
first-beginnings throughout our frame wander at that time far
away from their sense-producing motions, at the moment when
aman starts up from sleep and collects himself. Death therefore
must be thought to concern us much less, if less there can be
than what we see to be nothing; for a greater dispersion of the
mass of matter follows after death, and no one wakes up, upon
whom the chill cessation of life has once come.

Once more, if the nature of things could suddenly utter a
voice and in person could rally any of us in such words as these
‘what hast thou, o mortal, so much at heart, that thou goest
such lengths in sickly sorrows? why bemoan and bewail death ?
for say thy life past and gone has been welcome to thee and thy
blessings have not all, as if they were poured into a perforated
vessel, run through and been lost without avail: why not then
take thy departure like a guest filled with life, and with resig-
nation, thou fool, enter upon untroubled rest? but if all that
thou hast enjoyed, has been squandered and lost, and life is a
grievance, why seck to make any addition, to be wasted per-
versely in its turn and lost utterly without avail? why not

80 Ii] 943—980

rather make an end of life and travail? for there is nothing
more which I can contrive and discover for thee to give plea-
sure: all things are ever the same. Though thy body is not
yet decayed with years nor thy frame worn out and exhausted,
yet all things remain the same, ay though in length of life thou
shouldst outlast all races of things now living, nay even more
if thou shouldst never die’, what answer have we to make save
this, that nature sets up against us a well-founded claim and
puts forth in her pleading a true indictment? If however one of
greater age and more advanced in years should complain and
lament poor wretch his death more than is right, would she
not with greater cause raise her voice and rally him in sharp
accents, ‘away from this time forth with thy tears, rascal; a
truce to thy complainings: thou decayest after full enjoyment
of all the prizes of life. But because thou ever yearnest for
what is not present, and despisest what is, life has slipped from
thy grasp unfinished and unsatisfying, and or ever thou thought-
est, death has taken his stand at thy pillow, before thou canst
take thy departure sated and filled with good things. Now how-
ever resign all things unsuited to thy age, and with a good
grace up and greatly go: thou must’. With good reason me-
thinks she would bring her charge, with reason rally and re-
proach; for old things give way and are supplanted by new
without fail, and one thing must ever be replenished out of other
things; and no one is delivered over to the pit and black Tar-
tarus: matter is needed for after generations to grow; all of
which though will follow thee when they have finished their term
of life; and thus it is that all these no less than thou have before
this come to an end and hereafter will come to an end. Thus one
thing will never cease to rise out of another, and life is granted to
none in fee-simple, to all in usufruct. Think too how the bygone
antiquity of everlasting time before our birth was nothing to us.
Nature therefore holds this up to us as a mirror of the time yet to
come after our death. Is there aught in this that looks appalling,
aught that wears an aspect of gloom? is 1t not more untroubled
than any sleep ?

And those things sure enough, which are fabled to be in the
deep of Acheron, do all exist for us in this life) No Tan-
talus, numbed by groundless terror, as the story is, fears poor

g8o— 1023 III SI

wretch a huge stone hanging in air; but in hfe rather a base-
less dread of the gods vexes mortals: the fall they fear is ‘such
fall of luck as chance brings to each. Nor do birds eat a way
into Tityos laid in Acheron, nor can they sooth to say find
during eternity food to peck under his large breast. However
huge the bulk of body he extends, though such as to take up
with outspread limbs not nine acres merely, but the whole
earth, yet will he not be able to endure everlasting pain and
supply food from his own body for ever. But he is for us a
Tityos, whom as he grovels in love vultures rend and bitter
bitter anguish eats up or troubled thoughts from any other pas-
sion do rive. In life too we have a Sisyphus before our eyes
who is bent on asking from the people the rods and cruel axes,
and always retires defeated and disappointed. For to ask for
power, which empty as it is is never given, and always in the
chase of it to undergo severe toil, this is forcing up-hill with
much effort a stone which after all rolls back again from the
summit and seeks in headlong haste the levels of the plain.
Then to be ever feeding the thankless nature of the mind, and
never to fill 1¢ full and sate it with good things, as the seasons
of the year do for us, when they come round and bring their
fruits and varied delights, though after all we are never filled
with the enjoyments of life, this methinks is to do what is told
of the maidens in the flower of their age, to keep pouring water
into a perforated vessel which in spite of all can never be filled
full. Moreover Cerberus and the furies and yon privation of
light [are idle tales, as well as all the rest, Ixion’s wheel and
black] Tartarus belching forth hideous fires from his throat:
things which nowhere are nor sooth to say can be. But there
is in life a dread of punishment for evil deeds, signal as the
deeds are signal, and for atonement of guilt, the prison and the
frightful hurling down from the rock, scourgings, executioners,
the dungeon of the doomed, the pitch, the metal plate, torches;
and even though these are wanting, yet the conscience-stricken
mind through boding fears applies to itself goads and frightens
itself with whips, and sees not meanwhile what end there can
be of ills or what limit at last is to be set to punishments, and
fears lest these very evils be enhanced after death. The life of
fools at length becomes a hell here on earth.

ΔΙ, LEE. Ε

82 ΠῚ 1024—1063

This too you may sometimes say to yourself, ‘even worthy
Ancus has quitted the light with his eyes, who was far far better
than thou, unconscionable man. And since then many other
kings and kesars have been laid low, who lorded 1t over mighty
nations. He too, even he who erst paved a way over the great
sea and made a path for his legions to march over the deep and
taught them to pass on foot over the salt pools and set at
naught the roarings of the sea, trampling on them with his
horses, had the light taken from him and shed forth his soul
from his dying body. The son of the Scipios, thunderbolt of
war, terror of Carthage, yielded his bones to earth just as if he
were the lowest memial. Think too of the inventors of all
sciences and graceful arts, think of the companions of the Hel1-
conian maids; among whom Homer bore the sceptre without a
peer, and he now sleeps the same sleep as others. Then there
is Democritus who, when a ripe old age had warned him that
the memory-waking motions of his mind were waning, by his
own spontaneous act offered up his head to death. Even Epicurus
passed away, when his hght of hfe had run its course, he who
surpassed in intellect the race of man and quenched the hght of
all, as the ethereal sun arisen quenches the stars. Wilt thou
then hesitate and think it a hardship to die? thou for whom hfe
is well nigh dead whilst yet thou livest and seest the hght, who
spendest the greater part of thy time in sleep and snorest wide
awake and ceasest not to see visions and hast a mind troubled
with groundless terror and canst not discover often what it is
that ails thee, when besotted man thou art sore pressed on all
sides with full many cares and goest astray tumbling about in
the wayward wanderings of thy mind.

If, just as they are seen to feel that a load is on their mind
which wears them out with its pressure, men might apprehend
from what causes too it is produced and whence such a pile, if I
may say so, of ill hes on their breast, they would not spend their
life as we see them now for the most part do, not knowing any
one of them what he means and wanting ever change of place
as though he might lay his burden down. The man who is sick
of home often issues forth from his large mansion, and as sud-
denly comes back to it, finding as he does that he is no better
off abroad. He races to his country-house, driving his jennets

1063—1094 Ii] 83

in headlong haste, as if hurrying to bring help to a house on
fire: he yawns the moment he has reached the door of his
house, or sinks heavily into sleep and seeks forgetfulness, or
even in haste goes back again to town. In this way each man
flies from himself, (but self from whom, as you may be sure 1s
commonly the case, he cannot escape, clings to him in his own
despite) hates too himself, because he is sick and knows not the
cause of the malady; for if he could mghtly see into this, relin-
quishing all else each man would study to learn the nature of
things, since the point at stake is the condition for eternity, not
for one hour, in which mortals have to pass all the time which
remains for them to expect after death.

Once more what evil lust of life is this which constrains us
with such force to be so mightily tronbled in doubts and dangers ?
a sure term of life is fixed for mortals, and death cannot be
shunned, but meet it we must. Moreover we are ever engaged,
ever involved in the same pursuits, and no new pleasure is
struck out by living on; but whilst what we crave is wanting,
it seems to transcend all the rest; then, when it has been got-
ten, we crave something else, and ever does the same thirst of
life possess us, as we gape for it open-mouthed. Quite doubtful
it is what fortune the future will carry with 1t or what chance
will bring us or what end is at hand. Nor by prolonging life
do we take one tittle from the time past in death nor can we
fret anything away, whereby we may haply be a less long time
in the condition of the dead. Therefore you may complete as
many generations as you please during your life; none the less
however will that everlasting death await you; and for no less
long a time will he be no more in being, who beginning with to-
day has ended his life, than the man who has died many months
and years ago.

1—29

LUCRETIUS
ON THE NATURE OF THINGS

BOOK FOURTH

[ traverse the pathless haunts of the Pierides never yet trodden
by sole of man. I love to approach the untasted springs and
to quaff, I love to cull fresh flowers and gather for my head
a distinguished crown from spots whence the muses have yet
veiled the brows of none; first because I teach of great things
and essay to release the mind from the fast bonds of religious
scruples, and next because on a dark subject I pen such lucid
verses oerlaying all with the muses’ charm. For that too would
seem to be not without good grounds: even as physicians when
they propose to give nauseous wormwood to children, first smear
the rim round the bowl with the sweet yellow juice of honey,
that the unthinking age of children may be fooled as far as
the lips, and meanwhile drink up the bitter draught of wortn-
wood and though beguiled yet not be betrayed, but rather by
such means recover health and strength: so 1 now, since this
doctrine seems generally somewhat bitter to those by whom it
has not been handled, and the multitude shrinks back from it
in dismay, have resolved to set forth to you our doctrine in
sweet-toned Pierian verse and o’erlay it as it were with the
pleasant honey of the muses, if haply by such means I might
engage your mind on my verses, till such time as you apprehend
all the nature of things and thoroughly feel what use it has.

And now that I have taught what the nature of the mind is
and out of what things it is formed into one quickened being
with the body, and how it is dissevered and returns into its first-
beginnings, I will attempt to lay before you a truth which most

29-77 IV 85

nearly concerns these questions, the existence of things which
we call idols of things: these, like films peeled off from the
surface of things, fly to and fro through the air, and do likewise _—
frighten our minds when they present themselves to us awake
as well as in sleep, what time we behold strange shapes and
idols of the hght-bereaved, which have often startled us in ap-
palling wise as we lay relaxed in sleep: this I will essay, that
we may not haply believe that souls break loose from Acheron
or that shades fiy about among the living or that something of us
is left behind after death, when the body and the nature of the
mind destroyed together have taken their departure into their
several first-beginnings.

I say then that pictures of things and thin shapes are emitted
from things off their surface, to which an image serves as a kind
of film, or name it if you like a rind, because such image bears
an appearance and form like to the thing whatever it is from
whose body it is shed and wanders forth. This you may learn
however dull of apprehension from what follows. First of all
since among things open to sight many emit bodies, some in a
state of loose diffusion, hke smoke which logs of oak, heat which
fires emit; some of a closer and denser texture, like the gossamer
coats which at times cicades doff in summer, and the films which
calves at their birth cast from the surface of their body, as well as
the vesture which the slippery serpent puts off among the thorns,
for often we see the brambles enriched with their flying spoils :
since these cases occur, a thin image likewise must be emitted
from things off their surface. For why those films should drop
off and withdraw from things rather than films which are really
thin, not one tittle of proof can be given; especially since there
are on the surface of things many minute bodies which may be
discharged in the same order they had before and preserve the
outline of the shape, and be discharged with far more velocity,
inasmuch as they are less liable to get hampered being few in
number and stationed in the front rank. For without doubt we
see many things discharge and freely give not only from the core
and centre, as we said before, but from their surfaces, besides
other things colour itself. And this is commonly done by yellow
and red and dark-blue awnings, when they are spread over large
theatres and flutter and wave as they stretch across their poles

86 IV 77—I21

and crossbeams; for then they dye the seated assemblage below
and all the show of the stage and the richly attired company of
the fathers, and compel them to dance about in their colour.
And the more these objects are shut in all round by the walls
of the theatre, the more do all of them within laugh on all hands,
oerlaid with graceful hues, the light of day being narrowed.
Therefore since sheets of canvass emit colour from their surface,
all things will naturally emit thin pictures too, since in each case
alike they discharge from the surface. There are therefore as now
shewn sure outlines of shapes, which fly all about possessed of an
exquisitely small thickness and cannot when separate be seen one
at a time. © Again all smell smoke heat and other such-like things
stream off things in a state of diffusion, because while they are
coming from the depths of the body having arisen within it, they
are torn in their winding passage, and there are no straight ort-
fices to the paths, for them to make their way out by in a mass.
But on the other hand when a thin film of surface colour is
discharged, there is nothing to rend it, since it is ready to hand
stationed in front rank. Lastly in the case of all idols which
shew themselves to us in mirrors, in water or any other shining
object, since their outsides are possessed of an appearance like
to the things they represent, they must be formed of emitted
images of things. There are therefore thin shapes and pictures
hke to the things, which, though no one ean see them one at
a time, yet when thrown oft by constant and repeated reflexion
give back a visible image from the surface of mirrors; and in no
other way it would seem can they be kept so entire that shapes
are given back so exceedingly hke each object.

Now mark, and learn how thin the nature of an image is.
And first of all, since the first-beginnings are so far below the
ken of our senses and much smaller than the things which our
eyes first begin to be unable to see, to strengthen yet more the
proof of this also, learn in a few words how minutely fine are
the beginnings of all things. First, living things are in some
cases so very little, that their third part cannot be seen at all.
Of what size are we to suppose any gut of such ereatures to be?
or the ball of the heart or the eyes? the hmbs? or any part
of the frame? how small they must be! And then further the
several first-beginnings of which their soul and the nature of

121—161 IV 87

their mind must be formed? do you not perceive how fine, how
minute they are? Again in the case of all things which exhale
from their body a pungent smell, all-heal, nauseous wormwood,
strong-scented southernwood and the bitter centauries, any one of
which, 1f you happen to [feel 10] hghtly between two [fingers, will
impregnate them with a strong smell] ** but rather you are to
know that idols of things wander about many in number in many
ways, of no force, powerless to excite sense.

But lest haply you suppose that only those idols of things
which go off from things and no others wander about, there are
likewise those which are spontaneously begotten and are formed
by themselves in this lower heaven which is called air: these
fashioned in many ways are borne along on high and being in a
fluid state cease not to alter their appearance and change it into
the outline of shapes of every possible kind; as we see clouds
sometimes gather into masses on high and blot the calm clear
face of heaven, fanning the air with their motion. Thus often the
faces of giants are seen to fly along and draw after them a far-
spreading shadow; sometimes great mountains and rocks torn
from the mountains are seen to go in advance and pass across the
sun; and then some huge beast is observed to draw with it and
bring on the other storm-clouds.

Now [1 will proceed to shew] with what ease and celerity they
are begotten and how incessantly they flow and fall away from
things. ‘The outermost surface is ever streaming off from things
and admits of being discharged: when this reaches some things,
it passes through them, glass especially. But when it reaches
rough stones or the matter of wood, it is then so torn that it
cannot give back any idol. But when objects at once shining and
lense have been put in its way, a mirror especially, none of these
results has place: 1t can neither pass through it, like glass, nor
can it be torn either; such perfect safety the polished surface
minds to ensure. In consequence of this idols stream back to us
from such objects; and however suddenly at any moment you
place any thing opposite a mirror, an image shews itself: hence
you may be sure that thin textures and thin shapes of things in-
cessantly stream from their surface. Therefore many idols are
begotten in a short time, so that the birth of such things is with
good reason named a rapid one. And as the sun must send forth

-

88 IV 161—200

many rays of light in a short time in order that all things may be
continually filled with it, so also for a like reason there must be
carried away from things in a moment of time idols of things
many in number in many ways in all directions round; since to
whatever part of them we present a mirror before their surfaces,
other things correspond to these in the mirror of a hke shape and
hike colour. Moreover though the state of heaven has just before
been of unsullied purity, with exceeding suddenness it becomes so
hideously overcast, that you might imagine all its darkness had
abandoned Acheron throughout and filled up the great vaults of
heaven: in such numbers do faces of black horror rise up from
amid the frightful night of stormclouds and hang over us on high.
Now there is no one who can tell how small a fraction of these an
image is, or express that sum in language.

Now mark: how swift the motion is with which idols are
borne along, and what velocity 1s assigned to them as they ghde
through the air, so that but a short hour is spent on a journey
through long space, whatever the spot towards which they go
with a movement of vaned tendency, all this I will tell in
sweetly worded rather than in many verses; as the short song
of the swan is better than the loud noise of cranes scattered
abroad amid the ethereal clouds of the south. First of all we
may very often observe that things which are light and made of
minute bodies are swift. Of this kind are the light of the
sun and its heat, because they are made of minute first things
which are knocked forward so to speak and do not hesitate to
pass through the space of air between, ever driven on by a
blow following behind; for hght on the instant is supplied by
fresh light and brightness goaded to shew its brightness in what
you might call an ever on-moving team. Therefore in like
manner idols must be able to scour in a moment of time through
space unspeakable, first because they are exceeding small and
there is a cause at their back to carry and impel them far for-
ward; where moreover they move on with such winged lght-
ness; next because when emitted they are possessed of so rare
a texture, that they can readily pass through any things and
stream as it were through the space of air between. Again if
those minute bodies of things which are given out from the
iumost depths of these things, as the light and heat of the sun,

BOI—242 IV 89

are seen in a moment of time to glide and spread themselves
through the length and breadth of heaven, fly over sea and
lands and flood the heaven, what then of those which stand
ready posted in front rank, when they are discharged and
nothing obstructs their egress? how much faster, you see, and
farther must they travel, scourmg through many times the
same amount of space in the same time that the sunhght takes
to spread over heaven! This too appears to be an eminently
true proof of the velocity with which idols of things are borne
along: as soon as ever the brightness of water is set down
in the open air, if the heaven is starry, in a moment the clear
radiant constellations of ether imaged in the water correspond
to those in the heaven. Now do you see in what a moment of
time an image drops down from the borders of heaven to the
borders of earth? Therefore again and again I repeat you
must admit that bodies capable of striking the eyes and of pro-
voking vision [constantly travel] with a marvellous [velocity].
Smells too incessantly stream from certain things; as does cold
from rivers, heat from the sun, spray from the waves of the sea,
that eater into walls near the shore. Various sounds also cease
not to fly through the air. Then too a moist salt flavour often
comes into the mouth, when we are moving about beside the
sea; and when we look on at the mixing of a decoction of
wormwood, its bitterness affects us. In such a constant stream
from all things the several qualities are carried and are trans-
mitted in all directions round, and no delay, no respite in the
flow is ever granted, since we constantly have feeling, and may at
any time see smell and hear the sound of anything.

Again since a particular figure felt by the hands in the dark
ig known to be the same which is seen in the bright light of
day, touch and sight must be excited by a quite similar cause.
Well then if we handle a square thing and it excites our atten-
tion in the dark, in the daylight what square thing will be
able to fall on our sight, except the image of that thing?
Therefore the cause of seeing it is plain lies in images and
no thing can be perceived without them. Well the idols of
things I speak of are borne along all round and are discharged
and transmitted in all directions; but because we can see with
the eyes alone, the consequence is that, to whatever point

gO IV 242-284

we turn our sight, there all the several things meet and strike
it with their shape and colour. And the image gives the power
to see and the means to distngmsh how far each thing 15
distant from us; for as soon as ever it 15 discharged, 1t pushes
before it and impels all the air which lies between it and the
eyes; and thus that air all streams through our eyes and
brushes so to say the pupils and so passes through. The con-
sequence is that we see how far distant each thing is. And the
greater the quantity of air which is driven on before it and the
larger the current which brushes our eyes, the more distant
each different thing is seen to be. You must know these pro-
cesses go on with extreme rapidity, so that at one and the same
moment we see what like a thing is and how far distant it is.
And this must by no means be deemed strange herein that,
while the idols which strike the eyes cannot be seen one at
a time, the things themselves are seen. For thus when the
wind too beats us with successive strokes and when piercing
cold streams, we are not wont to feel each single particle of that
wind and cold, but rather the whole result; and then we per-
ceive blows take effect on our body just as if something or
other were beating it and giving us a sensation of its body out-
side. Again when we thump a stone with a finger, we touch
merely the outermost colour on the surface of the stone, and
yet we do not feel that colour by our touch, but rather we feel
the very hardness of the stone seated in its inmost depths.
Now mark, and learn why the image is seen beyond the
mirror; for without doubt it is seen withdrawn far within. The
case 15 Just the same as with things which are viewed in their
reality beyond a door, when it offers through it an unobstructed
prospect and lets many things outside be seen from ἃ house.
That vision too is effected by two separate airs: first there is
an air seen in such a case inside the doorway; next come the
leaves of the door right and left; next a light outside brushes
the eyes, then a second air, then those things outside which are
viewed in their reality. Thus when the image of the mirror has
first discharged itself, in coming to our sight it pushes forward
and impels all the air which les between it and the eyes, and
enables us to see the whole of it before the mirror. But when we
have perceived the mirror as well, at once the image which is

284— 324 eye Ol

conveyed from us reaches the mirror and then is reflected and
comes back to our eyes, and drives on and rolls in front of it a
second air and lets us see this before itself, and for this reason it
looks so far withdrawn from the mnror. Wherefore again and
again I repeat there is no cause at all to wonder why the images
give back the reflexion from the surface of mirrors in the spot
they do, since in both the given cases the result 1s produced by
two airs. To proceed, the right side of our body is seen in
mirrors to be on the left, becanse when the image comes and
strikes on the plane of the mirror, it is not turned back unaltered,
but is beaten out in a right line backwards, just as if you were
to take a plaster mask before it is dry and dash it on a pillar or
beam, and it forthwith were to preserve the lines of its features
undistorted in front and were to strike out an exact copy of itself
straight backwards. The result will be that the eye which was
right will now be left; and conversely the left become the right.
An image may also be so transmitted from one mirror to another
that five or six idols are often produced. And thus all the things
which lurk in the inmost corners of a house, however far they
are withdrawn into tortuous recesses, may yet be all brought out
through winding passages by the aid of a number of mirrors
and be seen to be in the house. So unfailingly does the image
reflect itself from mirror to mirror; and when the left side 1s pre-
sented, it becomes the right in the new image; then it is changed
back again and turns round to what it was. Moreover all little
sides of mirrors which possess a curvature resembling our side,
send back to us idols with their right corresponding to our right
either for this reason, because the image is transmitted from one
mirror to another, and then after it has been twice struck out
flies to us, or else because the image, when it has come to the
mirror, wheels about, because the curved shape of the mirror
teaches it to turm round and face us. Again you would think
that idols step out and put down their foot at the same time with
us and mimic our action, because from before whatever part of a
mirror you move away, from that part forthwith no idols can
be reflected; since nature constrains all things, when they are
carried back and recoil from things, to be given back at angles
equal to those at which they impinged.

Bright things again the eyes eschew and shun to look upon:

92 ΤΥ 325—371

the sun even blinds them, if you persist in turning them towards
it, because its power is great and idols are borne through the clear
air with great downward force from on high, and strike the eyes
and disorder their fastenings. Moreover any vivid brightness often
burns the eyes, because it contains many seeds of fire which make
a way in and beget pain in the eyes. Again whatever the jaun-
diced look at, becomes a greenish-yellow, because many seeds of
greenish-yellow stream from their body and meet the idols of
things, and many too are mixed up in their eyes, and these by
their infection tinge all things with sallow hues. Again we see
out of the dark things which are in the light for this reason: when
the black air of darkness being the nearer has first entered and
taken possession of the open eyes, the bright white air follows
straightway after and cleanses them so to say and dispels the
black shadows of the other air; for this is a great deal more nim-
ble, a great deal more subtle and more efficacious. As soon as
it has filled with light and opened up the passages of the eyes
which the black air had before blocked up, forthwith the idols
of things which are situated in the light follow and excite them
so that we see. This we cannot do conversely in the dark out of
the light, because the grosser air of darkness follows behind and
quite fills all the openings and blocks up the passages of the eyes,
not letting the idols of any things at all be thrown into the eyes
to move them. Again when we descry far off the square towers
of a town, they often appear to be round for this reason: all the
angles are seen from a distance to look obtuse, or rather are not
seen at all, and their blow is lost and their stroke never makes its
way to our sight, because while the idols are borne on through
much air, the air by repeated collisions blunts the stroke perforce.
When in this way all the angles have together eluded the sense,
the stone structures are rounded off as if by the lathe; yet they
do not look like the things which are close before us and really
round, but somewhat resembling them as in shadowy outline.
Our shadow likewise seems to move in the sunshine and to fol-
low our steps and mimic our action; if you think forsooth that
air deprived of life can step, imitating the motions and the actions
of men; for that which we are wont to term shadow can be no-
thing but air devoid of light. Sure enough because the earth in
certain spots successively is deprived of light wherever we inter-

372—413 Ly 93

cept it in moving about, while that part of 1t which we have quit-
ted is filled with light, therefore that which was the shadow of
our body, seems to have always followed us unchanged in a direct
line with us. For new rays of light ever pour in and the cld are
lost, just as if wool were drawn into the fire. Therefore the earth
is readily stripped of hght, and again filled, and cleanses itself from
black shadows.

And yet in all this we do not admit that the eyes are cheated
one whit. For it is their province to observe in what spot soever
hght and shade are; but whether the hghts are still the same or
not, and whether it is the same shadow which was in this spot
that is now passing to that, or whether what we said a litle
before is not rather the fact, this the reason of the mind, and
only it, has to determine; nor can the eyes know the nature of
things. Do not then fasten upon the eyes this frailty of the
mind. The ship in which we are sailing, moves on while seeming
to stand still; that one which remains at its moorings, is believed
to be passing by. The hills and fields seem to be dropping astern,
past which we are driving our ship and flymg under sail. The
stars all seem to be at rest fast fixed to the ethereal vaults, and yet
are all in constant motion, since they nse and then go back to their
far-off places of setting, after they have traversed the length of
heaven with their bright bodies. In hke manner sun and moon
seem to stay in one place, bodies which simple fact proves are
carried on. And though between mountains rising up afar off
from amid the waters there opens out for fleets a free passage of
wide extent, yet a single island seems to be formed out of them
united into one. When children have stopped turning round
themselves, the halls appear to them to whirl about and the
pillars to course round to such a degree, that they can scarce
believe that the whole roof is not threatening to tumble down
upon them. Again when nature begins to raise on high the
sun’s beam ruddy with bickering fires and to lift it up above the
mountains, those hills above which the sun then seems to you
to be, as blazing close at hand he dyes them with his own fire,
are distant from us scarce two thousand arrow-flights, yea often
scarce five hundred casts of a javelin; and yet between them and
the sun he immense levels of sea, spread out below the huge
borders of ether, and many thousands of lands are between, held

94 IV 413-454

by divers peoples and races of wild beasts. Then a puddle of
water not more than a finger-breadth decp, which stands between
the stones in the streets, offers a prospect beneath the earth of a
reach as vast, as that with which the high yawning maw of heaven
opens out above the carth; so that you seem to discern clouds and
see the bodies of birds far withdrawn into that wondrous sky
beneath the earth. Again when our stout horse has stuck in the
middle of a river and we have looked down on the swift waters of
the stream, some force seems to carry athwart the current the
body of the horse which is standing still and to force it rapidly
up the stream; and to whatever point we cast our eyes about, all
things seem-to be carried on and to be flowing in the same way as
we are. Again although a portico runs in parallel lines from one
eud to the other and stands supported by equal columns along 108
whole extent, yet when from the top of it it 1s seen in its entire
length, it gradually forms the contracted top of a narrowing cone,
until uniting roof with floor and all the nght side with the left 1t
has. brought them together into the vanishing point of a cone.
To sailors on the sea the sun appears to rise out of the waters and
in the waters to set and bury his light; just because they behold
nothing but water and sky; that you may not lightly suppose the
credit of the senses to be shaken on all hands. Then to people
unacquainted with the sea ships in harbour seem to be all askew
and with poop-fittings broken to be pressing up against the water.
For whatever part of the oars 15 raised above the salt water,
is straight, and the rudders in their upper half are straight: the
parts which are sunk below the water-level, appear to be broken
and bent round and to slope up and turn back towards the sur-
face and to be so much twisted back as wellnigh to float on the
top of the water. And when the winds carry the thinly scattered
clouds across heaven in the night-time, then do the glittenng
signs appear to glide athwart the rack and to be travelling on high
in a direction quite different to their real course. Then if our
hand chance to be placed beneath one eye and press it below,
through a certain sensation all things which we look at appear
then to become double as we look; the light of lamps brilhant
with flames to be double, double too the furniture through the
whole house, double men’s faces and men’s bodies. Again when
sleep has chained down our limbs in sweet slumber and the whole

434-495 IV 95

body is sunk in profound repose, yet then we seem to ourselves to
be awake and to be moving our limbs, and mid the thick dark-
ness of night we think we see the sun and the dayhght; and
though in a confined room, we seem to be passing to new climates
seas rivers and mountains and to be crossing plains on foot and to
hear noises, though the austere silence of night prevails all round,
and to be uttering speech though quite silent. Many are the
other marvels of this sort we see, which all seek to shake as it
were the credit of the senses: quite in vain, since the greatest
part of these cases cheats us on account of the mental suppositions
which we add of ourselves, taking those things as seen which have
not been seen by the senses. For nothing is harder than to sepa-
rate manifest -facts from doubtful which straightway the mind
adds on of itself.

Again if a man believe that nothing is known, he knows
not whether this even can be known, since he admits he knows
nothing. I will therefore decline to argue the case against him
who places himself with head where his feet should be. And
yet granting that he knows this, I would still put this question,
since he has never yet seen any truth in things, whence he knows
what knowing and not knowing severally are, and what it 15
that has produced the knowledge of the true and the false and
what has proved the doubtful to differ from the certain. You
will find that from the senses first has proceeded the knowledge
of the true and that the senses cannot be refuted. For that
which is of itself to be able to refute things false by true things
must from the nature of the case be proved to have the higher
certainty. Well then what must fairly be accounted of higher
certainty than sense? Shall reason founded on false sense be
able to contradict them, wholly founded as it is on the senses ?
and if they are not true, then all reason as well 15 rendered false.
Or shall the ears be able to take the eyes to task, or the touch the
ears? Again shall the taste call in question this touch, or the
nostrils refute or the eyes controvert 101 Not so, 1 guess; for
each apart has its own distinct office, each its own power; and
therefore we must perceive what is soft and cold or hot by one
distinct faculty, by another perceive the different colours of things
and thus see all objects which are conjoined with colour. Taste
too has its faculty apart; smells spring from one source, sounds

96 IV 495—536

from another. It must follow therefore that any one sense cannot
confute any other. No nor can any sense take itself to task,
since equal credit must be assigned to it at all times. What
therefore has at any time appeared true to each sense, is true.
And if reason shall be unable to explain away the cause why
things which close at hand were square, at a distance looked
round, it yet is better, if you are ata loss for the reason, to state
erroneously the causes of each shape, than to let shp from your
grasp on any side things mamifest and ruin the groundwork of
behef and wrench up all the foundations on which rest life and
existence. For not only would all reason give way, hfe itself
would at once fall to the ground, unless you choose to trust the
senses and shun precipices and all things else of this sort that are
to be avoided, and to pursue the opposite things. All that host
of words then be sure is quite unmeaning, which has been drawn
out in array against the senses. Once more, as in a building, if
the rule first applied is wry, and the square is untrue and swerves
from its straight lines, and if there is the slightest hitch in any
part of the level, all the construction must be faulty, all must be
wry crooked sloping, leaning forwards, leaning backwards, without
symmetry, so that some parts seem ready to fall, others do fall,
ruined all by the first erroneous measurements; so too all reason
of things must needs prove to you distorted and false, which 1s
founded on false senses.

And now to explain in what way the other senses do each
perceive their several objects, is the nowise arduous task which
is still left.

In the first place all sound and voice is heard when they have
made their way into the ears and have struck with their body
the sense of hearing. For voice too and sound you must admit to
be bodily, since they are able to act upon the senses. Again voice
often abrades the throat, and shouting in passing forth makes the
windpipe more rough: when to wit the first-beginnings of voices
have risen up in larger mass and commenced to pass abroad
through their strait passage, you are to know the door of the
mouth now crammed itself is abraded. There is no doubt then
that voices and words consist of bodily first-beginnings, with the
power to hurt; nor can you fail to know how much of body 15
taken away and how much is withdrawn from men’s very sinews

5306--- 57] (Lays 97

and strength by a speech continued without interruption from
the dawning brightness of morning to the shadow of black
night, above all if it has been poured forth with much loud
shouting. Voice therefore must be bodily, since a man by much
speaking loses a portion from his body. Next roughness of
voice comes from roughness of first-beginnings, as smoothness
is produced from smoothness. Nor are the first-beginnings of
like shape which pierce the ears in these two cases: when the
trumpet brays dully in deep low tones, the barbarian country
roused echoing back the hoarse hollow sound, and when swans
from the headstrong torrents of Helicon raise their clear-toned
dirge with plaintive voice.

When therefore we force these voices forth from the depths
of our body and discharge them straight out at the mouth, the
phant tongue deft fashioner of words gives them articulate utter-
ance and the structure of the lips does its part in shaping them.
Therefore when the distance is not long between the point from
which each several voice has started and that at which it arrives,
the very words too must be plainly heard and distinguished syl-
lable by syllable; for each voice retains its structure and retains
its shape. But if the space between be more than is suitable,
the words must be huddled together in passing through much
air and the voice be disorganised in its flight through the same.
Therefore it is that you can hear a sound, yet cannot distinguish
what the meaning of the words is: so huddled and hampered is the
voice when it comes. Again ἃ single word often stirs the ears
of a whole assembly of people, when uttered by the crier’s mouth.
One voice therefore in a moment starts asunder into many voices,
since it distributes itself separately into all the ears, stamping
upon them the form and distinct sound of the word. But such
of the voices as do not fall directly on the ears, are carried past
and lost, fruitlessly dispersed in air: some striking upon solid
spots are thrown back and give back a sound and sometimes
mock by an echo of the word. When you fully perceive all this,
you may explain to yourself and others how it is that in lonely
spots rocks give back in regular succession forms of words like to
those sent forth, as we seek our comrades straying about among
the darkened hills and with loud voice call upon them scattered
abroad. I lave seen places give back as many as six or seven

M. HI. G

98 . IV 577—617

voices, when you sent forth one: in such wise did the very hil!s
dash back on hills and repeat the words thus trained to come
back. These spots the people round fancy that the goat-footed
satyrs and nymphs inhabit, and tell that they are the fauns by
whose night-pervading noise and sportive play as they declare the
still silence is broken and sounds produced of stringed instru-
ments and sweet plaintive melodies, such as the pipe pours forth
when beaten by the fingers of the players; the country-people
hearing far and wide, what time Pan nodding the piny covering of
his head half a beast’s oft runs over the gaping reeds with eurved
lip, making the pipe without ceasing to pour forth its wood-
land song. Other such like prodigies and marvels they tell of,
that they may not haply be thonght to inhabit lonely places,
abandoned even by the gods. On this account they vaunt such
wonders in their stories or are led on by some other reason;
inasmuch as the whole race of man is all too greedy after listen-
ing ears.

To proceed, you need not wonder how it is that through
places, through which the cyes cannot see plain things, voices
come and strike the cars. We often see a conversation go on
even through closed doors, sure enough because the voice can
pass uninjured through the winding openings of things, while idols
refuse to pass: they are torn to shreds, if the openings through
which they ghde are not straight, like those of glass, through
which every image passes. Again a voice distributes itself in
all directions, since voices are begotten one out of another, when
a single voice has onee gone forth and sprung into many, as a
spark of fire is often wont to distribute itself into its constituent
fires. Therefore places are filled with voices, which though far
withdrawn out of view yet are all in commotion and stirred by
sound, But idols all proceed in straight courses as soon as they
have been discharged; and therefore you can never see beyond a
wall, but you may hear voices outside it. And yet this very voice
even in passing through the walls of houses 15 blunted and enters
the ears in a huddled state, and we seem to hear the sound rather
than the actual words.

The tongue and palate whereby we perceive flavour, have not
in them anything that calls for longer explanation or offers more
difficulty. In the first place we perceive flavour in the mouth

617—657 iV 99

when we press if out in chewing our food, in the same way as
when one haply begins to squeeze with his hand and dry a sponge
full of water. Next the whole of what we press out distributes
itself through the cavities of the palate and the intricate openings
of the porous tongue. Therefore when the bodies of oozing fla-
vour are smooth, they pleasantly touch and pleasantly feel all
the parts about the moist exuding quarters of the palate. But
on the other hand when they rise in a mass they puncture and
tear the sense according to the degree in which they are pervaded
by roughness. Next the pleasure from the flavour reaches as far
as the palate; when however it has passed down through the
throat, there is no pleasure while it is all distributing itself into
the frame. And it makes no matter what the food is with which
the body is nurtured, provided you can digest what you take and
transinit it into the frame and keep the stomach in an equable
condition of moistness.

T will now explain how it is that different food is pleasant and
nutritious for different creatures; also why that which to some is
nauseous and bitter, may yet to others seem passing sweet; and
why in these matters the difference and discrepancy is so great
that what to one man is food, to another is rank poison; and
there 15 actually a serpent which on being touched by a man’s
spittle wastes away and destroys itself by gnawing its body.
Again hellebore for us is rank poison, but helps to fatten goats
and quails. That you may know how this comes to pass, first of
all you must remember what we have said before, that the seeds
which are contained in things are mixed up in manifold ways.
Again all living creatures soever which take food, even as they
are unlike on the outside, and, differmg in each after its kind, an
exterior contour of limbs bounds them, so likewise are they formed
of seeds of varying shape. Again since the seeds differ, there
must be a discrepancy in the spaces between and the passages,
which we name openings, in all the limbs and mouth and palate
as well. Some openings therefore must be smaller, some larger;
some things must have them threc-cornered, others square; many
must be round, some many-angled after many fashions, For as
the relation between the shapes of seeds and their motions re-
quire, the openings also must differ accordingly in their shapes;
and the passages must vary, as varies the texture formed by the

G2

100 ΡΥ 637—695

seeds which bound them. Tor this reason when that which 15
sweet to some becomes bitter to others, for that creature to whom
it is sweet the smoothest bodies must enter the cavities of the
palate with power to feel them all over; but on the other hand in
the case of those to whom the same thing is bitter within, rough
and barbed seeds sure enough pass down the throat. It is easy
now from these principles to understand all particular cases: thus
when a fever has attacked any one from too great a flow of bile, or
a violent disease has been excited in any other way, thereupon the
whole body is disordered and all the arrangements of particles
then and there changed; the consequence of which is that the
bodies which before were suited to excite sensation, suit no more;
and those fit it better, which are able to make their way in and
beget a bitter sense. Both kinds for imstance are mixed up in the
flavour of honey: a point we have often proved before.

Now mark me, and I will discuss the way in which the con-
tact of smell affects the nostrils: and first there must be many
things from which a varied flow of smells streams and rolls on;
and we must suppuse that they thus stream and discharge and
disperse themselves among all things alike; but one smell fits
itself better to one creature, another to another on account of
their unlike shapes; and therefore bees are drawn on by the
smell of honey through the air to a very great distance, and
so are vultures by carcases. Also the onward-reaching power
of scent in dogs leads them whithcrsoever the cloven hoof of
wild beasts has carried them in their course; and the smell of
man is felt far away by the saviour of the Romans’ citadel, the
bright white goose. Thus different scents assigned to different
creatures led each to its appropriate food and constrain them
to recoil from nauseous poison, and in this way the races of beasts
are preserved.

Of all these different smells then which strike the nostrils
one may reach to a much greater distance than another; though
none of them is carried so far as sound, as voice, to say nothing
of things which strike the eyesight and provoke vision. For in
its mazy course each comes slowly on and is sooner lost, being
gradually dispersed into the readily receiving expanse of air;
first because coming out of its depths it with difficulty discharges
itself from the thing: for the fact that all things are found to

695--- 738 IV IOI

have a stronger smell when crushed, when pounded, when broken
up by fire, shews that odours stream and withdraw from the inner
parts of things: next you may see that smell is formed of larger
first-beginnings than voice, since 1t does not pass through stone
walls, through which voice and sound are borne without fail. For
this reason also you will find that 1t 1s not so easy to trace out in
what quarter a thing which smells is situated; for the blow cools
down as it loiters through the air, and the courier particles of
things are no longer hot when they finish their race to sense; for
which reason dogs are often at fault and lose the scent.

But what I have said is not tuund in smells and in the class
of flavours only, but also the forms and colours of thmgs are not
all so well suited to the senses of all, but that some will be more
distressing to the sight than others. Moreover ravenous lions
cannot face and bear to gaze upon a cock with flapping wings
putting night to rout and wont to summon morning with shrill
voice: in such wise they at once bethink themselves of flight,
because sure enough in the body of cocks are certain seeds, and
these, when they have been discharged into the eyes of lions, bore
into the pupils and cause such sharp pain that courageous though
they be, they cannot continue to face them ; while at the same
time these things cannot hurt at all our sight, either because
they do not enter m or because the moment they enter a free
passage out of the eyes 15 granted them, so that they cannot by
staymg behind hurt the eyes in any part.

Now mark, and hear what things move the mind, and learn
in a few words whence the things which come into it do come.
I say first of all that idols of things wander about many in num-
ber in many ways in all directions round, extremely thin; and
these when they meet, readily unite, like a cobweb or piece of
gold-leaf. For these idols are far thinner in texture than those
which take possession of the eyes and provoke vision; since these
enter in through the porous parts of the body and stir the fine
nature of the mind within and provoke sensation. ‘Therefore we
see Centaurs and limbs of Scyllas and Cerberus-like faces of dogs
and idols of those who are dead, whose bones earth holds im its
embrace; since idols of every kind are everywhere borne about,
partly those which are spontaneously produced within the air,
partly all those which withdraw from various things and those

ΙΟ2 IV γ25--- 78

which are formed by compounding the shapes of these. For as-
suredly no image of Centaur is formed out of a live one, since
no such nature of living creature ever existed; but when images
of a horse and a man have by chance come together, they readily
adhere at once, as we said before, on account of their fine nature
and thin texture. All other things of the kind are produced in
like fashion. And when these from extreme lightness are borne
on with velocity, as I shewed before, any one subtle composite
image you like readily moves the mind by a single stroke; for the
mind is fine and is itself wondrously nimble.

That all this is done as I relate you may easily learn from
what follows. So far as the one is like the other, sceing with
the mind and seeing with the eyes must be produced in a like
way. Well then since I have shewn that I perceive for instance
a lion by means of idols which provoke the eyes, you may be sure
that the mind is moved in a like way, which by means of idols
sees a lion or anything else just as well as the eyes, with this
difference that it perceives much thinner idols. And when sleep
has prostrated the body, for no other reason does the mind’s in-
telligence wake, except because the very same idols provoke our
minds which provoke them when we are awake, and to such a
degree that we seem without a doubt to perceive him whom life
has left and death and earth gotten hold of. This nature con-
strains to come to pass because all the senses of the bedy are then
hampered and at rest throughout the limbs and cannot refute the
unreal by real things. Moreover memory is prostrate and relaxed
in sleep and protests not that he has long been in the grasp of
death and destruction whom the mind believes 3t sees alive. Fur-
thermore it is not strange that idols move and throw about their
arms and other limbs in regular measure: for sometimes in sleep
an image is seen to do this: when the first to wit has gone and
a second then been born in another posture, that former one
seems to have altered its attitude. This remember you must
assume to take place with exceeding celerity: so great 15 the velo-
city, so great the store of things; so great in any one unit of time
that sense can seize 15 the store of particles, out of which the
supply may go on.

And here many questions present themselves and many points
must be cleared up by us, if we desire to give a plain exposition

7S —S823 IV 103

of things. The first question is why, when the wish has occurred
to any one to think of a thing, his mind on the instant thinks
of that very thing. Do idols observe our will, and so soon as we
will does an image present itself to us, if sea, if earth, ay or heaven
is what we wish? Assemblies of men, a procession, feasts, battles,
everything in short does nature at command produce and pro-
vide? and though to increase the marvel the mind of others in
the same spot and room is thinking of things all quite different.
What again are we to say, when we see in sleep idols advance
in measured tread and move their phant lmbs, when in nimble
wise they put out each phant arm in turn and represent to the
eyes over and over again an action with foot that moves in time ?
Idols to wit are imbued with art and move about well-trained,
to be able in the night-time to exhibit such plays. Or will this
rather be the truth? because in one unit of time, when we can
perceive it by sense and while one single word is uttered, many
latent times are contained which reason finds to exist, therefore
in any time you please all the several idols are at hand ready
prepared in each several place. And because they are so thin,
the mind can see distinctly only those which it strains itself to
see; therefore all that there are besides are lost, save only those
for which it has made itself ready. Moreover it makes itself
ready and hopes to see that which follows upon each thing; there-
fore the result does follow. Do you not see that the eyes also,
when they essay to discern things which are thin and fine, strain
themselves and make themselves ready, and without that we can-
not see distinctly? And yet you may observe even in things
which are plain before us, that if you do not attend, it is just as if
the thing were all the time away and far distant. What wonder
then, 1f the mind loses all other things save those with which it is
itself earnestly occupied? Then too from small indications we
draw the widest inferences and by our own fault entangle our-
selves in the meshes of self-delusion.

Sometimes 1t happens too that an image of the same kind is
not supphed, but what before was a woman, turns out in our
hands to have changed into a man; or a different face and age
succeed to the first. But sleep and forgetfulness prevent us from
feeling surprise at this.

And herein you should desire with all your might to shun

104 IV 823—865

the weakness, with a lively apprehension to avoid the mistake
of supposing that the bright lights of the eyes were made in order
that we might see; and that the tapering ends of the shanks and
hams are attached to the feet as a base in order to enable us to
step out with long strides; or again that the forearms were slung
to the stout upper arms and ministering hands given us on each
side, that we might be able to discharge the needful duties of
life. Other explanations of like sort which men give, one and all
put effect for cause through wrongheaded reasoning; sinee nothing
was born in the body that we might use it, but that which is born
begets for itself a use: thus seeing did not exist before the eyes
were born, nor the employment of speech ere the tongue was
made; but rather the birth of the tongue was long anterior to
language and the ears were made long before sound was heard,
and all the limbs, I trow, existed before there was any employ-
ment for them: they could not therefore have grown for the pur-
pose of being used. But on the other hand engaging in the strife
of battle aud mangling the body and staining the limbs with gore
were in vogue long before ghttering darts ever flew; and nature
prompted to shun a wound or ever the left arm by the help of
art held up before the person the defence of a shield. Yes and
consigning the tired body to rest is much older than a soft-
cushioned bed, and the slaking of thirst had birth before cups.
These things therefore which have been invented in accordance
with the uses and wants of life, may well be believed to have
been discovered for the purpose of being used. Far otherwise is
it with all those things which first were born, then afterwards
made known the purposes to which they might be put; at the
head of which class we see the senses and the limbs. Wherefore
again and again I repeat, it 1s quite impossible to believe that
they could have been made for the duties which they discharge.

It ought likewise to cause no wonder that the nature of the
body of each living creature absolutely requires food. 1 have
shewn that bodies ebb away and withdraw from things, many in
number in many ways; but most numerous must be those which
withdraw from living things; for because these are tried by active
motion, and many particles are pressed out from the depths of
the frame and carried off by sweating, many breathed out through
the mouth, when they pant from exhaustion, from such causes

865—906 IV 105

the body becomes rarefied and the whole nature undermined ; and
this state is attended by pain. Food therefore is taken in order
to give support to the frame and recruit the strength by its
infusion, and to close up the open-mouthed craving for meat
throughout limbs and veins. The moisture too passes into all the
parts which call for moisture; and many accumulated bodies of
heat which cause a burning in our stomach, the approach of liquid
scatters and quenches as if they were fire, so that dry heat can
no longer parch the frame. In this way then you see gasping
thirst is drenched out of our body, in this way the hungry craving
is satisfied.

Now how it comes to pass that we are able to step out when
we please, and how it is given us to move about our hmbs, and
what cause 15 wont to push forward the great load of this our
body I will tell: do you take in my words. I say that idols of
walking first present themselves to our mind and strike on the
mind, as we said before: then the will arises; for no one begins
to do anything, until his mind has first determined what it wills.
From the very fact that it determines such thing, there is an
image of that thing. When therefore the mind bestirs itself in
such a way as to will to walk and step out, it strikes at the same
moment the force of the soul which is spread over the whole
body throughout the himbs and frame; and this is easily done,
since the whole is held in close union with the nund. Next the
soul in its turn strikes the body, and thus the whole mass by
degrees is pushed on and sct in motion. Then again the body
becomes also rarefied, and the air, as you see its nature is, being
always so nimble in moving, comes and passes in great quantity
through the opened pores and is thus distributed into the most
minute parts of the body. In this way then by these two causes
acting in two ways the body like a ship is carried on by sails and
wind, And herein it need not excite any surprise that such very
minute bodies can steer so great a body and turn about the
whole of this our load; for wind though fine with subtle body
drives and pushes on a large ship of large moving mass and one
hand directs it however great the speed at which it is going and
one rudder steers 1t to any point you hke; and by means of
blocks of pulleys and tread-wheels a machine stirs many things of
great weight and raises them up with slight effort.

106 Ἷν 907—9438

Now by what means yon sleep lets a stream of repose over
the limbs and dispels from the breast the cares of the mind, I
will tell in sweetly worded rather than in many verses; as the
short song of the swan is better than the loud noise of cranes
scattered abroad amid the ethereal clouds of the south. Do you
lend me a nice ear and a keen mind, that you may not deny
what I say to be possible and secede with breast disdainfully
rejecting the words of truth, you yourself being m fault the while
and unable to discern. Sleep mainly takes place when the force
of the soul has been scattered about through the frame, and in
part has been forced abroad and taken its departure, and in part
has been thrust back and has withdrawn into the depths of the
body: after that the limbs are relaxcd and droop. For there is
no doubt that this sense exists in us by the agency of the soul;
and when sleep obstructs the action of this sense, then we must
assume that our soul has been disordered and forced abroad ; not
indeed all; for then the body would he steeped in the everlasting
chill of death. Where no part of the soul remaimed behind con-
cealed in the limbs, as fire remains concealed when buried nnder
much ash, whence could sense be suddenly rekindied through the
limbs, as flame can spring up from hidden fire ?

But by what means this change of condition 1s accomplished
and from what the soul can be disordered and the body grow
faint, I will explain: do you mind that I waste not my words
on the wind. In the first place the body in its outer side, since
it is next to and is touched by the air, must be thumped and
beaten by its repeated blows; and for this reason all things as
a rule are covered either by a hide or else by shells or by a
callous skin or by bark. When creatures breathe, this air at the
same time buffets the mner side also, as it is inhaled and exhaled.
Therefore since the body is beaten on both sides alike and blows
arrive by means of the small apertures at the primal parts and
primal elements of our body, there gradually ensues a sort of
breaking up throughout our limbs, the arrangements of the first-
beginnings of body and mind getting disordered. Then next a
part of the soul is forced out and a part withdraws into the iner
recesses; a part too scattered about through the frame cannot get
united together and so act and be acted upon by motion; for
nature intercepts all communication and blocks up all the pas-

949—989 IV 107

suges; and therefore sense retires deep into the frame as the
motions are all altered. And since there is nothing as it were
to lend support to the frame, the body becomes weak and all the
limbs are faint, the arms and eyelids droop and the hams even in
bed often give way under you and relax their powers. Then
sleep follows on food, because food produces just the same effects
as air, while it is distributed into all the veins; and that sleep is
much the heaviest which you take when full or tired, because
then the greatest number of bodies fall into disorder, bruised by
much exertion. On the same principle the soul comes in part to
be forced more deeply into the frame, and there is also a more
copious emission of 1t abroad, and at the same time it is more
divided and scattered in itself within you.

And generally to whatever pursuit a man 1s closely tied down
and strongly attached, on whatever subject we have previously
much dwelt, the mind having been put to a more than usual
strain in it, during sleep we for the most part fancy that we are
engaged in the same; lawycrs think they plead causes and draw
up covenants of sale, generals that they fight and engage in battle,
sailors that they wage and carry on war with the winds, we think
we pursue our task and investigate the nature of things con-
stantly and consign it when discovered to writings m our native
tongue. So all other pursuits and arts are seen for the most
part during sleep to occupy and mock the minds of men. And
whenever men have given during many days in succession undi-
vided attention to games, we generally see that after they have
ecased to perceive these with their senses, there yet remain pas-
sages open in the mind through which the same idols of things
may enter. Thus for many days those same objects present them-
selves to the eyes, so that even when awake they see dancers
as they think moving their phant limbs, and receive into the ears
the clear music of the harp and speaking strings, and behold the
same spectators and at the same time the varied decorations of
the stage in all their bilhancy. So great is the influence of zeal
and inclination, so great is the influence of the things in which
men have been habitually engaged, and not men only but all
living creatures. Thus you will see stout horses, even when their
bodies are lying down, yet in their sleep sweat and pant without
ceasing and strain their powers to the utmost as if for the prize,

108 ιν 000 --Ἰο.0

or as if the barriers were thrown open * . And often during
soft repose the dogs of hunters do yet all at once throw about
their legs and suddenly utter cries and repeatedly snuff the air
with their nostiils, as though they had found and were on the
tracks of wild beasts; and after they are awake often chase the
shadowy idols of stags, as thongh they saw them in full flight,
until they have shaken off their delusions and come to them-
selves again. And the fawning brood of dogs brought up tame in
the house haste to shake their body and raise it up from the
ground, as if they beheld unknown faces and features. And the
fiercer the different breeds are, the greater rage they must dis-
play in sleep. But the various kinds of birds flee and suddenly
in the night time trouble with their wings the groves of the gods,
when in gentle sleep hawks and pursuing birds have appeared to
shew fight and offer battle. Again the minds of men which pur-
sue great aims under great emotions, often during sleep pursue
and carry on the same in hke manner; kings take by storm, are
taken, join battle, raise a loud cry as if stabbed on the spot.
Many struggle hard and utter groans in pain, and as if gnawed
by the bite of panther or cruel lion fill all the place with loud
cries. Many during sleep speak of important attairs and have
often and often disclosed their own guilt. Many meet death;
many as if tumbling down from high precipices to the ground
with their whole body, are scared with terror and after sleep as
if out of their judgment scarce come to themselves again, quite
disordered by their body’s turmoil. Again a thirsty man sits
down beside a river or a pleasant spring and gulps down well-
nigh all the stream. Cleanly people often, when sound asleep,
believing that they are lifting their dress beside a urinal or the
public vessels, pour forth the filtered liquid of their whole body,
and the Babylonian coverlets of surpassing brilliancy are drenched.
‘Then too those, into the boiling currents of whose age seed is for
the first time passing, when the ripe fulness of days has produced
it in their limbs, idols encounter from without from what body
soever, harbingers of a glorious face and a beautiful bloom, which
stir and excite the frame.

That seed we have spoken of before is stirred up in us, as soon
as ripe age fortifics the frame. For as different causes set in
motion and excite different things, so from man the sole influence

1040—1082 ΙΝ ΙΟ9

of man draws forth human seed. As soon then as it has been
forced out from and quits its proper seats throughout the limbs
and frame, it withdraws itself from the whole body and meets
together in appropriate places and rouses forthwith the appropriate
parts of the body. The places are excited and swell with seed, and
the inclination arises to emit the seed towards that to which the
fell desire all tends, and the body seeks that object from which
the mind is wounded by love; for all as a rule fall towards their
wound and the blood spirts out in that direction whence comes the
stroke by which we are struck: and if he is at close quarters, the
red stream covers the foe. Thus then he who gets a hurt from
the weapons of Venus, whatever be the object that hits him, in-
clines to the quarter whence he is wounded, and yearns to unite
with it and join body with body; for a mute desire gives a presage
of the pleasure.

This pleasure is for us Venus; from that desire is the Latin
name of love, from that desire has first trickled into the heart yon
drop of Venus’ honeyed joy, succeeded soon by chilly care; for
though that which you love is away, yet idols of 10 are at hand and
its sweet name is present to the ears. But it is meet to fly idols
and scare away all that feeds love and turn your mind on another
object, distract your passion elsewhere and not keep it, with your
thoughts once set on one object by love of it, and so lay up for
yourself care and unfailing pain. For the sore gathers strength
and becomes inveterate by feeding, and every day the madness
grows in violence and the misery becomes aggravated, unless you
erase the first wounds by new blows and first heal them when yet
fresh, roaming abroad after Venus the pandemian, or transfer to
something else the emotions of your mind.

Nor is he who shuns love without the fruits of Venus, but
rather enjoys those blessings which are without any pain: doubt-
less the pleasure from such things is more unalloyed for the
healthy-minded than for the love-sick; for in the very moment of
enjoying the burning desire of lovers wavers and wanders unde-
cided, and they cannot tell what first to enjoy with eyes and hands.
What they have sought, they tightly squeeze and cause pain of
body and often imprint their teeth on the lips and clash mouth to
mouth in kissing, because the pleasure is not pure and there are

IIo IV 1082 —1123

hidden stings which stimulate to hurt even that whatever it 15
from which spring those germs of frenzy. But Venus with hght
hand breaks the force of these pains during love, and the fond
pleasure mingled therein reins in the bites. For in this there 15
hope, that from the same body whence springs their burning
desire, their flame may likewise be quenched; though nature
protests that the very opposite is the truth; and this is the one
thing of all, in which, when we have most of it, then all the more
the breast burns with fell desire. Meat and drink are taken into
the body; and as they can fill up certain fixed parts, in this way
the craving for drink and bread is easily satisfied; but from the
face and beautiful bloom of man nothing is given into the body
to enjoy save flimsy idols; a sorry hope which is often snatched
off by the wind. As when in sleep a thirsty man secks to drink
and water is not given to quench the burning in his frame, but he
seeks the idols of waters and toils in vain and thirsts as he drinks
in the midst of the torrent stream, thus in love Venus mocks lovers
with idols, nor can bodies satisfy them by all their gazing upon
them nor can they with their hands rub aught off the soft limbs,
wandering undecided over the whole body. At last when they
have united and enjoy the flower of age, when the body now has a
presage of delights and Venus 1s in the mood to sow the fields of
woman, they greedily clasp each other’s body and suck each other's
lips and breathe in, pressing meanwhile teeth on each other’s mouth;
all in vain, since they can rub nothing off nor enter and pass each
with his whole body into the other’s body; for so sometimes they
seem to will and strive to do: so greedily are they held in the
chains of Venus, while their hmbs melt overpowered by the might
of the pleasure. At length when the gathered desire has gone
forth, there ensues for a brief while a short pause in the burning
passion; and then returns the same frenzy, then comes back the
old madness, when they are at a loss to know what they really
desire to get, and cannot find what device is to conquer that
mischief; in such utter uncertainty they pine away by a hidden
wound.

Then too they waste their strength and ruin themselves by
the labour, then too their life is passed at the beck of another.
Meanwhile their estate runs away and 15 turned into Babylonian

1123—116 EY Π1
: 3

coverlets; duties are neglected and their good name staggers and
sickens. On her feet laugh elastic and beautiful Sicyonian shoes,
yes, and large emeralds with green light are set in gold and the
sea-coloured dress 1s worn constantly and much used drinks in the
sweat. The noble earnings of their fathers are turned into hair-
bands, head-dresses ; sometimes are changed into a sweeping robe
and Alidensian and Cean dresses. Feasts set out with rich cover-
lets and viands, games, numerous cups, perfumes crowns and gar-
lands are prepared ; all in vain, since out of the very well-spring
of delights rises up something of bitter, to pain amid the very
flowers; either when the conscience-stricken mind haply gnaws
itself with remorse to think that it is passing a life of sloth and
ruining itself in brothels, or because she has launched forth some
word and left its meaning in doubt and it cleaves to the love-sick
heart and burns hike living fire, or because it fancies she casts her
eyes too freely about or looks on another, and it sees in her face
traces of a smile.

And these evils are found in love that is lasting and highly
prosperous; but in crossed and hopeless love are ills such as you
may seize with closed eyes, past numbering; so that it is better to
watch beforehand in the manner I have preseribed, and be on your
guard not to be drawn in. For to avoid falling into the toils of
love is not so hard as, after you are caught, to get out of the nets
you are in and to break through the strong meshes of Venus.
And yet even when you are entangled and held fast you may
escape the mischief, unless you stand in your own way and begin
by overlooking all the defects of her mind or those of her body,
whoever it 1s whom you court and woo. For this men usually do,
blinded by passion, and attribute to the beloved those advantages
which are not really theirs. We therefore see women in ways
manifold deformed and ugly to be objects of endearment and held
in the highest admiration. And one lover jeers at others and
advises them to propitiate Venus, since they are troubled by a
disgraceful passion, and often, poor wretch, gives no thought to his
own ills greatest of all. The black is a brune, the filthy and rank
has not the love of order; the cat-eyed is a miniature Pallas, the
stringy and wizened a gazelle; the dumpy and dwarfish is one of
the graces, from top to toe all grace; the big and overgrown is

112 τυ 1163—1200

awe-inspiring and full of dignity. She is tongue-tied, cannot speak,
then she has a hsp; the dumb is bashful; then the fire-spit, the
teazing, the gossiping turns to a shining lamp. One becomes a
slim darling then when she cannot live from want of flesh; and
she is only spare, who is half-dead with cough. Then the fat and
big-breasted is a Ceres’ self big-breasted from Tacchus; the pug-
nosed is a she Silenus and a satyress; the thick-lipped a very kiss.
It were tedious to attempt to report other things of the kind. Let
her however be of ever so great dignity of appearance; such that
the power of Venus goes forth from all her limbs; yet there are
others too; yet have we lived without her before; yet does she do,
and we know that she does, in all things the same as the ugly
woman; and fumigates herself, poor wretch, with nauseous per-
fumes, her very maids running from her and giggling behind her
back. But the lover, when shut out, often in tears covers the
threshold with flowers and wreaths, and anoints the haughty door-
posts with oil of marjoram and imprints kisses, poor wretch, on the
doors. When however he has been admitted, if on his approach
but one single breath should come in his way, he would seek
specious reasons for departing, and the long-conned deep-drawn
complaint would fall to the ground; and then he would blame his
folly, on seeing that he had attributed to her more than it is right
to concede to a mortal. Nor is this unknown to our Venuses;
wherefore all the more they themselves hide with the utmost pains
all that goes on behind the scenes of hfe from those whom they
wish to retain in the chains of love; but in vain, since yon may
yet draw forth from her mind into the light all these things and
search into all her smiles; and if she is of a fair mind and not
troublesome, overlook them in your turn and make allowance for
human failings.

Nor does the woman sigh always with feigned passion, when
she locks in her embrace and joins with her body the man’s body
and holds it, sucking his lips into her lips and drinking in his
kisses. Often she does it from the heart, and seeking mutual joys
courts him to run the complete race of love. And in no other
way could birds cattle, wild beasts, sheep and mares submit to bear
the males, except because the very exuberance of nature in the
females is in heat and burns and joyously draws in the Venus of

[ 2090-—1 237 IV 113

the covering males. See you not too how those whom mutual
pleasure has chained are often tortured in their common chains ?
How often in the highways do dogs, desiring to separate, eagerly
pull different ways with all their might, while all the time they
are held fast im the strong fetters of Venus! This they would
never do, unless they experienced mutual joys, strong enough to
force them into the snare and hold them in its meshes. Where-
fore again and again I repeat there is a common pleasure.

And when haply in mixing her seed with the man’s the
woman by sudden force has overpowered and seized for herself
his force, then children are formed from the mothers’ seed like
to the mothers, as from the fathers’ seed like to the fathers.
But those whom you see with a share of both forms, blending
equally the features of the parents, grow from the union of the
father’s body and the mother’s blood, when the mutual ardour
of desire working in concert has brought and clashed together the
seeds roused throughout the frame by the goads of Venus; and
neither of the two has gotten the mastery nor has been mastered.
Sometimes too the children may spring up like their grandfathers
and often resemble the forms of their grandfathers’ fathers, be-
cause the parents often keep concealed in their bodies many first-
beginnings mixed in many ways, which first procceding from the
original stock one father hands down to the next father; and then
from these Venus produces forms after a manifold chance and
repeats not only the features, but the voices and hair of their
forefathers. And the female sex equally springs from the father’s
seed and males go forth equally formed from the mother’s body ;
since these distinctions no more proceed from the fixed seed of
one or other parent than our faces and bodies and limbs: the
birth 1s always formed out of the two seeds; and whichever
parent that which is produced more resembles, of that parent
it has more than an equal share; as you may equally observe,
whether it is a male child or a female birth.

Nor do the divine powers debar anybody from the power of
begetting, forbidding him ever to receive the name of father
from sweet children and forcing him to pass his life in a barren
wedlock; as men commonly fancy when in sorrow they drench
the altars with much blood and pile the raised altars with offer-

1. III. If

114 IV 1238—1278

ings, to make their wives pregnant with abundant 5664, In vam
they weary the divinity of the gods and the sacred lois. They
are barren sometimes from the too great thickness of the seed,
sometimes from its undue fluidity and thinness: because the thin
is unable to get a firm hold on the right spots, it at once passes
away and is repelled and withdrawn abortively: since by others
again a too thick seed is discharged in a state more solid than is
suitable, it either does not fly forth with so prolonged a stroke
or cannot equally pass into the proper spots or when it has passed
in with difficulty mixes with the woman’s seed. For well-as-
sorted matches are found to be of great importance; and some
males impregnate some females more readily than others, and
other females conceive and become pregnant inore readily from
other males. And many women have hitherto been barren during
several marriages and have yet in the end found mates from
whom they could conceive children and be enriched with a sweet
ofispring. And often even for those, to whom hitherto wives
however fruitful had been unable in their house to bear, has been
found a compatible nature, enabling them to fortify their age
with sons. Of such great importance is it, in order that seeds
may agree and blend with seeds in a way to promote birth,
whether the thick comes into contact with the fluid and the fluid
with the thick. And on this point 1t matters much on what diet
life is supported; for by some foods seed is thickened in the
limbs, and by others again is thinned and wasted. And in what
modes the intercourse goes on, is likewise of very great moment ;
for women are commonly thought to conceive more readily after
the manner of wild beasts and quadrupeds, because the seeds in
this way can find the proper spots in consequence of the position
of the body. Nor have wives the least use for effeminate motions:
a woman hinders and stands in the way of her own concelving,
when thus she acts; for she drives the furrow out of the direct
course and path of the share and turns away from the proper
spots the stroke of the seed. And thus for their own ends
harlots are wont to move, in order not to conceive and he in
child-bed frequently, and at the same time to render Venus more
attractive to men. This our wives have surely no need of.
Sometimes too by no divine grace and arrows of Venus a

1279Q—1287 IV L15

sorry woman of inferior beauty comes to be loved; for the wife
sometimes by her own acts and accommodating manners and by
elegant neatness of person readily habituates you to pass your life
with her. Moreover custom renders love attractive; for that
which is struck by oft-repeated blows however hghtly, yet after
long course of time is overpowered and gives way. See you not
too that drops of water falling on stones after loug course of time
scoop a hole through these stones ?

I—29

LUCRETIUS
ON THE NATURE OF THINGS

BOOK FIFTH

Who is able with powerful genius to frame a poem worthy of
the grandeur of the things and these discoveries? or who is so
great a master of words as to be able to devise praises equal to
the deserts of him who left to us such prizes won and earned
by his own genius? None methinks who is formed of mortal
body. For if we must speak as the acknowledged grandeur of
the things itself demands, a god he was, a god, most noble Mem-
mius, who first found out that plan of life which is now termed
wisdom, and who by trained skill rescued life from such great
billows and such thick darkness and moored it in so perfect a
calm and in so brilhant a light. Compare the godlike discoveries
of others in old times: Ceres is famed to have pointed out to mor-
tals corn, and Liber the vine-born juice of the grape; though life
might well have subsisted without these things, as we are told
some nations even now live without them. But a happy life was
not possible without a clean breast; wherefore with more reason
this man is deemed by us a god, from whom come those sweet
solaces of existence which even now are distyibuted over great
nations and gently soothe men’s minds. Then if you shall sup-
pose that the deeds of Hercules surpass his, you will be carried
still farther away from true reason. For what would yon great
gaping maw of Nemean lion now harm us and the bristled Arca-
dian boar? ay or what could the bull of Crete do and the hydra
plague of Lerna, fenced round with its envenomed snakes? or how
could the triple-breasted might of threefold Geryon, [how could
the birds with brazen arrowy feathers] that dwelt in the Stym-

290—72 ¥ Oy:

phalian swamps do us such mighty injury, and the horses of
Thracian Diomede breathing fire from their nostmls along the
Bistonian borders and Ismara? and the serpent which guards the
bright golden apples of the Hesperides, fierce, dangerous of aspect,
girding the tree’s stem with his enormous body, what harm pray
could he do us beside the Atlantic shore and its sounding main,
which none of us goes near and no barbarian ventures to ap-
proach? And all other monsters of the kind which have been
destroyed, if they had not been vanquished, what harm could they
do, I ask, though now alive? None methinks: the earth even
now so abounds to repletion in wild beasts and is filled with
troublous terror throughout woods and great mountains and deep
forests; places which we have it for the most part in our own
power to shun. But unless the breast is cleared, what battles and
dangers must then find their way into us in our own despite!
what poignant cares inspired by lust then rend the distressful
man, and then also what mighty fears! and pride, filthy lust and
wantonness? what disasters they occasion! and luxury and all
sorts of sloth? He therefore who shall have subdued all these
and banished them from the mind by words, not arms, shall he not
have a just title to be ranked among the gods? and all the more
so that he was wont to deliver many precepts in beautiful and god-
hke phrase about the immortal gods themselves and to open up
by his teachings all the nature of things.

While walking in his footsteps I follow out his reasonings and
teach by my verses, by what law all things are made, what neces-
sity there is then for them to continue in that law, and how impo-
tent they are to annul the binding statutes of time: foremost in
which class of things the nature of the mind has been proved to be
formed of a body that had birth and to be unable to endure
unscathed through great time, mere idols being wont to mock
the mind in sleep, when we seem to see him whom life has aban-
doned : to continue, the order of my design has now brought me to
this point, where I must proceed to shew that the world is formed
of a mortal body and at the same time had birth; to shew too in
what way that union of matter founded earth heaven sea stars sun
and the ball of the moon; also what living creatures sprang out
of the earth, as well as those which never at any time were born;
in what way too mankind began to use with one another varied

118 ¥ c2—112

speech by the names conferred on things; and also in what ways
yon fear of the gods gaincd an entry intu men’s breasts, and now
throughout the world maintains as holy fanes lakes groves altars
and idols of the gods. Furthermore I shall make clear by what
force piloting nature guides the courses of the sun and the wander-
ings of the moon; lest haply we imagine that these of their
own free will between heaven and earth traverse their everlasting
orbits, graciously furthering the increase of crops and living crea-
tures, or we think they roll on by any forethought of the gods.
For they who have been rightly taught that the gods lead a life
without care, if nevertheless they wonder by what plan all things
can be carried on, above all in regard to those things which are
seen overhead in the ethereal borders, are borne back again into
their old religious scruples and take unto themselves hard task-
masters, whom they poor wretches believe to be almighty, not
knowing what can, what cannot be, in short by what system each
thing has its powers defined, its deep-set boundary mark.

Well then not to detain you any longer by mere promises,
look before all on seas and lands and heaven: their threefold
nature, their three bodies, Memmius, three forms so unlike, three
such wondrous textures a single day shall give over to destruction;
and the mass and fabric of the world upheld for many years
shall tumble to ruin. Nor can I fail to perceive with what a
novel and strange effect it falls upon the mind, this destruction of
heaven and earth that is to be, and how hard it 1s for me to pro-
duce a full conviction of it by words; as is the case when you
bring to the ears a thing hitherto unexampled, and yet you cannot
submit it to the eyesight nor put it into the hands; through which
the straightest highway of belief leads into the human breast
and quarters of the mind. But yet I will speak out: it well may
be that the reality itself will bring credit to my words and that
you will see earthquakes arise and all things grievously shattered
to pieces in a short time. But this may pilot fortune guide far
away from us, and may reason rather than the reality convince
that all things may be overpowered and tumble in with a fnight-
ful crash.

But before I shall begin on this question to pour forth decrees
of fate with more sanctity and much more certainty than the
Pythia who speaks out from the tripod and laurel of Phoebus,

113—-157 V 10

I will clearly set forth to you many comforting topics in learned
language; lest held in the yoke of religion you haply suppose that
earth and sun and heaven, sea stars and moon must last for ever
with divine body; and therefore think it right that they after the
fashion of the giants should all suffer punishment for their mon-
strous guilt, who by their reasoning displace the walls of the world
and seek to quench the glorious sun of heaven, branding immortal
things in mortal speech; though in truth these things are so far
from possessing divinity and are so unworthy of being reckoned in
the number of gods, that they may be thought to afford a notable
instance of what is quite without vital motion and sense. For it
is quite impossible to suppose that the nature and judgment
of the mind can exist with any body whatever; even as a tree
cannot exist-in the ether nor clouds in the salt sea, nor can fishes
live in the fields nor blood exist in woods nor sap in stones. Where
each thing can grow and abide 1s fixed and ordained. Thus the
nature of the mind cannot come into being alone without the
body nor exist far away from the sinews and blood. But if (for
this would be much more likely to happen than that) the force
itself of the mind might be in the head or shoulders or heels or
might be born in any other part of the body, it would after all
be wont to abide in one and the same man or vessel. But since
in our body even it 15 fixed and seen to be ordained where the
soul and the mind can severally be and grow, it must still more
strenuously be denied that 10 can abide out of the body and the
living form altogether in crumbling clods of earth or in the fire
of the sun or in water or in the high borders of ether. These
things therefore are not possessed of divine sense, since they can-
not be quickened with the vital feeling.

This too you may not possibly believe, that the holy seats
of the gods exist in any parts of the world: the fine nature of
the gods far withdrawn from our senses is hardly seen by the
thought of the mind; and since it has ever eluded the touch and
stroke of the hands, it must touch nothing which is tangible for us;
for that cannot touch which does not admit of beimg touched in
turn. And therefore their seats as well must be unlike our seats,
fine, even as their bodies are fine. All which I will prove to you
later in copious argument. ‘To say again that for the sake of men
they have willed to set in order the glorious nature of the world

120 V 157—197

and therefore it is meet to praise the work of the gods calling as it
does for all praise, and to believe that it will be eternal and
immortal, and that it is an unholy thing ever to shake by any
force from its fixed seats that which by the forethought of the
gods in ancient days has been established on everlasting founda-
tions for mankind, or to assail it by speech and utterly overturn it
from top to bottom; and to invent and add other figments of
the kind, Memmius, is all sheer folly. For what advantage can
our gratitude bestow on immortal and blessed beings, that for our
sakes they should take in hand to administer aught? And what
novel incident should have induced them hitherto at rest so long
after to desire to change their former life ? for 10 seems natural he
should rejoice in a new state of things, whom old things annoy ;
but for him whom no ill has befallen in times gone by, when he
passed a pleasant existence, what could have kindled in such
a one a love of change? Did life le grovelling in darkness and
sorrow, until the first dawn of the birthtime of things? or what
evil had it been for us never to have been born? whoever has
been born must want to continue in life, so long as fond pleasure
shall keep him; but for him who has never tasted the love, never
been on the lists, of life, what harm not to have been born ?
Whence again was first nnplanted in the gods a pattern for beget-
ting things in general as well as the preconception of what men
are, so that they knew and saw in mind what they wanted to
make? and in what way was the power of first-beginnings ever
ascertained, and what they could effect by a change in their
mutual arrangements, unless nature herself gave the model for
making things? For in suchwise the first-beginnings of things
many in number in many ways impelled by blows for infinite
ages back and kept in motion by their own weights have been
wont to be carried along and to unite in all manner οὗ ways and
thoroughly test every kind of production possible by their mutual
combinations; that it is not strange if they have also fallen
into arrangements and have come into courses like to those
out of which this sum of things is now carried on by constant
renewing.

But if I did not know what first-beginnings of things are,
yet this judging by the very arrangements of heaven I would
venture to affirm, and led by many other facts to maintain, that

195—240 V Tel

the nature of things has by no means been made for us by
divine power: so great are the defects with which it is encum-
bered. In the first place of all the space which the vast reach
of heaven covers, a portion greedy mountains and forests of wild
beasts have occupied, rocks and wasteful pools take up and the
sea which holds wide apart the coasts of different lands. Next of
nearly two thirds burnmg heat and the constant fall of frost rob
mortals. What is left for tillage, even that nature by its power
would overrun with thorns, unless the force of man made head
against it, accustomed for the sake of a livelihood to groan be-
neath the strong hoe and to cut through the earth by pressing
down the plough. Unless by turming up the fruitful clods with
the share and labouring the soil of the earth we stimulate things
to rise, they could not spontaneously come up into the clear air;
and even then sometimes when things earned with great toil now
put forth their leaves over the lands and are all in blossom, either
the ethereal sun burns them up with excessive heats or sudden
rains and cold frosts cut them off, and the blasts of the winds
waste them by a furious hurncane. Again why does nature give
food and increase to the frightful race of wild beasts dangerous
to mankind both by sea and land? why do the seasons of the year
bring diseases in their train? why stalks abroad untimely death ?
Then too the baby, hike to a sailor cast away by the cruel waves,
hes naked on the ground, speechless, wanting every furtherance
of life, soon as nature by the throes of birth has shed him forth
from his mother’s womb into the borders of light: he fills the
room with a rueful wauling, as well he may whose destiny it is
to go through in life so many ills. But the different flocks herds
and wild beasts grow up; they want no rattles; to none of them
need be addressed the fond broken accents of the fostering nurse ;
they ask not different dresses according to the season; no nor
do they want arms or lofty walls, whereby to protect their own,
the earth itself and nature manifold in her works producing in
plenty all things for all.

First of all, since the body of the earth and water and the
hight breath of air and burning heats, out of which this sum of
things is seen to be formed, do all consist of a body that had a
birth and is mortal, the whole nature of the world must be
reckoned of a like body. For those things whose parts and mem-

122 ν᾿ 241—279

bers we see to be of a body that had a birth and of forms that
are mortal, we perceive to be likewise without exception mortal,
and at the same time to have had a birth. Since therefore I
see that the chiefest members and parts of the world are destroy-
ed and begotten anew, I may be sure that for heaven and earth
as well there has been a time of beginning and there will be a
time of destruction.

And herein that you may not think I have unfairly seized
on this point for myself, because I have assumed that earth and
fire are mortal and have not doubted that water and air pensh,
and have said that these are hkewise begotten and grow afresh,
mark the proofs: first of all some portion of the earth, burnt up
by constant, suns, trampled by a multitude of feet, sends forth a
cloud and flying eddies of dust, which the strong winds disperse
over the whole air. Part too of the soil is put under water by
rains, and rivers graze against and eat into the banks. Again
whatever increases something else, 1s in its turn replenished ; and
since beyond a doubt earth the universal mother is found at the
same time to be the general tomb of things, therefore you see she
is lessened and increases and grows again.

Furthermore, that sea rivers fountams always stream over
with new moisture and that waters well up without ceasing, it
needs no words to prove: the great flow of waters from all sides
clearly shews it. But then the water on the surface is always
taken off, and thus it is that on the whole there is no overflow,
partly because the seas are lessened by the strong winds sweep-
ing over them and by the ethereal sun decomposing them with
his rays; partly, because the water is diffused below the surface
over all lands; for the salt is strained off and the matter of liquid
streams back again to the source and all meets together at the
river-heads, and then flows over the lands in a fresh current,
where a channel once scooped out has carried down the waters
with liquid foot.

And next I will speak of the air which is changed over its
whole body every hour in countless ways. For whatever ebbs
from things, is all borne always into the great sea of air; and
unless 1t in return were to give back bodies to things and to re-
cruit them as they ebb, all things ere now would have been dis-
solved and changed into air. It therefore ceases not to be begotten

e70—322 V 123

from things and to go back again into things, since it 1s a fact
that all things constantly ebb.

Likewise the abundant source of clear light, the ethereal sun,
constantly floods heaven with fresh brightness and supplies the
place of light on the instant by new light; for every previous emis-
sion of brightness is quite lost to it, wherever it falls. This you
may know from the following examples: as soon as ever clouds
begin to pass below the sun and to break off so to say the rays of
light, forthwith their lower part is wholly lost, and the earth is
ovérshadowed wherever the clouds pass over; so that you may
know that things constantly require new irradiation and that all
the preceding emissions of light are lost, and in no other way can
things be seen in the sun, unless the fountain head of light itself
send a supply. Moreover, you see, nightly lights which belong to
earth, such as hanging lamps and torches bright with darting
flames, hasten in like fashion amid great darkness with minister-
ing heat to supply new light; are eager to bicker with fires, ay
eager; nor is the hght ever broken off nor does 1t quit the spots
illuminated: with such suddenness is its destruction concealed by
the swift birth of flame from all the tires at once. In the same
way then we must believe that sun moon and stars emit hght
from fresh and ever fresh supplies rising up, and always lose every
previous discharge of flames; that you may not haply believe that
these flourish indestructible.

Again see you not that even stones are conquered by time,
that high towers fall and rocks moulder away, that shrines and
idols of gods are worn out with decay, and that the holy divinity
cannot prolong the bounds of fate or struggle against the fixed
laws of nature? Then see we not the monuments of men, fallen
to ruin, ask for themselves as well whether you'd beheve that they
decay with years? see we not basalt rocks tumble down riven
away from high mountains and unable to endure and suffer the
strong might of finite age? surely they would never fall suddenly
thus riven away, if for infinite time past they had held out against
all the batteries of age without a crash.

Again gaze on this, which about and above holds in its em-
brace all the earth: if it begets all things out of itself, as some
say, and takes them back when they are destroyed, then the
whole of it has had a birth and is of a mortal body; for whatever

124 ᾿ 322—363

gives increase and food out of itself to other things, must be les-
sened; and must be replenished, when it takes things back.

Again if there was no birth-time of carth and heaven and
they have been from everlasting, why before the Theban war and
the destruction of Troy have not other pocts as well sung other
themes? whither have so many deeds of men so often passed
away, why live they nowhere embodied in lasting records of fame ?
The truth methinks is that the suin has but a recent date and
the nature of the world is new and has but lately had its com-
mencement. Wherefore even now some arts are receiving their
last polish, some are even in course of growth: just now many
improvements have been made in ships; only yesterday musicians
have given. birth to tuneful melodies; then too this nature or
system of things has been discovered lately, and I the very first
of all have only now been found able to transfer it into native
words. Bntif haply you believe that before this all things have
existed just the same, but that the generations of men have
perished by burning heat, or that cities have fallen by some great
concussion of the world, or that after constant rains devouring
rivers have gone forth over the earth and have whelmed towns,
so much the more you must yield and admit that there will be
entire destruction too of earth and heaven; for when things were
tried by so great distempers and so great dangers, at that time
had a more disastrous cause pressed upon them, they would far
and wide have gone to destruction and imghty ruin, And in uo
other way are we proved to be mortals, except because we all alike
in turn fall sick of the same diseases which those had whom nature
has withdrawn from life.

Again whatever things last for ever, must either, because
they are of solid body, repel strokes and not suffer aught to pass
into them, sufficient to disunite the closely massed parts within:
such are the bodies of matter whose nature we have shewn be-
fore: or they must be able to endure through all time for this
reason, because they are exempt from blows, as void is which
remains untouched and suffers not a jot from any stroke; or else
because there is no extent of room around, into which things so
to say may depart and be broken up: in this way the sum of sums
is eternal and there is no place outside into which things may
spring asunder, nor are there any bodies which can fall upon

363—404 δὰ 125

them and dissolve them by a powerful blow. But the nature of
the world, as I have shewn, 15 neither of solid body, since void
is mixed up in things, nor is it again like void, no nor is there
lack of bodies that may haply rise up in mass out of the infinite
and overthrow this sum of things with furious tornado or bring
upon them some other perlous disaster; nor further is the nature
of room or the space of deep void wanting, into which the walls
of the world may be scattered abroad; or they may be assailed
and perish by some other force. Therefore the gate of death is
not closed against heaven or sun or earth or the deep waters of
the sea, but stands open and looks towards them with huge
wide-gaping naw. And therefore also you must admit that these
things likewise had a birth; for things which are of mortal
body could not for an infinite time back up to the present have
been able to set at naught the puissant strength of immeasurable
age.

Again since the chiefest members of the world fight so hotly
together, fiercely stirred by no hallowed civil warfare, see you not
that some limit may be set to their long struggle? either when the
sun and all heat shall have drunk up all the waters and gotten the
mastery: this they are ever striving to do, but as yet are unable to
accomplish their endeavours: such abundant supplies the rivers
furnish, and threaten to turn aggressors and flood all things with a
deluge from the deep gulfs of ocean; all in vain, since the winds
sweeping over the seas and the ethereal sun decomposing them
with his rays do lessen them, and trust to be able to dry all things
up before water can attain the end of its endeavour. Such a war
do they breathe out with undecided issue, and strive with each
other to determine it for mighty ends; though once by the way
fire got the upper hand and once, as the story goes, water reigned
paramount in the fields. Fire gained the mastery and licked and
burnt up many things, when the headstrong might of the horses of
the sun dashed from the course and hurried Phacthon through the
whole sky and over all lands. But the almighty father, stirred
then to fierce wrath, with a sudden thunderstroke dashed Phae-
thon down from his horses to earth, and the sun meeting him as
he fell caught from him the ever-burning lamp of the world and
got in hand the scattered steeds and yoked them shaking all over;
then guided them on their proper course and gave fresh life to all

120 V 404—447

things. Thus to wit have the old poets of the Greeks sung;
though it 1s all too widely at variance with true reason, Fire may
gain the mastery when more bodies of matter than usual have
gathered themselves up out of the infimte; and then its powers
decay, vanquished in some way or other, or else things perish
burnt up by the torrid air. Water too of yore gathered itself and
began to get the mastery, as the story goes, when it whelmed
many cities of men; and then when all that force that had
gathered itself up out of the infimte, by sone means or other was
turned aside and withdrew, the rains were staved and the rivers
abated their fury.

But in what ways yon concourse of matter founded carth and
heaven and the deeps of the sea, the courses of the sun and moon,
I will next in order describe. For verily not by design did the
first-beginnings of things station themselves each in its right place
by keen intelligence, nor did they bargain sooth to say what
motions each should assume, but because the first-beginnings of
things many in number in many ways impelled by blows for infi-
nite ages back and kept in motion by their own weights have been
wont to be carried along and to unite in all manner of ways and
thoroughly to test every kind of production possible by their
mutual combinations, therefore it is that spread abroad through
great time after trying unions and motions of every kind they at
length meet together in those masses which suddenly brought
together become often the rudiments of great things, of earth sea
and heaven and the race of living things.

At this time then neither could the sun’s disk be discerned
flying aloft with its abundant light, nor the stars of great ether,
nor sea nor heaven, no nor earth nor air, nor could any thing be
seen like to our things, but only a strange stormy crisis and
medley, gathered together out of first-beginnings of every kind,
whose state of discord joining battle disordered their interspaces
passages connexions weights blows clashings and motions, because
by reason of their unlike forms and varied shapes they could not
all remain thus joined together nor fall into mutually harmonious
motions. Then next the several parts began to fly asunder and
things to be joined hke with like and to mark off the world and
portion out its members and arrange its mighty parts, that is
to say, to separate high heaven from earth, and let the sea spread

447—491 Υ Soy)

itself out apart with its unmixed water, and likewise let the fires
of ether spread apart pure and unmixed.

For first the several bodies of earth, beeause they were heavy
and closely entangled, met together in the middle and took up all
of them the lowest positions; and the more they got entangled
and the closer their union, the more they squeezed out those par-
ticles which were to make up sea stars sun and moon and the walls
of the great world. All these are of smooth and round seeds and
of much smaller elements than the earth. Therefore the fire-
laden ether first burst out from the different parts of the earth
through all the porous openings and lightly bore off with itself
many fires; much in the same way as we often see, so soon as the
morning light of the beaming sun blushes golden over the grass
jewelled with dew, and the pools and the ever-running rivers
exhale a mist, and even as the earth itself is sometimes seen to
smoke; and when all these are gathered together aloft, then do
clouds on high with a now cohering body weave a covering beneath
heaven. In this way therefore then the light and expansive ether
with its now cohering body swept round and arched itself on all
sides and expanding widely in all directions round in this way
fenced all other things in with its greedy grasp. After it followed
the rudiments of sun and moon, whose spheres turn round in air
midway between earth and ether: these neither earth has taken
unto itself nor greatest ether, because they were neither heavy
enough to sink and settle down nor light enough to glide along
the uppermost borders; they yet however are so placed between
the two as to wheel along their life-lhke bodies and still to be
parts of the whole world; just as in us some members may be at
rest, while others at the same time are in motion. ‘These things
then being withdrawn, the earth in those parts where the vast
azure level of ocean now spreads, in a moment sank in and
drenched with salt flood the hollows. At every day the more the
heats of ether round and the rays of the sun on all sides compressed
the earth into a close mass by oft-repeated blows on all its outer
edges, so that thus buffeted it was condensed and drawn together
about its centre, ever the more did the salt sweat squeezed out
of its body inerease by its oozings the sea and floating fields, and
ever the more did those many bodies of heat and air escape and
fly abroad and condense far away from earth the high glittering

128 " 491 —533

quarters of heaven. ‘The plains sank down, the high hills grew in
elevation; for the rocks could not settle down nor all the parts
sink to one uniform level.

Thus then the ponderous mass of earth was formed with elose-
cohering body and all the slime of the world so to speak slid down
by its weight to the lowest point and settled at the bottom like
dregs. Then the sea, then the air, then the fire-laden ether itself,
all are left unmixed with their clear bodies; and some are lighter
than others, and clearest and lightest of all ether floats upon the
airy currents, and blends not its clear body with the troubled airs;
it suffers all these things below to be upset with furious hurri-
eanes, suffers them to be troubled by wayward storms; while it
earries along its own fires gliding with a changeless onward sweep.
For that ether may stream on gently and with one uniform effort
the Pontos shews, a sea which streams with a changeless current,
ever preserving one uniform gliding course.

Let us now sing what causes the motions of the stars. In the
first place, if the great sphere of heaven revolves, we must say
that an air presses on the pole at each end and confines it on the
outside and closes it in at both ends; and then that a third air
streams above and moves in the same direction in which roll on
as they shine the stars of the eternal world ; or else that this third
air streams below in order to carry up the sphere in the contrary
direction ; just as we see rivers turn wheels and water-scoops. It
is likewise quite possible too that all the heaven remains at rest,
while at the same time the glittering signs are carried on; either
because rapid heats of ether are shut in and whitl round while
seeking a way out and roll their fires in all directions through
heaven’s Summanian quarters; or else an air streaming from some
part from another source outside drives and whirls the fires; or
else they may glide on of themselves going whithersoever the food
of each calls and invites them, feeding their flamy bodies every-
where throughout heaven. For which of these causes is in opera-
tion in this world, it is not easy to affirm for certain; but what
ean be and is done throughout the universe in various worlds
formed on various plans, this I teach, and I go on to set forth
several causes which may exist throughout the universe for the
motions of stars; one of which however must in this world also be
the cause that imparts lively motion to the signs; but to dictate

533-871 ᾿ 129

which of them it is, is by no means the duty of the man who
advances step by step.

And in order that the earth may rest in the middle of the
world, it is proper that its weight should gradually pass away
and be lessened, and that 1t should have another nature under-
neath it conjoined from the beginning of its existence and formed
into one being with the airy portions of the world in which it
is embodied and lives. For this reason it is no burden and does
not weigh down the air; just as his limbs are of no weight to
aman nor is his head a burden to his neck, nor do we feel that
the whole weight of the body rests on the feet; but whatever
weights come from without and are laid upon us, hurt us though
they are often very much smaller: of such great moment it is
what function each thing has to perform. Thus then the earth
is not an alien body suddenly brought in and forced from some
other quarter on air alien to it, but was conceived together with
it at the first birth of the world and is a fixed portion of that
world, just as our limbs are seen to be to us. Again the earth
when suddenly shaken by loud thunder shakes by its motion all
the things which are above it; and this it could in no wise do,
unless it had been fast bound with the airy portions of the world
and with heaven. For the earth and they cohere with one an-
other by common roots, conjoined and formed into a single being
from the beginning of their existence. See you not too that
great as is the weight of our body, the force of the soul, though
of the extremest fineness, supports it, because 1t is so closely
conjoined and formed into a single being with it? Then too what
is able to Ὁ the body with a mmble bound save the force of
the mind which guides the hmbs? Now do you see what power
a subtle nature may have, when it 1s conjomed with a heavy
bedy, as the air is conjoined with the earth and the force of the
mind with us ?

Again the disk of the sun cannot be much larger nor its
body of heat much smaller, than they appear to be to our senses.
For from whatever distances fires can reach us with their hght
and breathe on our hinbs burning heat, those distances take away
nothing by such spaces between from the body of the flames, the
fire is not in the least narrowed in appearance. Therefore since
the heat of the sun and the light which it sheds reach our senses

te IIT. I

130 V 571—613

and stroke the proper places, the form too and size of the sun
must be seen from this earth in their real dimensions, so that
you may not add anything whatever more or less. And whether
the moon as it is borne on illuminates places with a borrowed
light, or cinits its own light from its own body, whatever that is,
the form with which it is thus borne on 15 not at all larger than
the one which it presents to our eyes seems to us to be. For all
things which we see at a great distance through much air, look
dimmed in appearance before their size 1s dimimshed. Therefore
since the moon presents a bright aspect and well-defined form, it
must be seen on high by us from this earth precisely such as it 15
in the outhne which defines it, and of the size it actually 15.
Lastly in the case of all those fires of ether which you observe
from this earth,—since in the case of fires which we see here on
earth, so long as their flickering is distinct, so long as their heat
is perceived, their size is seen sometimes to change to a very
very small extent either way, according to the distance at which
they are,—you may infer that the fires of ether may be smaller
than they look in an extremely minute degree, or larger by a very
small and insignificant fraction.

This likewise need not excite wonder, how it is that so small
a body as yon sun can cmit so great a light, enough to flood
completely seas and all lands and heaven and to steep all things
in its burning heat. It well may be that a single spring for the
whole world may open up from this spot and gush out in plen-
teous stream and shoot forth hght, because elements of heat meet
together from all sides out of the whole world in such manner
and the mass of them thrown together streams to a point in such
manner, that this heat wells forth from a single source. See you
not too what a breadth of meadow-land a small spring of water
sometimes floods, streaming out over the fields? It is hkewise
possible that heat from the sun’s flame though not at all great
may infect the whole air with fervent fires, if haply the air 1s
in a suitable and susceptible state, so that it can be kindled
when struck by small bodies of heat; thus we see sometimes
a general conflagration from a single spark catch fields of corn
and stubble. Perhaps too the sun as he shines aloft with rosy
lamp has round about him much fire with heats that are not
visible, and thus the fire may be marked by no radiance, so that

613—653 ; V : 1:1

fraught with heat it increases to such a degree the stroke of
the rays.

Nor with regard to the sun is there one single explanation,
certain and manifest, of the way in which he passes from his
summer positions to the midwinter turning-point of capricorn
and then coming back from thence bends his course to the sol-
stitial goal of cancer, and how the moon is seen once a month
to pass over that space, in traversing which the sun spends the
period of a year. No single plain cause, I say, has been assigned
for these things. It seems highly probable that that may be the
truth which the revered judgment of the worthy man Democritis
maintains: the nearer the different constellations are to the earth,
the less they can be carried along with the whirl of heaven; for
the velocity of its force, he says, passes away and the intensity
diminishes in the lower parts, and therefore the sun is gradually
left behind with the rearward signs, because he 1s much lower
than the burning signs. And the moon more than the sun: the
lower her path is and the more distant she is from heaven and
the nearer she approaches to earth, the less she can keep pace
with the signs. For the fainter the whirl is in which she 15 borne
along, being as she is lower than the sun, so much the more all
the signs around overtake and pass her. Therefore 10 is that she
appears to come back to every sign more quickly, because the
signs go more quickly back to her. It is quite possible too that
from quarters of the world crossing the sun’s path two airs may
stream each in its turn at a fixed time; one of which may force
the sun away from the summer signs so far as his midwinter turn-
ing-point and freezing cold, and the other may force him back
from the freezing shades of cold as far as the heat-laden quarters
and burning signs. And in like manner we must suppose that the
moon, and the stars which make revolutions of great years in
great orbits may pass by means of airs from opposite quarters in
turn. See you not too that clouds from contrary winds pass in
contrary directions, the upper in a contrary way to the lower ?
Why may not yon stars just as well be borne on through their
great orbits in ether by currents contrary one to the other ?

But might buries the earth in thick darkness, either when the
sun after his long course has struck upon the utmost parts of
heaven and now exhausted has blown forth all his fires shaken

1)

ond

115 y 633—694

by their journey and weakened by passing through much air: or
else because the same force which has carried on his orb above
the earth, compels him to change his course and pass below the
earth.

At a fixed time too Matuta spreads rosy morning over the
borders of ether and opens up her hght, either because the same
sun, coming back below the earth, seizes heaven before his time
trying to kindle it with his rays; or because fires meet together
and many seeds of heat are accustomed to stream together at a
fixed time, which cause new sunhght to be born every day.
Thus they tell that from the high mountains of Ida scattered
fires are seen at day-break, that these then unite as 1t were into
a single ball and make up an orb. And herein it ought to cause
no surprise that these seeds of fire stream together at a time so
surely fixed and reproduce the radiance of the sun. For we see
many occurrences which take place at a fixed time in all things.
At a fixed time trees blossom and at a fixed time shed their
blossoms; and at a time no less surely fixed age bids the teeth
be shed and the boy put on the soft dress of puberty and let a
soft beard fall down equally from each cheek. Lastly lightnings
snow rains clouds and winds take place at not very irregular sea-
sons of year. For where causes from their very first beginnings |
have been in this way and things have thus fallen out from the
first birth of the world, in due sequence too they now come round
after a fixed order.

Likewise days may lengthen and nights wane, and days shorten
when the nights receive increase, either because the same sun
running his course below the earth and above in curves of unlike
length parts the borders of ether and divides his orbit into un-
equal halves; and as he comes round adds on ia the opposite half
just as much as he has subtracted from the other of the two
halves, until he has arrived at that sign of heaven, where the node
of the year makes the shades of might of the same length as the
daylight. For when the sun’s course lies midway between the
blast of the north and of the south, heaven keeps his two goals
apart at distances now rendered exactly equal on account of the
position of the whole starry circle, in gliding through which the
sun takes up the period of a year, lighting with slanting rays
earth and heaven; as is clearly shewn by the plans of those who

691—735 ν᾽ 133

have mapped out all the quarters of heaven as they are set oft
with their array of signs. Or else because the air is denser in
certain parts, therefore the quivermg beam of fire is retarded
below the earth and cannot easily pass through and force its way
out to its place of rising: for this reason in winter-time nights
linger long, ere the beamy badge of day arrive. Or else, because
in the way just mentioned at alternate parts of the year fires
are accustomed to stream together more slowly and more quickly,
which cause the sun to rise in a certain poimt, therefore it is that
those appear to speak the truth [who suppose a fresh sun to be
born every day. |

The moon may shine because struck by the sun’s rays, and
turn that light every day more and more directly towards our
sight, in proportion as she recedes from the sun’s orb, until just
opposite to him she has shone out with full light and at her
rising as she soars aloft has beheld his setting; and then by
slow steps reversing as it were her course she must in the same
way hide her light, the nearer and nearer she now glides to the
sun from a different quarter through the circle of the signs;
according to the theory of those who suppose the moon to be
like a ball and to hold on her course under the sun. She may
also very possibly revolve with her own hght and display various
phases of brightness; for there may well be another body which
is carried on and glides in her company getting before her path
and obstructing her in all manner of ways and yet cannot be
seen, because it glides on without light. She may also revolve,
like 10 may be to a spherical ball steeped over one half in shining
light, and as she rolls round this sphere she may present changing
phases, until she has turned that half which is illuminated full
towards our sight and open eyes; then by slow steps she whirls
back and withdraws the hight-fraught half of the spherical ball ;
as the Babylonian science of the Chaldees refuting the system of
the astronomers essays to prove in opposition to them; just as
though that which each party fights for might not be equally true,
or there were any reason why you should venture to embrace the
one theory less than the other. Again, why a new moon should
not be born every day after a regular succession of forms and
regular phases, and each day the one which is born perish and
another be produced in its room and stead, it is not easy to teach

134 ᾿ 735—778

by reasoning or prove by words, since so many things can be born
in such a regular succession. Spring and Venus go their way,
and the winged harbinger of Venus steps on before ; and close on
Zephyr's footprints mother Flora straws all the way before them
and covers it over with the choicest colours and odours. Next in
order follows parching heat, and in its company dusty Ceres and
the etesian blasts of the north winds. Next autumn advances and
Euhius Euan steps on together. Then other seasons and winds
follow, loud-roaring Volturnus and the southwind stored with
lghtning. At last midwinter brings with it snows and gives back
benumbing cold; aftcr 1t follows winter with teeth chattering with
cold. lt is therefore the less strange that a moon is begotten at
a fixed time and at a fixed time is destroyed again, since many
things may take place at a time so surely fixed.

The eclipses of the sun likewise and the obscurations of the
moon you may suppose to take place from many different causes.
For why should the moon be able to shut the earth out from the
sun’s hight and on the earthward side put in his way her high-
exalted head, placing her dark orb before his burning rays; and
yet at the same time it be thought that another body gliding
on ever without light cannot do the same? Why too should not
the sun be able, quite exhausted, to lose his fires at a fixed time,
and again reproduce his light when in his journey through the air
he has passed by spots fatal to his flames, which cause his fires tou
be quenched and to perish? And why should the earth be able
in turn to rob the moon of hght and moreover herself to keep the
sun suppressed, while in her monthly course she glides through
the well-defined shadows of the cone; and yet at the same time
another body not be able to pass under the moon or glide above
the sun’s orb, breaking off its rays and the hght it sheds forth ?
Yes and if the moon shines with her own brightness, why should
she not be able to grow faint in a certain part of the world, while
she is passing through spots hostile to her own light ?

And now further since I have explained in what way every
thing might take place throughout the blue of the great heaven ;
how we might know what force and cause set in motion the
varied courses of the sun and wanderings of the moon; and in
what way their light might be intercepted and they be lost to
us and spread darkness over the earth little expecting it, when

Ajo 818 V 135

so to speak they elose their eye of hght and opening it again
survey all places shining in bright radianee, I now go back to
the infaney of the world and the tender age of the fields of earth
and shew what first in their early essays of production they re-
solved to raise into the borders of light and give in eharge to the
wayward winds.

In the beginning the earth gave forth all kinds of herbage
and verdant sheen about the hills and over all the plains; the
flowery meadows glittered with the bright green hue, and next
in order to the different trees was given a strong and emulous
desire of growing up into the air with full unbridled powers. As
feathers and hairs and bristles are first born on the limbs of four-
footed beasts and the body of the strong of wing, thus the new
earth then first put forth grass and bushes, and next gave birth
to the races of mortal ereatures springing up many in number
in many ways after divers fashions. For no hving creatures ean
have dropped from heaven nor can those belonging to the land
have come out of the salt pools. It follows that with good reason
the earth has gotten the name of mother, since all things have
been produced out of the earth. And many living ereatures even
now spring out of the earth taking form by rains and the heat
of the sun. It is therefore the less strange if at that time they
sprang up more m1 number and larger in size, having eome to
maturity in the freshness of earth and ether. First of all the
race of fowls and the various birds would leave their eggs, hatehed
in the springtime, just as now in summer the eicades leave spon-
taneously their gossamer coats in quest of a hving and life. Then
you must know did the earth first give forth races of mortal men.
For much heat and moisture would then abound in the fields;
and therefore wherever a suitable spot offered, wombs would grow
attached to the earth by roots; and when the warmth of the
infants, flying the wet and eraving the air, had opened these in
the fulness of time, nature would turn to that spot the pores of
the earth and eonstrain it to yield from its opened veins a liquid
most like to milk, even as now-a-days every woman when she
has borne, is filled with sweet milk, beeause all that current of
nutriment streams towards the breasts. To the children the earth
would furnish food, the heat raiment, the grass a bed rieh in
abundance of soft down. Then the fresh youth of the world

136 ν 818—857

would give forth neither severe colds nor excessive heats nor gales
of great violence; for all things grow and acquire strength in a
like proportion.

Wherefore again and again [ say the earth with good title
has gotten and keeps the name of mother, since she of herself
gave birth to mankind and at a time nearly fixed shed forth
every beast that ranges wildly over the great mountains, and at
the same time the fowls of the air with all their varied shapes.
But because she must have some hmit set to her bearing, she
ecased like a woman worn out by length of days. For time
changes the nature of the whole world and all things must pass
on from one condition to another, and nothing continues like to
itself: all things quit their bounds, all things nature changes and
compels to alter. One thing crumbles away and 15 worn and en-
feebled with age, then another comes unto honour and issues out
of its state of contempt. In this way then time changes the
nature of the whole world and the earth passes out of one con-
dition into another: what once it could, it can bear no more, in
order to be able to bear what before it did not bear.

And many monsters too the earth at that time essayed to
produce, things coming up with strange face and limbs, the man-
woman, a thing between the two and neither the one sex nor
the other, widely differing from both; some things deprived of
feet, others again destitute of hands, others too proving dumb
without mouth, or blind without eyes, and things bound fast by
the adhesion of their hmbs over all the body, so that they could
not do anything nor go anywhere nor avoid the evil nor take what
their needs required. Every other monster and portent of this
kind she would produce, but all im vain, since nature set a ban
on their increase and they could not reach the coveted flower of
age nor find food nor be united in marriage. For we sce that
many conditions must meet together in things in order that they
may beget and continue their kinds; first a supply of food, then
a way by which the birth-producing seeds throughout the frame.
may stream from the relaxed limbs; also in order that the woman
may be united with the male, the possession of organs whereby
they may each interchange mutual Joys.

And many races of living things must then have died out and
been unable to beget and continue their breed. For in the case

857—8096 V 127

of all things which you see breathing the breath of life, either
craft or courage or else speed has from the beginning of its ex-
istence protected and preserved each particular race. And there
are many things which, recommended to us by their useful ser-
vices, continue to exist consigned to our protection. In the first
place the fierce breed of lions and the savage races their courage
has protected, foxes their craft and stags their proneness to flight.
But light-sleeping dogs with faithful heart in breast and every
kind which is born of the seed of beasts of burden and at the
same time the woolly flocks and the horned herds are al! con-
signed, Memmius, to the protection of man. For they have ever
fled with eagerness from wild beasts and have ensued peace and
plenty of food obtained without their own labour, as we give it
in requital of their useful services. But those to whom nature
has granted none of these qualities, so that they could neither live
by their own means nor perform for us any useful service in
return for which we should suffer their kind to feed and be
safe under our protection, those, you are to know, would he
exposed as a prey and booty of others, hampered all in their own
death-bringing shackles, until nature brought that kind to utter
destruction.

But Centaurs never have existed, and at no time can there
exist things of twofold nature and double body formed into one
frame out of limbs of alien kinds, such that the faculties and
powers of this and that portion cannot be sufficiently hke. This
however dull of understanding you may learn from what follows.
To begin, a horse when three years have gone round 15 in the
prime of his vigour, far different the boy: often even at that age
he will call in his sleep for the milk of the breast. Afterwards
when in advanced age his lusty strength and lmbs now faint with
ebbing life fail the horse, then and not till then youth in the
flower of age commences for that boy and clothes his cheeks in
soft down; that you may not haply believe that out of a man
and the burden-carrying seed of horses Centaurs can be formed
and have being; or that Scyllas with bodies half those of fishes
girdled round with raving dogs can exist, and all other things
of the kind, whose limbs we see cannot harmonize together; as
they neither come to their flower at the same time nor reach the
fulness of their bodily strength nor lose it in advanced old age,

138 V 801-930

nor burn with similar passions nor have compatible manners, nor
feel the same things give pleasure throughout their frames. Thus
we may see bearded goats often fatten on hemlock which for man
is rank poison. Since flame moreover is wont to scorch and burn
the tawny bodies of lions just as much as any other kind of flesh
and blood existing on earth, how could it be that a single chimera
with triple body, in front a lion, behind a dragon, in the middle
the goat whose name it bears, could breathe out at the mouth
ficrce flame from its body? Wherefore also he who fables that in
the new time of the earth and the fresh youth of heaven such
living creatures could have been begotten, resting upon this one
futile term new, may babble out many things in like fashion,
may say that rivers then ran with gold over all parts of the
earth, and that trees were wont to blossom with precious stones,
or that man was born with such giant force of frame that he could
wade on foot across deep seas and whirl the whole heaven about
him with his hands. For the fact that there were many seeds
of things in the earth what time it first shed forth living crea-
tures, is yet no proof that there could have been produced beasts
of different kinds mixed together, and limbs of different living
things formed into a single frame, because the kinds of herbage
and corn and joyous trees which even now spring in plenty out
of the earth yet cannot be produced with the several sorts plaited
into one, but each thing goes on after its own fashion, and all
preserve their distinctive differences according to a fixed law of
nature.

But the race of man then in the fields was much _ hardier,
as beseemed it to be, since the hard earth had produced it; and
built on a groundwork of larger and more solid bones within,
knit with powerful sinews throughout the frame of flesh; not
hghtly to be disabled by heat or cold or strange kinds of food
or any malady of body. And during the revolution of many
lustres of the sun through heaven they led a life after the roving
fashion of wild beasts. No one then was a sturdy guider of
the bent plough or knew how to labour the fields with iron or
plant in the ground young saplings or lop with pruning-hooks old
boughs from the high trees. What the sun and rains had given,
what the earth had produced spontaneously, was guerdon suf-
ficient to content their hearts. Among acorn-bearing oaks they

939-979 eS 139
would refresh their bodies for the most part; and the arbute-
bernes which you now see in the winter-time ripen with a bright
scarlet hue, the earth would then bear in greatest plenty and
of a larger size; and many coarse kinds of food besides the
teeming freshness of the world then bare, more than enough
for poor wretched men. But mvers and springs invited to slake
thirst, even as now a rush of water down from the great hills
summons with clear plash far and wide the thirsty races of wild
beasts. Then too as they ranged about they would occupy the
well-known woodland haunts of the nymphs, out of which they
knew that smooth-gliding streams of water with a copious gush
bathed the dripping rocks, the dripping rocks, trickling down
over the green moss; and in parts welled and bubbled out over
the level plain. And as yet they knew not how to apply fire
to their purposes or to make use of skins and clothe their body in
the spoils of wild beasts, but they would dwell in woods and
mountain-caves and forests and shelter in the brushwood their
squalid limbs when driven to shun the buffeting of the winds
and the rains. @And they were unable to look to the general
weal and knew not how to make a common use of any customs
or laws, Whatever prize fortune threw in his way, each man
would bear off, trained at his own discretion to think of himself
and live for himself alone. And Venus would join the bodies
of ἢ ers in the woods; for each woman was gained over either
bye ‘mutual desire or the headstrong violence and vehement lust
of the man or a bribe of some acorns and arbute-berries or choice
pears. And trusting to the marvellous powers of their hands
and feet they would pursue the forest-haunting races of wild
beasts with showers of stones and club of ponderous weight; and
many they would conquer, a few they would avoid in_hiding-
places; and like to bristly swine just as they were they would
throw their savage limbs all naked on the ground, when over-
taken by might, covering themselves up with leaves and boughs.
vYet never with loud wailings would they call for the daylight
and the sun, wandering terror-stricken over the fields in the
shadows of night, but silent and buried in sleep they would wait,
till the sun with rosy torch carried light into heaven; for ac-
customed as they had been from childhood always to see darkness
and light begotten time about, never could any wonder come

140 ν᾿ g80—1020

over them, nor any misgiving that never-ending night would cover
the earth and the light of the sun be withdrawn for evermore.
But what gave them trouble was rather the races of wild beasts
which would often render repose fatal to the poor wretches. And
driven from their home they would fly from their rocky shelters
on the approach of a foaming boar or a strong lion, and im the
dead of night they would surrender in terror to their savage guests
their sleeping-places strawn with leaves.

Nor then much more than now would the races of mortal men
leave the sweet light of ebbing life. For then this one or that
other one of them would be more likely to be seized, and torn
open by their teeth would furnish to the wild beasts a living
food, and would fill with his moaning woods and mountains and
forests as he looked on his living flesh buried in a living grave.
But those whom flight had saved with body eaten into, holding
ever after their quivering palms over the noisome sores would
summon death with appalling cries, until cruel gripmgs had rid
them of life, forlorn of help, unwitting what wounds wanted.
But then a single day gave not over to death many thousands
of men marching with banners spread, nor did the stormy waters
of the sea dash on the rocks men and ships. At this time the sea
would often rise up and rage without aim, without purpose,
without result, and just as lightly put off its empty threats; nor
could the winning wiles of the calm sea treacherously entice any
one to his ruin with laughing waters, when the reckless eraft of
the skipper had not yet risen into the hght. Then too want of
food would consign to death their fainting frames, now on the
contrary ‘tis plenty sinks into rum. They unwittingly would
often pour out poison for themselves; now with nicer skill men
give it to their son’s wife instead.

Next after they had got themselves huts and skins and fire,
and the woman united with the man passed with him into one
[domicile and the duties of wedlock were] learnt [by the two],
and they saw an offspring born from them, then first mankind
began to soften. For fire made their chilled bodies less able now
to bear the frost beneath the canopy of heaven, and Venus im-
paired their strength and children with their caresses soon broke
down the haughty temper of parents. Then too neighbours began
to join in a league of friendship mutually desiring neither to do

1020—1061 ᾿ [41

nor suffer harm; and asked for indulgence to children and
womankind, when with cries and gestures they declared in stam-
mering speech that meet it is for all to have mercy on the
weak. And though harmony could not be established without
exception, yet a very large portion observed their agreements
with good faith, or else the race of man would then have been
wholly cut off, nor could breeding have continued their genera-
tions to this day.

But nature unpelled them to utter the various sounds of the
tongue and use struck out the names of things, much in the same
way as the mability to speak is seen in its turn to drive children
to the use of gestures, when it forces them to point with the
finger at the things which are before them. For every one feels
how far he can make use of his peculiar powers. Ere the horns
of a calf are formed and project from his forehead, he butts with
it when angry and pushes out in his rage. Then whelps of
panthers and cubs of lions fight with claws and feet and teeth
at a time when teeth and claws are hardly yet formed. Again
we see every kind of fowl trust to wings and seek from pinions a
fluttering suecour.< Therefore to suppose that some one man at
that time apportioned names to things and that men from him
learnt their first words, is sheer folly> For why should this parti-
cular man be able to denote all things by words and to utter the
various sounds of the tongue, and yet at the same time others be
supposed not to have been able to do so? Again if others as well
as he had not made use of words among themselves, whence was
implanted in this man the previous conception of its use and
whence was given to him the orginal faculty, to know and per-
ceive in mind what he wanted to do? Again one man could not
constrain and subdue and force many to choose to learn the
names of things. It 1s no easy thing in any way to teach and
convinee the deaf of what is needful to be done; for they never
would suffer nor in any way endure sounds of voice hitherto
unheard to continue to be dinned fruitlessly into their ears.
Lastly what is there so passing strange in this circumstance, that
the race of men whose voice and tongue were in full force, should
denote things by different words as different feelings prompted ?
since dumb brutes, yes and the races of wild beasts are accus-
tomed to give forth distinct and varied sounds, when they have

142 Vv 1061 —1100

fear or pain and when joys are rife. This yon may learn from
facts plain to sense: when the large spongy open hps of Molos-
sian dogs begin to growl enraged and bare their hard teeth, thus
drawn back in rage they threaten im a tone far different from
that in which they bark outright and fill with sounds all the
places round. Again when they essay fondly to lick their whelps
with their tongue or when they toss them with their feet and
snapping at them make a feint with lightly closing teeth of
swallowing though with gentle forbearance, they caress them
with a yelping sound of a sort greatly differing from that which
they utter when left alone in a house they bay or when they
slink away howling from blows with a crouching body. Again is
not the neigh too seen to differ, when a young stallion in the
flower of age rages among the mares smitten by the goads of
winged love, and when with wide-stretched nostrils he snorts out
the signal to arms, and when as it chances on any other occasion
he neighs with limbs all shaking? Lastly the race of fowls and
various birds, hawks and osprays and gulls secking their living
in the salt water mid the waves of the sea, utter at a different
time noises widely different from those they make when they are
fighting for food and struggling with their prey. And some of
them change together with the weather their harsh croakings,
as the long-lved races of crows and flocks of rooks when they
are said to be calling for water and rain and sometimes to be
summoning winds and gales. Therefore if different sensations
compel creatures, dumb though they be, to utter ditferent sounds,
how much more natural it is that mortal men in those times should
have been able to denote dissimilar things by many different
words!

And lest haply on this head you ask im silent thought this
question, 1t was hghtning that brought fire down on earth for
mortals in the beginning; thence the whole heat of flames is
spread abroad. Thus we see many things shine dyed m heavenly
flames, when the stroke from heaven has stored them with its
heat. Ay and without this when a branching tree sways to and
fro and tosses about under the buffeting of the winds, pressing
against the boughs of another tree, fire is forced out by the power
of the violent friction, and sometimes the burning heat of flame
flashes out, the bonghs and stems rubbing against each other.

TIOI—rII 4! V 143

Now either of these accidents may have given fire to men. Next
the sun taught them to cook food and soften it with the heat of
flame, since they would see many things grow mellow, when sub-
dued by the strokes of the rays and by heat throughout the land.

And more and more every day men who excelled in intellect
and were of vigorous understanding, would kindly shew them how
to exchange their former way of living for new methods. Kings

, began to build towns and lay out a citadel as a place of strength

‘and of refuge for themselves, and divided cattle and lands and

3 gave to each man in proportion to his personal beanty and strength
and intellect ;) for beauty and vigorous strength were much esteem-
ed. Afterwards wealth was discovered and gold found out, which
soon robbed of their honours strong and beautiful alike; for men ον
however valiant and beautiful of person generally follow in the
train of the mcher man. But were a man to order his life by the
rules of true_reason, a frugal subsistence joined to a contented
mind 15. for him great riches; for never is there any lack of a
little. But men desired to be famous and powerful, in order that
their fortunes might rest on a firm foundation and they might be
able by their wealth to lead a tranquil life; but in vain, since in
their struggle to mount up to the highest dignities they rendered
their path one full of danger; and even if they reach it, yet_envy
like a thunderbolt sometimes strikes and dashes men down from
the highest point with ignominy into noisome Tartarus ; (since the
highest summits and those elevated above the level of other things

ν΄ are mostly blasted by envy as by a thunderbolt ; so that far better
it is to obey in peace and quiet than to wish to rule with power
supreme and be the master of kingdoms. Therefore let men wear
themselves out to no purpose and sweat drops of blood, as they
struggle on along the strait road of ambition, since they gather
their knowledge from the mouths of others and follow after things
from hearsay rather than the dictates of their own feelings; and
this prevails not now nor will prevail by and bye any more than it
has prevailed before.

Kings therefore being slain the old majesty of thrones and
proud sceptres were overthrown and laid in the dust, and the
glorious badge of the sovereign head bloodstained beneath the feet
of the rabble mourned for its high prerogative; for that is greedily
trampled on which before was too much dreaded. It would come

eee

Δ
ΖΦ

v

144 x 1141—1182

then in the end to the lees of uttermost disorder, cach man seek-
ing for himself empire and sovercignty. Next a portion of them
taught men to elect legal officers, and drew up codes, to induce
men to obey the laws. Jor mankind, tired out with ἃ life of
brute force, lay exhausted from its feuds; and therefore the more
readily it submitted of its own freewill to laws and stringent
codes. For as each one moved by anger took measures to avenge
himself with more severity than is now permitted by equitable
laws, for this reason men grew sick of a life of brute force. Thence
fear of punishment mars the prizes of hfe; for violence and wrong
enclose all who commit them in their meses and do mostly recoil
on him from whom they began ; and it is not easy for him who by
his deeds transgresses the terms of the public peace to pass a tran-
quil and a peaceful existence. J*or though he eludes God and
iInan, yet he cannot but fecl a misgiving that his secret can be
kept for ever; secing that many by speaking in their dreams
or in the wanderings of disease have often we are told betrayed
themselves and have disclosed their hidden deeds of evil and
their sins.

And now what cause has spread over great nations the wor-
ship of the divinities of the gods and ποῦ towns with altars and
led_to the performance of stated sacred rites, rites now in fashion
on solemn occasions and in solemn “places, from which even now
is implanted in mortals a shuddering awe which raises new tem-
ples of the gods over the whole earth and prompts men to crowd
them on festive days, all this it is not so difficult to explain in
words. Even then in sooth the races of mortal men would see

_in waking mind glorious forms, would see them in sleep of yet

more marvellous size of body. To these then they would attribute
sense, because they seemed to move their limbs and to utter lofty
words suitable to their glorious aspeet and surpassing powers.
And they would give them life everlasting, because their face
would ever appear before them and their form abide ; yes and yet.
without all this, because they would not believe that beings pos-
sessed of such powers could hghtly be overcome by any force.
And they would believe them to be preeminent in bliss, because
none of them was ever troubled with the fear of death, and be-
cause at the same time in_sleep they would see them perform
many miracles, yet feel on their part no fatigue from the effort.

*1183—1226 V 145

Again. they would see the system of heaven and the different
seasons of the years come round in regular succession, and could_
not find out by what causes this was one therefore they would
seek a refuge in handing over all things to the gods and supposing ἡ
all things to be guided their nod. And they placed in heaven
the abodes and realms of the gods, because night and moon are
seen to roll through heaven, moon day and night and night’s
austere constellations and night-w andering meteors of the sky and
flying bodies of flame, clouds sun rains snow winds lightnings hail
and Ryd rumblings and loud threatful thunderclaps. >

— O hapless race of men, when that they charged the gods with
such acts and coupled with them bitter wrath! what groanings
did they then beget for themselves, what wounds for us, what
tears for our children’s children! No act ist of piety to be often
seen with veiled head to turn to_a stone and approach every altar
and fall prostrate on the ground and spread out the palms before
the statues of the gods and sprinkle the altars with much blood of
beasts_and link vow on to vow, but rather to be able to look on
all things with a mind at peace. For when we turn our gaze on
the heavenly quarters of the great upper world and ether fast
above the glittering stars, and direct_our thoughts to the courses
of the sun and moon, then into our breasts burdened with other.
ills that fear, as well begins to exalt its reawakened head, the/fear
that we may haply find the power of the gods to be unlimited,
able to wheel the bright stars in their varied motion ; for lack of
power to solve the question troubles the mind with doubts, whe-
ther there was ever a birth-time of the world, and whether like-
wise there is to be any end; how far the walls of the world can
endure this strain of restless motion; or whether gifted by the
grace of the gods with an everlasting existence they may glide on
through a never-ending tract of time and defy the strong powers
of immeasurable ages. Again who is there whose mind does not
shrink into itself εἰ fear)of the gods, whose hmbs_ do not cower
in terror,-when the parched earth rocks with the appa lling thun-
derstroke and rattlings run through the great heaven Do not
peoples and nations Ree) ‘and proud monarchs shrink into them-
selves smitten with fear of the gods, lest for_any foul trans-
gression or overweening word the heavy time of reckoning has
arrived at its fulness? ?» When too the utmost fury of the head-

M. III. K

!

146 V 1226—1268

strong wind passes over the sea and sweeps over its waters the
commander of a flect together with his mighty legions and ele-
phants, does he not draw near with vows to seek the mercy of
the gods and ask in prayer with fcar_and trembling a lull in the
winds and propitious gales ;\but all in vain) since often caught up
in the furious hurricane he is borne none the less to the shoals of
death ? so constantly does some hidden power trample on human
grandeur and is seen to tread under its heel and make sport for
itself of the renowned rods and cruel axes. Again when the
whole earth rocks under their feet and towns tumble with the
shock or doubtfully threaten to fall, what wonder that mortal men
abase themselves and make over to the gods in things here on
earth high prerogatives and marvellous powers, sufhicient to govern
all things?

To proceed, copper and gold and iron were discovered and at
the same time weighty silver and the substance of lead, when
fire with its heat had burnt up vast forests on the great hills,
either by a discharge of heaven’s lightning, or else because men
waging with one ATO a forest-war had carried fire among the
enemy in order to strike terror, or because drawn on by the good-
ness of the soil they would wish to clear rich fields and bring the
country into pasture, or else to destroy wild beasts and enrich
themselves with the booty; for hunting with the pitfall and with
fire came into use before the practice of enclosing the lawn with
toils and stirring it with dogs. Whatever the fact is, from what-
ever cause the heat of flame had swallowed up the forests with a
frightful crackling from their very roots and had thoroughly baked
the earth with fire, there would run from the boiling veins and
collect into the hollows of the ground a stream of silver and gold,
as well as of copper and lead. And when they saw these after-
wards cool 100 lumps and ghtter on the earth with a brilliant
gleam, they would lift them up attracted by the bright and polish-
ed lustre, and they would see them to be moulded in a shape the
same as the outline of the cavities in which each lay. Then it
would strike them that these might be melted by heat and cast
in any form or shape soever, and might by hammering out be
brought to tapering pomts of any degree of sharpness and fineness,
so as to furnish them with tools and enable them to cut the forests
and hew timber and plane smooth the planks, and also to drill and

1208—1 309 δ 147

pierce and bore. And they would set about these works just
as much with silver and gold at first as with the overpowering
strength of stout copper, but in vain, since their force would
fail and give way and not be able like copper to stand the severe
strain. At that time copper was in higher esteem and gold would
lie neglected on account of its uselessness, with its dull blunted
edge: now copper hes neglected, gold has mounted up to the
highest place of honour. Thus time as it goes round changes the
seasons of things. That which was in esteem, falls at length into
utter disrepute; and then another thing mounts up and issues out
of its degraded state and every day is more and more coveted and
blossoms forth high m honour when discovered and is in mar-
vellous repute with men.

And now, Memmius, it is easy for you to find out by your-
self in what way the nature of iron was discovered. Arnis of
old were hands nails and teeth and stones and boughs broken
off from the forests, and flame and fire, as soon as they had be-
come known. Afterwards the force of iron and copper was dis-
covered; and the use of copper was known before that of iron,
as its nature is easier to work and it is found in greater quan-
tity. With copper they would labour the soil of the earth, with
copper stir up the billows of war and deal about wide-gaping
wounds and seize cattle and lands; for every thing defenceless
and unarmed would readily yield to them with arms in hand.
Then by slow steps the sword of iron gained ground and the
make of the copper sickle became a byword; and with iron they
began to plough through the earth’s soil, and the struggles of
wavering war were rendered equal. And the custom of mounting
in arms on the back of a horse and guiding him with reins and
shewing prowess with the right hand is older than that of tempt-
ing the rnsks of war im a two-horsed chariot; and yoking a pair
of horses is older than yoking four or mounting in arms scythed
chariots. Next the Poeni taught the lucan kine with towered
body, hideous of aspect, with snake-hke hand, to endure the
wounds of war and to disorder the mighty ranks of Mars. Thus
sad discord begat one thing after another, to affright nations of
men under arms, and every day made some addition to the terrors
of war,

They made trial of bulls too in the service of war and es-

12

148 v 13091354

sayed to send savage boars against the enemy. And some sent
before them valorous hons with armed trainers and courageous
keepers to guide them and to hold them in chains; but in vain,
since heated with promiscuous slaughter they would disorder in
their rage the troops without distinction, shaking all about the
fightful crests upon their heads; and the horsemen were not able
to ealin the breasts of the horses scared by the roaring and turn
them with the bridle upon the enemy. The lionesses with a
spring would throw their enraged bodies on all sides and would
attack in the face those who met them, and others off their guard
they would tear down from behind and twining round them would
bring them to the ground overpowered by the wound, fastening
on them with firm bite and with hooked claws. The bulls would
toss their own friends and trample them under foot, and gore with
their horns the flanks and bellies of the horses underneath and
turn up the earth with threatening front. The boars too would
rend their friends with powerful tusks, in their rage dying with
their blood the weapons broken in them, ay dying with their
blood the weapons broken in their own bodies; and would put to
promiscuous rout horse and foot; for the tame beasts would try
to avoid by shying to the side the cruel push of the tusk, or would
rear up and paw the winds, all in vain, since you might see them
tumble down with their tendons severed and straw the ground in
their heavy fall. Those whom they believed before to have been
sufficiently broken in at home,. they would see lash themselves
into fury in the heat of action from wounds and shouting, flight
panic and uproar; and they could not rally any portion of them;
for all the different kinds of wild beasts would fly all abroad ;
just as now the lucan kine when cruelly mangled by the steel
fly often all abroad, after inflicting on their friends many cruel
sufferings. But men chose thus to act not so much in any hope
of victory, as from a wish to give the enemy something to rue at
the cost of their own lives, when they mistrusted their numbers
and were in want of arms.

A garment tied on the body was in use before a dress of
woven stuff. Woven stuff comes after iron, because iron is needed
for weaving a web; and in no other way can such finely polished
things be made, as heddles and spindles, shuttles and ringing
yarn-beams. And nature impelled men to work up the wool

1354—1399 Vv 149

before womankind: for the male sex in general far excels the
other in skill and is much more ingenious: until the rugged coun-
trymen so upbraided them with it, that they were glad to give it
over into the hands of the women and take their share in support-
ing hard toil, and in such hard work hardened body and hands.
But nature parent of things was herself the first model of
sowing and first gave rise to grafting, since berries and acorns
dropping from the trees would put forth in due season swarms
of young shoots underneath; and hence also came the fashion
of inserting grafts in their stocks and planting in the ground
young saplings over the fields. Next they would try another
and yet another kind of tillage for their loved piece of land and
would see the earth better the wild fruits through genial fos-
termg and kindly cultivation. And they would force the forests
to recede every day higher and higher up the hill-side and
yield the ground below to tilth, im order to have on the up-
lands and plains meadows tanks runnels cornfields and glad
vineyards, and allow a grey-green strip of olives to run between
and mark the divisions, spreading itself over hillocks and valleys
and plains; just as you now see nichly dight with varied beauty all
the ground which they lay out and plant with rows of sweet fruit-
trees and enclose all round with plantations of other goodly trees.
But imitating with the mouth the clear notes of birds was
in use long before men were able to sing in tune smooth-running
verses and give pleasure to the ear. And the whistlings of the
zephyr through the hollows of reeds first taught peasants to blow
into hollow stalks. Then step by step they learned sweet plain-
tive ditties, which the pipe pours forth pressed by the fingers of
the players, heard through pathless woods and forests and lawns,
through the unfrequented haunts of shepherds and abodes of
unearthly calm. These things would soothe and gratify their
minds when sated with food; for then all things of this kind
are welcome. Often therefore stretched in groups on the soft
grass beside a stream of water under the boughs of a high tree
at no great cost they would pleasantly refresh their bodies, above
all when the weather smiled and the seasons of the year painted
the green grass with flowers. Then went round the jest, the
tale, the peals of merry laughter; for the peasant muse was
then in its glory; then frolick mirth would prompt to entwine

150 ᾿ 1399—1439

head and shoulders with garlands plaited with flowers and leaves,
and to advance in the dance out of step and inove the limbs
clumsily and with clumsy foot beat mother earth; which would
occasion smiles and peals of merry laughter, because all these
things then from their greater novelty aud strangeness were in
high repute. And the wakeful found a sulace for want of sleep
in this, in drawing out a variety of notes and going through
tunes and running over the reeds with curving lip; whence
even at the present day watchmen observe these traditions and
have lately learned to keep the proper tune; and yet for all this
receive not a jot more of enjoyment, than erst the rugged race of
sons of earth received. For that which we have in our hands, if
we have known before nothing pleasanter, pleases above all and is
thought to be the best; and as a rule the later discovery of some-
thing better spoils the taste for the former things and changes
the feelings in regard to all that has gone before. Thus began
distaste for the acorn, thus were abandoned those sleeping-places
strawn with grass and enriched with leaves. The dress too of
wild beasts’ skin fell into neglect; though I can fancy that in
those days it was found to arouse such jealousy that he who first
wore it met his death by an ambuscade, and after all it was torn
in pieces among them and drenched in blood was utterly de-
stroyed and could not be turned toany use. In those times there-
fore skins, now gold and purple plague men’s lives with cares
and wear them out with war. And in this methinks the greater
blame rests with us; for cold would torture the naked sons of
earth without their skins; but us it harms not in the least to do
without a robe of purple, spangled with gold and large figures, if
only we have a dress of the people to protect us. Mankind there-
fore ever toils vainly and to no purpose and wastes life in ground-
less cares, because sure enough they have not learnt what is the
true end of getting and up to what point genuine pleasure goes on
increasing: this by slow degrees has carried life out into the deep
sea and stirred up from their lowest depths the mighty billows
of war.

But those watchful guardians sun and moon traversing with
their light all round the great revolving sphere of heaven taught
men that the seasons of the year came round and that the system
was carried on after a fixed plan and fixed order.

1440-1457 Ny (51

Already they would pass their life fenced about with strong
towers, and the land, portioned out and marked off by boundaries,
be tilled; the sea would be filled with ships scudding under sail ;
towns have auxiliaries and allies as stipulated by treaty, when
poets began to consign the deeds of men to verse; and letters
- had not been invented long before. For this reason our age can-
not look back to what has gone before, save where reason points
out any traces.

Ships and tillage, walls laws arms roads dress and all such
like things, all the prizes, all the elegancies too of life without
exception, poems pictures and the chiselling of fine-wrought
statues, all these things practice together with the acquired know-
ledge of the untiring mind taught men by slow degrees as they
advanced on the way step by step. Thus time by degrees brings
each several thing forth before men’s eyes and reason raises it up
into the borders of light; for things must be brought to light one
after the other and in due order in the different arts, until these
have reached their highest point of development.

1—27

LUCRETIUS

ON THE NATURE OF THINGS

BOOK SIXTH

In days of yore Athens of famous name first imparted corn-pro-
ducing crops to suffering mankind, and modelled life anew and
passed laws; and first too bestowed sweet solaces of existence,
when she gave birth to a man who shewed himself gifted with
such a genius and poured forth all knowledge of old from his
truth-telling mouth; whose glory, even now that he is dead, on
account of his godlike discoveries confirmed by length of time
is spread abroad among men and reaches high as heaven. For
when he saw that the things which their needs imperiously de-
mand for subsistence, had all without exception been already pro-
vided for men, and that life, so far as was possible, was placed on
a sure footing, that men were great in affluence of riches and
honours and glory and swelled with pride in the high reputation
of their children, and yet that none of them at home for all that
had a heart the less disquieted, and that this heart in despite of
the understanding plagued life without any respite and was con-
strained to rave with distressful complainings, he then perceived
that the vessel itself did cause the corruption and that by its
corruption all the things that came into it and were gathered
from abroad, however salutary were spoilt within it; partly
because he saw it to be leaky and full of holes so that it could
never by any means be filled full; partly because he perceived
that it befouled so to say with a nauseous flavour everything
within it, which it had taken in. He therefore cleansed men’s
breasts with truth-telling precepts and fixed a limit to lust and
fear and explained what was the chief good which we all strive to
reach, and pvuinted out the road along which by a short cross-

27—67 vd 1

track we might arrive at it in a straightforward course; he
shewed too what evils existed in mortal affairs throughout, rising
up and manifoldly flying about by a natural—call it chance or
force, becanse nature had so brought it about; and from what
gates you must sally out duly to encounter each; and he proved
that mankind mostly without cause arouse in their breast the
melancholy tumbling billows of cares. For even as children are
flurried and dread all things in the thick darkness, thus we in the
daylight fear at times things not a whit more to be dreaded than
what children shudder at in the dark and fancy sure to be. This
terror therefore and darkness of mind must be dispelled not by the
rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and
law of nature. Wherefore the more readily I will go on in my
verses to complete the web of my design.

And since I have shewn that the quarters of ether are mortal
and that heaven is formed of a body that had a birth, and since of
all the things which go on and must go on in it, I have unravelled
most, hear further what remains to be told; since once for all [I
have willed] to mount the illustrious chariot [of the muses, and
ascending to heaven to explain the true law of winds and storms,
which men foolishly lay to the charge of the gods, telling how,
when they are angry, they raise fierce tempests; and, when there
is a lull in the fury] of the winds, how that anger 1s appeased, how
the omens which have been are again changed, when their fury
has thus been appeased: [I have willed at the same time] to
explain all the other things which mortals observe to go on upon
earth and in heaven, when often they are in anxious suspense of
mind, and which abase their souls with fear of the gods and weigh
and press them down to earth, because ignorance of the causes
constrains them to submit things to the empire of the gods and
to make over to them the kingdom. For they who have been
rightly taught that the gods lead a hfe without care, if never-
theless they wonder on what plan all things can be carried on,
above all in regard to those things which are seen overhead in the
ethereal borders, are borne back again imto their old religious
scruples and take unto themselves hard taskmasters, whom they
poor wretches believe to be almighty, not knowing what can,
what cannot be, in short on what principle each thing has its
powers defined, its deep-set boundary mark; and therefore they

154 VI 67—108

are led all the farther astray by blind reason. Now unless you
drive from your mind with loathing all these things, and banish
far from you all behef in things degrading to the gods and incon-
sistent with their peace, then often will the holy deities of the
gods, having their majesty lessened by you, do you hurt; not
that the supreme power of the gods ean be so outraged, that in
their wrath they shall resolve to exaet sharp vengeance, but
because you will fancy to yourself that they, though they enjoy
αὐτοῦ and ealm peace, do roll great billows of wrath; nor will you
approach the sanctuaries of the gods with a ealm breast nor wll
you be able with tranquil peaee of mind to take in those idols
which are earried from their holy body into the minds of men, as
heralds of their divine form. And what kind of life follows after
this, may be econeeived. But in order that most veracious reason
may drive it far away from us, though much has already gone forth
from me, much however still remains and has to be embellished
in smooth-polished verses; the law and aspect of heaven have to
be grasped ; storms and bright lightnings, what they do and from
what cause they are borne along, all this has to be sung; that you
may not mark out the heaven into quarters and be startled and
distracted on seeing from which of them the volant fire has eome
or to which of the two halves it has betaken itself, in what way it
has gained an entrance within walled places, and how after
lording it with tyrant sway, it has gotten itself out from these.
Do thou, deft muse Calliope, solace of men and joy of gods, point
out the course before me as I race to the white boundary-line
of the final goal, that under thy guidance I may win the crown
with signal applause.

In the first place the blue of heaven is shaken with thunder,
because the ethereal clouds clash together as they fly aloft when
the winds combat from opposite quarters. For no sound ever
eomes from a cloucess part of heaven, but wheresoever the clouds
are gathered in a denser mass, from that part with greater fre-
quency comes a elap with a loud growl. Again clouds cannot be
either of so dense a body as stones and timbers, nor again so fine
as mists and flying bodies of smoke; for then they must either
fall borne down by their dead weight like stones, or like smoke
they would be unable to keep together and hold within frozen
snows and hail-showers. They also give forth a sound over the

108—146 VI [55

levels of the wide-stretching upper world, just as at times a can-
vas-awning stretched over large theatres makes a creaking noise,
when it tosses about among the poles and beams; sometimes too
rent by the boisterous gales it madly howls and closely imitates
the rasping noise of pieces of paper: for this kind of noise too
you may observe in thunder: you may observe again the sound
which is heard when the winds whirl about with their blows
and buffet through the air either a hanging cloth or flying bits
of paper. For sometimes the clouds cannot meet front to front
in direct collision, but must rather move from the flank and so
with contrary motions graze leisurely along each other’s bodies;
whence comes that drv sound which brushes the ears and is long
drawn out, until they have made their way out of their confined
positions.

In this way also all things appear to quake often from the
shock of heavy thunder, and the mighty walls of the farstretching
ether seem in an instant to have been riven and to have sprung
asunder; when a storm of violent wind has suddenly gathered and
worked itself into the clouds and, there shut in, with its whirling
eddy ever more and more on all sides forces the cloud to become
hollow with a thick surrounding crust of body; afterwards when
its force and impetuous onset have split it, then the cloud thus
rent gives forth a crash with a fnghtful hurtling noise. And no
wonder, when a small bladder filled with air often emits a hideous
sound if suddenly burst.

It can also be explained how the winds, when they blow
through the clouds, make noises: we see branching and rough
clouds often borne along in many ways; thus, you are to know,
when the blasts of the northwest blow through a dense forest, the
leaves give forth a rustling and the boughs a crashing. Some-
times too the force of the strong wind in rapid motion rends the
cloud, breaking through it by an assault mght in front: what a
blast of wind can clo there, is shewn by facts plain to sense, when
here on earth where it is gentler 1¢ yet twists out tall trees and
tears them up from their deepest roots. There are also waves
among the clouds and they give a kind of roar as they break
heavily; just as in deep rivers and on the great sea when the
surf breaks. Sometimes too when the burning force of thunder
has fallen out of one cloud into another, if haply the latter con-

156 VI 146—185

tains much moisture when it has taken the fire into it, it drowns
it at once with a loud noise; just so iron glowing hot from the
fiery furnaces sometimes hisses, when we have plunged it quickly
into cold water. Again if the cloud which receives the fire is
drier, it is set on fire in an instant and burns with a loud noise;
just as if a flame should range over the laurel-covered hills through
a whirlwind and burn them up with its impetuous assault; and
there is not anything that burns in the crackling flame with a
more startling sound than the Delphic laurel of Phoebus. Then
often too much erashing of ice and tumbling im of hail make a
noise in the great clouds on high; for when the wind packs them
together into a confined space, the mountains of storim-clouds
congealed and mixed with hail break up.

It lightens too, when the clouds have struck out by their col-
lision many seeds of fire; just as if a stone were to strike another
stone or a piece of iron; for then too light bursts out and fire
scatters about bright sparks. But we hear the thunder with
our ears after the eyes see the flash of hghtning, because things
always travel more slowly to the ears than those which excite
vision travel to the eyes. This you may perceive from the fol-
lowing instance as well: when you see a man at a distance
cutting with a double-edged axe a large tree, you perceive the
stroke before the blow carries the sound to the ear: thus we see
lightning too before we hear the thunder, which is discharged at
the same time as the fire from the same cause, being born indeed
from the same collision.

Also in the followimg manner clouds dye places with winged
light and the storm flashes out with a rapid quivering movement.
When the wind has made its way into a cloud and whirling about
in it has, as I have shewn above, made the cloud hollow with a
dense crust, 1t becomes hot by its own velocity: thus you see
all things thoroughly heated and fired by motion; nay a leaden
ball in whirling through a long course even melts. When there-
fore this wind now on fire has rent the black cloud, it scatters
abroad at once seeds of fire pressed out by force so to speak, and
these produce the throbbing flashes of tlame; then follows a
sound which strikes on the ears more slowly than the things
which travel to our eyes strike on them. This you are to know
takes place when the clouds are dense and at the same time

185—227 ΥΙ Gye

piled up on high one above the other in marvellous accumn-
lation; that you be not led into error, because we see how great
their breadth is below, rather than to how great a height they
are piled up. Observe, at a time when the winds shall carry
clouds like to mountains with a slanting course through the air,
or when you shall see them piled on the sides of great moun-
tains one on the top of the other and pressing down from above
perfectly at rest, the winds being buried on all sides: you will
then be able to observe their great masses and to see caverns as
it were built of hanging rocks; and when a storm has gathered
and the winds have filled these, they chafe with a loud roaring
shut up in the clouds, and bluster in their dens after the fashion
of wild beasts: now rrom this point, now from that the winds
send their growlings through the clouds, and seeking a way out
whirl about and roll together seeds of fire out of the clouds and
then gather many into a mass and make flame rotate in the hol-
low furnaces within, until they have burst the cloud and shone
forth in forked flashes,

From this cause again yon golden colour of clear bright fire
flies down with velocity to the earth: the clouds must themselves
have very many seeds of fire; for when they are without any
moisture, they are mostly of a bnilhant flame colour. Moreover
they must take in many from the sun’s light, so that with good
cause they are ruddy and shed forth fires. When therefore the
wind has driven thrust squeezed together and collected into one
spot these clouds, they press out and shed forth seeds which cause
the colours of flame to flash out. It also hghtens, when the clouds
of heaven are rarefied as well. ΕῸΡ when the wind lightly unravels
them and breaks them up as they move, those seeds which produce
the hghtning must fall perforce; and then it hghtens without a
hideous startling noise and without any uproar.

Well, to proceed, what kind of nature thunderbolts possess, is
shewn by their strokes and the traces of their heat which have
burnt themselves into things and the marks which exhale the
noxlous vapours of sulphur: all these are signs of fire, not of wind
or rain. Acain they often set on fire even the roofs of houses and
with swift flame rule resistless within the house. This fire subtle
above all fires nature, you are to know, forms of minute and hghtly
moving bodies, and it is such as nothing whatever can withstand.

rcs VI 228—270

The mighty thunderbolt passes through the walls of houses, like a
shout and voices, passes through stones, through brass, and in
a moment of time melts brass and gold; and causes wine too in an
instant to disappear, while the vessels are untouched, because sure
enough its heat on reaching it readily loosens and rarefies all the
earthen material of the vessel on every side and foreing a way
within lightly separates and disperses the first-beginnings of the
wine. This the sun’s heat would be unable to accomplish in an
age, though beating on it incessantly with its quivering heat: so
much more nimble and overpowering is this other force.

And now in what way these are begotten and are formed with
a force so resistless as to be able with their stroke to burst asunder
towers, throw down houses, wrench away beams and rafters, and
cast down and burn up the monuments of men, to strike men
dead, prostrate cattle far and near, by what foree they can do all
this and the like, I will make clear and will not longer detam you
with mere professions.

Thunderbolts we must suppose to be begotten out of dense
clouds piled up high; for they are never sent forth at all when the
sky 1s clear or when the clouds are of a slight density. That this
is so beyond all question 15 proved by facts evident to sense:
clouds at such times form so dense a mass over the whole sky that
we might imagine all its darkness had abandoned Acheron through-
out and filled up the great vaults of heaven: in such numbers,
gathering up out of the frightful night of storm-clouds, do faces of
black horror hang over us on high; what time the storm begins to
forge its thunderbolts. Very often again a black storm-cloud too
out at sea, like a stream of pitch sent down from heaven, falls in
such wise upon the waters heavily charged with darkness afar off
and draws down a black tempest big with hghtnings and storms,
itself so fraught above all the rest with tires and winds, that even
on land men shudder and seek shelter. Thus then we must sup-
pose that the storm above our head reaches high up; for the
clouds would never bury the earth im such thick darkness, unless
they were built up high heap upon heap, the sunlight totally dis-
appearing ; nor could the clouds when they descend drown it with
so great a rain, as to make rivers overtlow and put fields under
water, if they were not piled high up in the sky. In this ease
then all things are filled with winds and fire; therefore thunder-

270—311 VI 159

ings and lightnings go on all about. For I have shewn above that
hollow clouds have very many seeds of heat, and they must also
take many in from the sun’s rays and their heat. On this account
when the same wind which happens to collect them mto any one
place, has forced out many seeds of heat and has mixed itself up
with that fire, then the eddy of wind forces a way in and whirls
about in the straitened room and points the thunderbolt in the
fiery furnaces within; for it is kindled in two ways at once: it 15
heated by its own velocity and from the contact of fire. After that
when the force of the wind has been thoroughly heated and the
impetuous power of the fire has entered in, then the thunderbolt
fully forged as it were suddenly rends the cloud, and the heat put
in motion is carried on traversing all places with flashing lights.
Close upon it falls so heavy a clap that 1t seems to crush down
from above the quarters of heaven which have all at once sprung
asunder. Then a trembling violently seizes the earth and rumb-
lings run through high heaven; for the whole body of the storm
then without exception quakes with the shock and loud roarings
are aroused. After this shock follows so heavy and copious a rain
that the whole ether seems to be turning into rain and then to be
tumbling down and returning to a deluge: so great a flood of it is
discharged by the bursting of the cloud and the storm of wind,
when the sound flies forth from the burning stroke. At times too
the force of the wind set in motion from without falls on a cloud
hot with a fully forged thunderbolt; and when it has burst it,
forthwith there falls down yon fiery eddying whirl which in our
native speech we call a thunderbolt. The same takes place on
every other side towards which the force in question has borne
down. Sometimes too the power of the wind though discharged
without fire, yet catches fire in the course of its long travel, and
while 1t 1s passing on, it loses on the way some large bodies which
cannot like the rest get through the air; and gathers together out
of the air itself and carnes along with it other bodies of very
smal] size which mix with it and produce fire by their flight ; very
much in the same way as a leaden ball becomes hot during its
course, when it loses many bodies of cold and has taken up fire in
the air. Sometimes too the force of the blow itself strikes out fire,
when the force of wind discharged in a cold state without fire has
struck, because sure enough, when it has smitten with a powerful

160 Wr 311-—349

stroke, the elements of heat are able to stream together out of the
wind itself and at the same time out of the thing which then
encounters the stroke. Thus, when we strike a stone with iron,
fire flies out; and none the less, because the force of the iron
is cold, do its seeds of fiery brightness meet together upon the
stroke. Therefore in the same way too a thing ought to be set on
fire by the thunderbolt, if it has happened to be in a state suited
to receive and susceptible of the flames. At the same time the
might of the wind cannot lightly be thought to be absolutely and
decidedly cold, seeing that it is discharged with such force from
above; but if it is not already set on fire during its course, 1t yet
arrives in a warm state with heat mixed up in it.

But the velocity of thunderbolts is great and their stroke
powerful,.and they run through their course with a rapid descent,
because their force when set in motion first in all cases collects
itself in the clouds and gathers itself up for a great effort at start-
ing; then when the cloud is no longer able to hold the increased
moving power, their force is pressed out and therefore flies with a
marvellous moving power, lke to that with which missiles are
carried when discharged from powerful engines. Then too the
thunderbolt consists of small and smooth elements, and such a
nature it 1s not easy for anything to withstand; for it flies between
and passes in through the porous passages; therefore it is not
checked and delayed by many collisions, and for this reason it
glides and flies on with a swift moving power. Next, all weights
without exception naturally pressing downward, when to this a
blow is added, the velocity 15 doubled and yon moving power
becomes so intense that the thunderbolt dashes aside more impe-
tuously and swiftly whatever gets in its way and tries to hinder it,
and pursues its journey. Then too as it advances with a long-
continued moving power, it must again and again receive new
velocity which ever increases as it goes on and augments its
powerful might and gives vigour to its stroke; for it forces all the
seeds of the thunder to be borne right onward to one spot so to
speak, throwing them all together, as on they roll, into that single
line. Perhaps too as it goes on it attracts certain bodies out of
the air itself, and these by their blows kindle apace its velocity.
It passes too through things without injuring them, and leaves
many things quite whole after it has gone through, because the

349—390 VI 161

clear bright fire flies through by the pores. And it breaks to
pieces many things, when the first bodies of the thunderbolt have
fallen exactly on the first bodies of these things, at the points
where they are intertwined and held together. Again it easily
melts brass and fuses gold in an instant, because its force is formed
of bodies minutely small and of smooth elements, which easily
make their way in and when they are in, in a moment break up
all the knots and untie the bonds of union. And more especially
in autumn the mansion of heaven studded with glittering stars and
the whole earth are shaken on all sides, and also when the flowery
season of spring discloses itself. For durimg the cold fires are
wanting and winds fail during the heat, and the clouds then are
not of so dense a body. When therefore the seasons of heaven are
between the two extremes, the different causes of thunder and
lightuimg all combine; for the very cross-current of the year mixes
up cold and heat, both of which a cloud needs for forging thunder-
bolts; so that there is great discord in things and the air raving
with fires and winds heaves in mighty disorder. The first part of
heat and the last of cold is the spring-time; therefore unhke things
must battle with one another and be turbulent when mixed toge-
ther. And when the last heat mixed with the first cold rolls on its
course, a time which goes by the name of autunin, then too fierce
winters are in conflict with summers. Therefore these seasons are
to be called the cross-seas of the year; and 1t 15 not wonderful that
in that season thunderbolts are most frequent and troublous storms
are stirred up in heaven; since both sides then engage in the
troublous medley of dubious war, the one armed with flames, the
other with winds and water commingled.

This is the way to see into the true nature of the thunderbolt
and to understand by what force it produces each effect, and not
the turning over the scrolls of Tyrrhene charms and vainly search-
ing for tokens of the hidden will of the gods, in order to know
from what quarter the volant fire has come or to which of the two
halves it has betaken itself, in what way 1t has gained an entrance
within walled places, and how after lording 1t with tyrant sway it
has gotten itself out from these; also what harm the thunderstroke
from heaven can do. But if Jupiter and other gods shake with
an appalling crash the ghttering quarters of heaven, and hur!
their fire whither each is so minded, why strike they not those

mi. IIT. L

162 VI 390—431

whoever they be who have recked not of committing some abomin-
able sin and make them give forth the flames of lightning from
breast pierecd through and through, a sharp lesson to men? and
why rather is he whose conscience is burdened with no foul offence,
innucent though he be, wrapped and enveloped in the flames, in a
moment caught up by the whirlwind and fire of heaven? Why
too aim they at solitary spots and spend their labour in vain ? or
are they then practismg their arms and strengthening their
sinews ? and why do they suffer the father’s bolt to be blunted on
the earth ? why does he allow it hunsclf, and not spare it for his
enemies? Why again, when heaven is unclouded on all sides,
does Jupiter never hil a bolt on the earth or send abroad his
claps? or does he, so soon as clouds have spread under, then go
down in person into them, that from them he may aim the strokes
of his bolt near at hand? Ay and for what reason does he hurl
into the sea? of what has he to impeach its waters and liquid
mass and floating fields? Again if he wills us to avoid the thun-
derstroke, why fears he to let us see it discharged? or if he wills
to crush us off our guard with his fire, why thunders he from that
side, to enable us to shun it? why stirs he up beforehand dark-
ness and roarings and rumblings? And how can you believe that
he hurls at many points at the same time ? or would you venture
to maintain that it never has happened that more than one stroke
was made at one time? Nay often and often it has happened and
must happen that, even as it rains and showers fall in many differ-
ent quarters, so many thunderings go on at one time. Once more
why does he dash down the holy sanctuaries of the gods and his
own gorgeous seats with the destroying thunderbolt, aud break the
finewrought idols of the gods, and spoil his own images of their
glory by an overbearing wound? and why does he mostly aim at
lofty spots, and why do we see most traces of his fire on the moun-
tain tops

To proceed, it is easy from these facts to understand in what
way those things, which the Greeks from their nature have named
presteres, come down from above into the sea. For sometimes a
pillar so to speak is let down from heaven and descends into the
sea, and round about it the surges boil, stirred up by heavy blasts
of winds; and all ships caught in that turmoil are dashed about
and brought into extreme danger. This takes place when at times

431—472 sul 163

the force of the wind put in motion cannot burst the cloud which
it essays to burst, but weighs it down, so that it is like a pillar let
down from heaven into the sea, yet gradually, just as if a thing
were thrust down fro above and stretched out to the level of the
waters by the fist and push of the arm; and when the force of the
wind has rent this cloud, it bursts out from it into the sea and
occasions a marvellous boiling in the waters; for the whirling eddy
descends and brings down together with it yon cloud of limber
body; and as soon as it has forced 1t down full-charged as it is to
the levels of the sea, the eddy in a moment plinges itself entire
into the water, and stirs up the whole sea with a prodigious noise
and forces it to boil. Sometimes too the eddy of wind wraps itself
up in clouds and gathers out of the air seeds of cloud and initates
in a sort the prester let down from heaven. When this prester
has let itself down to the land and has burst, it belches forth a
whirlwind and storm of enormous violence; but as it seldom takes
place at all and as mountains cannot but obstruct it on land, it is
seen more frequently on the sea with its wide prospect and wnob-
structed horizon.

Clouds are formed, when in this upper space of heaven many
bodies flying about have in some one instant met together, of a
rougher sort, such as are able, though they have got the very
shghtest holds of each other, to catch together and be held in
union. These bodies first cause small clouds to form; and these
next catch together and collect into masses and increase by join-
ing with each other and are carried on by the winds continually
until a fierce storm has gathered. The nearer too the tops of a
mountain in each case are to heaven, the more constantly at this
elevation they smoke with the thick darkness of a swarthy cloud,
because, as soon as clouds form, before the eyes can see them, thin
as they are, the winds carry and bring them together to the
highest sumimits of a mountain; and then at last when they have
gathered in a greater mass, being now dense they are able to
make themselves visible and at the same time they are seen to
rise up from the very top of the mountain into the ether: the very
fact of the case and our sensations, when we climb high moun-
tals, prove that the regions which stretch up on high are windy.
Again clothes hung up on the shore, when they drink in the
clinging moisture, prove that nature takes up many bodies over

th

164 VI 47O—S14

the whole sea as well. This makes it still more pla that inany
bodies may likewise rise up out of the salt heaving sea to add
to the bulk of clouds; for the two liquids are near akin in their
nature. Again we 566 mists and steam rise out of all rivers and
at the same time from the earth as well; and they forced out like
a breath from these parts are then carned upwards and overcast
heaven with their darkness and make up clouds on high’ as they
gradually come together; for the heat of starry ether at the same
time presses down too on them and by condensing as it were
weaves a web of elouds below the blue. Sometimes there come
here into heaven from without those bodies which form clouds
and the flying storm-rack; fur 1 have shewn that their number
passes numbering and that the sum of the deep is infinite; and 1
have proved with what velocity bodies fly and how in a moment
of time they are wont to pass through space unspeakable. It is
not therefore strange that a tempest and darkness often in a short
time cover over with such great mountains of clouds seas and
lands, as they hang down upon thein overhead, since on all sides
through all the cavities of ether and as it were through the vents
of the great world around the power of going out and coming in is
accorded to the elements.

Now mark and [ will explain in what way the rainy moisture
is formed in the clouds above and then 15 sent down and falls to
the earth in the shape of ram. And first I will prove that many
seeds of water rise up together with the clouds themselves out of
all things and that both the clouds and the water which is in the
clouds thus increase together; Just as our body increases together
with the blood, as well as the sweat and all the moisture which is
in the frame. The clouds hkewise imbibe much sea-water as well,
like hanging fleeces of wool, when the winds carry them over the
great sea. In like manner moisture is taken up out of all rivers
into the clouds; and when the seeds of waters full many in num-
ber in many ways have met in them, augmented from all sides,
then the close-packed clouds endeavour to discharge their moisture
from two causes: the force of the wind drives them together, and
likewise the very abundance of the rain-clouds, when a greater
mass than usual has been brought together, pushes down, presses
from above and forces the rain to stream out. Again when the
clouds are also rarefied by the winds, or are dispersed, being smuit-

514—554 ὙΙ 165

ten at the same time by the heat of the sun, they discharge a
rainy moisture and trickle down, just as wax over a hot fire melts
away and turns fast into hquid. Buta violent rain follows, when
the clouds are violently pressed upon by both causes, by their
own accumulated weight and by the impetuous assault of the
wind. And rains are wont to hold out and to last long, when
many seeds of waters are stirred to action, and clouds upon clouds
and rack upon rack welling forth from all quarters round about
are borne along, and when the reeking earth steams moisture
back again from its whole surface. When in such a case the sun
has shone with his rays amid the murky tempest right opposite
the dripping rain-clouds, then the colour of the rainbow shews
itself among the black clouds.

As to the other things which grow by themselves and are
formed by themselves, as well as the things which are formed
within the clouds, all, without exception all, snow winds hail and
cold hoarfrosts and the great force of ice, the great congealing
power of waters, and the stop which everywhere curbs running
rivers, it is yet most easy to find out and apprehend in mind how
all these things take place and in what way they are formed, when
you have fully understood the properties assigned to elements.

Now mark and learn what the law of earthquakes is. And
first of all take for granted that the earth below us as well as
above is filled in all parts with windy caverns and bears within
its bosom many lakes and many chasms, cliffs and craggy rocks;
and you must suppose that many rivers hidden beneath the crust
of the earth roll on with violence waves and submerged stones ;
for the very nature of the case requires it to be throughout like
to itself. With such things then attached and placed below, the
earth quakes above from the shock of great falling masses, when
underneath time has undermined vast caverns; whole mountains
indeed fall m, and in an instant from the mighty shock trem-
blings spread themselves far and wide from that centre. And
with good cause, since buildings beside a road tremble throughout
when shaken by a waggon of not such very great weight; and
they rock no less, where any sharp pebble on the road jolts up
the iron tires of the wheels on both sides. Sometimes too, when
an enormous mass of soil through age rolls down from the land
into great and extensive pools of water, the earth rocks and sways

166 Mel 554-594

with the undulation of the water; just as a vessel at times cannot
rest, until the hquid within has ecased to sway about in unsteady
undulations.

Agaim when the wind gathering itsclf together in the hollow
places underground bears down on one point and pushing on
presses with great violence the deep caverns, the earth leans over
on the side to which the headlong violence of the wind presses.
Then all buildings which are above ground, and ever the more,
the more they tower up towards heaven, lean over and bulge out
yielding in the same direction, and the timbers wrenched from
their supports hang over ready to give way. And yet men shrink
from beheving that a time of destruction and ruin awaits the
nature of the great world, though they see so great amass of earth
hang ready to fall! And if the winds did not abate their blowing,
no force could rein things in or hold them up on their road to
destruction, As it 1s, because by turns they do abate and then
increase in violence, and so to speak rally and return to the charge,
and then are defeated and retire, for this reason the earth oftener
threatens to fall than really falls: it Jeans over and then sways
back again, and after tumbling forward recovers in equal poise its
fixed position. J*or this reason the whole house rocks, the top
more than the middle, the middle than the bottom, the bottom in
a very very slight degree.

The same great quaking likewise arises from this cause, when
on a sudden the wind aud some enormous force of air gathering
elther from without or within the earth have flung themselves
into the hollows of the earth, and there chafe at first with much
uproar among the great caverns and are carried on with a whirling
motion, and when their force afterwards stirred and lashed into
fury bursts abroad and at the same moment cleaves the deep
earth and opens up a great yawning chasm. This fell out in
Syrian Sidon and took place at Aegium in the Peloponnese, two
towns which an outbreak of wind of this sort and the ensuing
earthquake threw down. And many walled places besides fell
down by great commotions on land and many towns sank down
engulphed in the sea together with their burghers. And if they
do not break out, still the impetuous fury of the air and the fierce
violence of the wind spread over the numerous passages of the
earth hike a shivering-fit and-thereby cause a trembling; just as

594—636 VI 167

cold when it has pierced into our frames to the very marrow, sets
them a-shivering in spite of themselves, forcing them to shake
and move. Men are therefore disturbed by a twofold terror
throughout their cities: they fear the roofs above their heads, they
dread lest the nature of the earth in a moment break up her
caverns underneath, and rent asunder display her own wide-gaping
maw and wildly tumbled together seek to fill it up with her own
runs. Let them then fancy as much as they please that heaven
and earth shall be incorruptible and consigned to an everlasting
exemption from decay ; and yet sometimes the very present force
of danger apphes on some side or other this goad of fear among
others, that the earth shall in an instant be withdrawn from
under their feet and carried down into the pit, and that the sum
of things shall utterly give way and follow after and a jumbled
wreck of world ensue.

First of all they wonder that nature does not increase the
bulk of the sea, when there is so great a flow of water into it.
when all rivers from all qnarters fall mto it. Add to these
passmg rains and flying storms, which bespatter every sea and
moisten every land; add its own springs; yet all these compared
with the suin of the sea will be hike an addition of bulk hardly
amounting to a stngle drop; it is therefore the less wonderful
that the great sea does not increase. Again the sun absorbs a
great deal with his heat: we see him with his burning rays
thoroughly dry clothes dripping with wet: but we know seas to
be many in number and to stretch over a wide surface. Therefore
however small the portion of moisture which the sun draws off the
surface from any one spot, 1t will yet in so vast an expanse take
largely from its waters. Then again the winds too may withdraw
a great deal of moisture as they sweep over the surface, since we
very often sec the roads dried by the winds in a single night and
the soft mud forin into hard crusts. Again I have shewn that the
clouds take off much moisture too imbibed from the great surface
of the sea and scatter it about over the whole earth, when it rains
on land and the winds carry on the clouds. Lastly since the earth
is of a porous body and is in contact with the sea, girding its
shores all round, just as water comes from the earth into the sea,
in the same way it must ooze into the land out of the salt sea;
for the salt is strained off and the matter of liquid streams back

168 YI 636—678

again to the source and all flows together to the river-heads, and
then passes anew over the lands in a fresh current, where a
channel once scooped out has carried down the waters with
liquid foot.

And now I will explain why it is that fires breathe forth at
times through the gorges of mount Aetna with such hurricane-
like fury; for with a destroymg force of no ordinary kind the
flame-storm gathered itself up and lording it over the lands of
the Sicilians drew on itself the gaze of neighbouring nations, when
seeing all the quarters of heaven smoke and sparkle men were
filled in heart with awe-struck apprehension, not knowing what
strange change nature was travailing to work.

In these matters you must look far and deep and make a
wide survey in all directions, in order to bear in mind that the
sum of things is unfathomable and to perceive how very small,
how inconceivably minute a fraction of the whole sum one hea-
ven is, not so large a fraction of it as one man is of the whole
earth. If you should clearly comprehend, clearly see this point
well put, you would cease to wonder at many things. Does any
one among us wonder if he has gotten into his frame a fever
that has broken out with burning heat, or mto his body the
pains of any other disease? the foot suddenly swells, sharp pain
often seizes the teeth, or else attacks the eyes; the holy fire
breaks out and creeping over the body burns whatever part it
has seized upon, and spreads over the frame, because sure enough
there are seeds of many things, and this earth and heaven bring
to us evil enough to allow of a measureless amount of disease
springing up. In this way then we must suppose that all things
are supplied out of the infinite to the whole heaven and earth in
quantity sufficient to allow the earth in a moment to be shaken
and stirred, and a rapid hurricane to scour over sea and land, the
fire of Aetna to overflow, the heaven to be in flames; for that too
is seen and the heavenly quarters are on fire; and rain-storms
gather in a heavier mass, when the seeds of water have haply
come together for such an end. ‘Ay but the stormy rage of the
conflagration is too too gigantic.’ Yes and so any river you like
is greatest to him who has never before seen any greater, and thus
a tree and a man seem gigantic, and in the case of all things of all
kinds the greatest a man has seen he fancies to be gigantic, though

678—7 16 Mal 169

yet all things with heaven and earth and sea included are nothing
to the whole sum of the universal sum.

And now at last I will explain in what ways yon flame roused
to fury in a moment blazes forth from the huge furnaces of Aetna.
And first the nature of the whole mountain is hollow underneath,
underpropped throughout with caverns of basalt rocks. Further-
more in all caves are wind and air; for wind is produced, when
the air has been stirred and put in motion. When this air has
been thoroughly heated and raging about has imparted its heat
to all the rocks round, wherever it comes in contact with them,
aud to the earth, and has struck out from them fire burning with
swift flames, 1t rises up and then forces itself out on high straight
through the gorges; and so carries its heat far and scatters far its
ashes and rolls on smoke of a thick pitchy blackness and flings
out at the same time stones of prodigious weight; leaving no
doubt that this is the stormy force of air. Again the sea to a
great extent breaks 105 waves and sucks back its surf at the roots
of that mountain. Caverns reach from this sea as far as the deep
gorges of the mountain below. Through these you must admit
(that air mixed up with water passes; and] the nature of the case
compels {this air to enter in from that] open sea and pass right
within and then go out in blasts and so lift up flame and throw
out stones and raise clouds of sand; for on the summit are craters,
as they name them in their own language; what we call gorges
and mouths.

There are things too not a few for which it is not sufficient to
assign one cause; you must give several, one of which at the same
time 15 the real cause. For instance should you see the lifeless
body of a man lying at some distance, it would be natural to men-
tion all the different causes of death, in order that the one real
cause of that man’s death be mentioned among them. Thus you
may be able to prove that he has not died by steel or cold or from
disease or haply from poison; yet we know that it is something
of this kind which has befallen him; and so in many other cases
we may make the same remark.

The Nile rises every summer and overflows the plains, that
one sole river thronghout the whole land of Egypt. It waters
Egypt often m the middle of the hot season, either because in
summer there are north winds opposite its mouths, which at that

170 VI 716—755

time of year go by the name of etesian winds. Blowing up the
river they retard it and driving the waters backwards fill its
channel full and force the river to stand still; for beyond a doubt
these blasts which start from the icy constellations of the pole are
earricd right up the stream. That river comes from the south
out of the heat-franght country, rising far up from the central
region of day among races of men black in their sun-baked com-
plexion. It is quite possible too that the great accumulation of
sand may bar up the mouths against the opposing waves, when
the sea stirred up by the winds throws up the sand within the
channel; whereby the outlet of the river is rendered less free and
the current of the waters at the same time less rapid in its down-
ward flow. It may be also that the rains are more frequent at
its sonreé in that season, because the etesian blasts of the north
winds drive all the clonds together into those parts at that time.
And, you are to know, when they have been driven on to the
central region of day and have gathered together, then the clouds
jammed close against the high mountains are massed together and
violently compressed. Perhaps too it gets its increase high up
from the lofty mountains of the Ethiopians, when the all-surveying
sun with his thawing rays constrains the white snows to descend
into the plains.

Now mark, and I will make clear to you what kind of nature
the several Avernian places and lakes possess. First of all, as to
the name Averman by which they are called, it has been given to
them from their real nature, because they are noxious to all birds;
for when they have arrived in flight just opposite those spots, they
forget to row with their wings, they drop their sails and fall with
soft neck outstretched headlong to the earth, if so be that the na-
ture of the ground admit of that, or into the water, if so be that a
lake of Avernus spreads below. There is such a spot at Cumae,
where the mountains are charged with acrid sulphur, and smoke
enriched with hot springs. Such a spot there also is within the
Athenian walls, on the very summit “of the citadel, beside the
temple of bountiful Tritonian Pallas; which croaking crows never
come near on the wing; no not when the high altars smoke with
offerings: so constantly they fly, not before the sharp wrath of
Pallas for the sake of yon vigil kept, as the poets of the Greeks
have sung, but the nature of the place suffices by its own proper

755—793 Neu rey

power. In Syria too as well a spot, we are told, 15 found to exist
of such a sort that as soon as ever even fourfooted beasts have
entered in, 105 mere natural power forces them to fall down heavily,
just as if they were felled in a moment as sacrifices to the mancs
gods. Now all these things go on by a natural law, and it is
quite plain whence spring the causes from which they are pro-
duced; that the gate of Orcus be not haply believed to exist in
such spots; and next we imagine that the manes gods from be-
neath do haply draw souls down from them to the borders of
Acheron; as wing-footed stags are supposed often by their scent
to draw out from their holes the savage serpent-tribes. How
widely opposed to truc reason this is, now learn; for now I essay
to tell of the real fact.

First of all I say, as I have often said before, that in the earth
are elements of things of every kind: many, which serve for food,
helpful to hfe; and many whose property 10 1s to cause diseases
and hasten death. And we have shewn before that one thing 1s
more adapted to one, another thing to another living creature for
the purposes of hfe, because of thei natures and their textures
and their primary elements bemg all unlike the one to the other.
Many which are noxious pass through the ears, many make their
way too through the nostrils, dangerous and harsh when they
come in contact; and not a few are to be shunned by the touch,
and not a few to be avoided by the sight, and others are nauseous
in taste.

Again you may see how many things are for man of a viru-
lently noxious sensation and are nauseous and oppressive; to cer-
tain trees for instance has been given so very oppressive a shade
that they often cause headaches when a man has lain down under
them extended on the grass. There is a tree too on the great
hills of Helicon which has the property of kilhng a inan by the
noisome scent of its flower. ΑἸ] these things you are to know
rise up out of the earth, because it contains many seeds of many
things in many ways mixed up together and gives them out ina
state of separation. Again when a newly extinguished night-hght
encounters the nostrils with its acrid stench, 1t sends to sleep then
and there a man who from disease is subject to fallmg down and
foaming at the mouth. A woman is put to sleep by oppressive
castor and falls back in her seat, and her gay work drops out of

173 MI 795—836

her soft hands, if she has smelt it at the time when she has her
monthly discharges. And many things besides relax through all
the frame the fainting limbs and shake the soul in 105 seats within.
Then too if you linger long in the hot baths when you are some-
what full and do bathe, how hable you are to tumble down in a fit
while seated in the midst of the hot water! Again how readily
do the oppressive power and fumes of charcoal make their way
into the brain, if we have not first taken water! But when burn-
ing violently it has filled the chambers of a house, the fumes of
the virulent substance act on the nerves like a murderous blow.
See you not too that even within the earth sulphur is generated
and asphalt forms incrustations of a noisome stench? see you not,
when they are following up the veins of silver and gold and
searching with the pick quite into the bowels of the earth, what
stenches Scaptensula exhales from below? Then what mischief
do gold mines exhale! to what state do they reduce men’s faces
and what a complexion they produce! Know you not by sight or
hearsay how they commonly perish in a short time and how all
vital power fails those whom the hard compulsion of necessity con-
fines in such an employment? All such exhalations then the
earth steams forth and breathes out into the open air and light of
heaven.

Thus too the Avernian spots must send up some power deadly
to birds, which rises up from the carth into the air so as to poison
a certain portion of the atmosphere; im such a way that a bird as
soon as ever it is borne on its wings into 16, 1s then attacked by
the unseen poison and so palsied that it tumbles plump down on
the spot where this exhalation has its course. And when it falls
into it, then the same power of that exhalation robs all its limbs
of the remnants of life: first of all it causes a sort of dizziness; but
afterwards, when the birds have tumbled mto the very springs of
the poison, then life too has to be vomited forth, because all round
rises up large store of mischievous matter.

Sometimes too this power and exhalation of Avernus dispels
whatever air lies between the birds and earth, so that almost a
void is left there. And when the birds have arrived in their
flight just opposite this spot, at once the buoyant force of their
pinions is crippled and rendered vain and all the sustaming efforts
of their wings are lost on both sides. So when they are unable to

836—878 ΥΙ 173

buoy themselves wp and lean upon their wings, nature, you know,
compels them by their weight to tumble down to earth, and lying
stark through what is now almost a void they disperse their soul
through all the openmgs of their body. * * Again during sunmer the
water 1 wells becomes colder, because the earth is rarefied by heat
and rapidly sends out into the air whatever seeds of heat it hap-
pens to have. The more then the earth is drained of heat, the
colder becomes the water which is hidden in the earth. Again
when all the earth 1s compressed by cold and contracts and so to
say congeals, then, you are to know, while it contracts, it presses
out into the wells whatever heat it contains itself.

At the fane of Hammon there is said to be a fountain which
is cold in the dayhght and hot in the night-time. This fountain
men marvel at exceedingly and suppose that it suddenly becomes
hot by the influence of the fierce sun below the earth, when night
has covered the earth with awful darkness. But this is far far
removed from true reason. Why when the sun though in contact
with the uncovered body of the water has not been able to make it
hot on its upper side, though his light above possesses such great
heat, how can he below the earth which is of so dense a body boil
the water and glut 10 with heat? above all when he can scarcely
with his burning rays force his heat through the walls of houses,
What then is the cause? this sure enough: the earth is more
porous and warmer round the fountain than the rest of the earth,
and there are many seeds of fire near the body of water. For this
reason When night has buned the earth in its dewy shadows, the
earth at once becomes quite cold and contracts: in this way just as
if it were squeezed by the hand it forces out into the fountain
whatever seeds of fireit has; and these make the water hot to the
touch and taste. Next when the sun has risen and with his rays
has loosened the earth and has rarefied it as his heat waxes
stronger, the first-beginnings of fire return back to their ancient
seats and all the heat of the water withdraws into the earth: for
this reason the fountain becomes cold in the dayhght. Again the
liquid of water is played upon by the sun’s rays and in the day-
time is rarefied by his throbbing heat; and therefore it gives up
whatever seeds of fire 10 has; just as it often parts with the
frost which it holds in itself, and thaws the ice and loosens its
bonds.

174 Nel 879—919

There is also a cold fountain of such a nature that tow often
when held over it imbibes fire forthwith and emits flame; a pine
torch in like manner is lighted and shines among the waters, in
whatever direction 1t swims under the impulse of the winds.
Because sure enough there are in the water very many seeds of
heat, and from the earth itself at the bottom must rise up bodies
of fire throughout the whole fountain and at the same time pass
abroad in exhalatious and go forth into the air, not in snch numbers
however that the fountain can beevine hot, for these reasons a
force compels those seeds to burst out through the water and dis-
perse abroad and to umte when they have mounted up. In
the sca at Aradus is a fountain of this kind, which wells 1p with
fresh water aud keeps off the salt waters all round it; and in
many otlier quarters the sca affords a seasonable help in need to
thirsting sailors, vomiting forth fresh waters amid the salt. In
this way then those seeds may burst forth through that fountain
and well out; and when they are met together in the tow or
cohere in the body of the pine-torch, they at once readily take
fire, because the tow and pinewood contain im them likewise
many seeds of latent fire. See you not too that, when you bring a
newly extinguished wick near night-lamps it catches light before
it has touched the flame; and the same with the pinewood? And
many things beside catch fire at some distance touched merely by
the heat, before the fire in actual contact infects them. This
therefore you must suppose to take place m that fountain as
well,

Next in order I will proceed to discuss by what law of nature
it comes to pass that iron can be attracted by that stone which
the Greeks call the Magnet from the name of its native place,
because it has its ongin within the bounds of the country of the
Magnesians. ‘This stone men wonder at; as it often produces a
chain of rings hanging down from it. Thus you may see some-
times five and more suspended in succession and tossmg about in
the hght airs, one always hanging down from one and attached to
its lower side, and cach in turn one from the other experiencing
the binding power of the stone: with such a continued current its
force flies through all.

In things of this kind many points must be estabhshed before
you can assign the trne law of the thing in question, and 1t must

919—962 ΥΙ 175

be approached by a very cirenitous road; wherefore all the more I
eall for an attentive ear and mind.

In the first place from all things whatsoever which we see
there must incessantly stream and be discharged and scattered
abroad such bodies as strike the eyes and provoke vision. Smells
too incessantly stream from certain things; as does cold from
rivers, heat from the sun, spray from the waves of the sea, that
eater into walls near the shore. Various sounds too cease not to
stream through the air. Then a moist salt flavour often comes
into the mouth, when we are moving about beside the sea; and
when we look on at the mixing of a decoction of wormwood,
its bitterness affects us. In such a constant stream from all things
the several qualities of things are carried and are transmitted in
all directions round, and no delay, no respite in the flow is ever
granted, since we constantly have feeling, and may at any time
see, smell and hear the sound of anything.

And now I will state once again how rare a body all things
have: a question made clear in the first part of my poem also:
although the knowledge of this is of importance in regard to many
things, above all in regard to this very question which I am
coming to discuss, at the very outset 1t is necessary to establish
that nothing comes under sense save body mixed with void. For
instance in caves rocks overhead sweat with moisture and trickle
down in oozing drops. Sweat too oozes out from our whole
body; the beard grows, and hairs over all our limbs and frame.
Food is distributed through all the veins, gives increase and
nourishment to the very extremities and nails. We feel too cold
and heat pass through brass, we feel them pass through gold and
silver, when we hold full cups. Again voices fly through the stone
partitions of houses; smell passes through and cold, and the heat
of fire which is wont ay to pierce even the strength of iron, where
the Gaulish cuirass girds the body round. And when a storm has
gathered in earth and heaven, and when along with it the influ-
ence of disease makes its way in from without, they both withdraw
respectively to heaven and earth and there work their wills, since
there is nothing at all that is not of a rare texture of body.

Furthermore all bodics whatever which are discharged from
things are not qualified to excite the same sensations nor are
adapted for all things alike. The sun for instance bakes and dries

176 *! 962— 1007

up the varth, but thaws ice, and forees the snows piled up high
on the high hills to inmelt away beneath his rays; wax again
turns to liquid when placed within reach of his heat. Fire also
inclts brass and fuses gold, but shmvels up and draws together
hides and flesh. ‘The liquid of water after fire hardens steel, but
softens hides and flesh hardened by heat. The wild olive delights
the bearded she-goats as much as if the flavour it yielded were of
ambrosia and steeped in nectar; but nothing that puts forth leaf
is more bitter to man than this food. Again a swine eschews
marjoram-oil and dreads all perfumes; for they are rank poison to
bristly swine, though they are found at times to give us as it were
fresh hfe. But on the other hand though mire is to us the nastiest
filth, it 1s found to be so welcome to swine that they wallow in it
all over with a craving not to be satisfied.

There is still one point left which 10 seems proper to mention,
before I come to speak of the matter in hand. Since many pores
are assigned to various things, they must possess natures differing
the one from the other and must have cach its own nature, its own
direetion: thus there are in living creatures various senses, each of
which takes into it in its own peculiar way its own special object ;
fur we see that sounds pass into one thing, taste from different
flavours into another thing, smells into another. Again one thing
is seen to stream through stones and another thing to pass through
woods, another through gold, and another still to go out through
silver and brass; for form is seen to stream through this passage,
heat through that, and one thing is seen to pass through by
the same way more quickly than other things. The nature of the
passages, you are to know, compels it so to be, varying in manifold
wise, as we have shewn a little above, owing to the unlike nature
and textures of things.

Therefore now that these points have all been established and
arranged for us as premisses ready to our hand, for what remains,
the law will easily be explained out of them, and the whole cause
be laid open which attracts the strength of iron. First of all
there must stream from this stone very many seeds or a current
if you will which dispels with blows all the air which hes between
the stone and iron. When this space is emptied and much room
left void between, forthwith the first-beginnings of iron fall head-
long forward mto the void in one mass, and in consequence the

I00S— 1050 Vi rere

ring itself follows and then goes on with its whole body. And
nothing has its primal elements more intricately entangled or
coheres in closer connexion than the nature of stubborn iron and
its coldness that makes you shiver. Therefore what I say is the
less strange, that from among such elements as these bodies can-
not gather in large numbers out of the iron and be carried into
the void without the whole ring following. This it does do, and
follows on until it has quite reached the stone and fastened on it
with unseen bonds of connexion, The same thing takes place in
all directions: on whatever side a void 15 formed, whether athwart
or from above the first bodies next it are at once carried on into
the void; for they are set in motion by blows from another
source and cannot by their own free act rise up into the air.
Moreover (to render it more feasible, this thing also is helped
on by external aid and motion) as soon as the air in front of the
ving has been made rarer and the space more empty and void,
it follows at once that all the air which lies behind, carries and
pushes it on as it were at its back. For the air which lies
around them always beats on things; but at such a time as
this it is able to push on the iron, because on one side a space
is void and receives the iron into it. This air of which I am
speaking to you makes its way with much subtlety through the
frequent pores of the iron to its minute parts and then thrusts
and pushes it on, as the wind a ship and its sails. Again all
things must have air in their body, since they are of a rare body
and air surrounds and is in contact with all things. This air
therefore which is in the inmost recesses of the iron, is ever
stirred in restless motion and therefore beats the ring without a
doubt and stirs 1t within, you know: the ring is carried in the
direction in which it has once plunged forward, and into the void
part towards which it has made its start.

Sometimes too it happens that the nature of iron is repelled
from this stone, being in the habit of flying from and following
it in turns. I have seen Samothracian iron rings even jump up,
and at the same time filings of iron rave within brass basins,
when this Magnet stone had been placed under: such a strong
desire the iron seems to have to fly from the stone. So great a
disturbance is raised by the interposition of the brass, because
sure enough when the current of the brass has first seized on

M. III, M

178 al 10;0—1089

and taken possession of the open passages of the iron, the cur-
rent of the stone comes after and finds all things full in the iron
and has no opening to swim through as before. It 1s forced there-
fore to dash against and beat with its wave the iron texture; by
which means it repels from it and sets in motion through the
brass that which without the brass it often draws to itself. And
forbear herein to wonder that the current from this stone is not
able to set in motion other things as well as iron: some of these
stand still by the power of their own weight; for instance gold;
and others, because they are of so rare a body that the current
flies through them uninterrupted, cannot im any case be set in
motion; to which class wood is found to belong. When therefore
the nature of iron lying between the two has received into it cer-
tain first- bodies of brass, then do the Magnet stones set it in
motion with their stream.

And yet these cases are not so much at variance with other
things, that I have only a scanty store of similar instances to
relate of things mutually fitted one for the other and for nothing
else: stones for instance you see are cemented by mortar alone;
wood is united with wood so firmly by bulls’ glue only, that the
veins of boards often gape in cracks before the binding power
of the glue can be brought to loosen its hold. Vine-born juices
venture to mix with streams of water, though heavy pitch and
light oil cannot. Again the purple dye of the shellfish so unites
with the body of wool alone, that it cannot in any case be severed,
not were you to take pams to undo what is done with Neptune's
wave, not if the whole sea were willed to wash 1t out with all its
waters. Then too is there not one thing only that fastens gold to
gold, and is not brass soldered to brass by tin? and how many
other eases of the kind might one find! what then? you have no
need whatever of such long circuitous roads, nor is 1t worth my
while to spend so much pains on this, but it is better briefly to
comprise many things in few words: things whose textures have
such a mutual correspondence, that cavities fit solids, the cavities
of the first the solids of the second, the cavities of the second
the solids of the first, form the elosest union. Again some things
may be fastened together and held in union with hooks and eyes
as it were; and this seems rather to be the case with this stone
and iron.

1000-1130 ial 179

And now I will explain what the law of diseases is and from
what causes the force of disease may suddenly gather itself up
and bring death-dealing destruction on the race of man and the
troops of brute beasts. And first I have shewn above that there
are seeds of many things helpful to our hfe; and on the other
hand many must fly about conducing to disease and death. When
these by chance have happened to gather together and have dis-
ordered the atmosphere, the air becomes distempered. And all
that force of disease and that pestilence come either from without
down through the atmosphere in the shape of clouds and inists, or
else do gather themselves up and rise out of the earth, when
soaked with wet it has contracted a taint, being beaten upon by
unseasonable rains and suns. See you not too that all who come
to a place far away from country and home are affected by the
strangeness of climate and water, because there are wide differ-
ences in such things? for what a difference may we suppose be-
tween the climate of the Briton and that of Egypt where the pole
of heaven slants askew, and again between that in Pontus and
that of Gades and so on to the races of men black with sun-
baked complexion? Now as we see these four climates under the
four opposite winds and quarters of heaven all differing from each
other, so also the complexions and faces of the men are seen to
differ widely and diseases varying in kind are found to seize upon
the different races. ‘There 1s the elephant disease which is gene
rated beside the streams of Nile in the midst of Egypt and _no-
where else. In Attica the feet are attacked and the eyes in
Achaean lands. And so different places are hurtful to different
parts and members: the variations of air occasion that. Therefore
when an atmosphere which happens to put itself in motion un-
suited to us and a hurtful air begin to advance, they creep slowly
on in the shape of mist and cloud and disorder everything in their
line of advance and compel all to change; and when they have at
length reached our atmosphere, they corrupt it too and make it
like to themselves and unsuited to us. This new destroying power
and pestilence therefore all at once either fall upon the waters or
else sink deep into the corn-crops or other food of man and pro-
vender of beast; or else their force remains suspended within the
atmosphere, and when we inhale from it mixed airs, we must
absorb at the same time into our body those things as weil. In

180 vel 1131—1173

like manner pestilence often falls on kine also and a distemper
too on the silly sheep. And it makes no difference whether we
travel to places unfavourable to us and change the atmosphere
which wraps us round, or whether nature without our choice brings
to us a tainted atmosphere or something to the use of which we
have not been accustomed, and which is able to attack us on its
first arrival.

Such a form of disease and a death-fraught miasm erst within
the borders of Cecrops defiled the whole land with dead, and dis-
peopled the streets, drained the town of burghers. Rising first
and starting from the inmost corners of Egypt, after traversing
much air and many floating fields, the plague brooded at last over
the whole people of Pandion; and then they were handed over in
troops ο΄ disease and death. First of all they would have the
head seized with burning heat and both eyes blood-shot with a
glare diffused over; the livid throat within would exude blood and
the passage of the voice be clogged and choked with ulcers, and
the mind’s interpreter the tongue drip with gore, quite enfecbled
with sufferings, heavy im movement, rough to touch. Next when
the force of disease passing down the throat had filled the breast
and had streamed together even into the sad heart of the suffer-
ers, then would all the barners of hfe give way. The breath
would pour out at the mouth a noisome stench, even as the stench
of rotting carcases thrown out unburied. And then the powers of
the entire mind, the whole body would sink utterly, now on the
very threshold of death. And a bittcr bitter despondency was the
constant attendant on msufferable ills and complaining mingled
with moammg. An ever-recurring hiccup often the mght and day
through, forcing on continual spasms in sews and limbs, would
break men quite, forwearying those forspent before. And yet in
none could you perceive the skin on the surface of the body burn
with any great heat, but the body would rather offer to the hand
a lukewarm sensation and at the same time be red all over with
ulcers burnt into 1t so to speak, hke unto the holy fire as it
spreads over the frame. The inward parts of the men however
would burn to the very bones, a flame would burn within the
stomach as within furnaces. Nothing was light and thin enough
to apply to the relief of the body of any one; ever wind and cold
alone. Many would plunge their limbs burning with disease into

1173—1218 VI 181

the cool rivers, throwin their body naked into the water. Many
tumbled headforemost deep down into the wells, meeting the
water straight with mouth wide-agape. Parching thirst with a
craving not to be appeased, drenching their bodies, would make
an abundant draught no better than the smallest drop. No res-
pite was there of ill: their bodies would le quite spent. The
healing art would mutter low in voiceless fear, as again and again
they rolled about their eye-balls wide open, burning with disease,
never visited by sleep. And many symptoms of death besides
would then be given, the mind disordered in sorrow and fear, the
clouded brow, the fierce delirious expression, the ears too troubled
and filled with ringings, the breathing quick or else strangely loud
and slow-recurring, and the sweat glistening wet over the neck,
the spittle in thin small flakes, tinged with a saffron-colour, salt,
scarce forced up the rough throat by coughing. The tendons of
the hands ceased not to contract, the limbs to shiver, a coldness
to mount with slow sure pace from the feet upwards. Then at
their very last moments they had nostrils pinched, the tip of the
nose sharp, eyes deep-sunk, temples hollow, the skin cold and
hard, on the grim mouth a grin, the brow tense and swollen;
and not long after their limbs would be stretched stiff in death:
about the eighth day of bright sunlight or else on the ninth re-
turn of his lamp they would yield up life. And if any of them at
that time had shunned the doom of death, yet in after time con-
sumption and death would await him from noisome ulcers and the
black discharge of the bowels, or else a quantity of purulent blood
accompanied by headache would often pass out by the gorged nos-
trils: into these the whole strength and substance of the man
would stream. Then too if any one had escaped the acrid dis-
charge of noisome blood, the disease would yet pass into his sinews
and joints and onward even into the sexual organs of the body;
and some from excessive dread of the gates of death would live
bereaved of these parts by the knife; and some though without
hands and feet would continue in life, and some would lose their
eyes: with such force had the fear of death come upon them.
And some were seized with such utter loss of memory that they
did not know themselves. And though bodies lay in heaps above
bodies unburied on the ground, yet would the race of birds and
beasts either scour far away, to escape the acrid stench, or where

182 val 1218—1261

any one had tasted, 1t drooped in near-following death. Though
hardly at all in those days would any bird appear, or the sullen
breeds of wild beasts quit the forests. Many would droop with
disease and die: above all faithful dogs would he stretched in all
the streets and yield up breath with a struggle; for the power of
disease would wrench life from their frame. Funerals lonely, un-
attended, would be hurried on with emulous haste. And no sure
and general method of cure was found; for that which had given
to one man the power to inhale the vital air and to gaze on the
quarters of heaven, would be destruction to others and would
bring on death. But in such times this was what was deplorable
and above all eminently heart-rending: when a man saw himself
enmeshed by the disease, as though he were doomed to death,
losing all spirit he would he with sorrow-stricken heart, and with
his thoughts turned on death would surrender his life then and
there.: Ay for at no time did they cease to catch from one an-
other the infection of the devouring plague, lke to woolly flocks
and horned herds. And this above all heaped death on death:
whenever any refused to attend their own sick, killing neglect
soon after would punish them for their too great love of life and
fear of death by a foul and evil death, abandoned in turn, forlorn
of help. But they who had stayed by them, would perish by in-
fection and the labour which shame would then compel them to
undergo and the sick man’s accents of affection mingled with
those of complaining: this kind of death the most virtuous would
meet. * * and different bodies on different piles, struggling as
they did to bury the multitude of their dead: then spent with
tears and grief they would go home; and in great part they would
take to their bed from sorrow. And none could be found whom
at so fearful a time neither disease nor death nor mourning
assailed.

Then too every shepherd and herdsman, ay and sturdy guider
of the bent plough sickened; and their bodies would he huddled
together in the corners of a hut, delivered over to death by po-
verty and disease. Sometimes you might see lifeless bodies of
parents above their lifeless children, and then the reverse of this,
children giving up hfe above their mothers and fathers. And in
no small measure that affliction streamed from the land into the
town, brought thither by the sickening crowd of peasants meeting

1261— 1286 VI 183

plague-stricken from every side. They would fill all places and
buildings: wherefore all the more the heat would [destroy , them
and] thus close-packed death would pile them up in heaps.
Many bodies drawn forth by thirst and tumbled out along the
street would lie extended by the fountains of water, the breath
of life cut off from their too great dehght in water; and over all
the open places of the people and the streets you might see many
limbs drooping with their half-lifeless body, foul with stench and
covered with rags, perish away from filth of body, with nothing
but skin on their bones, now nearly buried in noisome sores and
dirt. All the holy sanctuaries of the gods too death had filled
with lifeless bodies, and all the temples of the heavenly powers
in all parts stood burdened with carcases: all which places the
wardens had thronged with guests. For now no longer the wor-
ship of the gods or their divinities were greatly regarded: so
overmastering was the present affliction. Nor did those rites of
sepulture continue in force in the city, with which that pious folk
had always been wont to be buried; for the whole of it was in dis-
may and confusion, and each man would sorrowfully bury as the
present moment allowed. And the sudden pressure and poverty
prompted to many frightful acts; thus with a loud uproar they
would place their own kinsfolk upon the funeral piles of others,
and apply torches, quarrelling often with much bloodshed sooner
than abandon the bodies,

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LUCRETIUS ON THE
NATURE OF THINGS

TRANSLATED BY

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PREFACE

No one can set about translating Lucretius into English
without finding his head full of the great work of H. A. J.
Munro. It is not only that certain striking phrases ring
in one’s ears—wvitat claustra, ‘the fastnesses of life,’
alte terminus haerens, ‘ the deepset boundary-mark,’ &c.—
but one is possessed with a strong feeling that he has
finally set the tone or colour which Lucretius in English
must assume. It might indeed be thought that with so fine
a model in existence it is unnecessary and unprofitable
to undertake the task again. But there are, I think,
good reasons to justify the attempt. In the first place,
the study of Lucretius has made considerable advances
since Munro’s edition: thanks largely to Dr. Brieger
and still more to the late Professor Giussani,! the philo-
sophy of Epicurus is far better understood than it was,
and, as a consequence, much light has been thrown on
many dark places in the poem, and its general grouping
and connexioncan be far more clearly grasped. Secondly,
though Munro set the tone, he did not always keep it:
in the more technical parts of the poem he is apt to
drop almost into the language of a scientific textbook,
and phrases and even passages of sheer prose give the

2 In cur own country Dr, Masson (Lucretius: Epicurean and Poet)
has recently written a very suggestive, though not always accurate,
sketch of Lucretius’s relations to his predecessors and to modern

scientific ideas, and has most successfully represented the spirit of the
poem.

AZ

4 Preface

reader the idea that Lucretius’s muse allowed him

a fitful inspiration. While acknowledging then my |
to Munro for the main spirit of the translation
often for words and phrases which seemed to me in¢dt
able, I have tried at once to embody the results of rite
recent Lucretian scholarship, and to preserve a ryt
equable level of style, which will, I hope, leave the imps
sion that the De Rerum Natura, even in its most scienft
discussions, is still poetry.
I have translated from my own text published infe
Bibliotheca Oxoniensis in 1898, but in the—I fe:
numerous places, where 1 have since altered my opi
I have taken what I now believe to be the right rea p
or the best suggestion and added the warning of a fit
note. I have appended some notes for the gent
reader, which are intended either to explain allusionp
to elucidate what seemed to me difficult or obsqe
passages in the light of the general Epicurean theory.
I wish to thank the Rector of Lincoln for se
valuable suggestions, and Professor H. H. Turner pr
much help in the elucidation of the astronomical probl

raised in Book V.
ς

1010.

In the present reprint the translation has been adap
to the second edition of the text in the Biblioth
Oxoniensis (1921).

GB

March, 1921.

ΠΥΓΠΟΡΌΓΙΤΟΝ

Or the three great Latin poets Lucretius seems to
make the most peculiar appeal to our own age. Catullus
and Virgil are for all time; the passionate love-history
of a genuine soul and a poet of marvellously wide range,
the all-embracing yet finely pessimistic sympathy of
a mind which could focus past and future in the con-
sciousness of present crisis, will find their response in all
generations. But Lucretius—possibly because from the
point of view of universality he stands a little below the
other two—seems to demand for full appreciation a rather
special temper. His are not the interests of every man,
nor is his a common attitude to life. A fierce hatred
of conventional superstitions and a yearning for intellec-
tual liberty coupled with a sense of awe—deeply religious
in reality—an the presence of nature, a strong desire
for scientific method and accuracy of observation com-
bined with a profound feeling of the beauty of the
world and its works, an unswerving consciousness of
natural law and the sequence of cause and effect counter-
acted by an equal stubbornness in defence of man’s moral
freedom—these are qualities which may engage attention,
but cannot at all times awaken a vital sympathy Yet
these are antitheses familiar enough to our generation,
and this is an attitude of mind which we are peculiarly
qualified to understand. The antagonism of Religion
and Science, the relation of the investigation to the

6 introduction

love of Nature, the opposition of Natural Lawjs
Freewill are themes which seem very near to us.

Only we must be careful not to interpret the μι
by the present. ‘To each generation its problems pr¢t

countless little impersonal ‘spirits’, always ‘ about
path and about his bed’, mostly hostile by ins
but capable of pacification by simple gifts and easytn
of worship—had long ago lost its hold on the liffd
the city, or at the most lingered on here and ther\n
the old-fashioned piety of a household cult.
imposing structure of the State-worship, raised ashe
primitive agricultural community developed int}:
commercial city, and consolidated when the great wr
of Greek culture anthropomorphized numina into f,
gave them temples and statues, and organized ceremoyh
and pricsthoods, remained still untouched in form,
the form was empty. Magistrates and priests

omens and blessed or stayed proceedings, the pop
kept holiday on the festivals, but little real relig
feeling remained, except a vague sense of the insec
of life owing to the malevolent interference of dit
beings, and an abiding fear of death and the punishm
of a life to come. The more recent introductionp

Introduction 7

Oriental cults, which had obtained a great influence over
the popular mind, had but heightened these terrors, by
adding an ecstatic and orgiastic form of worship, which
through excitement and reaction gave an unnatural and
intermittent character to religion, essentially foreign to the
sober and straightforward temperament of the Roman.
Among the educated classes in consequence a profound
scepticism prevailed. When Q. Mucius Scaevola + advo-
cated the maintenance of religion among the populace
as a political asset, he was but voicing what had for
a generation been the practice of the ruling classes.
Cicero, the Augur, could discuss? the fundamental
assumptions of his art and arrive at a very unfavourable
conclusion; Caesar, the acknowledged sceptic, was
selected to direct the whole system of religious worship
as Pontifex Maximus. But a pure scepticism cannot
satisfy any type of mind, least of all the Reman, and Greek
culture, which had introduced the disease, brought also
the antidote in philosophy. Philosophy professed to place
men above the conflict of religions and to give them what
religion did not claim to offer, a guide to moral conduct.
It seems strange at first sight that the two greatest
philosophies of Greece—those of Plato and Aristotle—
should have made so little impression on the Roman
mind, attracting only a few strong intellects like Cicero’s,
and even then only to a very eclectic and almost dilettante
study, But the reason is not really far to seek: not only
were the idealism of Plato and the intellectualism of
Aristotle alien to the plain Roman mind, but morally
both systems rested essentially on the conception of the
State, on the identification of the good man and the good

1 St. Augustine, de Civ. Dei, iv. 27. 2 De Divinatione.

8 Introduction

citizen. It was just this conception which with the
of the Republic was breaking down, and philosoph|!
it was to help the sceptical Roman, must be individ:
istic: he wanted to know about himself and his con
as a single human being. In the corresponding pehl
of the history of Athens, when the city-state had gp
place to the monarchy of Macedon, and that again
fallen into the disruption of the rule of the ‘ Success¢|’,
two creeds had arisen to supply the need. Stoic
with its assertion of the divine element in the world fi
the mind of man had appealed to the mare dirdh
religious natures ; the doctrine of Epicurus, founden
ea atomic materialism of Democritus, made its way \
those more inclined to a matter-of-fact scientific outpk
on life. And so now in Rome these two philosopki
answered the demand, and as men drifted away f
religion, they divided themselves almost unconsciolf
into the rival camps of the Stoics and Epicureans.

Into this atmosphere Lucretius grewup. Ofhis persql
history we are singularly ignorant. By a comparisompl
an entry in Jerome’s Fasti! and a casual note in Donat
Life of Virgil,? and an attempt to reconcile their
agreement by considerations of probability, we
arrive at the conclusion that he was born in 94
and died in 55. We have a romantic story,® which p
been very variously interpreted, that he was ‘ poisot
by a love-philtre, wrote some poems in his lucid inter}h
and finally committed suicide’. We are told
Cicero ‘edited’ the poem—a statement whose mearp
is again much vexed—and a recently discovered Re

1 Chron, Euseb. ® Reifferscheid, Sueton. reliq., p. 5;
5. Jerome, l. ὁ.

Introduction 9

sance! ‘Life’ gives us what purport to be details of
his criticism:* we know for certain that by 54 B.c.
both Cicero and his brother had read the poem and
communicated to each other their opinions on it.
We are aware that the Lucretii were a family of good
standing in Rome, and Lucretius’s friendship with
Memmius suggests that he too was—or might have been,
if he had wished it—in the society of his day: the ‘Borgian
Life ’ gives us the names of others, prominent philosophers
and public men, with whom he was familiar. But
beyond that we must be content to know nothing, nor
indeed could any addition of external details add much
to the unmistakable. picture of his personality which the
poem itself presents to us. A keen active mind, eager
in its pursuit of truth and not shrinking from hard
thought in the attainment of its end, or from intellectual
labour in the attempt to present it to others; and
a profound poetic sensitiveness, alive at once to the
greatness and the beauty of nature, and instinct with
the feeling for accuracy in expression and the consciousness
of the revealing power of language in its ‘ sudden flashes ’ 3
—these are characteristics which strike one at once. And
the closer study of the poem seems to disclose another
feature almost equally marked. Whether or no we
accept the legend of the love-philtre and the idea of
Insanity, we cannot refuse the testimony of the poem
itself to an abnormal and even morbid strain in its author’s
character. The fierceness of of the unceasing attack on

the > religious point ~i ee view—even on its shadow in a

4 See Masson, Lucretius: Epicurean and Poet, vol. i. pp. 38 ff. and
vol. ii. pp. I-13.
a οἷο. Ep. ad Q, Fr. ii. 11. 8 lumina ingenii, Cic. |. c.

10 Introduction

teleological interpretation of nature;} the unre!

virulence of the onslaught on love;? the almost Ὅτι

Se
think of Lucretius as a not quite normal person:
perhaps even not quite sane.

philosophy. Religion was his enemy and he could:
no truce with it, for he saw in it the cause of the gets

a -.

taught that the power of the gods over the worl
nought. In the philosophy of Epicurus Lucretiulkd
found his own rest, and it was the purpose of his

PV i093, ν 11 Occ. 8 iv. 1058 ff. am
Soa, il. 50 τ΄ peill. 322. © i, 62
τ: ὃ. ei. 631.

Introduction II

to put that philosophy at the service of his countrymen
‘and so deliver them too from the tyranny of religion.
But it would be the greatest mistake to think of Lucretius
ΠΟΥ his master as the author of a mere polemic against
teligion, Still less is Epicurus justly represented—as has
sometimes been the case—as patching together from
various sources a crude piecemeal view of the world to
combat superstition and afford a plausible basis for
a moral theory of doubtful moral tendency. If there
is one point that modern work at Epicureanism tends to
reveal, it is that it was a serious philosophy, a consistent
whole derived from a single starting-point and following
step by step with logical precision. As such Lucretius
had learnt it, and as such he intended to present it,
and many of the difficulties which modern critics have
found in his detail, many of the puerilities at which they
have scoffed, are to be explained by the perfectly consis-
tent and relentless application of his fundamental
principles. He has seemed trivial or inconsistent or
obscure to his critics, because they would not take him
seriously enough.

It will not be possible here to deal in any detail with
the Epicurean system, and indeed, in most of its aspects
it will gradually unfold itself in the De Rerum Natura,
but it will be well to call attention to certain fundamental
points with regard to it, which Lucretius has rather
assumed than stated, but which are of vital importance
for the understanding of his poem, and the comprehension
of its essential unity. First, however, we must very
briefly consider the origin of the system. It is commonly
said that Epicurus adopted the atomic theory of Demo-
critus to act as a physical basis for his moral theory that

12 Lntroduction

the end of life was ‘pleasure’. ‘This is in a very
sense true. The long debate of the pre-Socratic yi"
philosophers as to the ultimate constitution |
universe had led up to the hypothesis, first prop

question had been raised at a comparatively earl
in pre-Socratic speculation, and had forced itself
and more into prominence as theories of the
became more and more remote from the experiezo
every-day consciousness, until Parmenides, who behi«

1 There is, as a matter of fact, considerable doubt whether Dentin
attributed weight to the atoms, but I am inclined to believita
he did.

Introduction 13

‘the world to be a corporeal plenum, had declared whole-
‘heartedly for reason and identified the ‘way of the
‘senses? with the ‘way of error’. Democritus had
‘pushed scepticism a step further: reason rested upon
‘the senses, and if the senses were untrustworthy, still
‘more so must reason be: ‘wretched mind,’ he represents
the senses as saying, ‘from us you received your belief,
‘yet you overthrow us; your victory is your defeat.’ ἢ
Epicurus approached the problem as the plain man:
‘he must have a sure basis for the structure of his system,
‘and_no scepticism at the root. The keystone of the
‘whole Epicurean philosophy is the simple assertion :
‘sensation is true,’ ‘I know what I ἔς]. On this one
foundation all is built. Wherever the senses give us
evidence, we are to accept their evidence 48 finally and...
certainly true: where they do not, as for instance, in
considering the ultimate constitution of the world,?
they are still supreme; we must reject any hypothesis
which is contradicted by the evidence of sense, and
accept as equally probable any explanations that are
consistent with it. Now Lucretius does not start with
this fundamental principle: he does not even approach
the discussion of it until the fourth Book.’ But on the
cther hand he is always assuming it and acting on it,
and to understand his line of thought it must always be
borne in mind. The sun and the moon, for instance,
are the same size as we see them to δε : there the senses

Δ Galen, de med. emp. 1259, 8; Diels B. 125. Democritus’s exact
position is very difficult to make out, but it seems that he accepted
the evidence of the senses for the primary properties, size, shape, and
weight, but regarded it with suspicion for all other qualities: in other

words he held that touch alone among the senses could be trusted.
2 Diogenes Laertius, x. 50, &c. * iv. 469 4, Sv. 564 ff.

14 Introduction

give us evidence and we must not attempt to go jd
it. The sequence of night and day,! the orbits |he
heavenly bodies,? eclipses? may be explained in je2!
ways, some of which to our mind appear trivial|lut
these are cases where the senses provide no direct ον με,
and we must therefore accept as equally worthy cm-
sideration all hypotheses which they do not contfit-
Above all, it is this principle which prompts himjin
and again to appeal for support in his theories of ipe-
ceptible things to the analogy of the perceptiblejthe
trust in the senses is the ultimate cause of those jay
‘illustrations from _common_ experience, which so

largely responsible for the beauty and the poetic wth

of the whole poem.

Let us pursue this line of thought a little furthe)0Of
what do the senses give us evidence ? Of nothin|ut
a material world: matter then is the one reality.put
can the existence of matter alone give us a world |we
know it? No, for our senses tell us of a world of mpter
in motion,’ and things cannot move without spajto
move in: there must then be empty space. Alin
what form does this matter exist? ‘The section ilhe
middle of the first Book,® in which Lucretius cri thes
rival theories of the world, shows us how Epicurus aqfied
his principle: some schools deny the existence of fid,
which makes motion impossible ;® others permit irfite
division, which precludes permanence ;/ some prise
a fundamental matter that is unstable, for it chips
into other things,’ others one that is perishable, fojtis

1 y. 650 ff. ay. ΟἿ δ ν 75ie.
ς Sextus Emp, adv. math, i. 213; cf, Lucr.i. 3206. © 1. 630.
δὶ O55, 742; 847. 1 510, 842. δι 6055 @

introduction τ

ποῦ the same nature as perceptible things.1 The only
htheory which is found not to be contradicted, but
rarather supported by the evidence of the senses, is an
uatomic theory. Finally, lest the supply of matter should
-erun short, the atoms must be infinite in number,? and, lest
nit should all congregate ‘at the bottom’, space must
‘t be infinite in extent.? Epicurus has then arrived at the
iratomism of Democritus, not, however, as an arbitrary
choice, but as a direct deduction from the primary
assertion of the infallibility of sense-perception.
᾿ And in this atomic system Epicurus and Lucretius
cfind their refutation of the pretensions of religion, the
t release from the two great terrors which beset man’s
mind, the fear of the arbitrary intervention of the gods
in life, and the fear of the punishment of an immortal
tsoul after death. For the atomic system, capable of
t being worked out in detail throughout the whole realm
© of the universe, can show how every phenomenon is
but the result of natural causes. The atoms in the
) void, obeying the law of their own nature, falling down-
) wards owing to their weight,’ meeting and clashing,®
form first into little molecules, then into larger masses,
and ultimately build up the whole universe of worlds,
planted about here and there in infinite space, and all
things, down to the smallest, contained inthem. Nature,
acting by law and yet without purpose—‘for not by
design did the first-beginnings of things place them-
selves each in their order with foreseeing mind ... but
by trying movements and unions of every kind, at last they
fall into such dispositions as those, whereby our world
pri 753, 8.7. 1 1008, * i. 988.
‘ii, 184. 6 ii, 216,

16 Introduction

of things is created’4—acting indeed blindly and
occasionally with a kind of spontaneity which seems
like ΣῊ τ Nature_made all the worlds and ‘all that
in them is’. There is no need for the aid of the gods,
there is not even πο ΠΥ Terence ἢ
are rather a part of nature's creation, immortal creatures,?
of a body of infinitely subtle formation,’ dwelling apart
in the ‘interspaces between the worlds’,® in regions

‘where falls not hail or rain or any snow, nor ever ae

-.«..Ξ ... ......,..

blows loudly’,® an example and an ideal in their untroubled
calm to man, but utterly unconcerned with the move-
ments of the world or human affairs. As for the soul,
it is, like all other things, a corporeal aggregate of atoms,”
which owes its sensation to the. shape and movements
of its constituents,® and its union with the body: :9 neither
can exist without the other, at death the soul is dissolved
just like the body,!® and it can have nothing to fear for
all time to come.!! Nature then has freed man alike
from the tyranny of the gods and the fear of death, and
in the knowledge of nature he will find not only the
guarantee of his freedom, but the highest pleasure of his
Mee ie.

But is man ‘free’? The exclusion of the gods from
the workings of the universe has been accomplished by
the establishment of law, the demonstration of the
natural sequence of cause and effect from the first down-
ward movement of the atoms to the formation of the
newest ‘thing’ in the remotest world. Is man then

ὉΠ ΊΟΣΙ ἢ. 2 ‘Beit by the chance or the force of nature,’
vi, 31. ϑν 11 ae ov. 146 ff. 5 Οἷς, de Nat, Deor. i.
8. 18. ἀπ}. 19. Tails LOL, ® ii. S94. ° ili, 323.

20 τῇ, 417-829. 2 iii, 838.

introduction 17

alone exempt from this chain of causation ? has he the
power_to direct his own | actions, or is he too ruled by
this_inexorable destiny, so that his_smallest act is but —
the inevitable outcome of all that has preceded? Demo-
critus had already been confronted with this problem
and had boldly answered it with an absolute determinism :
man’s actions are no exception to the universal law,
free-will is but a delusion. But for Epicurus this answer
would not do: man’s conduct was his primary interest,
and it is no use, he thought, telling a man what he
ought to do, unless he is free todo it. Even the tyranny
of religion is better than the tyranny of destiny.1 Besides,
Epicurus_on. his own fundamental principles had a good
‘reason to fight for free-will ; for it isa matter of immediate

consciousness: ‘we know’ that from time to time we
assert our independence of the great claim of causation :
‘we feel’ our freedom and it cannot therefore be denied.
Yet how is it to be preserved? Is man to be an exception
to the universal law, or can it be ee accounted
for? Epicurus’s answer, the ‘ swerve’ 3 of the atoms,

has always been Tidiculed, ficuled, but, : whatever may be thought
of it, it is not to be regarded as a weak admission, but

rather as. as a cardinal point in the system, second only in
importanc ance to the infallibility of the senses, and again

reached by a strict logical deduction. For if man’s will
1s free, it cannot be by special exemption granted him,
but because of some principle inherent in the very first-
beginnings: man can do what he will because there is
an element of spontaneity—not of course conscious
spontaneity—in the atoms. It is the ‘swerve’ then
which enables the atoms to meet in their downward

1 Diog. Laert. x. 134. * ii, 261. Mii. 216 ff,
546.15 B

18 Introduction

fall, it is the ‘swerve’ which preserves in inorganic

nature that curious element of spontaneity which we
call chance,! and it is the ‘swerve’, become conscious
in the sensitive aggregate of the atoms of the mind,
which secures man’s freedom of action and makes it
possible to urge on him a theory of conduct.

Lastly then—for though Lucretius never explicitly
deals with it, it emerges to the surface again and again
in the poem—we must very shortly consider the moral
theory of Epicurus. Let us go back once more to the
fundamental principle. In the sphere of conduct, of
action and suffering, has immediate sensation any evidence
to give us comparable to the evidence of sense-perception
in the field of knowledge? Clearly it has in the immediate
perceptions of pleasure and pain: we all feel them,
we all instinctively seek pleasure and avoid pain. Epicurus
then has his answer at once: pleasure is the moral good ;
sensation tells us so, and we cannot attempt to go behind
it. But what does ‘pleasure’ mean? to what practical
conduct will its adoption as the aim of life lead us? ‘I'wo
points in the physical theory are here ofimportance: firstly,
that man, in Epicurus’s idea, is always essentially a com-
pound of body and soul; secondly, that pain is dislocation
of atomic arrangements and motions, pleasure, their
readjustment and equilibrium. Plcasure_then must be
of body and soul alike, and it will show itself in the
calm that denotes atomic equilibrium, It is seen at once
that Epicurus’s doctrine is no recommendation of mere
vulgar pleasures of sensuality, as it has sometimes been
represented. ‘The body must have its pleasure, but the

1 This point is much disputed, but see Guyau, La Morale
d’Epicure, pp. 70 ff.

Introduction 19

true pleasure is not such as brings attendant pain in
the form either of anticipation or reaction: rather, we
shall secure its pleasure best by maintaining its health
and restricting its desires within the narrowest possible
limits. Lucretius has given us a pleasing picture of
the Epicurean ‘ picnic ’—a full satisfaction of the bodily
needs: ‘men lie in friendly groups on the soft grass
near some stream of water under the branches of a tall
tree and at no great cost delightfully refresh their bodies,
above all when the weather smiles on them and the
season of the year bestrews the green grass with flowers.’+
And with the pleasures of the soul the principle is the
same. First it must be relieved of its peculiar pains,
the fear of the gods and the fear of death: and then it
may give itself up to its own particular pleasure, the
study—not of rhetoric,? for in the private life of the
individual that has no place, not of mathematics,’ or
literature,’ for they deal with mere words, not things—
but of nature: and so the highest pleasure of the mind
is the acquisition of that knowledge which will incidentally
free it fromits pains. Epicurean pleasure is indeed simple
of acquisition, and men are strangely blind that they do not
recognize it: ‘to think that ye should not see that nature
cries aloud for nothing else but that pain may be kept far
sundered from the body, and that, withdrawn from care
and fear, the mind may enjoy the sense of pleasure.’ ®
The ideal for the individual then is not far to seek, ;
and Epicurus is above all an individualist. But a ma
cannot live his life quite alone and he must have relatio
with his fellows: how are they to be regulated? As

Στ 20 ft. * Quintilian, Inst. Or. ii. 17, 15. * Proclus i

Eucl. elem. 322. 4 Plut. contr. Ep. beat. 13. Joos’. ὃ ii, 1610 7

B 2

20 Introduction

one would expect, Epicurus treats the ‘ other-regarding ἢ
virtues with scant respect: they are but of secondary
importance and necessary only in so far as they secure
the individual from interruption in the pursuit of his
own pleasure. Justice, the summing up of the relations
describes to us how, when primitive man came to unite
in a common life, ‘neighbours began eagerly to form
friendship with one another, not to hurt or be harmed.’
The individual retains his freedom by a compact, and for
his own sake respects his neighbours. But beyond that
he ts but little concerned with them. He will not enter
public life or attempt to hold office, for ambition and the
cares of rule are among the most disturbing influences
which can beset the mind: ‘it is far better to obey in
peace than to long to rule the world with kingly power
and to sway kingdoms,’* Even in private life he will
_learn not to trust too_much to others, for his life must
be independent. Friendships he will form, for friendship
based on the common study of philosophy is one of
the highest blessings of life: such friendship Lucretius
hopes for with Memmius.? But love—the giving up of
oneself to one’s affections and the complete dependence
on another’s will—the philosopher will of all things

eschew: Lucretius’s denunciations in the fourth Book 4

are unmistakable. It is not perhaps a very attractive
picture of the philosopher in isolation, pursuing his own
pleasure and disregarding others, but it is again a relent-
less deduction from first principles, and it explains many
casual touches in Lucretius.

These hints may serve to make clear some of the

uv. TOTO. 7 y¥. 1120 51: 14.0. * iv. 1058 ff.

Introduction 21

salient points in the Epicurean theory which in Lucretius’s
own treatment are somewhat obscured, and to show how
the whole system is really knit together by the single prin-
ciple of the certainty of sensation. For those who like to
find in antiquity the anticipation of modern ideas and
hypotheses ἢ Lucretius is of course instinct with interest.
The physicist will find in him the germs of the modern
atomic theory, which in its most recent development
seems more likely than ever to come back to the notion
of uniform homogeneous ‘ first-beginnings’: the biologist
will find notable anticipations of the hypothesis of the
formation of species by evolutionary experiments and the
survival of the fittest,” and in the idea of the spontaneous
‘swerve’ of the atoms a supposition not far remote from
the modern speculations of W. Kk. Clifford and Haeckel :
the anthropologist will see a picture of primitive man
startlingly like that to which modern investigation has led,
and all the more noticeable in that the current notions of
Lucretius’s time looked back to a primitive ‘Golden Age’:
the moral philosopher will discover the foundation both
of Hedonism and Utilitarianism, and the political scientist
will recognize the familiar description of the Social
Contract.4 But to the general reader what will come
home most is the spirit of the whole, the problems with
which Lucretius is faced and the general attitude in which
he goes to meet them. And if one is to appreciate this
fully, it is more than all else necessary to have the clear
conception of the main principles and their fearless
application.

1 Several interesting and suggestive chapters on this subject will be
found in Masson’s Lucretius: Epicurean and Poet.
* vy. 837-77. 8 vy. 925-1104. ὦ ν, 1OKG.

22 Introduction

It is often asked whether a didactic work can be real
poetry, and certainly didactic poetry must stand or fall
by the answer given in the case of Lucretius, for not
even Hesiod or the Georgics can put forward a higher
claim, It is easy, of course, to point to long tracts of
scientific discussion, to call them ‘ arid ’, or to characterize
them as ‘scanning prose’: it is just to urge that a few
or even many great passages of sustained poetic beauty
cannot in themselves save a poem, if they are sundered
by such deserts. It is not difficult to reply by pointing,
as Cicero did,! to the ‘ flashes of genius’ in the poem,
whether they be the wonderful descriptions, such as
that of the cow who has lost her calf,? or the distant view
of the flock on the hillside,’ or those quieter ‘ flashes’ of
poetic painting,—the ‘flower of flame ’,? ‘the ice of
brass,’ ὅ the shells ‘ painting the lap of the earth ’ §—which
in a moment transform argument with imagination.
It might be maintained rather more subtly that there
is high poetic quality in the very exactness of the expres-
sion of the intricate theories and abstruse arguments—
a quality which is the more appreciated, the more we
tealize the genius with which almost every word in the
poem is chosen to do precisely its own work and no more.
But surely a didactic poem, more than any other, must
not be judged piecemeal in this way by isolated phrases
or even continuous passages of poetic imagination. Its
claim to rank as true poetry will rest rather on the spirit
of the whole—the depth of intention underlying the
work and giving life to the parts. And this is the supreme
claim of the De Rerum Natura; there may be portions

Ὁ εὐὶ (Ο)ς Pr. ti, 14. * ti, 352 ἢ. ii, 317 ff.

δ 1, 900. δι, 403. © ii. 375.

Introduction 23

of it, which judged separately by superficial students
would seem to fall beneath the dignity of poetry, but it 18
knit into a whole and vivified through all its parts by
the fearless desire for truth, the consciousness of a great
purpose, and a deep reverence for nature—felt almost
as a personal presence—which has caused this bitter
opponent of religion to be universally recognized as one
of the most truly religious of the world’s poets.

SHORT ANALYSIS OF THE POEM

Book I deals with the ultimate constitution of the universe,
which consists of infinite atoms moving in infinite
space.

Introduction: Invocation to Venus and appeal to Mem-
mius; 1-145.
A. General principles; 146-482.
(a) The existence of ‘ first-bodies’, or fundamental

ro matter in the form of particles; 146-328.

~~ (6) The existence of void, or empty space ; 329-417.

(c) Everything else is either property or accident of
these two; 418-82.

B. The ‘ first-bodies’ are atoms: solid, eternal and
indivisible particles; 483-634.

C. Refutation of rival theories; 635-920.

(a) Heraclitus; 635-704.
(ὁ) Empedocles ; 705-829.
(c) Anaxagoras; 830-920.
D. The universe ts infinite ; 921-1117.

Book II deals with the motion and forms of the atoms, and
their combination in things.
“ Introduction: The blessings of philosophy; 1-61.
A. The motion of the atoms ; 62-332.
(2) The incessant movement of the atoms; 80-141.
(ὁ) The velocity of their motion; 142-164.
(c) Universal downward motion due to weight; 184-
205.
(dq) The swerve of the atoms; 216-293.
(6) The permanence of matter and motion; 294-332.
B. The forms of the atoms and their effects in combination ;
33-7209.
(a) The variety of atomic forms and their effects on
sensation; 333-477.
(δ) This variety not infinite; 478-521.
(c) Atoms of any given form infinite; 522-580.
(d) Variety of combinations: differences withir
species; 581-729.

Short Analysis of the Poem 25

C. The atoms are without secondary qualities ; 730-990.
(a) Colour; 730-841.
(ὁ) Heat, Sound, Taste, Smell; 842-64.
(c) Sensation; 865-990.
(4) Summary 3 991-1022.
D. The infinite worlds and their formation and destruction ;
1023-1174.

Book 11] deals with the soul, its nature, and its fate.
Introduction : Praise of Epicurus and effect of the fear of
punishment after death; 1-93.

7
A. Nature and formation of the Soul; 94-416.
(a2) Distinction between mind and soul, or vital
principle; 94-160.
(ὁ) Their corporeal nature and composition ; 161-257.
(c) Their relation to one another and to the body;
258-416.
B. Proofs of the Mortality of the Soul ; 417-8209.
(This section cannot be satisfactorily subdivided, but
may roughly be classified as follows :)
(a) Proofs from the structure of the soul; 425-58.
(ὁ) Proofs from disease and its cure; 459-547.
c) Proofs from connexion of soul and body; 548-623.
δ Proofs from absurdity of separate existence of
soul; 624-829.
L-C. The folly of the fear of death ; 830-1094.
Book IV deals mainly with the psychology of sensation and
thought, and also with certain biological functions.
Introduction ¢ Lucretius’s Mission; 1-25.
wd. Extstence and nature of the ‘idols’ ; 26-216.
(a) Their existence; 26-1009.
(ὁ) Their fineness of texture; 110-42.
(c) Swiftness of their formation; 143-75.
(4) Rapidity of their motion; 176-216.
B. Sensation and Thought ; 217-822.
(a) Sight and phcnomena connected with it; 217-378.
(ὁ) False inferences of the mind and infallibility of
the senses; 379-521
(c) Hearing; 522-614.
(1) Taste; 615-72.
fe) Smell; 673-721.
/ (f) Thought, i.e. mental images, both in sleep and
waking life; 722-822.
C. Some functions of the Body ; 823-1057.
(2) Refutation of teleological view; 823-57.

a

26 Short Analysis of the Poem

(Ὁ) Food; 858-76.
(c) Walking: the act of will; 877-906.
(4) Sleep and dreams; 907-1036.
(6) Love; 1037-57.
D. Attack on the passion of Love; 1058-1287.

Book V deals with our world and its formation, astronomy,
the beginnings of life and civilization.
Introduction : Praise of Epicurus; 1-54.
Argument of the book; 55-109; attack on the
theological and teleological view; 110-234.
A. The world bad a beginning and 13 mortal ; 235-415.
B. Formation of the world; 416-508, 534-64.
C. Astronomy ; 509-33, 564-770.
(a) Motions of heavenly bodies; 509-33.
(ὁ) Size of sun, moon and stars; 564-613.
(c) Cause of orbits of heavenly bodies; 614-49.
(4) Causes of night and day, and their variations;
650-704.
(δ) Cause of the moon’s light; 705-50.
(f) Cause of eclipses 3; 751-70.
D. The youth of the world ; 772-1010.
(a) Origin of vegetable and animal life; 772-924.
(6) Origin of human hfe and primitive man; 925-1010. :
L#. The beginnings of civilization 5; 1011-1457. q

Book VI explains from the atomic point of view a variety of
occurrences, partly meteorological phenomena, partly
terrestrial curiosities.

Introduction: Praise of Epicurus: the gods; 1-95.
A. Celestial phenomena; 96-534.
(a) Thunder, lightning and thunderbolts; 96-422.
(5) Waterspouts 3; 423-50.
(c) Clouds and Rain; 451-534.
B. Terrestrial phenomena ; 535-1137.
(a) Earthquakes; 535-607.
(5) Constant size of the sea; 608-38,
(c) Volcanoes; 639-711.
(ὦ) The Nile; 712-37.
(e) Pestilential lakes, &c.; 738-847.
(f) Curious fountains; 848-gos5.
(g) The Magnet; go6-1089.
(2) Pestilences 5 1090-1137.
&. The Plasue at Athens; 1138-1286.

BUCKETS
ON THE NALTURE OF THINGS
BOOK I

Motuer® of Aeneas’s sons, joy of men and gods, Venus Introduc-
the life-giver, who beneath the gliding stars of heaven εἰς ΕΝ
fillest with life the sea that carries the ships and the land to Venus,
that bears the crops; for thanks to thee every tribe of ee
living things is conceived, and comes forth to look upon power of
the light of the sun. Thou, goddess, thou dost turn to atic
flight the winds and the clouds of heaven, thou at thy
coming ; for thee earth, the quaint artificer, puts forth
her sweet-scented flowers; for thee the levels of ocean
smile, and the sky, its anger past, gleams with spreading
light. For when once the face of the spring day is
revealed and the teeming breeze of the west wind is
loosed from prison and blows strong, first the birds in
high heaven herald thee, goddess, and thine approach,
their hearts thrilled with thy might. Then the tame
beasts grow wild and bound over the fat pastures, and
swim the racing rivers; so surely enchained by thy
charm each follows thee in hot desire whither thou goest
before to lead him on. Yea, through seas and mountains
and tearing rivers and the leafy haunts of birds and ver-
dant plains thou dost strike fond love into the hearts of
all, and makest them in hot desire to renew the stock of
their races, each after his own kind. * And since thou alone
art pilot to the nature of things, and nothing without
thine aid comes forth into the bright coasts of light, nor
waxes glad nor lovely, I long that thou shouldest be my

Appeal to
Memmius.

28 Look Ll, Ul. 24-58

helper in writing these verses, which I essay to trace on
the nature of things for the son of the Memmii, my
friend, whom thou, goddess, through all his life hast willed
to be bright with every grace beyond his fellows. There-
fore the more, goddess, grant a lasting loveliness to my
words. Bring it to pass that meantime the wild works of
warfare may be lulled to sleep over all seas and lands.
For thou only canst bless mortal men with quiet peace,
since ’tis Mavors, the lord of hosts, who guides the wild
works of war, and he upon thy lap oft flings himself back,
conquered by the eternal wound of love ; and then pillow-
ing his shapely neck upon thee and looking up he feeds
with love his greedy eyes, gazing wistfully towards thee,
while, as he lies back, his breath hangs upon thy lips. Do
thou, goddess, as he leans resting on thy sacred limbs,
bend to embrace him and pour forth sweet petition from
thy lips, seeking, great lady, gentle peace for the Romans.
For neither can we in our country’s time of trouble® set
to our task with mind undistressed, nor amid such doings

can Memmius’s noble son® fail the fortunes of the state.
1

.

for the rest, do thou (Memmius), lend empty ears and
a keen mind, severed from. cares, to true philosophy, lest,
before they are understood, you should leave aside in dis-
dain my gifts set forth for you with unflagging zeal. For
of the most high law of the heaven and the gods I will
set out to tell you, and I will reveal the first-beginnings
of things, from which nature creates all things, and in-
creases and fosters them, and into which nature too
dissolves them again at their perishing : these in rendering

1 Some lines are lost here, in which he passed from addressing
Venus to Memmius,

Book I, ll. s8-89 29

our account it is our wont to call matter or the creative
bodies of things, and to name them the seeds of things,
and again to term them the first-bodies, since from them
first all things have their being.

When the life of man lay foul to see and grovelling Epicurus
upon the earth, crushed by the weight of religion, which Hie
showed her face from the realms of heaven, lowering upon
mortals with dreadful mien, ’twas a man of Greece ® who
dared first to raise his mortal eyes to meet her, and first
to stand forth to meet her: him neither the stories of
the gods nor thunderbolts checked, nor the sky with its
revengeful roar, but all the more spurred the eager daring
of his mind to yearn to be the first to burst through the
close-set bolts upon the doors of nature. And so it was
that the lively force of his mind won its way, and he
passed on far beyond the fiery walls of the world,» and
in mind and spirit traversed the boundless whole ; whence
in victory he brings us tidings what can come to be and
what cannot, yea and in what way each thing has its
power limited, and its deepset boundary-stone. And so
religion in revenge is cast beneath men’s feet and trampled,
and victory raises us to heaven.

Herein I have one fear, lest perchance you think that The
you are starting on the principles of some unholy reason- see
ing, and setting foot upon the path of sin. Nay, but on
the other hand, again and again our foe, religion, has
given birth to deeds sinful and unholy. Even as at Sacrifice of
Aulis® the chosen chieftains of the Danai, the first of all Iphigenia.
the host, foully stained with the blood of Iphianassa the
altar of the Virgin of the Cross-Roads.2 For as soon
as the band braided about her virgin locks streamed
from her either cheek in equal lengths, as soon as she

The fear of

death and
its cure,

The nature
of the soul.

30 Book 1, ll. 89-119

saw her sorrowing sire stand at the altar’s side, and near
him the attendants hiding their knives, and her country-
men shedding tears at the sight of her, tongue-tied with
terror, sinking on her knees she fell to earth. Nor could
it avail the luckless maid at such a time that she first had
given the name of father to the king. For seized by
men’s hands,” all trembling was she led to the altars, not
that, when the ancient rite of sacrifice was fulfilled, she
might be escorted by the clear cry of ‘Hymen’, but in
the very moment of marriage, a pure victim she might
foully fall, sorrowing beneath a father’s slaughtering
stroke, that a happy and hallowed starting might be
granted to the fleet. Such evil deeds could religion
prompt.

You yourself sometime vanquished by the fearsome
threats of the seer’s sayings, will seek to desert from us.
Nay indeed, how many a dream may they even now
conjure up before you, which might avail to overthrow
your schemes of life, and confound in fear all your for-
tunes. And justly so: for if men could see that there
is a fixed limit to their sorrows, then with some reason
they might have the strength to stand against the scruples
of religion, and the threats of seers. As it is there is no
means, no power to withstand, since everlasting is the
punishment they must fear in death. For they know not
what is the nature of the soul, whether it is born or else
finds its way into them at their birth, and again whether
it is torn apart by death and perishes with us, or goes to
see the shades of Orcus and his waste pools, or by the
gods” will implants itself in other breasts, as our own
Ennivs® sang, who first bore down from pleasant Helicon
the wreath of deathless leaves, to win bright fame among

Book J, ll. 119-150 ΤΙ

the tribes of Italian peoples. And yet despite this,

Ennius sets forth in the discourse of his immortal verse

that there is besides a realm of Acheron, where neither

our souls nor bodies endure, but as it were images pale in
wondrous wise; and thence he tells that the form of
Homer, ever green and fresh, rose to him, and began to

shed salt tears, and in converse to reveal the nature of
things. Therefore we must both give good account of Problems
the things on high, in what way the courses of sun and ἬΝ τ
moon come to be, and by what force all things are governed

on earth, and also before all else we must see by keen
reasoning, whence comes the soul and the nature of the

mind, and what thing it is that meets us and affrights

our minds in waking life, when we are touched with

disease, or again when buried in sleep, so that we seem to

see and hear hard by us those who have met death, and

whose bones are held in the embrace of earth.

Nor does it pass unnoticed of my mind that it is a hard Lucretius’
task in Latin verses to set clearly in the light the dark “βου.
discoveries of the Greeks, above all when many things
must be treated in new words, because of the poverty of
our tongue and the newness of the themes; yet your
merit and the pleasure of your sweet friendship, for which
I hope, urge me to bear the burden of any toil, and lead
me on to watch through the calm nights, searching by
what words, yea and in what measures, I may avail to
spread before your mind a bright light, whereby you may
see to the heart of hidden things.

This terror then, this darkness of the mind, must needs A, General
be scattered not by the rays of the sun and-the gleaming ei ag
shafts of day, but by the outer view and the inner law law:
of nature; whose first rule shall take its start for us from nothing is

12 Book I, ll. 150-179

made of this, that nothing is ever begotten of nothing® by

nothing. divine will. Fear forsooth so constrains all mortal men,
because they behold many things come to pass on earth
and in the sky, the cause of whose working they can by
no means see, and think that a divine power brings them
about. ‘Therefore, when we have seen that nothing can
be created out of nothing, then more rightly after that
shall we discern that for which we search, both whence
each thing can be created, and in what way all things
come to be without the aid of gods.

Proof : For if things came to being from nothing, every kind

eo might be born from all things, nought would need a seed.

fixed seeds. First men might arise from the sea, and from the land
the race of scaly creatures, and birds burst forth from the
sky; cattle and other herds, and all the tribe of wild
beasts, with no fixed law of birth, would haunt tilth and
desert. Nor would the same fruits stay constant to the
trees, but all would change: all trees might avail to bear

For 1. they all fruits. Why, were there not bodies to bring each

eae thing to birth, how could things have a fixed unchanging
mother? Byt as it is, since all things are produced from
fixed seeds, each thing is born and comes forth into the
coasts of light, out of that which has in it the substance
and first-bodies of each; and ’tis for this cause that all
things cannot be begotten of all, because in fixed things
aand there dwells a power set apart. Or again, why do we
fixed , see the roses in spring, and the corn in summer’s heat,
a ; and the vines bursting out when autumn summons them,

if it be not that when, in their own time, the fixed seeds
of things have flowed together, then is disclosed each
thing that comes to birth, while the season is at hand,
and the lively earth in safety brings forth the fragile

Book I, Ul. 179-208 a

things into the coasts of light 2) But if they sprang from

nothing, suddenly would they arise at uncertain intervals

and in hostile times of year, since indeed there would be

no first-beginnings which might be kept apart from

creative union at an ill-starred season. Nay more, there 3- and
would be no need for lapse of time for the increase of “1
things upon the meeting of the seed, if they could grow periods for
from nothing. For little children would grow suddenly pee
to youths, and at once trees would come forth, leaping

from the earth. But of this it is well seen that nothing

comes to pass, since all things grow slowly, as is natural,

from a fixed seed, and as they grow preserve their kind:

so that you can know that each thing grows great, and is

fostered out of its own substance. ‘There is this too, that 4. and
without fixed rain-showers in the year the earth could Mean
not put forth its gladdening produce, nor again held apart ment;
from food could the nature of living things renew its kind

or preserve its life; so that rather you may think that

many bodies are common to many things, as we see letters

are to words, than that without first-beginnings anything

can come to being. Once more, why could not nature 5. they
produce men so large that on their feet they might wade oe ae
through the waters of ocean or rend asunder mighty of growth;
mountains with their hands, or live to overpass many
generations of living men, if it be not because fixed sub-

stance has been appointed for the begetting of things,

from which it is ordained what can arise? Therefore, we

must confess that nothing can be brought to being out

of nothing, inasmuch as it needs a seed for things, from

which each may be produced and brought forth into the

gentle breezes of the air. Lastly, inasmuch as we see
546-15 ς

6. and
culture
makes the
soil more
fertile.

The second
law :
uothing is
resolved
into
nothing.
Otherwise
Teall
things
would be
destroyed
at Once

2, nor
could the
world be re-
plenished ;

34 Book EL Wis 208-237

that tilled grounds are better than the untilled, and when
worked by hands yield better produce, we must know that
there are in the earth first-beginnings of things, which we
call forth to birth by turning the teeming sods with the
ploughshare and drilling the soil of the earth. But if
there were none such, you would see all things without
toil of ours of their own will come to be far better.
Then follows this, that nature breaks up each thing
again into its own first-bodies, nor does she destroy
ought into nothing.» For if anything were mortal in
all its parts, each thing would on a sudden be snatched
from our eyes, and pass away. For there would be no
need of any force, such as might cause disunion in its
parts and unloose its fastenings. But as it is, because all
things are put together of everlasting seeds, until some
force has met them to batter things asunder with its
blow, or to make its way inward through the empty voids
and break things up, nature suffers not the destruction of
anything to be seen. Moreover, if time utterly destroys
whatsoever through age it takes from sight, and devours
all its substance, how is it that Venus brings back the
race of living things after their kind into the light of life,
or when she has, how does earth, the quaint artificer,
nurse and increase them, furnishing food for them after
their kind?) how is it that its native springs and the rivers
from without, coming from afar, keep the sea full? how is
it that the sky feeds the stars? For infinite time and the
days that are gone by must needs have devoured all things
that are of mortal body. But if in all that while, in the
ages that are gone by, those things have existed, of which
this sum of things consists and is replenished, assuredly
they are blessed with an immortal nature; all things

Book J, Ul. 237-266 35

cannot then be turned to nought. And again, the same 3. the
force and cause would destroy all things alike, unless an panne
eternal substance held them together, part with part destroy all
things

interwoven closely or loosely by its fastenings. For in alike

truth a touch would be cause enough of death, seeing
that none of these things would be of everlasting body,
whose texture any kind of force would be bound to break
asunder. But as it is, because the fastenings of the first-
elements are variously put together, and their substance
is everlasting, things endure with body unharmed, until
there meets them a force proved strong enough to over-
come the texture of each. No single thing then passes
back to nothing, but all by dissolution pass back into the
first-bodies of matter. Lastly, the rains pass away, when 4, as it is,

the sky, our father, has cast them headlong into the lap ae et
of earth, our mother; but the bright crops spring up, means the
increase of

and the branches grow green upon the trees, the trees ce, a
too grow and are laden with fruit; by them next our

race and the race of beasts is nourished, through them we

see glad towns alive with children, and leafy woods on

every side ring with the young birds’ cry; through them

the cattle wearied with fatness lay their limbs to rest

over the glad pastures, and the white milky stream trickles

from their swollen udders; through them a new brood

with tottering legs sports wanton among the soft grass,

their baby hearts thrilling with the pure milk. Not
utterly then perish all things that are seen, since nature

renews one thing from out another, nor suffers anything

to be begotten, unless she be requited by another’s

death. {

Come now, since I have taught you that things cannot The
be created of nought nor likewise when begotten be called =*istence of

ς 2

invisible
particles is
supported
by other
invisible
bodies.

1. Wind.

36 Book I, tl. 266-295

back to nothing, lest by any chance you should begin
nevertheless to distrust my words, because the first-
beginnings of things cannot be descried with the eyes,
let me tell you besides of other bodies, which you must
needs confess yourself are among things and yet cannot
be seen. First of all the might of the awakened wind
lashes the ocean and o’erwhelms vast ships and scatters
the clouds, and anon scouring the plains with tearing
hurricane it strews them with great trees, and harries the
mountain-tops with blasts that rend the woods: with
such fierce whistling the wind rages and ravens with
angry roar, ‘There are therefore, we may be sure, un-
seen bodies of wind, which sweep sea and land, yea, and
the clouds of heaven, and tear and harry them with
sudden hurricane; they stream on and spread havoc in
no other way than when the soft nature of water is borne
on in a flood o’erflowing in a moment, swollen by a great
rush of water dashing down from the high mountains
after bounteous rains and hurling together broken branches
from the woods, and whole trees too; nor can the strong
bridges bear up against the sudden force of the advancing
flocd. In such wise, turbid with much rain, the river
rushes with might and main against the piles: roaring
aloud it spreads ruin, and rolls! and dashes beneath its
waves huge rocks and all that bars its flood. Thus then
the blasts of wind too must needs be borne on; and when
like some strong stream they have swooped towards any
side, they push things and dash them on with constant
assault ; sometimes in eddying whirl they seize them up
and bear them away in swiftly swirling hurricane. Where-
fore again and again there are unseen bodies of wind,

1 Read ruiigue et quidquid.

Book I, Ul. 296-326 29

inasmuch as in their deeds and ways they are found to
rival mighty streams, whose body all may see. Then
again we smell the manifold scents of things, and yet we
do not ever descry them coming to the nostrils, nor do

2. Scent,

we behold warm heat, nor can we grasp cold with the 3. Heat.

eyes, nor is it ours to descry voices; yet all these things
must needs consist of bodily nature, inasmuch as they can
make impact on our senses. For, if it be not body,
nothing can touch and be touched. Once more, gar-
ments hung up upon the shore, where the waves break,
grow damp, and again spread in the sun they dry. Yet
never has it been seen in what way the moisture of the
water has sunk into them, nor again in what way it has
fled before the heat. Therefore the moisture is dis-
persed into tiny particles, which the eyes can in no way
see. Nay more, as the sun’s year rolls round again and
again, the ring on the finger becomes thin beneath by
wearing, the fall of dripping water hollows the stone,
the bent iron ploughshare secretly grows smaller in the
fields, and we see the paved stone streets worn away by
the feet of the multitude; again, by the city-gates the
brazen statues reveal that their right hands are wearing
thin through the touch of those who greet them ever and
again as they pass upon their way. All these things then
we see grow less, as they are rubbed away: yet what
particles leave them at each moment, the envious nature
of our sight has shut us out from seeing. Lastly, what-
ever time and nature adds little by little to things,
impelling them to grow in due proportion, the straining
sight of the eye can never behold, nor again wherever
things grow old through time and decay. Nor where
rocks overhang the sea, devoured by the thin salt spray,

4. Cold.

5. Sound,

6.Moisture.

7. The

evidence of

Decay.

8. and
Growth.

The Void.

1. Without
void motion
is impos-
sible.

2. Void
accounts for
the per-

38 Book I, ll. 327-359

could you see what they lose at each moment. ’Tis then
by bodies unseen that nature works her will.

And yet all things are not held close pressed on every
side by the nature of body; for there is void in things.?
To have learnt this will be of profit to you in dealing with
many things; it will save you from wandering in doubt
and always questioning about the sum of things, and dis-
trusting my words. There is then a void, mere space
untouchable and empty. For if there were not, by no
means could things move; for that which is the office
of body, to offend and hinder, would at every moment
be present to all things; nothing, therefore, could advance,
since nothing could give the example of yielding place.
But as it is, through seas and lands and the high tracts of
heaven, we descry many things by many means moving
in diverse ways before our eyes, which, if there were not
void, would not so much be robbed and baulked of rest-
less motion, but rather could in no way have been born
at all, since matter would on every side be in close-packed
stillness. Again, however solid things may be thought to
be, yet from this you can discern that they are of rare

viousness of body. In rocky caverns the liquid moisture of water

seemil 5
solids,

3. and
differences

trickles through, and all weeps with copious dripping: food
spreads itself this way and that into the body of every
living thing: trees grow and thrust forth their fruit in
due season, because the tood is dispersed into every part
of them from the lowest roots through the stems and
all the branches. Noises creep through walls and fly
through the shut places in the house, stiffening cold
works its way to the bones: but were there no empty
spaces, along which each of these bodies might pass, you
would not see this come to pass by any means. Again,
why do we see one thing surpass another in weight, when

Book I, Ul. 359-389 39

its size is no whit bigger? For if there is as much body in weight in
Ie bodies of

in a bale of wool as in lead, it is natural it should weig ἔπ ΞΥ ἥξς

as much, since ’tis the office of body to press all things
downwards, but on the other hand the nature of void
remains without weight. So because it is just as big, yet
seems lighter, it tells us, we may be sure, that it has more
void; but on the other hand the heavier thing avows
that there is more body in it and that it contains far less
empty space within. Therefore, we may be sure, that
which we are seeking with keen reasoning, does exist
mingled in things—that which we call void.
Herein lest that which some vainly imagine® should The false

avail to lead you astray from the truth, I am constrained eee a
to forestall it. They say that the waters give place to without
void,

the scaly creatures as they press forward and open up
a liquid path, because the fishes leave places behind, to
which the waters may flow together as they yield: and
that even so other things too can move among themselves
and change place, albeit the whole is solid. In very

truth this is all believed on false reasoning. For whither, 1. Howcan
things move
without
unless the waters have left an empty space? again, whither room to go
to?

I ask, will the scaly creatures be able to move forward,

will the waters be able to give place, when the fishes cannot
go forward? either then we must deny motion to every
body, or we must say that void is mixed with things, from
which each thing can receive the first start of movement.
Lastly, if two broad bodies leap asunder quickly from 2. There is

. ee . . . ἃ momen-
ἃ meeting, surely it must needs be that air seizes upon all |. eed
the void, which comes to be between the bodies. Still, between

. . . . two re-

however rapid the rush with which it streams together 1. ine
as its currents hasten round, yet in one instant the whole bodies,

empty space cannot be filled: for it must needs be that

40 Book I, Ul. 389-420

it fills each place as it comes, and then at last all the

Falseideaof room is taken up. But if by chance any one thinks ® that

the con-
densation
of air:

which is
impossible
without
void.

The
growth of
knowledge.

The two
natures,
matter and
void.

when bodies have leapt apart, then this comes to be
because the air condenses, he goes astray; for in that
case that becomes empty which was not so before, and
again that is filled which was empty before, nor can air
condense in such a way, nor, if indeed it could, could it,
I trow, without void draw into itself and gather into
one all its parts.

Wherefore, however long you hang back with much
objection, you must needs confess at last that there is
void in things. And besides by telling you many an
instance, I can heap up proof for my words. But these
light footprints are enough for a keen mind: by them
you may detect the rest for yourself. For as dogs rang-
ing over mountains often find by scent the lairs of wild
beasts shrouded under leafage, when once they are set
on sure traces of their track, so for yourself you will be
able in such themes as this to see one thing after another,
to win your way to all the secret places and draw out
the truth thence. But if you are slack or shrink a little
from my theme, this I can promise you, Memmius, on
my own word: so surely will my sweet tongue pour forth
to you bounteous draughts from the deep well-springs
out of the treasures of my heart, that I fear lest sluggish
age creep over our limbs and loosen within us the fasten-
ings of life, before that the whole store of proofs on one
single theme be launched in my verses into your ears.

But now, to weave again at the web, which is the task
of my discourse, all nature then, as it is of itself, 18
built of these two things: for there are bodies and the

Book I, ll. 420-451 41

void, in which they are placed and where they move

hither and thither. For that body exists is declared by

the feeling which all share alike ; and unless faith in this

feeling be firmly grounded at once and prevail, there will

be naught to which we can make appeal about things

hidden, so as to prove aught by the reasoning of the

mind, And next, were there not room and empty space,

which we call void, nowhere could bodies be placed, nor

could they wander at all hither and thither in any direc-

tion; and this I have above shown to you but a little

while before. Besides these there is nothing which you There is no
could say is parted from all body and sundered from void, Pee
which could be discovered, as it were a third nature in

the list. For whatever shall exist, must needs be something 1. Touch
in itself; and if it suffer touch, however small and light, it oe
will increase the count of body by a bulk great or maybe intangi-
small, if it exists at all, and be added to its sum. But eliiy weld.
if it is not to be touched, inasmuch as it cannot on 2. Body
any side check anything from wandering through it and an
passing on its way, in truth it will be that which we call void is the

will field of

empty void. Or again, whatsoever exists by itself, ce

either do something or suffer itself while other things

act upon it, or it will be such that things may exist and
gooninit. But nothing can do or suffer without body,

nor afford room again, unless it be void and empty space.

And so besides void and bodies no third nature by itself

can be left in the list of things, which might either at

any time fall within the purview of our senses, or be
grasped by any one through reasoning of the mind.

For all things that have a name, you will find either properties

properties linked to these two things or you will see them 4"4

: : : δος; Accidents,
to be their accidents. That is a property which in no

‘Time is not
a separate
existence,
but an
accident of
things.

False
argument
from past
events,
because the
persons,
whase
accidents
they were,
arenoniore.

But

I. they
may be
called
accidents
of places ;

2. without
matter and
space, they
could not
have
occurred ;

42 Book 7, ll. 451-480.

case can be sundered or separated without the fatal dis-
union of the thing, as is weight to rocks, heat to fire,
moisture to water, touch to all bodies, intangibility to
the void. On the other hand, slavery, poverty, riches,
liberty, war, concord, and other things by whose coming
and going the nature of things abides untouched, these
we are used, as is natural, to call accidents. Even so
time exists not by itself.» but from actual things comes
a feeling, what was brought to a close in time past, then
what 1s present now, and further what is going to be here-
after. And it must be avowed that no man feels time
by itself apart from the motion or quiet rest of things.
Then again, when men say® that ‘ the rape of ‘Tyndarus’s
daughter ’, or ‘the vanquishing of the Trojan tribes in
war ’ are things, beware that they do not perchance con-
strain us to avow that these things exist in themselves, just
because the past ages have carried off beyond recall those
races of men, of whom, in truth, these were the accidents.
For firstly, we might well say that whatsoever has happened
is an accident in one case of the countries, in another even
of the regions of space. Or again, if there had been no sub-
stance of things nor place and space, in which all things
are carried on, never would the flame of love have been
fired by the beauty of Tyndaris, nor swelling deep in the
Phrygian heart of Alexander have kindled the burning
battles of savage war, nor unknown of the Trojans would
the timber horse have set Pergama aflame at dead of
night, when the sons of the Greeks issued from its womb,
So that you may see clearly that all events from first to
last do not exist, and are not by themselves like body,
nor can they be spoken of in the same way as the being

Book I, tl. 480-512 43

of the void, but rather so that you might justly call them
the accidents of body and place, in which they are carried
on, one and all.

Bodies, moreover, are in part the first-beginnings of B. The

things, in part those which are created by the union of
first-beginnings. Now the true first-beginnings of things,
no force can quench; for they by their solid body prevail
in the end, Albeit it seems hard to believe that there
can be found among things anything of solid body. For
the thunderbolt of heaven passes through walled houses,
as do shouts and cries ; iron grows white hot in the flame,
and stones seethe in fierce fire and leap asunder; then
too the hardness of gold is relaxed and softened by heat,
and the ice of brass yields beneath the flame and melts ;
warmth and piercing cold ooze through silver, since when
we have held cups duly in our hands we have felt both
alike, when the dewy moisture of water was poured in
from above. So true is it that in things there is seen to
be nothing solid. But yet because true reasoning and
the nature of things constrains us, give heed, until in
a few verses we set forth that there are things which exist
with solid and everlasting body, which we show to be the
seeds of things and their first-beginnings, out of which
the whole sum of things now stands created.

First, since we have found existing a twofold nature
of things far differing, the nature of body and of space,
in which all things take place, it must needs be that each
exists alone by itself and unmixed. For wherever space
lies empty, which we call the void, body is not there;
moreover, wherever body has its station, there is by no
means empty void. Therefore the first bodies are solid
and free from void. Moreover, since there is void in

ultimate

particles

are solid
and eternal
atoms,

Proofs.

᾿ Void and
body are

mutually

exclusive,

2. Body
must be
solid to
enclose
void.

3. Body is
that which
distin-
guishes the
full from
the void ;

it cannot
be broken
and is there-
fore eternal,

4. Other-
wise all
things
would ere
now have
perished.

44 Book 1, Ul. 511-544

things created, solid matter must needs stand all round,
nor can anything by true reasoning be shown to hide void
in its body and hold it within, except you grant that
what keeps it in is solid. Now it can be nothing but
a union of matter, which could keep in the void in things.
Matter then, which exists with solid body, can be ever-
lasting, when all else is dissolved. Next, if there were
nothing which was empty and void, the whole would
be solid; unless on the other hand there were bodies
determined, to fill all the places that they held, the whole
universe would be but empty void space. Body, then,
we may be sure, is marked off from void turn and turn
about, since there is neither a world utterly full nor yet
quite empty. There are therefore bodies determined,
such as can mark off void space from what is full. These
cannot be broken up when hit by blows from without,
nor again can they be pierced to the heart and undone,
nor by any other way can they be assailed and made to
totter; all of which I have above shown to you but
a little while before. For it is clear that nothing could
be crushed in without void, or broken or cleft in twain
by cutting, nor admit moisture nor likewise spreading cold
or piercing flame, whereby all things are brought to their
end. And the more each thing keeps void within it, the
more is it assailed to the heart by these things and begins
to totter. Therefore, if the first bodies are solid and free
from void, as I have shown, they must be everlasting.
Moreover, if matter had not been everlasting, ere this all
things had wholly passed away to nothing, and all that
we see had been born again from nothing. But since
I have shown above that nothing can be created from
nothing, nor can what has been begotten be summoned

Book I, Ul. 544-574 43

back to nothing, the first-beginnings must needs be of
immortal body, into which at their last day all things can
be dissolved, that there may be matter enough for renew-
ing things. Therefore the first-beginnings are of solid
singleness, nor in any other way can they be preserved
through the ages from infinite time now gone and renew
things.

Again, if nature had ordained” no limit to the breaking 5. If there
of things, by now the bodies of matter would have been j,i.
so far brought low by the breaking of ages past, that division,
nothing could be conceived out of them within a fixed ἘΠΕ ον "
time, and pass on to the full measure of its life ; for we maturity
see that anything you will is more easily broken up than pees
put together again. Wherefore what the long limitless and _
age of days, the age of all time that is gone by, had broken eae
ere now, disordering and dissolving, could never be re- have gone
newed in all time that remains. But as it is, a set limit P*S***P*!"
to breaking has, we may be sure, been appointed, since
we see each thing put together again, and at the same
time fixed seasons ordained for all things after their kind,
in the which they may be able to reach the flower of their
life. There is this too that, though the first-bodies of 6. Solid
matter are quite solid, yet we can give account of all the eee
soft things that come to be, air, water, earth, fires, by make soft
what means they come to being, and by what force each ee hs
goes on its way, when once void has been mingled in impossible.
things. But on the other hand, if the first-beginnings
of things were to be soft, it will not be possible to give
account whence hard flints and iron can be created ; for
from the first all nature will lack a first-beginning of

foundation. There are then bodies that prevail in their

7. If there
are not
atoms,
things
themselves
must be
eternal,
which is
clearly un-
true.

8. Eternal
atoms
account for
the persist-
ence of
species,

9. The

analogy of
perceptible
extremities

46 Book I, ll. 574-600

solid singleness, by whose more close-packed union all
things can be riveted and reveal their stalwart strength.
Moreover, if no limit has been appointed to the breaking
of things, still it must needs be that all the bodies of
things survive even now from time everlasting, such that
they cannot yet have been assailed by any danger. But
since they exist endowed with a frail nature, it is not in
harmony with this that they have been able to abide for
everlasting time harried through all the ages by countless
blows.

Once again, since there has been appointed for all things
after their kind a limit of growing and of maintaining
life, and inasmuch as it stands ordained what all things
severally can do by the laws of nature, and what too they
cannot, nor is anything so changed, but that all things
stand so fast that the diverse birds all in their due order
show that the marks of their kind are on their body, they
must also, we may be sure, have a body of unchanging
substance. For if the first-beginnings of things could be
vanquished in any way and changed, then, too, would it
be doubtful what might come to being, what might not,
yea, in what way each thing has its power limited and
its deepset boundary-stone, nor could the tribes each after
their kind so often recall the nature, habits, manner of
life and movements of the parents.

Then, further, since there are extreme points ἢ, one
after another (on bodies, which are the least things we
can see, likewise, too, there must be a least point)! on

1 Two lines are probably lost here, the sense of which has been
admirably restored by Munro:

corporibus, quod iam nobis minimum esse videtur,
debe item ratione pari minimum esse cacumen

Book I, Ul. 600-631 47

that body, which our senses can no longer descry ; that proves the
point, we may be sure, exists without parts and is eae
endowed with the least nature, nor was it ever sundered atoms.
apart by itself nor can it so be hereafter, since it is itself
but a part of another and that the first single part:
then other like parts and again others in order in close
array make up the nature of the first body, and since
they cannot exist by themselves, it must needs be that
they stay fast there whence they cannot by any means be
torn away. ‘The first-beginnings then are of solid single-
ness ; for they are a close dense mass of least parts, never
put together out of a union of those parts, but rather
prevailing in everlasting singleness; from them nature,
keeping safe the seeds of things, suffers not anything to be
torn away, nor ever to be removed. Moreover, if there 10. Unless
be not a least thing, all the tiniest bodies will be composed ee τ
of infinite parts, since indeed the half of a half will always the universe
have a half, nor will anything set a limit. What differ- ans
ence then will there be between the sum of things and thing are
the least of things? There will be no difference; for 3}
however completely the whole sum be infinite, yet things
that are tiniest will be composed of infinite parts just
the same. And since true reasoning cries out against
this, and denies that the mind can believe it, you must
be vanquished and confess that there are those things
which consist of no parts at all and are of the least nature.
And since these exist, those first-beginnings too you must
needs own are solid and everlasting. And again, if nature, 11. The

: : least paris
the creatress, had been used to constrain all things to be j¢ separated,
dissolved into their least parts, then she could not again could not

: : roduce
renew aught of them, for the reason that things which ἐν
8 ) 88 things.

48 Book 1, ll. 631-661

are not enlarged by any parts, have not those powers
which must belong to creative matter, the diverse fasten-
ings, weights, blows, meetings, movements, by which all
things are carried on.
GE alce Wherefore those who have thought that fire is the sub-
pee cn. stance of things, and that the whole sum is composed of
element is fire alone, are seen to fall very far from true reasoning.
leg Heraclitus® is their leader who first enters the fray, of
Heraclitus’s bright fame for his dark sayings, yet rather among the
a of empty-headed than among the Greeks of weight, who
seek after the truth. For fools laud and love all things
more which they can descry hidden beneath twisted
sayings, and they set up for true what can tickle the ear
with a pretty sound and is tricked out with a smart ring.
1. It does | For 1 am eager to know how things could be so diverse,
he te if they are created of fire alone and unmixed. For it
variety of would be of no avail that hot fire should condense or
things. grow rare, if the parts of fire had the same nature which
the whole sum of fire has as well. For ftercer would be
the flame, if the parts were drawn together, and weaker
again, were they sundered and scattered. But further
than this there is nothing which you can think might
come to pass from such a cause, far less might the great
diversity of things come from fires condensed and rare.
Pe He This too there is : if they were to hold that void is min-
ne gled in things, the fires will be able to condense or be
vitiates his left rare. But because they see many things to thwart
owntheory. them, they hold their peace and shrink from allowing
void unmixed among things ;1 while they fear the heights,
they lose the true track, nor again do they perceive that,
if void be removed from things, all things must condense

1 Read mussant and place semicolon after purum, 1. 658,

Book I, ll. 661-691 49

and be made one body out of many, such as could not
send out anything from it in hot haste; even as fire that
brings warmth casts abroad light and heat, so that you
may see that it has not parts close-packed. But if per- 3. Fire ever
: : changing to
chance they believe that in some other way fires may be other things
quenched in union and alter their substance, in very means
: : : ultimate
truth if they do not spare to do this at any point, then, gectruction.
we may be sure, all heat will perish utterly to nothing,
and all things created will come to be out of nothing.
For whenever a thing changes and passes out of its own
limits, straightway this is the death of that which was
before. Indeed something must needs be left untouched
to those fires, lest you find all things returning utterly to
nothing, and the store of things born again and growing
strong out of nothing. As it is then, since there are The true
certain bodies most determined which keep nature safe oa
ever the same, through whose coming and going and shift-
ing order things change their nature and bodies are
altered, you can be sure that these first-bodies of things
are not of fire. For it would be no matter that some
should give place and pass away, and others be added,
and some changed in order, if despite this all retained
the nature of heat; for whatever they might create
would be in every way fire. But, I trow, the truth is
this; there are certain bodies, whose meetings, move-
ments, order, position, and shapes make fires, and when
their order changes, they change their nature, and they
are not made like to fire nor to any other thing either,
which is able to send off bodies to our senses and touch
by collision our sense of touch.
Moreover, to say that fire is all things, and that there 4. Hera~

is no other reai thing in the whole count of things, but eutus

646.15 D

impugns the
senses,

5. Why
choose fire ?

That (a)

other ele-
ments are
the primal
substance,

or(b)a com-
bination of
two, or (c)
of four.

Empe-
docles.

το Book I, Ul. 691-723

only fire, as this same Heraclitus does, seems to be raving
frenzy. For on behalf of the senses he fights himself
against the senses, and undermines those on which all
that he believes must hang, whereby he himself has come
to know that which he names fire. For he believes that
the senses can know fire aright, but not all other things,
which are no whit less bright to see. And this seems to
me alike idle and frenzied. For to what shall we appeal?
What can be surer for us than the senses themselves,
whereby we may mark off things true and false? Besides,
why should any one rather annul all things, and wish to
leave only the nature of heat, than deny that fire exists,
and grant in its stead that another nature exists? For it
seems equal madness to say the one or the other.
Wherefore those who have thought that fire is the
substance of things, and that the whole sum may be built
of fire, and those who have set up air as the first-beginuning
for the begetting of things, or again all who have thought
that moisture fashions things alone by itself, or that
earth creates all and passes into all the natures of things,
seem to have strayed very far away from the truth. Add
to them too those who make the first-beginnings of things
twofold, linking air to fire or earth to water, and those
who think that all can grow up out of four things, fire,
earth, wind, and rain. Of them in the forefront comes
Empedocles® of Acragas; him that island ™ bore within
the three-cornered coasts of its lands, around which flows
the Ionian ocean, with many a winding inlet, splashing
salt foam from its green waves, while with narrow strait
a tearing sea sunders with its waves the coasts of Italy’s
lands from the island-borders. Here is devastating
Charybdis, and here the rumblings of Aetna threaten

Book I, ll. 723-753 τι

to gather once more the flames of its wrath, that again
in its might it may belch forth the fires bursting from its
throat, and once more dash to the sky its flashing flames.
And though this mighty country seems in many ways
marvellous to the tribes of men, and is said to deserve
seeing, rich in goodly things, and strengthened with
a mighty wealth of men, yet it is seen to have held nothing
in it more glorious than this man, nothing more holy,
more marvellous and loved. Nay, the songs of his god-
like heart lift up their voice and set forth his glorious
discoveries, so that he seems scarce born of human
stock.2
Yet he and those whom I named before, weaker than Errors of
he by exceeding many degrees, and far beneath him, ἀν των
though they discovered much in good, nay godlike fashion, school :
and gave answers as from the shrine of their hearts in
more holy wise and with reasoning far more sure than
the Pythian priestess who speaks out from the tripod and
laurel of Phoebus, yet in the first-beginnings of things
they came to grief: great were they, and great and heavy
their fall therein. First because they take away the void 1. they
from things, but suppose movement, and leave things ee oe
soft and rare, air, sunlight, fire, earth, beasts, and crops,
and yet mingle no void in their body. Then because they 2. they set
hold that there is no limit at all to the cutting of bodies, fees
that no halting-place is set to their breaking, nor again is
there any least among things. And that when we see
that there is that extreme point in each thing, which is
seen to be the least to our senses, so that you can infer
from this that the extreme point in things which you
cannot see is the least in them. Then follows this

DZ

@. nele
elements
are soft

4. and
pernicious
to one
another.

5. Why not
call things
the primal
substance
of the
elements ?

6. or, if the
elements do
not change
in com-
pounds,
what else
could they
create ?

7. The
flux of the

52 Book I, ll. 753-783

that, since they suppose the first-beginnings of things
soft, things which we see come to birth and endowed
throughout with a mortal body, the whole sum of things
must then return to naught, and the store of things be
born again, and grow strong out of nothing. And how
far both this and that are from the truth, you will know
by now. ‘Then again, these things are in many ways
hostile, nay poison, the one to the other; therefore
either when they meet they will pass away, or they will
so fly apart, as when a storm gathers we see the thunder-
bolts and rain and wind fly asunder.

Again, if from four things all are created and all again
are dissolved into those things, how can they be called
the first-beginnings of things any more than things the
first-beginnings of them, with our thought reversed? For
they are begotten turn by turn, and change their colour
and all their nature one with the other from all time
onward. But if perchance you think that the body of
fire and the body of earth and the breezes of the air and
the dewy moisture so unite, that in union no one of them
changes its nature, you will see that nothing can be
created out of them, no, not a living thing, nor one with
lifeless body, like a tree. Indeed in the mingling of this
diverse mass each thing will reveal its own nature, and air
will be seen to be mixed together with earth, and heat to
cleave to moisture. But first-beginnings ought in the
begetting of things to bring to bear a secret and unseen
nature, that nothing may stand out which might bar and
thwart whatever is created from existing with its own
true being.

But indeed they trace it back to heaven and heaven’s
fires, and hold that fire first turns itself into the breezes

a = τ᾿Ὗ Ὁ

Book I, Ul. 784-813 $3

of the sky, that thence is begotten rain, and of rain is elements
created earth, and then all things pass back again from ae ᾿
earth, first moisture, next air, then heat, and that these nence;
things never cease their mutual changes, in their path

from heaven to earth, from earth to the stars of the
firmament. But the first-beginnings ought in no wise to

do this. For it must needs be that something abides
unchangeable, that all things be not altogether brought

to naught. For whenever a thing changes and passes

out of its own limits, straightway this is the death of that

which was before. Wherefore since the things we have
named a little before pass into a state of interchange,

they must needs be made of other things, which cannot

in any case be altered, lest you find all things returning
altogether to naught. Why not rather suppose that

there are certain bodies endowed with such a nature, and

that, if by chance they have created fire, they can too,

when a few are removed and a few added, and their

order and movement is changed, make the breezes of the

sky, and that thus all things are changed one into another?

‘But,’ you say, ‘the facts show clearly that all things 8. the
arguinent
from the

of the sky; and unless the season at a propitious time presence of
fosters them with rain, so that the trees rock beneath the oo a
outpouring of the storm-clouds, and the sun for its part growth;
cherishes them, and bestows its heat on them, crops,

trees, living creatures, none could grow.’ Yes, in very

are nourished and grow from the earth up into the breezes

truth, unless we too were nurtured by dry food and soft
moisture, we should lose our flesh, and all the life too would

be loosened from all our sinews and bones. For beyond its true
: : atomic ex-
all doubt we are nurtured and nourished upon things cents

determined, and other things again, each in their turn,

The
homoeo-
meria of
Anaxa-
goras :

r. he denies
the void ;

s4 Book I, ll. 813-845

on things determined. Yea, we may be sure, it is because
many first-beginnings common in many ways to many
things are mingled among things, that so diverse things
are nourished on diverse food. And often it is of great
matter with what others those first-beginnings are bound
up, and in what position, and what movements they
mutually give and receive; for the same build up sky,
sea, earth, rivers, sun, the same too crops, trees, living
creatures, but only when mingled with different things
and moving in different ways. Indeed scattered abroad
in my verses you see many letters common to many
words, and yet you must needs grant that verses and
words are unlike both in sense and in the ring of their
sound. So great is the power of letters by a mere change
of order. But the first-beginnings of things can bring
more means to bear, by which all diverse things may be
created.

Now let us also search into the homoeomeria of Anaxa-
goras," as the Greeks term it, though the poverty of our
country’s speech does not suffer us to name it in our
own tongue; nevertheless the thing itself it is easy to
set forth in words. First—what he calls the homoeo-
meria of things—you must know that he thinks that
bones are made of very small and tiny bones, and flesh
of small and tiny pieces of flesh, and blood is created of
many drops of blood coming together in union, and that
gold again can be built up of grains of gold, and the earth
grow together out of little earths, that fire is made of fires,
and water of water-drops, and all the rest he pictures and
imagines in the same way. And yet he does not allow
that there is void in things on any side, nor that there is
a limit to the cutting up of bodies. Therefore in this

Book I, ll. 845-873 i

point and that he seems to me to go astray just as they
did, of whom I told above. Add too to this that he
pictures his first-beginnings too weak: if indeed those
are first-beginnings, which exist endowed with a nature
like things themselves, which suffer none the less, and
pass away, nor does anything rein them back from their
destruction. For which of them all will hold out beneath
strong pressure, so as to escape death in the very jaws of
destruction? fire or moisture or breeze? which of these?
blood or bones? Not one, I trow, when everything alike
will be altogether as mortal as the things we see clearly
before our eyes vanquished by some violence and passing
away. But that things cannot fall away into nothing,
nor again grow from nothing, I call to witness what
I have before now proved. Moreover, since ’tis food
that increases and nourishes the body, you may know that
our veins and blood and bones (and sinews are created of
parts alien in kind) ;1 or if they say that all foods are of
mingled substance, and have in them little bodies of
sinews, and bones and indeed veins and portions of gore,
then it will be that all food, both dry, yes and liquid too,
must be thought to consist of things alien in kind, of
bones and sinews and matter and blood mingled together.
Moreover, if all bodies that grow from out the earth are
in the earth, the earth must be composed of things alien
in kind, which rise up out of the earth. Shift this to
another field, you may use the same words again. If in
logs flame lurks hidden, and smoke and ash, it must needs
be that the logs are composed of things alien in kind.
Moreover, all the bodies which the earth nourishes, it

? Lambinus supplied the sense of a missing verse :
et nervos alienigenis ex partibus esse.

2. he sets
no limit to
division 3

3. his first
particles are
soft;

4. he does
not account
for change.

Anaxa-
goras’s eva-
sion: ‘all
things are
in all
things’ ;

then they
ought to
appear,

The argu-
ment from
forest con-
flagrations.

56 Book 1, ll. 873-898

increases (from things alien in kind, which rise up out
of the earth. So too the bodies which logs emit, are
nourished ? upon things alien in kind, which rise up out
of the logs.

Herein there is left a slight chance of hiding from
justice, which Anaxagoras grasps for himself, to hold that
all things are mingled, though in hiding, in all things,
but that that one thing comes out clear, whereof there are
most parts mingled in, stationed more ready to view and
in the forefront. But this is very far banished from true
reasoning. Jor it were right then that corn also, when
crushed by the threatening strength of rock, should often
give out some sign of blood, or one of those things which
are nourished in our body, and that when we rub it with
stone on stone, gore should ooze forth. In the same way
it were fitting that blades of grass too and pools of water
should often give out sweet drops with a savour like the
richness of the milk of fleecy beasts, and that often when
sods of earth are crumbled, kinds of grasses and corn and
leaves should be seen, hiding in tiny form, scattered about
among the earth, lastly that ash and smoke should be seen
in logs, when they were broken off, and tiny flames in
hiding. But since facts clearly show that none of these
things comes to pass, you may be sure that things are not
so mingled in other things, but that seeds common to
many things lie mingled and hidden in things in many
ways.

‘But often on mighty mountains it comes to pass,’
you say, ‘that the neighbouring tops of tall trees rub

1 Two lines seem to be lost here, of which Munro has supplied the
sense;

ex alienigenis, quae terris exoriuntur.
sic itidem quae ligna emittunt corpora, aluntur
5

Book I, ll. 899-928 57

together, when the strong south winds constrain them
to it, until at last a flowery flame gathers, and they blaze
with fire And yet you must know that fire is not
implanted in their wood, but there are many seeds of
heat, which when they have flowed together through the
rubbing, create fires in the forests. But if the flame had
been hidden away ready-made in the forests, the fires
could not have been concealed for any time, they would
consume the forests one and all, and burn the trees to
ashes. Do you not then see now, what I said but a little
while ago, that it is of very great matter often with what
others those same first-beginnings are bound up, and in
what position, and what movements they mutually give
and receive, and that the same a little changed with one
another can create beams or flames ? Even as the words
themselves have their letters but little changed, when
with sound distinct we signify beams or flames. Once
again, if you think that all that you can descry in things
clear to be seen cannot come to being, but that you must
suppose first-bodies of matter endowed with a nature
like the whole, by this reasoning you see the first-begin-
nings of things pass away. Nay, it will come to be that
they will be shaken with quivering mirth and laugh aloud,
and wet face and cheeks with salt tears.

Come now, learn what remains, and listen to clearer
words. Nor do I fail to see in mind how dark are the
ways; but a great hope has smitten my heart with the
sharp spur of fame, and at once has struck into my breast
the sweet love of the muses, whereby now inspired with
strong mind 1 traverse the distant haunts of the Pierides,
never trodden before by the foot of man. ΤΙ my joy
to approach those untasted springs and drink my fill, ’tis

The true
atomic ex-
planation.

Reductio ad
absurdum.

D. Lucre-
tius’s
mission,

The
problem of
infinity.

There is
No limit to
the sum of
things.

a. The

universe is

58 Book 2. ll. 928-o59

my joy to pluck new flowers and gather a glorious coronal
for my head from spots whence before the muses have
never wreathed the forehead of any man. First because
I teach about great things, and hasten to free the mind
from the close bondage of religion, then because on
a dark theme I trace verses so full of light, touching all
with the muses’ charm. For that too is seen to be not
without good reason; but even as healers, when they
essay to give loathsome wormwood to children, first touch
the rim all round the cup with the sweet golden moisture
of honey, so that the unwitting age of children may be
beguiled as far as the lips, and meanwhile may drink the
bitter draught of wormwood, and though charmed may
not be harmed, but rather by such means may be restored
and come to health; so now, since this philosophy full
often seems too bitter to those who have not tasted it,
and the multitude shrinks back away from it, I have
desired to set forth to you my reasoning in the sweet-
tongued song of the muses, and as though to touch it
with the pleasant honey of poetry, if perchance I might
avail by such means to keep your mind set upon my
verses, while you come to see the whole nature of things,
what is its shape and figure.

But since I have taught that the most solid bodies of
matter fly about for ever unvanquished through the ages,
come now, let us unfold, whether there be a certain limit
to their full sum or not; and likewise the void that we
have discovered, or room or space, in which all things are
carried on, let us see clearly whether it is all altogether
bounded or spreads out limitless and immeasurably deep.

The whole universe then is bounded in no direction of
its ways; for then it would be bound to have an extreme

Book 1, ll. 959-989 59

point. Now it is seen that nothing can have an extreme
point, unless there be something beyond to bound it,
so that there is seen to be a spot further than which the
nature of our sense cannot follow it. As it is, since we
must admit that there is nothing outside the whole sum,
it has not an extreme point, it lacks therefore bound and
limit. Nor does it matter in which quarter of it you
take your stand ; so true is it that, whatever place every
man takes up, he leaves the whole boundless just as much
on every side. Moreover, suppose now® that all space
were created finite, if ome were to run on to the end, to
its furthest coasts, and throw a flying dart, would you
have it that that dart, hurled with might and main, goes
on whither it is sped and flies afar, or do you think that
something can check and bar its way? For one or the
other you must needs admit and choose. Yet both shut
off your escape and constrain you to grant that the
universe spreads out free from limit. For whether there
is something to check it and bring it about that it arrives
not whither it was sped, nor plants itself in the goal, or
whether it fares forward, it set not forth from the end.
In this way ‘I will press on, and wherever you shall set the
furthest coasts, I shall ask what then becomes of the dart.
It will come to pass that nowhere can a bound be set and
room for flight ever prolongs the chance of flight. Lastly,
before our eyes one thing is seen to bound another; air
is as a wall between the hills, and mountains between
tracts of air, land bounds the sea, and again sea bounds
all lands; yet the universe in truth there is nothing to
limit outside.

Moreover, if all the space in the whole universe were
shut in on all sides, and were created with borders deter-

infinite :

I. for it has
no bound-
ing point ;

2. experi-
ment of the
hurled dart;

3. the
sensible
world bears
no analogy.

Ὁ. Space is
infinite;

otherwise
matter
would
collect at
the bottom.

c. Matter
is infinite:

otherwise
things
could not
last

60 Book 1. ll. 989-1015

mined, and had been bounded, then the store of matter
would have flowed together with solid weight from all
sides to the bottom, nor could anything be carried on
beneath the canopy of the sky, nor would there be sky at.
all, nor the light of the sun, since in truth all matter
would lie idle piled together by sinking down from limit-
less time. But as it is, no rest, we may be sure, has been
granted to the bodies of the first-beginnings, because
there 1s no bottom at all, whither they may, as it were,
flow together, and make their resting-place. All things
are for ever carried on in ceaseless movement from all
sides, and bodies of matter are even stirred up and
supplied from beneath out of limitless space. ‘The nature
of room then and the space of the deep is such that neither
could the bright thunderbolts course through it in their
career, gliding on through the everlasting tract of time,
nor bring it about that there remain a whit less to traverse
as they travel ; so far on every side spreads out huge room
for things, free from limit in all directions everywhere.
Nay more, nature ordains that the sum of things may
not have power to set a limit to itself, since she constrains
body to be bounded by void, and all that is void to be
bounded by body, so that thus she makes the universe
infinite by their interchange, or else at least one of the
two, 1f the other of them bound it not, yet spreads out
immeasurable with nature unmixed. (But space I have
taught above spreads out without limit. If then the
sum of matter were bounded, )! neither sea nor earth nor
the gleaming quarters of heaven nor the race of mortal

1 Munro again has well supplied the sense of two lost lines :

sed spatium supra docui sine fine patere,
si finita igitur summa esset materiai,

Book I, Ul. 1o1s—to4s 61

men, nor the hallowed bodies of the gods could exist for
the short space of an hour. For driven apart from its

unions the store of matter would be carried all dissolved or even
through the great void, or rather in truth it could never see κεν
have grown together and given birth to anything, since
scattered abroad it could not have been brought to meet

For in very truth, not by design did the first-beginnings Our world
was not

: ᾿ formed by
seeing mind, nor indeed did they make compact what design
movements each should start, but because many of them ee wk
shifting in many ways throughout the world are harried movements
and buffeted by blows from limitless time, by trying eens:

movements and unions of every kind, at last they fall

of things place themselves each in their order with fore-

into such dispositions as those, whereby our world of

things is created and holds together. And it too, pre-

served from harm through many a mighty cycle of years,

when once it has been cast into the movements suited to

its being, brings it about that the rivers replenish the

greedy sea with the bounteous waters of their streams,

and the earth, fostered by the sun’s heat, renews its in-

crease, and the race of living things flourishes, sent up

from her womb, and the gliding fires of heaven are alive ;

ali this they would in no wise do, unless store of matter

might rise up from limitless space, out of which they are

used to renew all their losses in dueseason. For even asthe

nature of living things, robbed of food, loses its flesh and

pines away, so all things must needs be dissolved, when

once matter has ceased to come for their supply, turned

aside in any way from its due course. Nor can blows Its preser-
from without on all sides keep together the whole of each ae a
‘world which has come together in union. For they can without.
smite on it once and again, and keep a part in place, until

62 Book I, ll. 1045-1072

others come, and the sum may be supplied. Yet some-
times they are constrained to rebound and at once afford
space and time for flight to the first-beginnings of things,
Necessity so that they can pass away freed from union. Therefore,

of infinity ‘ ἘΠ - . .

weer, Soule and again, it must be that many things rise up, yea,
and in order that even the blows too may not fail, there
must needs be limitless mass of matter on all sides.

False Herein shrink far from believing,» Memmius, what some

Geel ae say: that all things press towards the centre of a sum,

world is and that ’tis for this cause that the nature of the world
held

together by ‘ ; ;
centripetal and bottom cannot part asunder in any direction, because
force.

stands fast without any blows from outside, and that top

all things are pressing upon the centre (if indeed you can
Its absur- believe that anything can stand upon itself): and that
‘aig all heavy things which are beneath the earth press upwards,
and rest placed upside down upon the earth, like the
images of things which we see, as it is, through water.
And in the same way they maintain that living things
walk head downwards, and cannot fall off the earth into
the spaces of heaven beneath them any more than our
bodies can of their free will fly up into the quarters of
heaven: that when they see the sun, we are descrying
the stars of night, and that they share with us turn by
turn the seasons of the sky, and pass nights equal to our
days.1 But empty error has commended these false ideas
to fools, because they embrace and hold a theory with
twisted reasoning. For there can be no centre, since the
universe is created infinite. Nor, if indeed there were
a centre, could anything at all rest there any more for

1 The next eight lines are omitted or mutilated in the MSS., but
once more Munro’s restoration must give the sense, and probably some-
thing very near the actual words.

Book I, Ul. 1072-1105 63

that, rather than be driven away for some far different
reason: for all room and space, which we call void, must
through centre or not-centre give place alike to heavy
bodies, wherever their motions tend. Nor is there any
place, to which when bodies have come, they can lose
the force of their weight and stand still in the void; nor
must aught that is void support anything, but rather
hasten to give place, as its own nature desires. It cannot
be then that things can be held together in union in such
a way, constrained by a yearning for the centre.
Moreover, since they do not pretend that all bodies
press towards the centre, but only those of earth and
liquid, the moisture of the sea and mighty waters from
the mountains, and those things which are, as it were,
enclosed in an earthy frame; but on the other hand,
they teach that the thin breezes of air and hot fires at
the same time are carried away from the centre, and that
for this cause all the sky around is twinkling with stars,
and the flame of the sun is fed through the blue tracts
of heaven, because all the heat fleeing from the centre
gathers itself together there; nor again can the topmost
branches grow leafy upon trees, unless from the earth
little by little each has food <supplied by nature, their
thoughts are not at harmony with themselves. There
must then be an infinite store of matter ),1 lest after the
winged way of flames the walls of the world suddenly fly
apart, dissolved through the great void, and lest all else
follow them in like manner, or the thundering quarters of

1 The best MS. marks eight lines lost here, corresponding to the
mutilation above: the words in brackets would give the general sense,
as suggested by Munro.

Its inconsis-
tency ; for
not all

things seek
the centre.

Withont
infinite
matter, the
world would
be de-
stroyed,

Progress in
learning.

64 Book 1, ll. 1105-1107

the sky fall down from above, and the earth in hot haste
withdraw itself from beneath our feet, and amid all the
mingled ruin of things on earth and of the sky, whereby
the frames of bodies are loosed, it pass away through the
deep void, so that in an instant of time not a wrack be
left behind, except emptied space and unseen first-
beginnings. For on whatever side you maintain that
the bodies fail first, this side will be the gate of death
for things, by this path will all the throng of matter cast
itself abroad.

These things you will learn thus, led on with little
trouble ; for one thing after another shall grow clear, nor
will blind night snatch away your path from you, but
that you shall see all the utmost truths of nature: so
shall things kindle a light for others.

ΒΟΟΚΊῚ

SWEET it is, when on the great sea the winds are buffet-
ing the waters, to gaze from the land on another’s great
struggles; not because it is pleasure or joy that any one
should be distressed, but because it is sweet to perceive
from what misfortune you yourself are free. Sweet is it
too, to behold great contests of war in full array over the
plains, when you have no partinthe danger. But nothing
is more gladdening than to dwell in the calm high places,
firmly embattled on the heights by the teaching of the
wise, whence you can look down on others, and see them
wandering hither and thither, going astray as they seek
the way of life, in strife matching their wits or rival claims
of birth, struggling night and day by surpassing effort to
rise up to the height of power and gain possession of the
world. Ah! miserable minds of men, blind hearts! in
what darkness of life, in what great dangers ye spend
this little span of years! to think that ye should not see

Introduc-
tion: the
calm
heights of
philosophy.

that nature cries aloud for nothing else but that pain may Nature’s

be kept far sundered from the body, and that, withdrawn
from care and fear, she may enjoy in mind the sense of
pleasure! And so we sce that for the body’s nature but
few things at all are needful, even such as can take away
pain. Yea, though pleasantly enough from time to time
they can prepare for us in many ways a lap of luxury, yet
nature herself feels no loss, if there are not golden images
of youths about the halls, grasping fiery torches in their
right hands, that light may be supplied to banquets at

516-15 E

needs

for the

body

and for the
mind.
Earthly
power and
the terrors
of Religion,

Religion
and
Philosophy.

66 Book Ll, ll. 26-55

night, if the house does not glow with silver or gleam
with gold, nor do fretted and gilded ceilings re-echo to
the lute. And yet, for all this, men lie in friendly groups
on the soft grass near some stream of water under the
branches of a tall tree, and at no great cost delightfully
refresh their bodies, above all when the weather smiles on
them, and the season of the year bestrews the green
grass with flowers. Nor do fiery fevers more quickly quit
the body, if you toss on broidered pictures and blushing
purple, than if you must lie on the poor man’s plaid.
Wherefore since in our body riches are of no profit, nor
high birth nor the glories of kingship, for the rest, we
must believe that they avail nothing for the mind as
well; unless perchance, when you see your legions swarm-
ing over the spaces of the Campus,” and provoking a mimic
war, strengthened with hosts in reserve and forces of
cavalry,! when you draw them up equipped with arms,”
all alike eager for the fray, when you see the army wander-
ing far and wide in busy haste, then alarmed by all
this the scruples of religion fly im panic from your mind,
or that the dread of death leaves your heart empty and
free from care. But if we see that these thoughts
are mere mirth and mockery, and in very truth the fears
of men and the cares that dog them fear not the clash of
arms nor the weapons of war, but pass boldly among kings
and lords of the world, nor dread the glitter that comes
from gold nor the bright sheen of the purple robe, can
you doubt that all such power belongs to reason alone,
above all when the wnoie of life is but a struggle in dark-
ness? For even as children tremble and fear everything

1 Read with Munro, ef ecu vt.
£ Read with Munro, ornatasque armis statuas,

Book II, ll. 55-85 67

in blinding darkness, so we sometimes dread in the light
things that are no whit more to be feared than what
children shudder at in the dark, and imagine will come to
pass. This terror then, this darkness of the mind, must
needs be scattered not by the rays of the sun and the
gleaming shafts of day, but by the outer view and the
inner law of nature.

Come now, | will unfold by what movement the creative A. Motion
of the

bodies of matter beget diverse things, and break up those
atoms ς

that are begotten, by what force they are constrained to
do this, and what velocity is appointed them for moving
through the mighty void: do you remember to give

your mind to my words. For in very truth matter does the cause of
successive

. ᾿ στοντῇ
grow less, and we perceive all things flow away, as it and decay.

not cleave close-packed to itself, since we see each thing

were, in the long lapse of time, as age withdraws them
from our sight: and yet the universe is seen to remain
undiminished, inasmuch as all bodies that depart from
anything, lessen that from which they pass away, and
bless with increase that to which they have come; they
constrain the former to grow old and the latter again to
flourish, and yet they abide not with it. Thus the sum
of things is ever being replenished, and mortals live one
and all by give and take. Some races wax and others
wane, and in a short space the tribes of living things are
changed, and like runners hand on the torch of life.

If you think that the first-beginnings of things can stay Their
incessant

β 5 movement.
you stray very far away from true reasoning. For since Its two

they wander through the void," it must needs be causes:
that all the first-beginnings of things move on either by

still, and by staying still beget new movements in things,

their own weight or sometimes by the blow of another
ΕΣ

movement
of free
atoms in
the void;

movement
of atoms in
compounds.

Illustration
from the

68 Book 11, ll. 85-116

For when quickly, again and again, they have met and
clashed together, it comes to pass that they leap asunder
at once this way and that; for indeed it is not strange,
since they are most hard with solid heavy bodies, and
nothing bars them from behind. And the more you
perceive all the bodies of matter tossing about, bring it
to mind that there is no lowest point in the whole uni-
verse, nor have the first-bodies any place where they may
come to rest, since 1 have shown in many words, and it
has been proved by true reasoning, that space spreads
out without bound or limit, immeasurable towards every
quarter everywhere. And since that is certain, no rest,
we may be sure, is allowed to the first-bodies moving
through the deep void, but rather plied with unceasing,
diverse motion, some when they have dashed together
leap back at great space apart, others too are thrust but
a short way from the blow. And all those which are
driven together in more close-packed union and leap back
but a little space apart, entangled by their own close-
locking shapes, these make the strong roots of rock and
the brute bulk of iron and all other things of their kind.
Of the rest which wander through the great void,
a few leap far apart, and recoil afar with great spaces
between; these supply for us thin air and the bright
light of the sun. Many, moreover, wander on through
the great void, which have been cast back from the unions
of things, nor have they anywhere else availed to be taken
into them and link their movements. And of this truth,
as I am telling it, a likeness and image is ever passing
presently before our eyes. For look closely, whenever
rays are let in and pour the sun’s light through the dark
places in houses : for you will see many tiny bodies mingle

Book Il, lt. 116-149 69

in many ways all through the empty space right in the motesin the
light of the rays, and as though in some everlasting strife *U"°¢4™§
wage war and battle, struggling troop against troop, nor

ever crying a halt, harried with constant meetings and
partings ; so that you may guess from this what it means

that the first-beginnings of things are for ever tossing in

the great void. So far as may be, a little thing can give ἃ picture
a picture of great things and afford traces of a concept.® ἘΩ͂Ν
And for this reason it is the more right for you to give of the
heed to these bodies, which you see jostling in the sun’s cee
rays, because such jostlings hint® that there are movements of the

of matter too beneath them, secret and unseen. For you Ὅν
will see many particles there stirred by unseen blows

change their course and turn back, driven backwards on

their path, now this way, now that, in every direction
everywhere. You may know that this shifting move-

ment comes to them all from the first-beginnings. For

first the first-beginnings of things move of themselves ;

then those bodies which are formed of a tiny union, and

are, as it were, nearest to the powers of the first-beginnings,

are smitten and stirred by their unseen blows, and they in

their turn, rouse up bodies a little larger. And so the
movement passes upwards from the first-beginnings, and

little by little comes forth to our senses, so that those

hodies move too, which we can descry in the sun’s light;

yet it is not clearly seen by what blows they do it.

Next, what speed of movement is given to the first- Velocity
bodies of matter, you may learn, Memmius, in a few words ase
from this. First, when dawn strews the land with new Compari-
light, and the diverse birds flitting through the distant Saye
woods across the soft air fill the place with their clear
cries, we see that it is plain and evident for all to behold

which yet
is impeded
by external
Opposition

and
internal
vibration,

whereas the
atoms are
quite
unchecked.

False
theory that
the world
is made for

70 Book Il, ll. 147-168

how suddenly the sun is wont at such a time to rise and
clothe all things, bathing them in his ight. And yet that
heat which the sun sends out, and that calm light of his,
is not passing through empty space; therefore, it is con-
strained to go more slowly, while it dashes asunder, as it
were, the waves of air. Nor again do the several particles
of heat move on one by one, but entangled one with
another, and joined in a mass; therefore they are at once
dragged back each by the other, and impeded from with-
out, so that they are constrained to go more slowly. But
the first-beginnings, which are of solid singleness, when
they pass through the empty void, and nothing checks
them without, and they themselves, single wholes with
all their parts, are borne, as they press on, towards the
one spot which they first began to seek, must needs, we
may be sure, surpass in speed of motion, and be carried
far more quickly than the light of the sun, and rush
through many times the distance of space in the same

time in which the flashing light of the sun crowds the sky.
1

e . e e e

nor to follow up each of the first-begin
see by what means each single thing is carried on.

Yet a certain sect, against all this, ignorant (that the
bodies ) of matter ¢flyon of their ownaccord, unvanquished
through the ages, )2 believe that nature cannot without the

nings severally, to

1 A considerable number of lines seems to be lost here, in which
Lucretius probably first gave other reasons for the atoms’ velocity, and
then fulfilled the promise of line 62 to explain how the atoms by thcir
motion created and dissolved things: the next two lines read like
a conclusion of such a section.

2 A line is probablv lost here, of which Hoerschelmann has restored
the sense; corpora sponte sua volitare invicta per aevum.

Book Lf, ll. 168-198 71

power of the gods, in ways so nicely tempered to the needs men by
of men, change the seasons of the year, and create the aa
crops, and all else besides, which divine pleasure wins

men to approach, while she herself, the leader of life,

leads on and entices them by the arts of Venus to renew

their races, that the tribe of mankind may not perish.

But when they suppose that the gods have appointed all

things for the sake of men, they are seen in all things to

fall exceeding far away from true reason. For however but it is
little I know what the first-beginnings of things are, yet eed
this I would dare to affirm from the very workings of
heaven, and to prove from many other things as well, that

the nature of the world is by no means made by divine

grace for us: so great are the flaws with which it stands

beset. And this, Memmius, I will make clear to you here-

after. Now I will set forth what yet remains about the
movements. ,

Now is the place, I trow, herein to prove this also to Causes of
you, that no bodily thing can of its own force ® be carried ae
upwards or move upwards ; lest the bodies of flames give
you the lie herein. For upwards indeed the smiling crops 1. the
and trees are brought to birth, and take their increase Une

? motion

upwards too they grow, albeit all things of weight, as far down-
wards :

upward
leap up to the roofs of houses, and with swift flame lick motion is

up beams and rafters, must we think that they do this of eo
their own will, shot up without a driving force. Even
as when blood shot out from our body spirts out leaping
up on high, and scatters gore. Do you not see too with

as in them lies, are borne downwards. Nor when fires

what force the moisture of water spews up beams and
rafters? For the more we have pushed them straight
down deep in the water, and with might and main have

2. the
swerve of
the atoms.

72 Book 41, ll. 198-224

pressed them, striving with pain many together, the
more eagerly does it spew them up and send them back,
so that they rise more than half out of the water and leap
up. And yet we do not doubt, I trow, but that all these
things, as far as in them lies, are borne downwards through
the empty void. Just so, therefore, flames too must be
able when squeezed out to press on upwards through the
breezes of air, albeit their weights are fighting, as far
as in them lies, to drag them downwards. And again,
the nightly torches of the sky which fly on high, do you
not see that they trail long tracts of flames behind towards
whatever side nature has given them to travel? do you
not descry stars and constellations falling to earth? The
sun too from the height of heaven scatters its heat on
every side, and sows the fields with his light ; ’tis towards
the earth then that the sun’s heat also tends. And you
descry, too, thunderbolts flying crosswise through the
rain; now from this side, now from that the fires burst
from the clouds and rush together; the force of flame
everywhere falls towards the earth.

Herein I would fain that you should learn this too,
that when first-bodies are being carried downwards
straight through the void by their own weight, at times
quite undetermined and at undetermined spots they push
a little from their path:" yet only just so much as you
could ca]l a change of trend. But if they were not used
to swerve, all things would fall downwards through the
deep void like drops of rain, nor could collision come to
be, nor a blow brought to pass for the first-beginnings :
so nature would never have brought aught to being.

Book Lf, ll. 225-254 73

But if perchance any one believes ® that heavier bodies, False
because they are carried more quickly straight through theory that
heavier

the void, can fall from above on the lighter, and so bring atoms fall
he faster than

about the blows which can give creative motions, lighter

wanders far away from true reason. For all things that
fall through the water and thin air, these things must
needs quicken their fall in proportion to their weights,
just because the body of water and the thin nature of air
cannot check each thing equally, but give place more

quickly when overcome by heavier bodies. But, on the This is not
true in the

other hand, the empty void cannot on any side, at any οι

time, support anything, but rather, as its own nature
desires, it continues to give place; wherefore all things
must needs be borne on through the calm void, moving
at equal rate with unequal weights. The heavier will
not then ever be able to fall on the lighter from above,
nor of themselves bring about the blows, which make
diverse the movements, by which nature carries things

on. Wherefore, again and again, it must needs be that Α slight
swerve Is

the first-bodies swerve a little; yet not more than the
necessary,

very least, lest we seem to be imagining a sideways move-
ment, and the truth refute it. For this we see plain and
evident, that bodies, as far as in them lies, cannot travel
sideways, since they fall headlong from above, as far as and is not
you can descry. But that nothing at all swerves from noelee
the straight direction of its path, what sense is there pheno-
which can descry ?} ee
Once again, if every motion is always linked on, and The swerve
the new always arises from the old in order determined, eee
nor by swerving do the first-beginnings make a certain power of
start of movement to break through the decrees of fate, ἙΝ ὼς
1 Read sensus for sese with Bernays. beings.

It starts
from the
will and
then passes
through all
the limbs.

It is very
different
from
motion
under com-
pulsion.

74 Book Il, ll. 255-283

so that cause may not follow cause from infinite time ;
whence comes this free will for living things all over
the earth, whence, I ask, is it wrested from fate, this
will whereby we move forward, where pleasure leads
each one of us, and swerve likewise in our motions
neither at determined times nor in a determined direction
of place, but just where our mind has carried us? For
without doubt it is his own will which gives to each one
a start for this movement, and from the will the motions
pass flooding through the limbs. Do you not see too
how, when the barriers are flung open, yet for an instant
of time the eager might of the horses cannot burst out
so suddenly as their mind itself desires ? For the whole
store of matter throughout the whole body must be
roused to movement, that then aroused through every
limb it may strain and fcllow the eager longing of
the mind; so that you see a start of movement” 18
brought to pass from the heart, and comes forth first
of all from the will of the mind, and then afterwards is
spread through all the body and limbs. Nor is it the same
as when we move forward impelled by a blow from the
strong might and strong constraint of another. For then
it is clear to see that all the matter of the body moves
and is hurried on against our will, until the will has
reined it back throughout the limbs. Do you not then
now see that, albeit a force outside pushes many men
and constrains them often to go forward against their
will and to be hurried away headlong, yet there is
something in our breast, which can fight against it and
withstand it? And at its bidding too the store of matter
is constrained now and then to turn throughout the
limbs and members, and, when pushed forward, is reined

Book Il, ll. 283-314 71

back and comes to rest again. Wherefore in the seeds It is due to
too you must needs allow likewise that there is another neers

cause of motion besides blows and weights, whence comes motion, the
this power born in us, since we see that nothing can mai

come to pass from nothing. For weight prevents al

things coming to pass by blows, as by some force without.

But that the very mind feels not some necessity within in

doing all things, and is not constrained like a conquered

thing to bear and suffer, this is brought about by the

tiny swerve of the first-beginnings in no determined

direction of place and at no determined time.

Nor was the store of matter ever more closely packed The sum of
nor again set at larger distances apart. For neither does Ree of
anything come to increase it nor pass away from it. matter, is
Wherefore the bodies of the first-beginnings in the ages yee
past moved with the same motion as now, and hereafter
will be borne on for ever in the same way ; such things
as have been wont to come to being will be brought to
birth under the same law, will exist and grow and be strong
and lusty, inasmuch as is granted to each by the ordinances |
of nature. Nor can any force change the sum of things ;
for neither is there anything outside, into which any
kind of matter may escape from the universe, nor whence
new forces can arise and burst into the universe and
change the whole nature of things and alter its motions.

Herein we need not wonder why it is that, when all Though a
whole body
seems at
whole seems to stand wholly at rest, except when anything rest, the
starts moving with its entire body. For all the nature τὴ 7°
in unseen
of the first-bodies lies far away from our senses, below motion.

the first-beginnings of things are in motion, yet the

their purview; wherefore, since you cannot reach to
look upon them, they must needs steal away their motions

Parallels in
experience,

B. The
shapes of
the atoms,
Their
variety,

which arises
from the
infinite
number of
the atoms,

and is the
cause of the
distinction
of indivi-

76 Book 711, ll. 314-345

from you too; above all, since such things as we can
look upon, yet often hide their motions, when withdrawn
from us on some distant spot. For often the fleecy
flocks cropping the glad pasture on a hill creep on whither
each is called and tempted by the grass bejewelled with
fresh dew, and the lambs fed full gambol and butt play-
fully ; yet all this seems blurred to us from afar, and to
lie like a white mass on a green hill. Moreover, when
mighty legions fill the spaces of the plains with their
chargings, awaking a mimic warfare, a sheen rises there
to heaven and all the earth around gleams with bronze,
and beneath a noise 1s roused by the mighty mass of men
as they march, and the hills smitten by their shouts
turn back the cries to the stars of the firmament, and the
cavalry wheel round and suddenly shake the middle of
the plains with their forceful onset, as they scour across
them. And yet there is a certain spot on the high hills,
whence all seems to be at rest and to lie like a glim-
mering mass upon the plains.

Now come, next in order learn of what kind are the
beginnings of all things and how far differing in form,
and how they are made diverse with many kinds of shapes ;
not that but a few are endowed with a like form, but that
they are not all alike the same one with another. Nor
need we wonder; for since there is so great a store of
them, that neither have they any limit, as I have shown,
nor any sum, it must needs be, we may be sure, that
they are not all of equal bulk nor possessed of the same
shape. Moreover, the race of men, and the dumb shoals
of scaly creatures which swim the seas, and the glad

duals in the herds and wild beasts, and the diverse birds, which

same
species,

throng the gladdening watezing-places all around the

Book Lf, ll. 345-373 77

riverbanks and springs and pools, and those which flit

about and people the distant forests; of these go and take

any single one you will from among its kind, yet you will

find that they are different in shape one from another.

Nor in any other way could the offspring know its mother,

or the mother her offspring ; yet we see that they can,

and that they are clearly not less known to one another

than men. For often before the sculptured shrines of Mlustra-
the gods a calf has fallen, slaughtered hard by the altars one ΝΣ
smoking with incense, breathing out from its breast the calf;
hot tide of blood. But the mother bereft wanders over

the green glades and seeks! on the ground for the foot-

prints marked by those cloven hoofs, scanning every spot

with her eyes, if only she might anywhere catch sight of

her lost young, and stopping fills the leafy grove with

her lament: again and again she comes back to the stall,
stabbed to the heart with yearning for her lost calf, nor

can the tender willows and the grass refreshed with dew

and the loved streams, gliding level with their banks,

bring gladness to her mind and turn aside the sudden

pang of care, nor yet can the shapes of other calves

among the glad pastures turn her mind to new thoughts

or ease it of its care: so eagerly does she seek in vain for
something she knows as her own. Moreover, the tender kids and
kids with their trembling cries know their horned dams ον ἘΣ
and the butting lambs the flocks of bleating sheep : mothers;
so surely, as their nature needs, do they run back always

each to its own udder of milk. Lastly, take any kind of grains of
corn, you will not find that every grain is like its fellows, °°»
each in its several kind, but that there runs through all

1 This should be the sense, but the reading is uncertain: possibly
guaerit,

shells,

It is owing
to this
variety that
some things
pass
through,
where
others are

checked.

To it are
due
differences
of taste,

78 Book IT, ll. 373-404

some difference between their forms, And in like manner
we see the race of shells painting the lap of earth, where
with its gentle waves the sea beats on the thirsty sand
of the winding shore. Wherefore again and again in
the same way it must needs be, since the first-beginnings
of things are made by nature and not fashioned by hand
to the fixed form of one pattern, that some of them fly
about with shapes unlike one another.

It is very easy by reasoning of the mind for us to read
the riddle why the fire of lightning is far more piercing
than is our fire rising from pine-torches on earth. For
you might say that the heavenly fire of lightning is made
more subtle and of smaller shapes, and so passes through
holes which our fire rising from logs and born of the pine-
torch cannot pass. Again light passes through horn-
lanterns, but the rain 1s spewed back. Why? unless it
be that those bodies of light are smaller than those of
which the quickening liquid of water is made. And we
see wine flow through the strainer as swiftly as you will;
but, on the other hand, the sluggish olive-oil hangs back,
because, we may be sure, it is composed of particles
either larger or more hooked and entangled one with the
other, and so it comes about that the first-beginnings
cannot so quickly be drawn apart, each single one from
the rest, and so ooze through the single holes of each thing.

There is this too that the liquids of honey and milk
give a pleasant sensation of the tongue, when rolled in
the mouth; but on the other hand, the loathsome
nature of wormwood and biting centaury set the mouth
awry by their noisome taste; so that you may easily
know that those things which can touch the senses
pleasantly are made of smooth and round bodies, but

Book LL, ll. 404-433 79

that on the other hand all things which seem to be bitter
and harsh, these are held bound together with particles
more hooked, and for this cause are wont to tear a way
into our senses, and at their entering in to break through
the body.

Lastly, all things good or bad to the senses in their
touch fight thus with one another, because they are
built up of bodies of different shape; lest by chance you
may think that the harsh shuddering sound ® of the squeak-
ing saw is made of particles as smooth as are the melodies
of music which players awake, shaping the notes as their
fingers move nimbly over the strings; nor again, must
you think that first-beginnings of like shape pierce into
men’s nostrils, when noisome carcasses are roasting, and
when the stage is freshly sprinkled with Cilician saffron,
and the altar hard by is breathing the scent of Arabian
incense ; nor must you suppose that the pleasant colours
of things, which can feed our eyes, are made of seeds like
those which prick the pupil and constrain us to tears,
or look dreadful and loathly in their hideous aspect.
For every shape, which ever charms the senses, has not
been brought to being without some smoothness in the
first-beginnings; but, on the other hand, every shape
which is harsh and offensive has not been formed without
some roughness of substance. Other particles there are,
moreover, which cannot rightly be thought to be smooth
nor altogether hooked with bent points, but rather with
tiny angles standing out a little, insomuch that they
can tickle the senses rather than hurt them; and of this
kind is lees of wine and the taste of endive. Or again,
that hot fires and cold frost have particles fanged in
different ways to prick the senses of the body, is proved

and all
differences
of sensation
in hearing,

smell,

and sight.

Pleasure
and pain
are deter-
mined by
the shapes
of the
particles ;

for touch
is the
ultimate

80 Book Lf, ll. 433-461

to us by the touch of each. For touch, yea touch, by
the holy powers of the gods, is the sense of the body,

cause of all either when something from without finds its way in,

sensation.

Further
differences
and the
atomic
shapes
which
cause
them :
hard

things ;

liquid
things ;

pungent
and

. evanescent
things ;

or when a thing which is born in the body hurts us,
or gives pleasure as it passes out, or else when the seeds
after collision jostle within the body itself and, roused one
by another, disturb our sense: as if by chance you should
with your hand strike any part of your own body
and so make trial. Therefore the first-beginnings must
needs have forms far different, which can produce such
diverse feelings.

Or, again, things which seem to us hard and compact,
these, it must needs be, are made of particles more
hooked one to another, and are held together close-
fastened at their roots, as it were by branching particles.
First of all in this class diamond stones stand in the
forefront of the fight, well used to despise all blows,
and stubborn flints and the strength of hard iron, and
brass sockets, which scream aloud as they struggle against
the bolts. ‘Those things indeed must be made of particles
more round and smooth, which are liquid with a fluid
body : for indeed a handful of poppy-seed moves easily
just as a draught of water; for the several round particles
are not checked one by the other, and when struck,
it will roll downhill just like water. Lastly, all things
which you perceive flying asunder, like smoke, clouds
and flames, it must needs be that even if they are
not made entirely of smooth and round particles, yet
they are not hampered by particles closely linked, so
that they can prick the body, and pass into rocks, and
yet not cling one to another: so that you can easily
learn that, whatever we see (borne asunder by the

Book Il, Ul. 462-486 8 I

tearing winds and) meeting our senses (as poison ),! are of
elements not closely linked but pointed. But because liquid but
you see that some things which are fluid, are also bitter, ante
as is the brine of the sea, count it no wonder. For
because it is fluid, it is of smooth and round particles,

and many rugged bodies mingled in it give birth to pain;

and yet it must needs be that they are not hooked and

held together : you must know that they are nevertheless
spherical, though rugged, so that they can roll on together

and hurt the senses. And that you may the more think

that rough are mingled with smooth first-beginnings,
from which is made the bitter body of the sea-god, there

is a way of sundering them and seeing how, apart from

the rest, the fresh water, when it trickles many a time
through the earth, flows into a trench and loses its harsh-

ness; for it leaves behind up above the first-beginnings

of its sickly saltness, since the rough particles can more
readily stick in the earth.”

And since I have taught this much, I will hasten to Differences
link on a truth which holds to this and wins belief from it, poe 2
that the first-beginnings of things are limited in the tale limited in
of their varying shapes. If it were not to be so, then naam
once again certain seeds must needs be of unbounded 1. some
bulk of body. For, within the same tiny frame of any *00% ον
one single seed, the shapes of the body cannot be very vast size;
diverse. For suppose the first-bodies™ to be of three

1 The text is corrupt and a line is probably lost; the translation
follows Brieger’s restoration ;

ventis differri rapidis, nostrisque veneno
sensibus esse datum,

* It is likely that a paragraph is here lost in which Lucretius showed
that the size of the atoms was limited: otherwise some would be
perceptible. To this he probably refers in lines 479, 481 and 499.

546.15 F

2. αἱ]
extremes
in our
experience
would be
surpassed,

As it Is,

8 2 Book Ll, ll. 486-512

least parts, or if you will, make them larger by a few more ;
in truth when you have tried all those parts of one body
in every way, shifting top and bottom, changing right
with left, to see what outline of form in that whole
body each arrangement gives, beyond that, if by chance
you wish to make the shapes different, you must needs
add other parts ; thence it will follow that in like manner
the arrangement will ask for other parts, if by chance
you still wish to make the shapes different: and so
greater bulk in the body follows on newness of forms.
Wherefore it is not possible that you can believe that
there are seeds with unbounded difference of forms,
lest you constrain certain of them to be of huge vastness,
which J have taught above cannot be approved. At
once you would see barbaric robes and gleaming Meli-
boean purple, dyed with the colour of Thessalian shells,
and the golden tribes of peacocks, steeped in smiling
beauty, lie neglected and surpassed by the new colours
in things; and the smell of myrrh and the taste of
honey would be despised, and the swan’s song and the
many-toned melodies on Phoebus’s strings would in like
manner be smothered and mute: for something more
excellent than all else would ever be arising. Likewise,
all things would sink back on the worse side, just as we
have told that they would rise towards the better. For,
on the other hand, something would be more loathly
too than all else to nostrils and ears and eyes, and the
taste of the mouth. And since these things are uot so,

1 Again it is likely that some lines are lost in which Lucretius stated
the general argument that if variety of shapes in the atoms were
infinite, all extremes in our experience would be far surpassed: he
then proceeds to illustration.

Book Il, ll. 512-343 8 3

but a fixed limit to things marks the extreme on either there are
side, you must needs confess that the first-matter too 96 limits.
has a limited difference in shapes. Again from fire right

on to the icy frost of winter ὦ is but a limited way, and in

like manner is the way measured back again. For all

heat and cold and tepid warmths in the middle lie between

the two, filling up the sum in due order. And so they

are brought to being differing with limited degrees,

since they are marked off at either end by the twin points,

beset on this side by flames, on that by stiffening frosts.

And since I have taught this much, I will hasten to The atoms
link on a truth which holds to it and wins belief from it, na τὰ
that the first-beginnings of things, which are formed infinite in
with a shape like to one another, are in number infinite. oe
For since the difference of forms is limited, it must needs Otherwise,
be that those which are alike are unlimited, or else that eae a
the sum of matter is created limited, which I have proved would be
not to be, showing 2 in my verses that the tiny bodies of "™"**¢-
matter from everlasting always keep up the sum of things,
as the team of blows is harnessed on unbroken on every

side. For in that you see © that certain animals are more Animals

rare, and perceive that nature is less fruitful in them, ace
yet in another quarter and spot, in some distant lands, common in
another,

there may be many in that kind, and so the tale is made up ;
even as in the race of four-footed beasts we see that
elephants with their snaky hands come first of all, by
whose many thousands India is embattled with a bulwark
of ivory, so that no way can be found into its inner
parts : so great is the multitude of those beasts, whereof
we see but a very few samples. But still, let me grant Even a
this too, let there be, if you will, some one thing unique, es
alone in the body of its birth, to which there is not would

1 This is the sense, though the text is uncertain.
* Reading ostendens with Munro, F

t2

imply
infinite
aloms of
the required
Kind.

If limited
in number,
they might
be tossed
about the
universe
and never
meet.

Creation
and destruc-
tion wage
equal
warfare.

84 Book Ll, ll. $43-573

a fellow in the whole wide world; yet unless there is
an unlimited stock of matter, from which it might be
conceived and brought to birth, it will not be able to
be created, nor, after that, to grow on and be nourished.
Nay, in very truth, if I were to suppose this too, that
the bodies creative of one single thing were limited as
they tossed about the universe, whence, where, by what
force, in what manner will they meet and come together
in that vast ocean, that alien turmoil of matter? They
have not, 1 trow, a plan for union, but as, when many
a great shipwreck has come to pass, the great sea 15 wont
to cast hither and thither benches, ribs, yards, prow,
masts and swimming oars, so that along all the coasts of
the lands floating stern-pieces are seen, giving warning
to mortals, to resolve to shun the snares of the sea and its
might and guile, nor trust it at any time, when the wiles
of the windiess waves smile treacherous ; even so, if you
once suppose that the first-beginnings of a certain kind
are limited, then scattered through all time they must
needs be tossed hither and thither by the tides of matter,
setting towards every side, so that never can they be
driven together and come together in union, nor stay
fixed in union, nor take increase and grow; yet that
each of these things openly comes to pass, fact proves
for all to see, that things can be brought to birth and being
born can grow. It is manifest then that there are, in
any kind of things you will, infinite first-beginnings, by
which all things are supplied.

And so, neither can the motions of destruction prevail
for ever, and bury life in an eternal tomb, nor yet can the
motions of creation and increase for ever bring things
to birth and preserve them. So war waged from time

Book If, ll. 573-601 8 5

everlasting is carried on by the balanced strife of the
first-beginnings. Now here, now there, the vital forces
of things conquer and are conquered alike. With the
funeral mingles the wailing which babies raise as they
come to look upon the coasts of light; nor has night
ever followed on day, or dawn on night, but that it has
heard mingled with the baby’s sickly wailings, the lament
that escorts death and the black funeral.

Herein it is right to have this truth also surely sealed
and to keep it stored in your remembering mind, that
there is not one of all the things, whose nature is seen
before our face, which is built of one kind of first-
beginnings, nor anything which is not created of well-
mingled seed; and whatever possesses within it more
forces and powers, it thus shows that there are in it
most kinds of first-beginnings and diverse shapes. First
of all the earth holds within it the first-bodies, by
which the springs welling out coldness ever and anon
renew the measureless sea, it holds those whence fires
are born. For in many places the surface of the earth
is kindled and blazes, but the outburst of Aetna rages
with fire from its lowest depths, Then further, it holds
those whence it can raise for the races of men the smiling
crops and glad trees, whence too it can furnish to the
tribe of wild beasts, which ranges the mountains, streams,
leaves and glad pastures. Wherefore earth alone has

been called the Great Mother of the gods," and the mother ᾿

of the wild beasts, and the parent of our body.

Nothing is
created of
one single
kind of
atoms,

Earth has
every kind,

and is
therefore
alled
Mother.

Of her in days of old the learned poets of the Greeks sang The

that (borne on from her sacred) 1shrine in her car she

2 A line is lost, of which this must have been the general sense.

worship of

Mother

Earth as
Cybele.
The
meaning
of her
attributes ;
the lions ;
the mural
crown;

the
Phrygian
escort ;

the Galli ;

musi¢e

and
weapons ;

the
Curetes.

86 Book Ll, ll. 601-630

drove a yoke of lions, teaching thereby that the great earth
hangs in the space of air nor canearth rest onearth. To
the car they yoked wild beasts, because, however wild the
brood, it ought to be conquered and softened by the loving
care of parents. The top of her head they wreathed
with a battlemented crown, because embattled on glorious
heights she sustains towns ; and dowered with this emblem
even now the image of the divine mother is carried in
awesome state through lands far and wide. On her the
diverse nations in the ancient rite of worship call as the
Mother of Ida, and they give her Phrygian bands to bear
her company, because from those lands first they say
corn began to be produced throughout the whole world.
The mutilated priests they assign to her, because they
wish to show forth that those who have offended the
godhead of the Mother, and have been found ungrateful
to their parents, must be thought to be unworthy to
bring offspring alive into the coasts of light. Taut
timbrels thunder in their hands, and hollow cymbals
all around, and horns menace with harsh-sounding bray,
and the hollow pipe goads their minds in the Phrygian
mode, and they carry weapons before them, the symbols
of their dangercus frenzy, that they may be able to fill
with fear of the goddess’s power the thankless minds
and unhallowed hearts of the multitude. And so as soon
as she rides on through great cities, and silently blesses
mortals with unspoken salutation, with bronze and silver
they strew all the path of her journey, enriching her with
bounteous alms, and snow rose-blossoms over her, over-
shadowing the Mother and the troops of her escort.
Then comes an armed band," whom the Greeks call by
name the Curetes of Phrygia, and because now and again

Book 11, ll. 630-662 87

they join in mock conflict of arms and leap in rhythmic
movement, gladdened at the sight of blood and shaking

as they nod the awesome crests upon their heads, they

recall the Curetes of Dicte, who are said once in Crete

to have drowned the wailing of the infant Jove, while,

a band of boys around the baby boy, in hurrying dance

all armed, they beat in measured rhythm brass upon brass,

that Saturn might not seize and commit him to his jaws,

and plant an everlasting wound deep in the Mother’s
heart. For this cause in arms they escort the Great
Mother, or else because they show forth that the goddess
preaches that they should resolve with arms and valour

to defend their native land and prepare to be a guard

and ornament to their parents. Yet all this, albeit well Yet all this
and nobly set forth and told, is nevertheless far removed ee

from true reasoning. Tor it must needs be that all the The gods
live a
placid life
sundered and separated far away from our world. For apart from

free from all grief, free from danger, mighty in its own “e World.
resources, never lacking aught of us, it is not won by

nature of the gods enjoys life everlasting in perfect peace,

virtuous service nor touched by wrath. Verily, the earth
is without feeling throughout all time, and ’tis because
it has possession of the first-beginnings of many things,
that it brings forth many in many ways into the light
of the sun. Herein, if any one is resolved to call the sea
Neptune and corn Ceres, and likes rather to misuse the
title of Bacchus than to utter the true name of the vine-
juice, let us grant that he may proclaim that the world
is the Mother of the gods, if only in very truth he
forbear to stain his cwn mind with shameful religious
awe,

And so often fleecy flocks and the warrior brood of

The same
food may
nourish
different
animals.

Their flesh,
bones, &c.,

are dif-
ferent,

Different
bodies
contain
the seeds
of fire.

The same
thing

can stir
different
senses.

All things
then cou-
tain atoms
of various
shapes.

8 ὃ Book Ll, ll. 661-691

horses and horned herds, cropping the grass from one
field beneath the same canopy of heaven, and slaking
their thirst from one stream of water, yet live their life
with different aspect, and keep the nature of their
parents and imitate their ways each after his own kind.
So great is the difference of matter in any kind of grass
you will, so great in every stream. Moreover, any one
living creature of them all is made of bones, blood,
veins, heat, moisture, flesh and sinews: and they as well
are far different, formed as they are with first-beginnings
of unlike shape. Then once again, all things that are
set ablaze and burnt up by fire, store in their body, if
nothing else, yet at least those particles, from which
they may be able to toss fire abroad and shoot out light,
and make sparks fly, and scatter cinders far and wide.
Traversing all other things with the like reasoning of
your mind, you will find then that they hide in their
body the seeds of many things and contain diverse shapes.
Again, you see many things to which both colour and
taste are given together with smell. First of all, most
of the offerings (burnt on the altars of the gods) :1 these
then must needs be made of diverse shapes ; for the burn-
ing smell pierces, where the hue passes not into the
limbs, even so the hue in one way, the taste in another,
finds its way into our senses ; so that you may know that
they differ in the shapes of their first-bodies. So different
forms come together into one mass and things are made
with mingled seeds. Nay, more, everywhere in these
very verses of mine you see many letters common to
many words, and yet you must needs grant that verses
and words are formed of different letters, one from

1 A line is lost here, of which this was the probable sense.

Book Ll, ll. 691-720 89

another; not that but a few letters run through them

in common, or that no two of them are made of letters

all the same, but that they are not all alike the same

one with another. So in other things likewise since There are
there are first-beginnings common to many things, yet Sa
they can exist with sums different from one another : but the
so that the human race and corn and glad trees are §.0° °°
rightly said to be created of different particles.

And yet we must not think that all particles can be But not all
ἢ combina-
: tions are
created everywhere, forms coming to being half man, possible,

linked together in all ways, for you would see monsters

half beast, and sometimes tall branches growing out
from a living body, and many limbs of land-beasts linked
with beasts of the sea, and nature too throughout the
lands, that are the parents of all things, feeding Chimaeras
breathing flame from their noisome mouths. But it is Each thing
clear to see that none of these things comes to be, since Bee ΕΣ

we see that all things are born of fixed seeds and a fixed seeds, food,
ἃ. and move-

parent, and can, as they grow, preserve their kin ΠΕΣ

You may be sure that that must needs come to pass
by a fixed law. For its own proper particles separate
from every kind of food and pass within into the limbs
of everything, and are there linked on and bring about
the suitable movements. But, on the other hand, we
see nature cast out alien matter on to the ground, and
many things with bodies unseen flee from the body,
driven by blows, which could not be linked to any part
nor within feel the lively motions in harmony with the
body and imitate them. But lest by chance you should This is
think that living things alone are bound by these laws, ‘ve οὕ

inanimate
the same condition sets a limit to all things. For even as well as

living

things,

C. The
atoms have
no colour,

though the
mind can
well con-
ceive them.

I. Colour
changes,

90 Book II, ll. 720-750

as all things begotten are in their whole nature unlike
one to the other, so it must needs be that each is made
of first-beginnings of a different shape; not that but a few
are endowed with a like form, but that they are not all
alike the same one with another. Moreover, since the
seeds are different, there must needs be a difference in
their spaces, passages, fastenings, weights, blows, meetings,
movements, which not only sunder living things, but
part earth and the whole sea, and hold all the sky away
from the earth.

Come now, listen to discourse gathered by my joyful
labour, lest by chance you should think that these white
things, which you perceive shining bright before your
eyes are made of white first-beginnings, or that things
which are black are born of black seeds ; or should believe
that things which are steeped in any other colour you will,
bear this colour because the bodies of matter are dyed
with a colour like it. For the bodies of matter have no
colour at all, neither like things nor again unlike them.
And if by chance it seems to you that the mind cannot
project itself™ into these bodies, you wander far astray.
For since those born blind, who have never descried the
light of the sun, yet know bodies by touch, never linked
with colour for them from the outset of their life, you
may know that for our mind too, bodies painted with
no tint may become a clear concept.2 Again, we ourselves
feel that whatever we touch in blind darkness is not
dyed with any colour. And since I convince you that this
may be, I will now teach you that (the first-beginnings >
are (deprived of all colour).

For any colour, whatever it be, changes into any other ;

1 A line is lost, of which this must have been the sense.

Book Ll, ll. 750-781 91

but the first-beginnings ought in no wise to do this. For but the
it must needs be that something abides unchangeable, pious mus’
that all things be not utterly brought to naught. For changeable.
whenever a thing changes and passes out of its own
limits, straightway this is the death of that which was
before. Therefore take care not to dye with colour the
seeds of things, lest you see all things altogether pass away
to naught.

Moreover, if the nature of colour has not been granted 2. If
to the first-beginnings, and yet they are endowed with ae
diverse forms, out of which they beget and vary colours their _
of every kind, forasmuch as it is of great matter with eae
what others all the seeds are bound up, and in what will account
position, and what movements they mutually give and ee
receive, you can most easily at once give account, why colours of
those things which were a little while before of black things.
colour, are able of a sudden to become of marble white-
ness; as the sea, when mighty winds have stirred its
level waters, is turned into white waves of shining marble.
For you might say that when the substance of that which
we often see black has been mingled up, and the order
of its first-beginnings changed and certain things added
and taken away, straightway it comes to pass that it 18
seen shining and white. But if the level waters of the ae

ocean were made of sky-blue seeds, they could in no the colour
of the

: . things they
jostle together seeds which are sky-blue, never can they compose,
pass into a marble colour. But if the seeds which make eee
up the single unmixed brightness of the sea are dyed and (6) if
with this colour and that, even as often out of different Tees.
forms and diverse shapes some square thing is made up the separate
with a single shape, then it were natural that, as in the eee
square we perceive that there are unlike forms, so we seen,

wise grow white. For in whatever way you were to

and the
whole
could not
be uniform
in colour ;

further, this
contradicts
our reason
for think-
ing atoms
might have
coiour,

3. Colour
needs light,
with which
the atoms
have no
relalion.

ae ne
perception
of colour is
due to a

92 Book If, ll. 781-812

should perceive in the water of the ocean, or in any other
single and unmixed brightness, colours far different and
diverse one from another. Moreover, the unlike shapes
do not a whit thwart and hinder the whole from being
square in its outline; but the diverse colours in things
do check and prevent the whole thing being of a single
brightness. ‘Then, further, the reason which leads us
on and entices us sometimes to assign colours to the
first-beginnings of things, is gone, since white things are
not made of white, nor those which are seen black of
black, but of diverse colours. And in very truth much
more readily will white things be born and rise up out
of no colour than out of black, or any other colour you
will which fights with it and thwarts it.

Moreover, since colours cannot be without light nor
do the first-beginnings of things come out into the light,
you may know how they are not clothed with any colour.
For what colour can there be in blind darkness? Nay
even in the light it changes according as it shines brightly,
struck with a straight or slanting beam of light; even
as the plumage of doves, which is set about their throats
and crowns their necks, is seen in the sunshine; for anon
it comes to pass that it is red with bright garnet, sometimes
in a certain view it comes to pass that it seems to mingle
green emeralds among coral. And the tail of the peacock,
when it is bathed in bounteous light, in like manner
changes its colours as it moves round; and since these
colours are begotten by a certain stroke of light, you may
know that we must not think that they could come to be
without it. And since the pupil of the eye receives
in itself a certain kind of blow, when it is said to perceive
white colour, and another again, when it perceives black

Book Il, ll. 812-8 41 93

and the rest, nor does it matter with what colour things blow on
you touch may choose to be endowed, but rather with is pac
what sort of shape they are fitted, you may know that the touch it is
first-beginnings have no need of colours, but by their shape, not
᾿ ; ; colour
diverse forms produce diverse kinds of touch. which
matters,
: | me 5. Colour
fixed shapes, and all conformations of first-beginnings may and shape
exist in any hue you will, why on like grounds are not °° as
} ἢ _ . connected,
those things which are made out of them steeped with if atoms
every kind of colour in every kind? For it were natural Loh SO
: i we should
that often flying crows too should throw off white colour have indivi-

from white wings, and that black swans should be made TS)

Moreover, since no fixed nature of colour belongs to

different
of black seeds or of any other colour you will, simple or colours in
; the same
diverse. ee

Nay again, the more each thing is pulled asunder into 6. The
tiny parts, the more can you perceive colour little by little cae
fading away and being quenched : as comes to pass when less colour
purple is plucked apart into small pieces: when it has τος
been unravelled thread by thread, the dark purple or the
scarlet, by far the brightest of colours, is utterly destroyed 5
so that you can know from this that the tiny shreds
dissipate all their colour before they are sundered into
the seeds of things.

Lastly, since you do not allow that all bodies send out 7. Just as
sound or smell, it comes to pass, therefore, that you do ieee
not assign sound and smell to them. Even so, since we have not
cannot with the eyes descry all things, you may know ἜΡΙΝ
that some things are made bereft of colour, just as some the atoms
are without any smell and far parted from sound, yet seal
that the keen mind can come to know them no less than

it can mark those devoid of other things.

The atoms
are also
without
heat, sound,
taste oT
smell,

for they
cannot
emit any-
thing from
their body.

Neither
have atoms
sense,

94 Book Lf, ll. 842-869

But lest by chance you think that the first-bodies
abide bereft only of colour, they are also sundered
altogether from warmth and cold, and fiery heat, and
are carried along barren of sound and devoid of taste,
nor do they give off any scent of their own from their
body. Even as when you set about to make the delicious
liquid of marjoram or myrrh, or scent of nard, which
breathes nectar to the nostrils, first of all it is right to
seek, in so far as you may and can find it, the nature of
scentless oil, which may send off no breath of perfume
to the nostrils, so that it may as little as possible taint
and ruin with its own strong smell the scents mingled
in its body and boiled along with it. Therefore after
all the first-beginnings of things are bound not to
bring to the begetting of things their own scent or sound,
since they cannot give anything off from themselves,
nor in the same way acquire any taste at all, nor cold,
nor once more warm and fiery heat... and the rest:1
yet since they are such as to be created mortal, the
pliant of soft body, the brittle of crumbling body, the
hollow of rare, they must needs all be kept apart from
the first-beginnings, if we wish to place immortal founda-
tions beneath things, on which the sum of life may rest ;
lest you see all things pass away utterly into nothing.

It must needs be® that youshould admit that all things
which we see have sense are yet made of insensible
first-beginnings. The clear facts, which are known for
all to see, neither refute this nor fight against it, but

1 It is impossible to make sense of the passage as it stands, and
Giussani is probably right in supposing several verses lost, in which
the poet said that only such things could give anything off as con-
tained void, and then gave a list of examples, ending up with the
cetera of line 859.

Book Ll, ll. 869-897 95

rather themselves lead us by the hand and constrain us
to believe that, as I say, living things are begotten of
insensible things. Why we may see worms come forth 1. We see

i i th ibl
alive from noisome dung, when the soaked earth has)

created
gotten muddiness from immeasurable rains; moreover, elsewhere
we may see all things in like manner change themselves porns
4 " Ξ; * senseless.

Streams, leaves, and glad pastures change themselves into 2. Inani-
: : : mate food
cattle, cattle change their nature into our bodies, and 1)...
from our bodies the strength of wild beasts often gains animate
: : , 2 bodies,
increase, and the bodies of birds strong of wing. And °°
so nature changes all foods into living bodies, and out
of food brings to birth all the senses of living things,
in no far different way than she unfolds dry logs into
flames and turns all things into fires. Do you not then
see now that it is of great matter in what order all the
first-beginnings of things are placed, and with what
others mingled they give and receive motions?
Next then, what is it, that strikes on the very mind, 3. The
: oe : . fact that
which stirs it and constrains to utter diverse thoughts, 27 +1
that you may not believe that the sensible is begotten things do
« ° e - 1 not nor-
of the insensible? We may be sure it is that stones maaliyiarice
and wood and earth mixed together yet cannot give from the
insensible
is no
this, that I do not say that sensations are begotten at objection.

out vital sense. Herein it will be right to remember

once from all and every of the things which give birth

to sensible things, but that it is of great matter, first All depends

on the size,

᾿ position,
and with what form they are endowed, then what they arrange-

ἃ ments, and
motions of
the atoms.
2 Giussani may be right in thinking that we should read latices

(water) instead of Japides (stones), as it suits better with what follows.

of what size are these bodies, which create the sensible,

are in their motions, arrangements and positions. An

4. Sensible
seeds would
be soft and
therefore
mortal.

5. If ever-
lasting,
they must
either (a)
feel as a
part of the
whole, or
(δ) as an
indepen-
dent whole.
But (a)

a part does
not feel
by itself ;

(δ) (1) they
could not
be eternal ;

(2) they
would only
make a
ecnfused

96 Book Il, ll. 897-922

none of these things can we perceive in logs and sods ;
and yet, when they are, as it were, made muddy through
the rains, they give birth to little worms, because the
bodies of matter stirred by the newcomer from their
old arrangements are brought into union in the way in
which living things are bound to be begotten. Next,
those who think ® that the sensible could be created out
of sensible bodies which in turn were used to owe their
sense to others, (these make the seeds of their own sense
mortal), when they make them soft. For all sensation
is linked to flesh, sinews and veins, which we see are
always soft in nature built up of mortal body. But still
let us grant now that these can abide for ever: still
doubtless they must either have™ the sense proper to
a part, or be thought to be of a sense like to that of
whole living things. But it must needs be that the
parts cannot have sense by themselves ; for all sensation
in the limbs depends on us, nor severed from us can the
hand nor any part of the body at all keep sensation by
itself. It remains that they are made like whole living
things. Thus it must needs be that they feel likewise
what we feel, so that they may be able to share with
us in every place in the vital sensations. How then will
they be able to be called the first-beginnings of things
and to shun the paths of death, since they are living
things, and living things are one and the same with
mortal things? Yet grant that they can, still by their
meeting and union, they will make nothing besides
a crowd and mob of living things, even as, as you may

1 A line is lost, which might have been of the form hi preprii
sensus mortalia semina reddunt,

DOOR Δ. il. 922-052 97

know, men, herds of cattle and wild beasts could not mass of

beget anything by coming together with one another. ee
But if by chance they lose their own sense, when inside (3) if in

a body, and receive another, what good was it that that the body
: ee they lose
should be assigned to them which is taken away? ‘Then, their sense,

moreover, as we saw before, inasmuch as we perceive ΝΣ ἍΝ
. : 6c ᾿ ι em
the eggs of birds turn into living chickens, and worms But our

swarm out when mud has seized on the earth owing to ern
: : . examples
immoderate rains, we may know that sensations can be are enough.

begotten out of that which is not sensation.
But if by chance any one shall say ™ that sensation can 6. Sensa-

in any case arise from not-sensation by change of substance ‘00 C@nnet
arise from

or, as it were, by a kind of birth, by which it is thrust the

out into being, it will be enough to make clear and αὐγὴ πὶ
: : y change
prove to him that birth cannot come to be, unless when or birth :

a union has been formed before, nor is anything changed hee
except after union. First of all, no body at all can have union.

sensation before the nature of the living thing is itself (4) A body
: . cannot have
begotten, because, we may be sure, its substance is sensation

scattered abroad and is kept in the air, in streams, in before the
δ ᾿ union
earth and things sprung from earth, nor has it come 6 its
together in appropriate way and combined with one substance.
another the vital motions, whereby the all-seeing senses
are kindled and see to the safety of each living thing.
Moreover, a heavier blow than its nature can endure, (4) a blow
of a sudden fells any living creature, and hastens to putsan
: - . end to
stun all the sensations of its body and mind. For the censation,
positions of the first-beginnings are broken up and the because it
: : side : b dissolves
vital motions are checked deep within, until the substance, yyions and
after the shock throughout all the limbs, loosens the stops the
ἢ : vital
vital clusters of the soul from the body, scatters it abroad jiotions.

and drives it out through every pore. For what else
546-15 -

Recovery
mealis re-
union and
motion
restarted,

7. Plea-
sure and
pain aie
caused by
the internal
movements
of atoms:
atoms
cannot then
themselves
experience
them.

8. Re-
ductio ad
absurdum.
Sensible
atoms must
themselves
laugh and
cry and
think and
dispute.

98 Book If, ll. 952-981

are we to think that a blow can do when it meets each
thing, but shake it to pieces and break it up? It comes
to pass too, that when a blow meets us with less force,
the vital motions that remain are often wont to win,
yea, to win and to allay the vast disturbances of the
blow and summon each part back again into its proper
path, and to shake to pieces the movement of death
that now, as it were, holds sway in the body, and to kindle
the sensations almost lost. For by what other means
could living things gather their wits and turn back to life
even from the very threshold of death rather than pass on,
whither their race is already almost run, and pass away?

Moreover, since there is pain when the bodies of
matter, disturbed by some force throughout the living
flesh and Jimbs, tremble each in their abode within, and
when they settle back into their place, comforting
pleasure comes to pass, you may know that the first-
beginnings cannot be assailed by any pain, and can find
no pleasure in themselves: inasmuch as they are not
made of any bodies of first-beginnings, through whose
newness of movement they may be in pain or find any
enjoyment of life-giving delight. They are bound then
not to be endowed with any sensation.

Again, if, in order that all living things may be able to
feel, we must after all assign sensation to their first-
beginnings, what of those whereof the race of men has its
peculiar increment?" You must think that they are
shaken with quivering mirth and laugh aloud and sprinkle
face and cheeks with the dew of their tears. And they
have the wit to say much about the mingling of things,
and they go on to ask what are their first-beginnings ;
inasmuch as, being made like to whole mortal men, they

Book Lf, ll. 981-1010 99

too must needs be built of other particles in their turn,
and those again of others, so that you may never dare to
make a stop: nay, I will press hard on you, so that,
whatsoever you say speaks and laughs and thinks, shall
be composed of other particles which do these same
things. But if we perceive this to be but raving madness,
and a man can laugh, though he has not the increment of
laughing atoms, and can think and give reasons with
learned lore, though he be not made of seeds thoughtful
and eloquent, why should those things, which, as we see,
have feeling, any the less be able to exist, mingled of seeds
which lack sense in every way?

And so, we are all sprung from heavenly seed ; there is Summary
the one father of us all, from whom when live-giving ae ae
earth, the mother, has taken within her the watery drops mother.
of moisture, teeming she brings forth the goodly crops
and the glad trees and the race of men ; she brings forth
too all the tribes of the wild beasts, when she furnishes
the food, on which all feed their bodies and pass a pleasant
life and propagate their offspring; wherefore rightly has
she won the name of mother. Even so, what once sprung
from earth, sinks back into the earth, and what was sent
down from the coasts of the sky, returns again, and the
regions of heaven receive it. Nor does death so destroy Death
things as to put an end to the bodies of matter, but only ἐν ΤΕ
scatters their union. ‘Then she joins anew one with but re-
others, and brings it to pass that all things thus alter their Cee
forms, and change their colours, and receive sensations, bination
and in an instant of time yield them up again, so that Produces
you may know that it matters with what others the first- eee
beginnings of things are bound up and in what position sensation.

and what motions they mutually give and receive, and

G2

D. Other
worlds

in space.
Introduce
tion.

Put aside
the alarm
of novelty,

100 Book If, ll. 1010-1044

may not think that what we see floating on the surface
of things ® or at times coming to birth, and on a sudden
passing away, can abide in the possession of eternal first-
bodies. Nay, indeed, even in my verses it is of moment
with what others and in what order each letter is placed.
For the same letters signify sky, sea, earth, rivers, sun, the
same too crops, trees, living creatures ; if not all, yet by
far the greater part, are alike, but it is by position that
things sound different. So in things themselves likewise
when meetings, motions, order, position, shapes are
changed, things too are bound to be changed.

Now turn your mind, I pray, to a true reasoning. For
a truth wondrously new is struggling to fall upon your
ears, and a new face of things to reveal itself. Yet neither
is anything so easy, but that at first it is more difficult to
believe, and likewise nothing is so great or so marvellous
but that little by little all decrease their wonder at it.
First of all the bright clear colour of the sky, and all it
holds within it, the stars that wander here and there, and
the moon and the sheen of the sun with its brilliant
light; all these, if now they had come to being for
the first time for mortals, if all unforeseen they were in
a moment placed before their eyes, what story could be
told more marvellous than these things, or what that the
nations would less dare to believe beforehand? Nothing,
I trow : so worthy of wonder would this sight have been.
Yet think how no one now, wearied with satiety of seeing,
deigns to gaze up at the shining quarters of the sky!
Wherefore cease to spew out reason from your mind,
struck with terror at mere newness, but rather with eager
judgement weigh things, and, if you see them true, lift
your hands and yield, or, if it is false, gird yourself to
battle. For our mind now seeks to reason, since the sum

Book Il, ll, 1044-1074 ΙΟΙ

of space is boundless out beyond the walls of this world, and inquire
what there is far out there, whither the spirit desires ἘΣ
always to look forward, and whither the unfettered pro- our world.

jection of our mind® flies on unchecked.

First of all, we find that in every direction everywhere, There are
and on either side, above and below, through all the uni- eee
verse, there is no limit, as I have shown, and indeed the than ours,
truth cries out for itself and the nature of the deep shines a πὸ πὰ
clear. Now in no way must we think it likely, since atoms
towards every side is infinite empty space, and seeds in Weee oe in
unnumbered numbers in the deep universe fly about in space,
many ways driven on in everlasting motion, that this ἘΝ δα
one world and sky was brought to birth, but that beyond to time
it all those bodies of matter do naught; above all, since ees
this world was so made by nature, as the seeds of things
themselves of their own accord, jostling from time to
time, were driven together in many ways, rashly, idly,
and in vain, and at last those united, which, suddenly cast
together, might become ever and anon the beginnings of
great things, of earth and sea and sky, and the race of
living things. Wherefore, again and again, you must
needs confess that there are here and there other gather-
ings of matter, such as is this, which the ether holds in
its greedy grip.

Moreover, when there is much matter ready to hand, 2. Matter,
space, and
ὴ nature
must, we may be sure, be carried on and completed. As remaining
it is, if there is so great a store of seeds as the whole life an.
of living things could not number, and if the same force must

and nature abides which could throw together the seeds Lees
of things, each into their place in like manner as they are

thrown together here, it must needs be that you confess

when space is there, and no thing, no cause delays, things

3. Nothing
in nature
is unique.

Nature is
thus seen
to work
of herself,
free of the
control of
the gods,

Τὸ 2 Book Ll, tl. 1075-1104

that there are other worlds in other regions, and diverse
races of men and tribes of wild beasts.

This there is too that in the universe there is nothing
single,® nothing born unique and growing unique and
alone, but it is always of some tribe, and there are many
things in the same race. First of all turn your mind
to living creatures; you will find that in this wise is
begotten the race of wild beasts that haunts the moun-
tains, in this wise the stock of men, in this wise again the
dumb herds of scaly fishes, and all the bodies of flying
fowls. Wherefore you must confess in the same way that
sky and earth and sun, moon, sea, and all else that exists,
are not unique, but rather of number numberless; in-
asmuch as the deep-fixed boundary-stone of life awaits
these as surely, and they are just as much of a body that
has birth, as every race which 15 here on earth, abounding
in things after its kind.

And if you learn this surely, and cling to it, nature is
seen, free at once, and quit of her proud rulers, doing all
things of her own acccrd alone, without control of gods.
For by the holy hearts of the gods, which in their tranquil
peace pass placid years, and a life of calm, who can avail
to rule the whole sum of the boundless, who to hold in
his guiding hand the mighty reins of the deep, who to
turn round all firmaments at once, and warm all fruitful
lands with heavenly fires, or to be at all times present in
all places, so as to make darkness with clouds, and shake
the calm tracts of heaven with thunder, and then shoot
thunderbolts, and often make havoc of his own temples,
or moving away into deserts rage furiously there, plying
the bolt, which often passes by the guilty and does to
death the innocent and undeserving?

Book Lf, ll. t105-1135 103

And since the time of the world’s birth, and the first The world
birthday of sea and earth, and the rising of the sun, many ae yy
bodies have been added from without, and seeds added growth was
all around, which the great universe in its tossing has nae
brought together; that from them sea and lands might additions
be able to increase, and from them too the mansion of the ee
sky might gain new room and lift its high vault far away
from the lands, and the air might rise up. For from all So all
places all bodies are separated by blows each to its own eh a
kind, and they pass on to their own tribes ; moisture goes long as
to moisture, with earthy substance earth grows, fires forge Ὁ ΗΕ
fires, and sky sky, until nature, parent of all, with perfect- than they
ing hand has brought all things on to the last end of 8Y° δ᾿"
growing ; as it comes to pass, when there is now no whit
more which is sent within the veins of life, than what
flows out and passes away. Here the growth of all things
must stop, here nature by her powers curbs increase.

For whatsoever things you see waxing large with joyful

increase, and little by little climbing the steps to full-

grown years, take more into themselves than they send

out from their body, so long as food is passed easily into

all their veins, and so long as the things are not so widely

spread that they throw off much, and cause waste greater

than that on which their growth feeds. For of a surety

vou must throw up your hands and grant that many

bodies flow away and pass from things; but more must

needs be added to them, until they have reached the
topmost point of increase. Then little by little age Then comes
breaks their powers and their full-grown strength, and ee
wastes away on the downhul path. For verily the huger when thes
a thing is and the wider it is, when once its bulk begins [955 more

; . than they
to go, the more bodies now does it scatter abroad and can take in.

So it will
be with
the world,

which even
now shows
signs of
decay.

104 Book Il, ll, 1135-1165

throw off from itself, nor is its food easily dispersed into
all its veins, nor is there store enough, whence matter
may arise and be supplied to equal the vast ebb which it
gives out. With reason then they perish, when all things
have been made rare by the ebb, and yield before the
blows from without, inasmuch as at last food fails the
aged life, nor do bodies from without cease to thump
upon it, and wear it away, and to overcome it with hostile
blows. Thus then even the walls of the wide world all
round will be stormed and fall into decay and crumbling
ruin. For it 1s food which must needs repair all things
and renew them, food must support them, and food
sustain all things; yet all is vain, since neither the veins
can bear to receive what is enough, nor does nature furnish
all that isneedful. Yea, even now its life is broken, and
the worn-out earth scarce creates tiny animals, though
once it created all the tribes, and brought to birth huge
bodies of wild beasts, For it was no golden rope,®
I trow, which let down the races of living things from
heaven above on to the fields, nor did the sea or the waves,
that lash the rocks, create them, but the same earth con-
ceived them, which now nourishes them of her substance.
Moreover, at first by herself of her own accord she created
for mortals the smiling crops and glad vine-plants, herself
brought forth sweet fruits and glad pastures; which now
scarce wax great, though aided by our totl: we wear out
our oxen and the strength of our husbandmen : we exhaust
the iron ploughshare, though scarce supplied by the fields
so much do they grudge their produce and increase our
toil. And now the aged ploughman shaking his head
sighs ever and again that the toil of his hands has perished

Book Il, Ul, 1165-1174 105

all for naught, and when he matches the present days
against the days of the past, he often praises the fortunes
of his father. So too gloomily the planter of the worn-
out, wrinkled vine rails at the trend of the times, and
wearies heaven, and grumbles to think how the genera-
tions of old, rich in piety, easily supported life on a narrow
plot, since aforetime the limit of land was far less to each
man. Nor does he grasp that all things waste away little
by little and pass to the grave } foredone by age and the
lapse of life.

1 Read capulum with Vossius,

Introduce
tion :
praise of
Epicurus,
who has
revealed
the
universe
to man.

BOOK ΠῚ

Tuovu, who out of deep darkness didst first avail to
raise a torch so clear, shedding light upon the true joys
of life, ’tis thee I follow, bright star of the Greck race,
and in thy deepset prints firmly now I plant my foot-
steps, not in eager emulation, but rather because for love
I long to copy thee; for how could a swallow rival
swans, or what might kids with trembling limbs accom-
plish in a race to compare with the stout strength of
a horse ? ‘Thou art our father, thou discoverer of truth,
thou dost vouchsafe to us a father’s precepts, and from
thy pages, our hero, even as bees in flowery glades sip
every plant, we in like manner browse on all thy sayings
of gold, yea, of gold, and always most worthy of life for
evermore. For as soon as thy philosophy, springing from
thy godlike soul, begins to proclaim aloud the nature of
things, the terrors of the mind fly away, the walls of the
world part asunder, I see things moving on through all
the void. The majesty of the gods is revealed, and their
peaceful abodes, which neither the winds shake® nor
clouds soak with showers, nor does the snow congealed
with biting frost besmirch them with its white fall, but
an ever cloudless sky vaults them over, and smiles with
light bounteously spread abroad. Moreover, nature sup-
plies all they need, nor does anything gnaw at their peace
of mind atany time. But on the other hand, the quarters

Book Ill, tl. 25-55 107

of Acheron are nowhere to be seen, nor yet is earth a
barrier to prevent all things being descried, which are
carried on underneath through the void below our feet.
At these things, as it were, some godlike pleasure and
a thrill of awe seizes on me, to think that thus by thy
power nature is made so clear and manifest, laid bare to
sight on every side. .
And since I have shown of what kind are the beginnings The
of all things, with what diverse shapes they differ, and nee
how of their own accord they fly on, impelled by everlast-
ing motion, and in what manner each several thing can
be created out of them ; next after this it seems that the
nature of the mind and the soul must now be displayed
in my verses, and the old fear of Acheron driven headlong
away, which utterly confounds the life of men from
the very root, clouding all things with the blackness of
death, and suffering no pleasure to be pure and unalloyed.
For, although men often declare that disease and a life of False pro-
disgrace are more to be feared than the lower realm of cin
death, and that they know that the soul’s nature is of
blood, or else of wind,® if by chance their whim so wills
it, and that so they have no need at all of our philosophy,
you may be sure by this that all is idly vaunted to win
praise, and not because the truth is itself accepted. These A crisis
same men, exiled from their country and banished far ee
from the sight of men, stained with some foul crime, beset of death,
with every kind of care, live on all the same, and, spite of
all, to whatever place they come in their misery, they
make sacrifice to the dead, and slaughter black cattle and
despatch offerings to the gods of the dead, and in their
bitter plight far more keenly turn their hearts to religion.
Wherefore it is more fitting to watch a man in doubt and

which is
the cause
of many
vices and
crimes,

108 Book 111, ll. 55-86

danger, and to learn of what manner he is in adversity ;
for then at last a real cry is wrung from the bottom of his
heart: the mask is torn off, and the truth remains behind.
Moreover, avarice and the blind craving for honours,
which constrain wretched men to overleap the boundaries
of right, and sometimes as comrades or accomplices in
crime to struggle night and day with surpassing toil to
rise up to the height of power—these sores in life are
fostered in no small degree by the fear of death. / For
most often scorned disgrace and biting poverty are seen
to be far removed from pleasant settled life, and are, as
it were, a present dallying before the gates of death;
and while men, spurred by a false fear, desire to flee far
from them, and to drive them far away, they amass sub-
stance by civil bloodshed and greedily multiply their
riches, heaping slaughter on slaughter. , Hardening their
heart they revel in a brother’s bitter death, and hate and
fear their kinsmen’s board. In like manner, often through
the same fear, they waste with envy that he is powerful,
he is regarded, who walks clothed with bright renown;
while they complain that they themselves are wrapped in
darkness and the mire. Some of them come to ruin to
win statues and a name; and often through fear of
death so deeply does the hatred of life and the sight of
the light possess men, that with sorrowing heart they
compass their own death, forgetting that it 1s this fear
which is the source of their woes, which assails their
honour, which bursts the bonds of friendship, and over-
turns affection from its lofty throne.! For often ere
now men have betrayed country and beloved parents,

1 The reading is uncertain, but may have been e summa... sede.

Book 111. ll. 86-115 109

seeking to shun the realms of Acheron. For even as and must
κ- be dispelled

children tremble and fear everything in blinding dark- τος
y science.

ness, so we sometimes dread in the light things that are
no whit more to be feared than what children shudder at
in the dark, and imagine will come to pass. ‘This terror
then, this darkness of the mind, must needs be scattered,
not by the rays of the sun and the gleaming shafts of
day, but by the outer view and the inner law of nature.

First I say that the mind,® which we often call the A, Nature
of (a) the

ae ; mind.

ing power of life, is a part of a man no whit the less than The mind

is a part ot

the body,

understanding, in which is placed the reasoning and guid-

hand and foot and eyes are created parts of the whole
living being. (Yet many wise men have thought)? that
the sensation of the mind is not placed in any part deter-
mined, but is a certain vital habit of the body, which the
Greeks cal] a harmony, in that it makes us live with sensa- not a
tion, although in no part does an understanding exist ; LORS
as when often good health is said to belong to the body,
and yet it is not itself any part of a healthy man. ἴῃ this
wise they do not set the sensation of the mind in any
part determined ; and in this they seem to me to wander

very far astray. Thus often the body, which is clear to 1. Mind
and body
are in-
other hidden part; and contrariwise it happens that the dependent
in pleasure
and pain.

see, is sick, when, all the same we feel pleasure in some

reverse often comes to be in turn, when one wretched
in mind feels pleasure in all his body; in no other wise
than if, when a sick man’s foot is painful, all the while,
may be, his head is in no pain. Moreover, when the limbs 2. In sleep
: : the body is
are given up to soft sleep, and the heavy body lies slack gensetess,

and senseless, yet theie is something else in us, which but the

f : ‘ . .. mind
at that very time is stirred in many ways, and admits active

1 A line is lost, of which this must have been the general sense.

(δ) The
soul is in
the body,
not a
harmony:
Dit
survives,
when much
of the body
is lost, but
Δ. the loss
of particles
of heat and
air causes
death,

The notion
of the vital
principle as
‘a har-
mony’
must be
abandoned.

Mind and
soul are
one nature,

but mind,
in the

breast, is
supreme,

110 Book LI, ll. 115-144

within itself all the motions of joy and baseless cares of
heart. Now that you may be able to learn that the soul
too is in the limbs, and that it is not by a harmony that
the body is wont to feel, first of all it comes to pass that
when a great part of the body is removed yet often the
life lingers on in our limbs; and then again, when a few
bodies of heat are scattered abroad and some air has been
driven out through the mouth, that same life of a sudden
abandons the veins and leaves the bones; so that you
may be able to know from this that not all kinds of bodies
have an equal part to play, nor do all equally support
existence, but that rather those, which are the seeds of
wind and burning heat, are the cause that life lingers in
the limbs. There is then heat and a life-giving wind
in the very body, which abandons our dying frame.
Wherefore, since the nature of mind and soul has been
revealed as a part of man, give up the name of harmony,
which was handed down to musicians from high Helicon:
or else they themselves have dragged it forth from some
other source, and brought it over to this thing, which
then was without a name of its own. Whatever it is,
let them keep it: do you listen to the rest of my dis-
course. ;

Now I say that mind and soul are held in union one
with the other, and form of themselves a single nature,
but that the head, as it were, and lord in the whole body
is the reason, which we call mind or understanding, and
it is firmly seated in the middle region of the breast. For
here it is that fear and terror throb, around these parts
are soothing joys; here then is the understanding and
the mind. The rest of the soul, spread abroad through-
out the body, obeys and is moved at the will and inclina-

Book 111. Ul. 144-173 ἘΠῚ

tion of the understanding. The mind alone by itself has It has pain
understanding for itself and rejoices for itself, when no Ὁ ες
single thing stirs either soul or body. And just as, when

head or eye hurts within us at the attack of pain, we are
not tortured at the same time in all our body; so the
mind sometimes feels pain by itself or waxes strong with
joy, when all the rest of the soul through the limbs and
frame is not roused by any fresh feeling. .Nevertheless, but _
when the understanding is stirred by some stronger fear, feeling is
we see that the whole soul feels with it throughout the shared by
limbs, and then sweat and pallor break out over all the rhe. and
body, and the tongue is crippled and the voice is choked, municated
the eyes grow misty, the ears ring, the limbs give way ee
beneath us, and indeed we often see men fall down through

the terror in their mind; so that any one may easily learn
from this that the soul is linked in union with the mind ;
for when it is smitten by the force of the mind, straight-
way it strikes the body and pushes it on.

This same reasoning shows that the nature of mind Mind and
and soul is bodily. For when it is seen to push on the eee
limbs, to pluck the body from sleep, to change the For mind
countenance, and to guide and turn the whole man— Bay
none of which things we see can come to pass without touch,
touch, nor touch in its turn without body—must we not
allow that mind and soul are formed of bodily nature?
Moreover, you see that our mind suffers along with the
body, and shares its feelings together inthe body. If the andis
shuddering shock of a weapon, driven within and laying eee,
bare bones and sinews, does not reach the life, yet faint- wounds.
ness follows, and a pleasant swooning to the ground,

and a turmoil of mind which comes to pass on the ground,

<Y Se oie AD
“ey ἷ a os =
᾿ ae .

ΤΙΣ Book 411, ll. 174-204

and from time to time, as it were, a hesitating will to rise.
Therefore it must needs be that the nature of the mind is
bodily, since it 1s distressed by the blow of bodily weapons.

Mind and? Now of what kind of body this mind is, and of what

soul are
formed of

parts it is formed, 1 will go on to give account to you in

very minute my discourse. First of all I say that it is very fine in

particles ς

1. because
they are
so mobile ;

texture, and is made and formed of very tiny particles.
That this is so, if you give attention, you may be able to
learn from this. Nothing is seen to come to pass so
swiftly as what the mind pictures to itself coming to
pass and starts to do itself. Therefore the mind bestirs
itself more quickly than any of the things whose nature
is manifest for all to see... But because it is so very nimble,
it is bound to be formed of exceeding round and exceed-
ing tiny seeds, so that its particles may be able to move
when smitten by a little impulse.) For so water moves
and oscillates at the slightest impulse, seeing it is formed
of little particles, quick to roll. But, on the other hand,
the nature of honey is more stable, its fluid more sluggish,
and its movement more hesitating; for the whole mass
of its matter clings more together, because, we may be
sure, it is not formed of bodies so smooth, nor so fine and
round. For a light trembling breath can constrain a
high heap of poppy-seed to scatter from top to bottom
before your eyes : but, on the other hand, a pile of stones
or corn-ears it can by no means separate. Therefore, in
proportion as bodies are tinier and smoother, so they are
gifted with nimbleness. But, on the other hand, all things
that are found to be of greater weight or more spiky, the
more firm set they are. Now, therefore, since the nature
of the mind has been found nimble beyond the rest, it

Book 411], ll. 204-235 113

must needs be formed of bodies exceeding smali ana

smooth and round. And this truth, when known to you,

will in many things, good friend, prove useful, and will be
reckoned of service. This fact, too, declares the nature 2. because
of the mind, of how thin a texture it is formed, and in one
how small a place it might be contained, could it be at death
gathered in a mass; that as soon as the unruflled peace ae
of death has laid hold on a man, and the nature of mind appearance
and soul has passed away, you could discern nothing there, “ἶ ἔπει
that sight or weight can test, stolen from the entire body ;

death preserves all save the feeling of life, and some warm

heat. And so it must needs be that the whole soul is

made of very tiny seeds, and is linked on throughout veins,

flesh, and sinews ; inasmuch as, when it is all already gone

from the whole body, yet the outer contour of the limbs

is preserved unbroken, nor is a jot of weight wanting.

Even so it is, when the flavour of wine has passed away or

when the sweet breath of a perfume is scattered to the

air, or when its savour is gone from some body ; still the

thing itself seems not a whit smaller to the eyes on that
account, nor does anything seem withdrawn from its

weight, because, we may be sure, many tiny seeds go to

make flavours and scent in the whole body of things.
Wherefore once and again you may know that the nature

of the understanding and the soul is formed of exceeding

tiny seeds, since when it flees away it carries with it no

jot of weight.

Nevertheless we must not think that this nature is Compo-
simple. For it is a certain thin breath that deserts the aa
dying, mingled with heat, and heat moreover draws air wind,
with it; nor indeed is there any heat, that has not air et airs
too mixed with it. For because its nature is rare, it

546.15 =

the fourth
nature,

The
course of
sensation.

The com-
bination
of the
elements in
the soul.

114. Book Ill, ll. 235-264

must needs be that many first-beginnings of air move
about in it. Already then we have found the nature of
the soul to be triple; and yet all these things are not
enough to create sensation, since the mind does not
admit that any of these can create the motions that bring
sensation Cor the thoughts of the mind).! It must needs
be then that some fourth nature” too be added to these.
But it is altogether without name; than it there exists
nothing more nimble, nothing more fine, nor made of
smaller or smoother particles. It first sends abroad the
motions that bring sensation among the limbs : for it is
first stirred, being made up of small shapes; then heat
receives the motions and the hidden power of wind, and
then air; then all things are set moving, the blood re-
ceives the shock and all the flesh feels the thrill; last of all
it passes to the bones and marrow, be it pleasure or the
heat of opposite kind. Yet not for naught can pain pierce
thus far within, nor any biting ill pass through, but that
all things are so disordered that there is no more place for
life, and the parts of the soul scatter abroad through all
the pores of the body. But for the most part a limit is
set to these motions, as it were, on the surface of the
body : and by this means we avail to keep our life.
Now, as I long to give account in what way these parts
are mingled one with another, and in what manner bound
together so that they can act, against my will the poverty
of my country’s tongue holds me back; yet, despite that,
I will touch the theme, as best I can in brief. For the
first-beginnings course to and fro among themselves with
the motions of first-beginnings,® so that no single one
can be put apart, nor can its powers be set in play divided

1 The MSS. are corrupt, but this must have been the sense.

Book 414, ll. 264-295 Tt

from others by empty space, but they are, as it were, the

many forces of a single body. Even as in the flesh of any

living creature anywhere there is. smell and a certain

heat and savour, and yet of all these is made up the

bulk of a single body. Thus*heat and air and the hidden

power of wind mingled create one narure together with

that nimble force, which sends among them from itself

the beginning of motion, whence the motion that brings

sensation first arises throughout the flesh. For right deep The hidden
within this nature lies hid far below, nor is there anything sind
further beneath than this in our bodies, and it is moreover

the very soul of the whole soul. Even as in our limbs and

our whole body the force of the mind and the power of

the soul is secretly immingled, because it is formed of
small and rare bodies. So, you see, this force without

a Name, made of tiny bodies, lies concealed, and is more-

over, as it were, the very soul of the whole soul and holds

sway in the whole body. In like manner it must needs The other
be that wind and air and heat act mingled together ‘ements
throughout the limbs, and one is more above or below

the rest, yet so that one single thing is seen to be com-

posed of all; lest heat and wind apart, and apart from

them the power of air, should put an end to sensation,

and by their separation break it up. Moreover the Heat causes
mind possesses that heat, which it dons when it boils δ τ’
with rage, and the fire flashes more keenly from the eyes.

Much cold breath too it has, which goes along with fear, wind fear;
and starts a shuddering in the limbs and stirs the whole

frame. And it has too that condition of air lulled to air

rest, which comes to pass when the breast is calm and the “ness.
face unrufiled. But those creatures have more of heat,

whose fiery heart and passionate mind easily boils up in

H 2

x”

Illustrations
from
animals

and from
men,

The

power of
philosophy
to overcome

natural
habits.

Union of
soul and
body is
the cause
of life.

116 Book Il, ll. 295-327

anger. Foremost in this class is the fierce force of lions,
who often as they groan break their hearts with roaring,
and cannot contain in their breast the billows of their
wrath. But tle cold heart of deer is more full of wind,
and more quickly it rouses the chilly breath in its flesh,
which makes a shuddering motion start in the limbs.
Buc the nature of oxen draws its life rather from calm
air, nor ever 18 the smoking torch of anger set to it to
rouse it overmuch, drenching it with the shadow of murky
mist, nor 1s it pierced and frozen by the chill shafts of
fear: it has its place midway between the two, the deer
and the raging lions. So is it with the race of men.
However much training gives some of them an equal
culture, yet it leaves those first traces of the nature of the
mind of each. Nor must we think that such maladies
can be plucked out by the roots, but that one man will
more swiftly fall into bitter anger, another be a little

sooner assailed by fear, while a third will take some things

more gently than is right. And in many other things
it must needs be that the diverse natures of men differ,
and the habits that follow thereon; but I cannot now
set forth the secret causes of these, nor discover names for
all the shapes of the first atoms, whence arises this variety
in things. One thing herein I see that I can affirm, that
so small are the traces of these natures left, which reason
could not dispel for us, that nothing hinders us from living
a life worthy of the gods.

This nature then of the soul ® is protected by the whole
body, and is itself the guardian of the body, and the cause
of its life; for the two cling together by common roots,
and it is seen that they cannot be torn asunder without
destruction. Even as it is not easy to tear out the scent

Book LEH, tl. 327-358 117

from lumps of frankincense, but that its nature too passes

away. So it is not easy to draw out the nature of mind

and soul from the whole body, but that all alike is dis-

solved. With first-beginnings so closely interlaced from Each is
their very birth are they begotten, endowed with a life es ee
shared in common, nor, as is clear to see, can the power of ᾿
body or mind feel apart, either for itself without the force

of the other, but by the common motions of the two on

this side and on that is sensation kindled and fanned

throughout our flesh. Moreover, the body is never be- and cannot
exist

gotten by itself, nor grows alone, nor is seen to last on Jon i

after death. For never, as the moisture of water often
gives off the heat, which has ‘been lent to it, and is not
for that reason torn asunder itself, but remains unharmed,
never, I say, in this way can the abandoned frame bear the
separation of the soul, but it utterly perishes torn asunder
and rots away. So from the beginning of existence body
and soul, in mutual union, learn the motions that give life,
yea, even when hidden in the mother’s limbs and womb, so
that separation cannot come to pass without hurt and ruin ;
so that you can see, since the cause of their life is linked
together, that their natures too must be linked in one.

For the rest, if any one is for proving that the body The body
does not feel, and believes that it is the soul mingled with "sel Feels
the whole body that takes up this motion, which we call its com-
sensation, he is fighting even against plain and true facts. aaa
For who will ever tell us what the feeling of the body is,
if it be not what the clear fact itself has shown and taught
us? ‘But when the soul has passed away the body 1s
utterly deprived of sensation.’ Yes, for it loses that
which was not its own in life, and many other things
besides it loses, when it is driven out of life.

Example :
the eyes
themselves
see and
are not

* doors to
the soul’.

Soul and
body atoms
do not
alternate.

Soul atoms
are set at
intervals.

Proof from
things
which we
do not feel
when they
touch the
body.

118 Book 11], ll. 359-387

To say, moreover, that the eyes can see nothing, but
that the mind looks out through them as when doors are
opened, is hard, seeing that the feeling in the eyes leads
us the other way ; for that feeling drags us on and forces us
to the very pupils ;} yea, for often we cannot see bright
things, because our sight is thwarted by the light. But
that does not happen with doors; for the doors, through
which we see, do not suffer any pain when they are
opened. Moreover, if our eyes are as doors,2 then
the mind, it is clear, ought to discern things better
if the eyes were taken out and removed, door-posts
and al].

Herein you could by no means accept the teaching,
which the Judgement of the holy man, Democritus," sets
before us, that the first-beginnings of soul and body alter-
nate, set each next each, first one and then the other, and
so weave the web of our limbs. For, as the particles of
soul are far smaller than those of which our body and flesh
are composed, so too they are less in number, and only
here and there are scattered through our frame; so that
you may warrant this: that the first-beginnings of soul
preserve distances apart as great as are the smallest bodies
which, when cast upon us, can first start the motions of
sensation in the body. For sometimes we do not feel
the clinging of dust on the body, nor know that chalk
has been shaken on us and settled on our limbs, nor do
we feel a mist at night, nor the slender threads of the
spider that strike against us, when we are caught in its
meshes as we move, nor know that his twisted web has
fallen on our head, or the feathers of birds or the flying
down from plants, which from its exceeding lightness,

1 i,¢. forces us to conclude that it is they which see.

Book 41, ll, 387-418 119

for the most part falls not ΕΙΣ ; nor do we feel the
passage of every kind of crawling creature nor each single
footstep, which gnats and other insects plant upon our
body. Indeed, so many things must first be stirred in
us, before the seeds of soul mingled with our bodies
throughout our frame feel that the first-beginnings have
been shaken, and before they can by jostling in these
spaces set between, rush together, unite and leap back
in turn.

Now the mind is more the keeper of the fastnesses of The mind
is more

essential
For without the mind and understanding no part of the for life

than the
soul,

life, more the monarch of life than the power of the soul.

soul can hold out in the frame for a.tiny moment of time,
but follows in its train without demur, and scatters into
air, and deserts the chill frame in the frost of death. Yet
one, whose mind and understanding have abode firm,
abides in life. However much the trunk is mangled with
the limbs hewn all around, though the soul be rent from
him all around and wrested from his limbs, he lives and
draws in the breath of heaven to give him life. Robbed,
it not of all, yet of a great part of his soul, still he lingers
on and clings to life. Even as, when the eye is mangled Illustration
all around, if the pupil has abode unharmed, then the i ie
living power of sight stands firm, if only you do not the eye.
destroy the whole ball of the eye, and cut all round the

pupil, and leave it by itself: for that will not be done

without the destruction of the eyes too. But if that tiny

part in the middle of the eye is eaten away, at once light

is gone, and darkness follows on, however much the bright

ball is in other places unharmed. In such a compact are

soul and mind ever bound together.

Come now, that you may be able to learn that the

B. The
soul is
mortal.

Proofs,

Ι. las
mobile and
made of
minute
atoms ὃ

therefore
it cannot
be held
togetiier in
air when
it has left
the body.

2. It is
born,

120 Book 111, ll. 417-446

.
minds and the light souls Ὁ of living things have birth and
death, I will hasten to set forth verses long sought out
and found with glad effort,’ ‘worthy to guide your life. ,
Be it yours 2 to link both of these in a single name, and
when, to choose a case, I continue to speak of the soul,
proving that it is mortal, suppose that I speak of mind as
well, inasmuch as they are at one each with the other
and compose a single thing. First of all, since 1 have
shown that it is finely made of tiny bodies and of first-
beginnings far smaller than the liquid moisture of water
or cloud or smoke—for it far surpasses them in speed of
motion, and is more prone to move when smitten by some
slender cause; for indeed it is moved by images of smoke
and cloud:2 even as when slumbering in sleep we see
altars breathing steam on high, and sending up their
smoke ; for beyond all doubt these are idols that are
borne to us:—now therefore, since, when vessels are
shattered, you behold the water flowing away on every
side, and the liquid parting this way and that, and since
cloud and smoke part asunder into air, you must believe
that the soul too is scattered and passes away far more
swiftly, and is dissolved more quickly into its first-bodies,
when once it is withdrawn from a man’s limbs, and has
departed. For indeed, since the body, which was, as it
were, the vessel of the soul, cannot hold it together, when
by some chance it is shattered and made rare, since the
blood is withdrawn from the veins, how could you believe
that the soul could be held together by any air, which is
more rare than our body (and can contain it less)?? ,
Moreover, we feel that the understanding is begotten
along with the body, and grows together with it, and

1 The text is uncertain, but this was probably the meaning.

Book 111, ll. 446-479 121

along with it comes to old age. For as children totter grows, and
with feeble and tender body, so a weak judgement of mind joe
goes with it. Then when their years are ripe and their
strength hardened, greater is their sense and increased
their force of mind. Afterward, when now the body 1s
shattered by the stern strength of time, and the frame has
sunk with its force dulled, then the reason is maimed, the
tongue raves, the mind stumbles, all things give way and
fail at once. And so it is natural that all the nature of therefore
the mind should also be dissolved, even as is smoke, into ee d
the high breezes of the air; inasmuch as we see that it with it.
is born with the body, grows with it, and, as I have shown,
at the same time becomes weary and worn with age.

Then follows this that we see that, just as the body 3. The
Z : : ; , mind, like
itself suffers wasting diseases and poignant pain, so the the βοάν,
mind too has its biting cares and grief and fear; where- has pains.
fore it is natural that it should also share in death. Nay 4. The
more, during the diseases of the body the mind often Tae
wanders astray; for it loses its reason and speaks raving affect the
words, and sometimes in a heavy lethargy is carried off ™"™
into a deep unending sleep, when eyes and head fall
nodding, in which it hears not voices, nor can know the
faces of those who stand round, summoning it back to life,
bedewing face and cheeks with their tears. Therefore
you must needs admit that the mind too 1s dissolved,
inasmuch as the contagion of disease pierces into it. For
both pain and disease are alike fashioners of death, as we
have been taught ere now by many a man’s decease.
Again, when the stinging strength of wine has entered into 5. Intoxi-
a man, and its heat has spread abroad throughout his veins, ee ἘΠ
why is it that there follows a heaviness in the limbs, his and mind

: : : ike.
legs are entangled as he staggers, his tongue is sluggish, aS

6. Still
more does
epilepsy,
which tears
and rends
the soul.

12 Book ILL, ll. 479-507

and his mind heavy, his eyes swim, shouting, sobbing,
quarrelling grows apace, and then all the other signs of
this sort that go along with them; why does this come
to pass, except that the mastering might of the wine is
wont to confound the soul even within the body? But
whenever things can be so confounded and entangled,
they testify that, if a cause a whit stronger shall have made
its way within, they must needs perish, robbed of any
further life. Nay more, some man, often before our very
eyes, seized suddenly by violent disease, falls, as though
by a lightning-stroke, and foams at the mouth; he groans
and shivers throughout his frame, he loses his wits, his
muscles grow taut, he writhes, he breathes in gasps, and
tossing to and fro wearies his limbs. Because, you may
be sure, his soul rent asunder by the violence of disease
throughout his frame,! is confounded, and gathers foam,
as on the salt sea the waters boil beneath the stern strength
of the winds. Further, the groaning is wrung from him,
because his limbs are racked with pain, and more than all
because the particles of voice are driven out, and are
carried crowding forth from his mouth, along the way
they are wont, where is their paved path. Loss of wits
comes to pass, because the force of mind and soul is con-
founded, and, as I have shown, is torn apart and tossed to
and fro, rent asunder by that same poison. Thereafter,
when by now the cause of malady has ebbed, and the
biting humours of the distempered body return to their
hiding-places, then, as it were staggering, he first rises,
and little by little returns to all his senses, and regains
his soul. When mind and soul then even within the body
are tossed by such great maladies, and in wretched plight

1 The text is uncertain, but the sense probably this,

Book Ill, ll. 507-537 I 23

are rent asunder and distressed, why do you believe that

without the body in the open air they can continue life

amid the warring winds? And since we perceive that the 7. Mind,
mind is cured, just like the sick body, and we see that it ae ges
can be changed by medicine, this too forewarns us that cured by

the mind has a mortal life. For whosoever attempts and ™*dicine.
essays to alter the mind, or seeks to change any other
nature, must indeed add parts to it or transfer them from
their order, or take away some small whit at least from
the whole. But what is immortal does not permit its
parts to be transposed, nor that any whit should be added
or depart from it. For whenever a thing changes and
passes out of its own limits, straightway this is the death
of that which was before. And so whether the mind is
sick, it gives signs of its mortality, as I have proved, or
whether it is changed by medicine. So surely is true fact
seen to run counter to false reasoning, and to shut off
retreat from him who flees, and with double-edged re-
futation to prove the falsehood. ,,

&

Again, we often behold a man pass away little by little 8. In cases
and limb by limb lose the sensation of life; first of all ee a
the toes and nails on his feet grow livid, then the feet and soul perishes
legs die, thereafter through the rest of his frame, step by Bee
step, pass the traces of chill death. Since this nature body.
of the soul is severed nor does it come forth all intact at
one moment, it must be counted mortal. But if by It cannot
chance you think that it could of its own power draw Sear
itself inwards through the frame, and contract its parts place,
into one place, and so withdraw sensation from all the
limbs, yet nevertheless that place, to which so great

abundance of soul is gathered together, must needs be

or if it
does, still
it perishes.

9. The
mind, like
any other
organ of
seuse,
cannot exist
without
the body.

10. Soul
and body
live by
their
mutval
union.

124. Book 2111, ll. 537-567

seen possessed of greater sensation ; but since such place
is nowhere found, you may be sure, as we said before, it is
rent in pieces and scattered abroad, and so perishes. Nay
more, if it were our wish to grant what is false, and allow
that the soul could be massed together in the body of -
those, who as they die leave the light of day part by part,
still you must needs confess that the soul is mortal, nor
does it matter whether it passes away scattered through
the air, or is drawn into one out of all its various parts
and grows sottish, since sense more and more in every
part fails the whole man, and in every part less and less
of life remains.

And since the mind is one part of man,® which abides
rooted in a place determined, just as are ears and eyes
and all the other organs of sense which guide the helm
of lite; and, just as hand and eye or nostrils, sundered
apart from us, cannot feel nor be, but in fact are in a
short time melted in corruption, so the mind cannot
exist by itself without the body and the very man, who
seems to be, as it were, the vessel of the mind, or aught
else you like to picture more closely bound to it, inasmuch
as the body clings to it with binding ties.

Again, the living powers of body and mind prevail by
union, one with the other, and so enjoy life; for neither
without body can the nature of mind by itself alone pro-
duce the motions of life, nor yet bereft of soul can body
last on and feel sensation. We must know that just as
the eye by itself, if torn out by the roots, cannot discern
anything apart from the whole body, so, it is clear, soul
and mind by themselves have no power. Doubtless be-
cause in close mingling throughout veins and flesh, through-
out sinews and bones, their first-beginnings are held close

Book LLL, ll. 567-597 127

by all the body, nor can they freely leap asunder with

great spaces between; and so shut in they make those
sense-giving motions, which outside the body cast out

into the breezes of air after death they cannot make, In the air
because they are not in the same way held together. eae
For indeed air will be body, yea a living thing, if the be held
soul can hold itself together, and confine itself to ee
those motions, which before it made in the sinews and the vital
right within the body. Wherefore, again and again, when ae
the whole protection of the body is undone and the breath

of life is driven without, you must needs admit that the
sensations of the mind and the soul are dissolved, since

the cause of life in soul and body is closely linked/

Again, since the body cannot endure the severing of 11. The
the soul, but that it decays with a foul stench, why do fem
you doubt that the force of the soul has gathered together the body
from deep down within, and has trickled out, scattering eae
abroad like smoke, and that the body has changed and ing up of
fallen crumbling in such great ruin, because its founda- ‘itesy
tions have been utterly moved from their seat, as the departure.
soul trickles forth through the limbs, and throngh all
the winding ways, which are in the body, and all the
pores? So that in many ways you may learn that the
nature of the soul issued through the frame sundered
in parts, and that even within the body it was rent
in pieces in itself, before it slipped forth and swam
out into the breezes of air. Nay more, while it moves 12. A great
still within the limits of life, yet often from some cause eae |
the soul seems to be shaken and to move, and to wish to in death,
be released from the whole body; the face seems to grow pia ms

flaccid, as at the hour of death, and all the limbs to fall bance of the
limp on the bloodless trunk. Even so it 18, when, as men ee

For no
dying man
feels his
soul depart
all at once.

18. The
mind has
its fixed
place, like
any other
perishable
thing,

126 Book 1141, ll. 597-625

say, the heart has had a shock, or the heart has failed ;*
when all is alarm, and one and all struggle to clutch at
the last link to life. For then the mind is shaken through
and through, and all the power of the soul, and both fall
in ruin with the body too; so that a cause a whit stronger
might bring dissolution. Why do you doubt after all
this but that the soul, if driven outside the body, frail as
it is, without in the open air, robbed of its shelter, would
not only be unable to last on through all time, but could
not hold together even for a moment? For it is clear
that no one, as he dies, feels his soul going forth whole
from all his body, nor coming up first to the throat and
the gullet up above, but rather failing in its place in
a quarter determined ; just as he knows that the other
senses are dissolved each in their own place. But if our
mind were immortal, it would not at its death so much
lament that it was dissolved, but rather that it went forth
and left its slough, as does a snake.

Again, why is the understanding and judgement of the
mind never begotten in head or feet or hands, but is fixed
for all men in one abode in a quarter determined, except
that places determined are assigned to each thing for its
birth, and in which each several thing can abide when
itis created,! that so it may have its manifold parts arranged
that never can the order of its limbs be seen reversed?
So surely does one thing follow on another, nor is flame
wont to be born of flowing streams, nor cold to be con-
ceived in fire.

Moreover, if the nature of the soul is immortal and

2 There may be a verse lost here, or else the construction is slightly
careless.

Book 111, lt. 625-655 127

can feel when sundered from our body, we must, I trow, 14. An
suppose it endowed with five senses. Nor in any other ae,
way can we picture to ourselves" the souls wandering in have seuses
the lower world of Acheron, And so painters and the o its own:
former generations of writers have brought before us

souls thus endowed with senses. Yet neither eyes nor but they
nose nor even hand can exist for the soul apart from body, eer ;
nor again tongue apart or ears; the souls cannot there- from body.
fore feel by themselves or even exist.

And since we feel that the sensation of life is present in 15. When
the whole body, and we see that the whole is a living meee
thing, if some force suddenly hew it in the middle with bits of soul
swift blow, so that it severs each half apart, beyond all VU" τα
doubt the force of the soul too will be cleft in twain, torn parts, sothat
asunder and riven together with the body. But what is Lae
cleft and separates into any parts, disclaims, assuredly, Examples:
that its nature is everlasting. ‘They tell how often scythe- εν: hewn
bearing chariots, glowing in the mellay of slaughter, so battle;
suddenly lop off limbs, that the part which falls lopped
off from the frame is seen to shiver on the ground, while
in spite of all the mind and spirit of the man cannot feel
the pain, through the suddenness of the stroke, and at
the same time, because his mind is swallowed up in the
fervour of the fight; with the body that is left him he
makes for the fight and the slaughter, and often knows
not that his left arm with its shield is gone, carried away
by the wheels among the horses and the ravening scythes ;
and another sees not that his right arm has dropped,
while he climbs up and presses onward. Then another
struggles to rise when his leg is lost, while at his side on
the ground his dying foot twitches its toes. And the

head lopped off from the warm living trunk keeps on the

128 Book 71], ll. 655-685

ground the look of life and the wide-open eyes, until it
has yielded up all the last vestiges of soul. Nay more, if
asnake you should choose to chop into many parts with an axe
ig hs the body 4 of a snake with quivering tongue, angry tail,
and long body, you will then perceive all the hewn parts
severally writhing under the fresh blow, and scattering the
ground with gore, and the fore part making open-mouthed
for its own hinder part, in order that, smitten by the
burning pain of the wound, it may quench it with its
bite. Shall we say then that there is a whole soul in all
those little parts? But by that reasoning it will follow
that one living creature had many souls in its body. And
in each case 80 that soul which was one together with the body has
Henan iS been severed; wherefore both body and soul must be
thought mortal, since each alike is cleft into many parts.
16. Ifthe | Moreover, if the nature of the soul is immortal, and it
ἢ we enters into the body at our birth, why can we not re-
ought to member also the part of our life already gone, why
ae do we not preserve traces of things done before? For if
existence. the power of the mind is so much changed that all re-
membrance of things past is lost to it, that state is not,
I trow, a far step from death ; wherefore you must needs
admit that the soul, which was before, has passed away,
and that that which now is, has now been created.
17. 16 Moreover, if when our body® is already formea the
ee living power of the mind is wont to be put in just when
body from Wwe are born, and when we are crossing the threshold into
alee life, it would not then be natural that it should be seen
beso closely to grow with the body, yea, together with the limbs in
connected the very blood, but ’tis natural that it should live all

ith it.
ey alone by itself as in a den, yet so that the whole body

2 Reading truncum for utrumgue, but the text is uncertain.
4 que,

Book Il, ll. 685-716 129

nevertheless is rich in sensation. Wherefore, again and

again, we must not think that souls are without a birth, ©

or released from the law of death. For neither can we ©

think that they could be so closely linked to our bodies if

they were grafted in them from without—but that all

this is so, plain fact on the other hand declares: for the

soul is so interlaced through veins, flesh, sinews, and bones

that the teeth, too, have their share in sensation; as

toothache shows and the twinge of cold water, and the

biting on a sharp stone if it be hid ina piece of bread—nor,

when they are so interwoven, can they, it is clear, issue

forth entire, and unravel themselves intact from all the

sinews and bones and joints. But if by chance you 18. Ifit

think that the soul is wont to be grafted in us from with- oe aus

out, and then permeate through our limbs, all the more distributed,

will it perish as it fuses with the body. For that which ae

permeates dissolves, and so passes away., For even as food in the

parcelled out among all the pores of the body, when it is eperaion,

sent about into all the limbs and members, perishes and

furnishes a new nature out of itself, so soul and mind,

however whole they may pass into the fresh-made body,

still are dissolved as they permeate, while through all the

pores there are sent abroad into the limbs the particles,

whereof this nature of the mind is formed, which now

holds sway in our body, born from that which then

perished, parcelled out among the limbs. Wherefore it

is seen that the nature of the soul is neither without |

a birthday nor exempt from death. |
Moreover, are seeds of soul left or not in the lifeless 19. If soul

body? For if they are left and are still there, it will wee he

follow that it cannot rightly be held immortal, since it body, the

546.15 I

soul must
be broken
up: if not,
how ac-
count for
the genera-
tion of
worms in
a corpse?
Their souls
cannot
come from
without,

or (a)
they could
not fashion
bodies for
themselves

nor (δ)
enter bodies
already
formed.
20. Races
of animals
can only
\reep their
character-
istics be-
cause their
soul is

19 Book Llf, ll. 716-745

has left the body maimed by the loss of some parts. But if
it has been removed and fled from the limbs while still
entire, so that it has left no part of itself in the body, how
is it that corpses, when the flesh is now putrid, teem with
worms, and how does so great a store of living creatures,
boneless and bloodless, swarm over the heaving frame ?
But if by chance you believe that the souls are grafted in
the worms from without, and can pass severally into their
bodies, and do not consider why many thousands of souls
should gather together, whence one only has departed, yet
there is this that seems worth asking and putting to the
test, whether after all those sculs go hunting for all the
seeds of the little worms, and themselves build up a home
to live in, or whether they are, as it were, grafted in bodies
already quite formed. But there is no ready reason why
they should make the bodies themselves, why they should
be at such pains. For indeed, when they are without
a body, they do not flit about harassed by disease and cold
and hunger. For the body is more prone to suffer by
these maladies, and ’tis through contact with the body
that the mind suffers many ills. But still grant that it be
ever so profitable for them to fashion a body wherein to
enter ; yet there seems to be no way whereby they could.
Souls then do not fashion forthemselves bodies and frames.
Nor yet can it be that they are grafted in bodies already
made; for neither will they be able to be closely inter-
woven, nor will contact be made by a sharing of sensation.

Again, why dees fiery passion® go along with the grim
brood of lions and cunning with foxes; why is the habit
of flight handed on to deer from their sires, so that their
father’s fear spurs their limbs? And indeed all other
habits of this sort, why are they always implanted in the

Book 411, ll. 744-775 1321

limbs and temper from the first moment of life, if it be determined

not because a power of mind determined by its own seed >Y 274 __
grows with

and breed grows along with the body of each animal? their body,

But if the soul were immortal and were wont to change 21: If
immortal

its bodies, then living creatures would have characters souls

intermingled; the dog of Hyrcanian seed would often e™ee4 |
their bodies,

flee the onset of the horned hart, and the hawk would fly animals

fearful through the breezes of air at the coming of the fies i
. ; : of miscel-
dove; men would be witless, and wise the fierce tribes janeous

of wild beasts. For it is argued on false reasoning, when εὐ δεῖς
: ἢ . or an
men say that an immortal soul is altered, when it changes immortal

its body : for what is changed, is dissolved, and so passes sat ane
. . hot change
away. For the parts are transferred and shift from their jn passing

order; wherefore they must be able to be dissolved too ‘rom one
Σ ody to
throughout the limbs, so that at last they may all pass another.

away together with the body. But if they say that the 22. Even if
. . 5 i umatn
souls of men always pass into human bodies, still 1 will coujs only

ask why a soul can become foolish after being wise, why P2ss into
; : ἕ nien, they
no child has reason, why the mare’s foal is not as well change

trained as the bold strength of a horse. We may be sure on old
they will be driven to say that in a weak body the mind Bene

too is weak. But if that indeed comes to pass, you must
needs admit that the soul is mortal, since it changes so
much throughout the frame, and loses its former life and Peeve

sense. Orin what manner will the force of mind be able soul cannot
grow with
. : .. the body,
the coveted bloom of life, unless it be partner too with unless born
the body at its earliest birth? Or why does it desire® to rk
issue forth abroad from the aged limbs? does it fear to immortal

remain shut up in a decaying body, lest its home, worn ee ie

out with the long spell of years, fall on it? But an to leave
the body
in old age.

along with each several body to wax strong and attain

immortal thing knows no dangers.

Ι 2

25. Think
of the im-
mortal souls
wrangling
for their
mortal
body !

26. Soul
and mind,
like all
other
things,
have their
appointed
place, apart
from which
they can-
Not exist.

27. The
union of
mortal and
immortal
is absurd,

12 Book 412, ll. 776-806

Again, that the souls should be present at the wedlock
of Venus and the birth of wild beasts, seems to be but
laughable; that immortal souls should stand waiting for
mortal limbs in numbers numberless, and should wrangle
one with another in hot haste, which first before the
others may find an entrance; unless by chance the souls
have a compact sealed, that whichever arrives first on its
wings, shall first have entrance, so that they strive not
forcibly at all with one another.

Again, a tree cannot exist in the sky,® nor clouds in the
deep waters, nor can fishes live in the fields, nor blood
be present in wood, nor sap in stones. It is determined
and ordained where each thing can grow and have its
place. So the nature of the mind cannot come to birth
alone without body, nor exist far apart from sinews and
blood. But if this could be, far sooner might the force
of mind itself exist in head or shoulders, or right down in
the heels, and be wont to be born in any part you will,
but at least remain in the same man or the same vessel.
But since even within our body it is determined and seen
to be ordained where soul and mind can dwell apart and
grow, all the more must we deny that it could continue
or be begotten outside the whole body. Wherefore, when
the body has perished, you must needs confess that the
soul too has passed away, rent asunder in the whole body.
Nay, indeed, to link the mortal with the everlasting, and
to think that they can feel together and act one upon the
other, is but foolishness. For what can be pictured more
at variance, more estranged within itself and inharmonious,
than that what is mortal should be linked in union with
the immortal and everlasting to brave raging storms?
Moreover, if ever things abide for everlasting," it must

Book 11], ll. 806-8 34 7

needs be either that, because they are of solid body, they 28. The
beat back assaults, nor suffer anything to come within eee:
them which might unloose the close-locked parts within, any of
such as are the bodies of matter whose nature we have poet

declared before; or that they are able to continue through- immor-
out all time, because they are exempt from blows, as is ply.
the void, which abides untouched, nor suffers a whit from
assault; or else because there is no supply of room all
around, into which, as it were, things might part asunder

and be broken up—even as the sum of sums is eternal—

nor is there any room without into which they may
scatter, nor are there bodies which might fall upon them

and break them up with stout blow. But if by chance

the soul is rather to be held immortal for this reason,
because it is fortified and protected from things fatal to

life, or because things harmful to its life come not at all,

or because such as come in some way depart defeated
before we can feel what harm they do us (clear facts
show us that this is not so).! For besides that it falls

sick along with the diseases of the body, there comes to it

that which often torments it about things that are to be,

and makes it il] at ease with fear, and wears it out with

care; and when its evil deeds are past and gone, yet sin
brings remorse. There is too the peculiar frenzy of the

mind and forgetfulness of the past, yes, and it is plunged

= pt the dark waters of lethargy.

\ ae Death, then, is naught to us,® nor does it concern us C. Death
a whit, inasmuch as the nature of the mind is but a mortal i eee
possession. And even as in the time gone by we felt no We shall
ill, when the Poeni came from all sides to the shock of ®° be

conscious
battle, when all the world, shaken by the hurrying turmoil after deatb

1 A line is lost, of which this was probably the sense.

any more
than we
were before
birth,

Even if the
soul could
fee] alone,
it would
not concern
Us.

If time
should
reunite the
same atoms
that new
form us,
still it
would not
aflect us.

Grief

and pain
necessitate
a pere
cipient :
but death
prevents
our feeling.

Test Book Ill, Ul. 834-867

of war, shuddered and reeled beneath the high coasts of
heaven, in doubt to which people’s sway must fall all
human power by land and sea; so, when we shall be no
more, when there shall have come the parting oft body
and soul, by whose union we are made one, you may
know that nothing at all will be able to happen to us,
who then will be no more, or stir our feeling ; no, not if
earth shall be mingled with sea, and sea with sky. And
even if the nature of mind and the power of soul has
feeling, after it has been rent asunder from our body, yet
it is naught to us, who are made one by the mating and
marriage of body and soul. Nor, if time should gather
together our substance after our decease and bring it back
again as it is now placed, if once more the light of life
should be vouchsafed to us, yet, even were that done, it
would not concern us at all, when once the remembrance
of our former selves were snapped in twain. And even
now we care not at all for the selves that we once were,
not at all are we touched by any torturing pain for them.
For when you look back over all the lapse of immeasurable
time that now is gone, and think how manifold are the
motions of matter, you could easily believe this too, that
these same seeds, whereof we now are made, have often
been placed in the same order as they are now; and yet
we cannot recall that in our mind’s memory; for in be-
tween lies a break in life, and all the motions have wandered
everywhere far astray from sense. For, if by chance there
is to be grief and pain for a man, he must needs himself
too exist at that time, that ill may befall him. Since
death forestalls this, and prevents the being of him, on
whom these misfortunes might crowd, we may know that
we have naught to fear in death, and that he who is no

Book LL, ll. 867-896 ΤῊΣ

more cannot be wretched, and that it were no whit
different if he had never at any time been born, when
once immortal death hath stolen away mortal life.

And so, when you see a man chafing at his lot, that A professed
after death he will either rot away with his body laid in sare!
earth, or be destroyed by flames, or the jaws of wild mortality of
beasts, you may be sure that his words do not ring true, nee
and that deepin his heart lies some secret pang, however insincere.
much he deny himself that he believes that he will have
any feeling in death. For he does not, I trow, grant 2
what he professes, nor the grounds of his profession, nor
does he remove and cast himself root and branch out of
life, but all unwitting supposes something of himself to
live on. For when in life each man pictures to himself Heimagines
that it will come to pass that birds and wild beasts will eee
mangle his body in death, he pities himself; for neither prieve at
does he separate himself from the corpse, nor withdraw τς on
himself enough from the outcast body, but thinks that
it is he, and, as he stands watching, taints it with his own
feeling. Hence he chafes that he was born mortal, and
sees not that in real death there will be no second self,
to live and mourn to himself his own loss, or to stand there
and be pained that he lies mangled or burning. For if Yet one
it is an evil in death to be mauled by the jaws and teeth (PC
of wild beasts, I cannot see how it is not sharp pain to be hurt him no
laid upon hot flames and cremated, or to be placed in pe μόνα
honey and stifled, and to grow stiff with cold, lying on
the surface on the top of an icy rock, or to be crushed
and ground by a weight of earth above.

* Now no more shall thy glad home welcome thee, nor ἘΚ ΩΝ
thy good wife and sweet children run up to snatch the desire for

first kisses, and touch thy heart with a silent thrill of Dee :

and the
living
should not
grieve at
his entering
into rest.

Men say:
* Let us
drink, for
to-morrow
we die’:
but in
death they
will have
no thirst.

In sleep we
have no
desire for
life, much
less in
death,

136 Book 711], ll. 896-925

joy. No more shalt thou have power to prosper in thy
ways, or to be a sure defence to thine own. Pitiful thou
art,’ men say, ‘and pitifully has one malignant day taken
from thee all the many prizes of life.’ Yet to this they
add not: ‘nor does there abide with thee any longer
any yearning for these things.’ Butif they saw this clearly
in mind, and followed it out in their words, they would
free themselves from great anguish and fear of mind.
‘Thou, indeed, even as thou art now fallen asleep in
death, shalt so be for all time to come, released from
every pain and sorrow. But ’tis we who have wept with
tears unquenchable for thee, as thou wert turned to ashes
hard by us on the awesome place of burning, and that
unending grief no day shall take from our hearts.’ But
of him who speaks thus we should ask, what there is so ex-
ceeding bitter, if it comes at the last to sleep and rest, that
any one should waste away in never-ending lamentation.

This too men often do, when they are lying at the
board, and hold their cups in their hands, and shade their
faces with garlands: they say from the heart, ‘ Brief 1s
this enjoyment for us puny men: soon it will be past,
nor ever thereafter will it be ours to call it back.’ As
though in death this were to be foremost among their
ills, that thirst would burn the poor wretches and parch
them with its drought, or that there would abide with
them a yearning for any other thing. For never does
any man long for himself and life, when mind and body
alike rest in slumber. For all we care sleep may then be
never-ending, nor does any yearning for ourselves then
beset us. And yet at that time those first-beginnings
stray not at all far through our frame away from the
motions that bring sense, when a man springs up from

Book IIT, ll. 925-955 137

leep and gathers himself together. Much less then
hhould we think that death is to us, if there can be less
-han what we see to be nothing; for at our dying
here follows a greater turmoil and scattering abroad of
natter, nor does any one wake and rise again, whom the
shill breach of life has once overtaken.

Again, suppose that the nature of things should of a Nature may
udden lift up her voice, and thus in these words herself ued ae
‘ebuke some one of us: ‘* Why is death so great a thing lamenting
Ὁ thee, mortal, that thou dost give way overmuch to ΟἹ death.
ickly lamentation? why groan and weep at death? For
f the life that is past and gone has been pleasant to thee,

ἼΟΓ have all its blessings, as though heaped in a vessel full

f holes® run through and perished unenjoyed, why

lost thou not retire like a guest sated with the banquet

f life, and with calm mind embrace, thou fool, a rest

hat knows no care?! But if all thou hast reaped hath

een wasted and lost, and life is a stumbling-block, why

eek to add more, all to be lost again foolishly and pass

way unenjoyed ; why not rather make an end of life and
rouble? For there is naught more, which I can devise

t discover to please thee: all things are ever as they

vere. If thy body is not yet wasted with years, nor thy

mbs worn and decayed, yet all things remain as they

vere, even if thou shouldst live on to overpass all genera-

ions, nay rather, if thou shouldst never die.’ What

nswer can we make, but that nature brings a just charge

gainst us, and sets out in her pleading a true plaint?

jut if now some older man, smitten in years, should Especially
iake lament, and pitifully bewail his decease more than Migs
Just, would she not rightly raise her voice and chide grieves
im in sharp tones? ‘ Away with tears henceforth, thou ‘° “ἰδ

He should
be glad to
make room
for future
generations.

The future,
after our
death, will
be no more
to us than
the past
before our
birth.

The
mythica}
tortures of
the lower

138 Book 411, ll. 955-980

rogue, set a bridle on thy laments. Thou hast enjoyed
all the prizes of life and now dost waste away. But
because thou yearnest ever for what is not with thee, and
despisest the gifts at hand, uncompleted and unenjoyed
thy life has slipped from thee, and, ere thou didst think
it, death is standing by thy head, before thou hast the
heart to depart filled and sated with good things. Yet
now give up all these things so ill-fitted for thy years,
and with calm mind, come, yield them to thy sons : 1 for
so thou must.’ She would be right, I trow, in her plea,
right in her charge and chiding. For the old ever gives
place thrust out by new things, and one thing must be
restored at the expense of others: nor is any one sent
down to the pit and to black Tartarus. There must
needs be substance that the generations to come may
grow; yet all of them too will follow thee, when they
have had their fill of life; yea, just as thyself, these
generations have passed away before, and will pass away
again. So one thing shall never cease to rise up out of
another, and life is granted to none for freehold, to all
on lease." Look back again to see how the past ages of
everlasting time, before we are born, have been as naught
to us. These then nature holds up to us as a mirror
of the time that is to come, when we are dead and
gone. Is there aught that looks terrible in this, aught
that seems gloomy? Is it not a calmer rest than any
sleep?

Yea, we may be sure, all those things, of which stories
tell us in the depths of Acheron, are in our life. Neither
does wretched Tantalus fear the great rock that hangs

1 Bernays’ suggestion gratis seems the best of many proposals.

Book 111, ll. 980-1011 139

over him in the air, as the tale tells, numbed with idle world are
terror; but rather ’tis in life that the vain fear of the ee
gods threatens mortals; they fear the falleof-the blow miseries of
which chance may deal to each. Nor do birds make their εὐ ἃ Ἐ
way into Tityos, as he lies in Acheron, nor can they verily the man

in all the length of time find food to grope for deep in ee
his huge breast. However vast the mass of his out- terrors of
stretched limbs, though he cover not only nine acres Tivos the
with his sprawling limbs, but the whole circle of earth, careworn
yet he will not be able to endure everlasting pain, nor for lovers
ever to supply food from his own body. But this is our

Tityos, whom as he lies smitten with love the birds

mangle, yea, aching anguish devours him, or care cuts

him deep through some other passion. The Sisyphus in Sisyphusthe
our life too is clear to see, he who open-mouthed seeks Baan
from the people the rods and cruel axes, and evermore
comes back conquered and dispirited. For to seek for

a power, which is but in name, and is never truly given,

and for that to endure for ever grinding toil, this is to

thrust uphill with great effort a stone, which after all

rolls back from the topmost peak, and headlong makes

for the levels of the plain beneath. Then to feed for the Danaids
ever the ungrateful nature of the mind, to fill it full with iat Γ
good things, yet never satisfy it, as the seasons of the year

do for us, when they come round again, and bring their

fruits and their diverse delights, though we are never

filled full with the joys of life, this, I trow, is the story of

the maidens in the flower of youth, who pile the water into

the vessel full of holes, which yet can in no way be filled

full. Cerberus and the furies, moreover, and the lack of

light, Tartarus, belching forth awful vapours from his jaws,

140 Book Ill, ll. 1012-1041

1

Hellis the which are not anywhere, nor verily can be. But it 18

fear of
punishment
in this life,

Think of
those who
have died
before you,

the kings,

and heroes,

and poets,

and philo-
sophers.

fear of punishment for misdeeds in life—fear notable as
the deeds are notable—and the atonement for crime, the
dungeon and the terrible hurling down from the rock,
scourgings, executioners, the rack, pitch, the metal plate,
torches; for although they are not with us, yet the
conscious mind, fearing for its misdeeds, sets goads to
itself, and sears itself with lashings, nor does it see
meanwhile what end there can be to its ills, or what limit
at last to punishment, yea, and it fears that these same
things may grow worse after death. Here afterall on earth
the life of fools becomes a hell.

This too you might say to yourself from time to time :
“Even Ancus the good® clesed his eyes on the light of
day, he who was a thousand times thy better, thou knave.
And since him many other kings and rulers of empires
have fallen, who held sway over mighty nations. Even
he himself, who once® paved a way over the great sea,
and made a path for his legions to pass across the deep,
and taught them on foot to pass over the salt pools, and
made naught of the roarings of ocean, prancing upon it
with his horses, yet lost the light of day, and breathed
out his soul from his dying body. The son of the Scipios,
thunderbolt of war, terror of Carthage, gave his bones
to earth, even as though he had been the meanest house-
slave{ /Yes, and the inventors of sciences and delightful
arts, yes and the comrades of the sisters of Helicon: among
whom Homer, who sat alone, holding his sceptre, has
fallen into the same sleep as the rest. Again, after a ripe
old age warned Democritus that the mindful motions of
his memory were waning, of his own will he met death

1 Some lines are lost here.

Book 11], ll. 1041-1069 11

and offered her up his head. Epicurus himself died,

when he had run his course in the light of life, Epicurus,

who surpassed the race of men in understanding and
quenched the light of all, even as the sun rising in the sky

quenches the stars, Wilt thou then hesitate and chafe You must
to meet thy doom? thou, whose life is wellnigh dead See
while thou still livest and lookest on the light, who dost whose life is
a waking

waste in sleep the greater part of thy years, and snore fen

when wide awake, nor ever cease to see dream-visions,
who hast a mind harassed with empty fear, nor canst
discover often what is amiss with thee, when like a sot
thou art beset, poor wretch, with countless cares on every
side, and dost wander drifting on the shifting currents of
thy mind.’

If only men, even as they clearly*feel a weight in their If men
mind, which wears them out with its heaviness, could ων, δ
learn too from what causes that comes to be, and whence their cares,
sO great a mass, as it were, of ill lies upon their breast, ees
they would not pass their lives, as now for the most part restless
we see them; knowing not each one of them what he ane ᾿
wants, and longing ever for change of place, as though he do now,
could thus lay aside the burden. ‘The man who is tired
of staying at home, often goes out abroad from his
great mansion, and of a sudden returns again, for indeed
abroad he feels no better. He races to his country home,
furiously driving his ponies, as though he were hurrying
to bring help to a burning house; he yawns at once,
when he has set foot on the threshold of the villa, or
sinks into a heavy sleep and seeks forgetfulness, or even

in hot haste makes for town, eager to be back. In this struggling
Ξ ° A ° to escape
way each man struggles to escape himself: yet, despite , te

his will he clings to the self, which, we may be sure, in fact

142 Book LIT, ll. 1069-1094

he cannot shun, and hates himself, because in his sickness
he knows not the cause of his malady; but if he saw it

but would clearly, every man would leave all else, and study first to
study

nature, to
learn their eternity, and not for a single hour, that is in question,

condition 5 ᾿ : h ὃ
τ ἢ, the state in which mortals must expect all their being,
that is to come after their death.
Ovrcraving Again, what evil craving for life is this which constrains
for life is τς with such force to live so restlessly in doubt and danger?
fruitless. . aa .
Verily, a sure end of life 1s ordained for mortals, nor can

learn the nature of things, since it is his state for all

we avoid death, but we must meet it. Moreover, we
move ever, we spend our time amid the same things, nor

A longer by length of life is any new pleasure hammered out. But
life could

give us no
new allelse ; afterward, when that is ours, we crave something
pleasure,

so long as we have not what we crave, it seems to surpass

else, and the same thirst for life besets us ever, open-
mouthed. It is uncertain too what fortune time to come
may carry to us, or what chance may bring us, or what
nor could it issue is at hand. Nor in truth by prolonging life do we take
ee ἃ away a jot from the time of death, nor can we subtract
of death, anything whereby we may be perchance less long dead.
Therefore you may live on to close as many generations
as you will: yet no whit the less that everlasting death
will await you, nor will he for a less long time be no more,
who has made an end of life with to-day’s light, than he

who perished many months or years ago.

BOOK IV

I traverse the distant haunts® of the Pierides, never Intro-
trodden before by the foot of man. ’Tis my joy to ee ae
approach those untasted springs and drink my fill, ’tis mission.
my joy to pluck new flowers and gather a glorious coronal
for my head from spots whence before the muses have
never wreathed the forehead of any man. First because
I teach about great things, and hasten to free the mind
from the close bondage of religion, then because on
a dark theme I trace verses so full of light, touching all
with the muses’ charm. For that too is seen to be not
without good reason; for even as healers, when they
essay to give loathsome wormwood to children, first touch
the rim all round the cup with the sweet golden moisture
of honey, so that the unwitting age of children may be
beguiled as far as the lips, and meanwhile may drink the
bitter draught of wormwood, and though charmed may
not be harmed, but rather by such means may be restored
and come to health; so now, since this philosophy full
often seems too bitter to those who have not tasted it,
and the multitude shrinks back away from it, I have
desired to set forth to you my reasoning in the sweet-
tongued song of the muses, and as though to touch it
with the pleasant honey of poetry, if perchance I might
avail by such means to keep your mind set upon my verses,
while you take in the whole nature of things, and are
conscious of your profit.

But since I have taught of what manner are the

144 Book LV, Ul. 26-58

A. The _ beginnings of all things, and how, differing in their diverse
poe: forms, of their own accord they fly on, spurred by ever-
lasting motion; and in what way each several thing can
be created from them ; and since I have taught what was
the nature of the mind, and whereof composed it grew in
due order with the body, and in what way rent asunder
The images it passed back into its first-beginnings : now I will begin
ee to tell you what exceeding nearly concerns this theme,
of vision, that there are what we call idols™ of things; which, like
films stripped from the outermost body of things, fly
forward and backward through the air; and they too
when they meet us in waking hours affright our minds,
yea, and in sleep too, when we often gaze on wondrous
shapes, and the idols of those who have lost the light of
day, which in awful wise have often roused us, as we lay
languid, from our sleep ; lest by chance we should think
that souls escape from Acheron, or that shades fly abroad
among the living, or that something of us can be left
after death, when body alike and the nature of mind have
perished and parted asunder into their several first-
beginnings.
The I say then that likenesses of things and their shapes are
existence of oiven off by things from the outermost body of things,

such images ; : ᾿
is proved which may be called, as it were, films or even rind,

Ἂ Dee because the image bears an appearance and form like to
visible that, whatever it be, from whose body it appears to be
world. shed, ere it wanders abroad. That we may learn from
1. Things this, however dull be our wits. First of ali, since among
oe off things clear to see many things give off bodies, in part
cither loose, scattered loosely abroad, even as wood gives off smoke
likesmoke, and fires heat, and in part more closely knit and packed

&c., or
more com- together, as when now and then the grasshoppers lay

Book LIV, Ul. 58-88 IAs

aside their smooth coats in summer, and when calves at pact like
their birth give off a caul from their outermost body, and eee
likewise when the slippery serpent rubs off its vesture on &c.

the thorns; for often we see the brambles laden with

these wind-blown spoils from snakes. And since these

things come to pass, a thin image from things too must So images
needs be given off from the outermost body of things. ee off,
For why these films should fall and part from things any because
more than films that are thin, none can breathe a word on ‘|
to prove; above all, since on the surface of things™ there atoms on
are many tiny bodies, which could be cast off in the same ‘7* fay
order wherein they stood, and could preserve the outline part.

of their shape, yea, and be cast the more quickly, inasmuch

as they can be less entangled, in that they are few, and

placed in the forefront. For verily we see many things 2. Colour
cast off and give out bodies in abundance, not only from aa
deep beneath, as we said before, but often too from the the surface
surface, such as their own colour. And commonly is this ᾿ ee?
done by awnings, yellow and red and steely-blue, when awnings of
stretched over great theatres they flap and flutter, spread * ‘cau
everywhere on masts and beams. For there they tinge

the assembly in the tiers beneath, and all the bravery of

the stage and the gay-clad company of the elders,! and
constrain them to flutter in their colours. And the more

closely are the hoardings of the theatre shut in all around,

the more does all the scene within laugh, bathed in bright-

ness, as the light of day is straitened. Since then the

canvas gives out this hue from its outermost body, each

several thing also must needs give out thin likenesses, since

in either case they are throwing off from the surface.

There are then sure traces of forms, which fly about every-

? Translating Munro’s suggestion patrum coetumque decorum.

Nor is
colour
hindered
like the
other
eflinences
which come
from deep
beneath.

3. Mirrors,
ὅζο., returi
a constant
succession
of images

of things.

Fineness of
texture of
the images.
1. Think
of the
fineness of
the atoms
of which
they are
composed.
(a) They
are much
smaller
than the
smallest
part of the
smallest

146 Book LV, Ul. 88-120

where, endowed with slender bulk, nor can they be seen
apart one by one. Moreover, all smell, smoke, heat, and
other like things stream forth from things, scattering
loosely, because while they arise and come forth from
deep within, they are torn in their winding course, nor
are there straight outlets to their paths, whereby they
may hasten to issue all in one mass. But, on the other
hand, when the thin film of surface-colour is cast off,
there is nothing which can avail to rend it, since it is
ready at hand, and placed in the forefront. Lastly, when-
ever idols appear to us in mirrors, in water, and in every
shining surface, it must needs be, seeing that they are
endowed with an appearance like the things, that they
are made of the images of things given off. ‘There are
then thin shapes of things and likenesses, which, although
no one can see them one by one, yet thrown back with
constant and ceaseless repulse, give back a picture from
the surface of the mirrors, and it is seen that they
cannot by any other means be so preserved that shapes so
exceeding like each several thing may be given back.
Come now and learn of how thin a nature this image is
formed. And to begin with, since the first-beginnings
are so far beneath the ken of our senses, and so much
smaller than the things which our eyes first begin to be
unable to descry, yet now that I may assure you of this
too, learn in a few words how fine in texture are the
beginnings of all things. First of all there are living
things sometimes so small that a third part of them
could by no means be seen. Of what kind must we think
any one of their entrails to be? What of the round ball
of their heart or eye? what of their members? what of
their limbs? how small are they? still more, what of the

Book IV, ll. 120-144 147

several first-beginnings whereof their soul and the nature living thing
of their mind must needs be formed? do you not see how δ“ “*” ὅς.
fine and how tiny they are? Moreover, whatever things (Ὁ) Things
breathe out a pungent savour from their body, panacea, © ἰδᾶνς

. Η a strong
sickly wormwood, and strongly-smelling abrotanum, and scent on
you when

bitter centaury ; if by chance (you press ) any one of these ge ore

lightly between two! (fingers, the scent will for long cling them, and
to your fingers, though never will you see anything at all : 7° YO"
so that you may know how fine is the nature of the first- nothing.
beginnings, whereof the scent is formed ...) . . . and [2

not rather learn that many idols of things wander abroad

in many ways with no powers, unable to be perceived?

But that you may not by chance think that after al] There are
only those idols of things wander abroad, which come off τ
from things, there are those too which are begotten of form in the
their own accord, and are formed of themselves in this ne
sky which is called air; which moulded in many ways like the
masses

are borne along on high, and being fluid cease not to Reta ta

change their appearance, and to turn it into the outline

of forms of every kind; even as from time to time we see
clouds lightly gathering together in the deep sky, and
staining the calm face of the firmament, caressing the air

with their motion. For often the faces of giants are seen

to fly along and to trail a shadow far and wide, and some-
times mighty mountains and rocks torn from the moun-
tains are seen to go on ahead and to pass before the sun ;

and then a huge beast seems to draw on and lead forward

the storm clouds.

Come now, in what swift and easy ways those idols are These

begotten, and flow unceasingly from things and fall off "δ ὅς

1 We may fill in the sense of the immediately succeeding lines with
certainty, but a long passage has been lost, probably of about 50 lines.

K 2

very swiftly
formed,

1. The
surface of
things is
ever quick
to stream
away.

2. The
quick
formation
of the
image in
the mirror
gives us an
example.

3. So does
the constant
succession
of light
trom the
sun.

4. Clouds
form in
the sky in
a moment ;
how much
quicker
the little
images {

148 Book IV, Ul. 144-172

and part from them, (1 will set forth ...).1 For ever
the outermost surface is streaming away from things,
that so they may cast it off. And when this reaches
some things, it passes through them, as above all through
glass: but when it reaches rough stones or the substance
of wood, there at once it is torn, so that it cannot give
back any idol. But when things that are formed bright
and dense are set athwart its path, such as above all is the
mirror, neither of these things comes to pass. For neither
can they pass through, as through glass, nor yet be torn ;
for the smoothness is careful to ensure their safety. Where-
fore it comes to pass that the idols stream back from it to
us. And however suddenly, at any time you will, you
place each several thing against the mirror, the image
comes to view; so that you may know that from the
outermost body there flow off unceasingly thin webs and
thin shapes of things. ‘Therefore many idols are begotten
in a short moment, so that rightly is the creation of these
things said to be swift. And just as the sun must needs
shoot out many rays of light in a short moment, so that
the whole world may unceasingly be filled, so too in like
manner from things it must needs be that many idols of
things are borne off in an instant of time in many ways
in all directions on every side; inasmuch as to whatever
side we turn the mirror to meet the surface of things,
things in the mirror answer back alike in form and colour.
Moreover, even when the weather in the sky has but
now been most clear, exceeding suddenly it becomes
foully stormy, so that on all sides you might think that
all darkness has left Acheron, and filled the great vault
of the sky ; so terribly, when the noisome night of clouds

1 At least one line is lost here.

Book LV, ll. 172-204 149

has gathered together, do the shapes of black fear hang over
us on high; yet how small a part of these is an idol, there is
no one who could say or give an account of this in words.

Come now, with what swift motion the idols are carried Swiftness
on, and what speed is given them as they swim through ee
the air, so that a short hour is spent on a long course,
towards whatever place they each strain on with diverse
impulse, I will proclaim in verses of sweet discourse rather
than in many; even as the brief song of a swan is better
than the clamour of cranes, which spreads abroad among
the clouds of the south high in heaven. First of all very 1. Proof
often we may see that light things made of tiny bodies ame
are swift. In this class there is the light of the sun and Light
his heat, because they are made of tiny first-particles, bodies of

; rare texture
which, as it were, are knocked forward, and do not pause usually
in passing on through the space of air between, smitten Dae
by the blow from those that follow. For in hot haste the tight
place of light is taken by light, and as though driven in πῶ oF
a team, one flash is goaded by another flash. Wherefore
in like manner it must needs be that the idols can course
through space unthinkable in an instant of time, first
because it is a tiny cause,® far away behind which drives
and carries them forward, and after that, in that they
are borne on with so swift a lightness of bulk; and then
because they are given off endowed with texture so rare
that they can easily pass into anything you will, and as it
were ooze through the intervening air. Moreover, when 2. Proof
particles of things” are given out abroad from deep within, ae
like the sun’s light and heat, these are seen to fall in Bodies
a moment of time and spread themselves over the whole pee Ἶ
expanse of heaven, and to fly over sea and earth and flood surface of

the sky. What then of those things which are ready at ees

cuicker
than those
rising trom
within,

3 Proof
from
experience.
The
immediate
reflection
of the
heavens
shows the
pace of
movement
of the idols.

B. These
idols are
the cause
of sight.

1. Our
other senses
are affected
by similar
effluences.

Book IV, ll. 204-228

once in the forefront? When they are cast off and
nothing hinders their discharge, do you not see that they
must needs move swifter and further, and course through
many times the same expanse of space in the same time
in which the rays of the sun crowd the sky? This, too,
more than all seems to show forth truly in what swift
motion the idols of things are borne on, that as soon as
a bright surface of water is placed beneath the open sky,

Iso

when the heaven 18 starry, in a moment the calm beaming
stars of the firmament appear in answer in the water.
Do you not then see now in how short an instant of time
the image falls from the coasts of heaven to the coasts of
earth? Wherefore more and more you must needs con-
fess that bodies are sent off such as strike the eyes and
awake our vision. And from certain things scents stream
off unceasingly ; just as cold streams off from rivers, heat
from the sun, spray from the waves of the sea, which
gnaws away walls all around the shores. Nor do diverse
voices cease to fly abroad through the air. Again, often
Moisture of a salt savour comes into our mouth, when
we walk by the sea, and on the other hand, when we watch
wormwcod being diluted and mixed, a bitter taste
touches it. So surely from all things each several thing
is carried off in a stream, and is sent abroad to every
quarter on all sides, nor is any delay or respite granted in
this flux, since we feel unceasingly, and we are suffered
always to descry and smell all things, and to hear them
sound.

Book IV, Ul. 228-259 Ist

IMoreover, since a shape felt by the hands in the dark- 2. Touch
ness is known to be in some way the same as is seen in the Ae ae
light and the clear brightness, it must needs be that touch the same
and sight are stirred by a like cause. If then we handle ee cot
a square thing, and it stirs our touch in the darkness, what must be

. : . - affected Ὁ
square thing can fall upon our sight in the light, Sco τπὲ y
itsimage? Wherefore it is clear that the cause of seeing causes.

lies in the images, nor without them can anything be
seen,

Next those things which I call the idols of things are The idols
meet our

eyes where
side. But because we can see them only” with our eyes, ever we

for that cause it comes to pass that, to whatever side we την
turn our sight, all things there strike against it with their

borne everywhere, and are cast off and meted out to every

shape and hue. And how far each thing is away from They drive
before them
Ε ‘ Pare ᾿ . ᾿ a current
tinguish. For when it is given off," straightway it pushes of air, by
and drives before it all the air that has its place between ἘΞ: ᾿
it and the eyes, and thus it all glides through our eyeballs, can judge

; : the distance
and, as it were, brushes through the pupils, and so passes ἐξ τῆς

us, the image causes us to see and provides that we dis-

on. ‘Therefore it comes to pass that we see how far away object.

each thing is. And the more air is driven on in front,

and the longer the breeze which brushes through our eyes,

the further each thing is seen to be removed. But you

must know that these things are brought to pass by means

exceeding quick, so that we see what it is and at the same

time how far it is away. Herein by no means must we We do not
: , , ., perceive the

deem? there is cause to wonder why the idols which strike separate

the eyes cannot be seen one by one, but the whole things idols, but

: : ᾿ : the whole
are descried. For when wind too lashes us little by little, object.

1 Book LV, ll. 259-289

Sowedo and when piercing cold streams on us, we are not wont to
Ree 4 feel each separate particle of that wind and cold, but
particles of rather all at once, and then we perceive blows coming to
is °r pass on our body, just as if something were lashing us
and though and giving us the feeling of its body without. More-
eee over, when we strike a stone with our finger, we touch
surface of the very outside of the rock and its colour on the
fol the. Surface, yet we do not feel the colour with our touch, but
resistance of rather we feel the very hardness of the rock deep down

the whole. ene ren

Peculiarities . Come now and learn why the image is seen beyond the
of the

nae mirror; for indeed it seems removed far within. It is

1, The | even as those things which in very truth are seen outside
ee a door, when the door affords an unhindered sight through
seems to

be behind it, and lets many things out of doors be seen from the
the mirror,
because, as io j d ᾿ j
with things twin airs. For first the air on our side of the jambs is
oe, seen in such a case, then follow the folding doors them-
through ; ᾿ j
doors, we Selves on right and left, afterwards the light outside
ec brushes through the eyes, and a second air, and then those
of air, then things which in very truth are seen without the doors.
i So when first the image of the mirror has cast itself adrift,
mirror, | While it is coming to our pupils, it pushes and drives
then

another : ἐν
current, our eyes, and so makes us able to perceive all this air
and finally

house. For that vision too is brought to pass by two

before it all the air which has its place between it and

before the mirror. But when we have perceived the

the image ᾿ ; : ᾿ ee
of the mirror itself too, straightway the image which is borne
object.

from us passes to the mirror, and being cast back returns
to our eyes and drives on and rolls in front of it another
air, and makes us see this before itself, and therefore seems
to be just so much distant from the mirror. Wherefore,
again and again, it is not right at all that we should wonder

Book 727, Ul. 290-314 153

{that this appearance comes to be both for those things

which are really seen out of doors, and also)! for those

things which send back a vision from the level surface of

the mirrors; since in either case it is brought about by

the two airs. Next it comes to pass that the part of 2. Right
: ee : : : : hand and

our limbs which is on the right is seen in mirrors on the

left are
left, because when the image comes to the plane of the changed in
: ; 5 ie ee the mirror,
mirror and strikes against it, 11 is not turned round un- ἐς ες
changed, but is dashed back straight ; just as if one were the image

το ὃ : : is turned
to dash a plaster mask, before it is dry, against a pillar or δ τοτοιν

straight
a beam, and it at once were to preserve its shape turned back, like
; aes 1
straight to meet us, and were to mould again its own oe
features dashed back towards us. ‘Thus it will come to dashed
against

pass that what was before the right eye, now in turn is | Mee

the left, and the left in exchange is now the right. It 3 Images
may be
reflected
to mirror, so that even five or six idols are wont to be from mirror
to mirror,
changing
inner part of the room, yet, however far distant from the their
cheirality
each time,

comes to pass too that the image 15 handed on from mirror
made. For even when things are hidden far back in an

sight along a twisting path, it may be that they will all
be brought out thence by winding passages, and, thanks
to the several mirrors, be seen to be in the house. So
surely does the image reflect from mirror to mirror, and
when a left hand is presented, it comes to pass that it is

changed to the right, and then once again it 1s changed 4. Curved
] horizontal

ἢ j mirrors
flank-curved mirrors," endowed with a curve like to our return
flanks, send back to us right-handed idols, either because ener
the image is borne across from one part of the mirror to cheirality,

about and returns to where it was before. Moreover, al

1A line has probably been lost, such as hoe illis fiert, quae
transpictuntur, idemque.

5. The
image In
the mirror
keeps step
with us.

Peculiarities
of vision.

I. Bright
things blind
and burn
the eyes,
because of
the seeds
they
contain.

2. Jaun-
diced
persons
infect the
images with
their own
yellow.

3. We can
see things
in the light
out of
darkness,
because the
light clears
the eyes ;

oy Book IF, Ul. 314-346

another, and then flies towards us, twice dashed back, or
else because the image™ is twisted around, when it has
arrived, because the curved shape of the mirror teaches
it to turn round towards us. Moreover, you would
believe that idols walk step by step and place their feet
as we do, and imitate our gait, just because, from what-
ever part of the mirror you retire, straightway the idols
cannot be turned back from it, inasmuch as nature®
constrains all things to be carried back, and leap back
from things, sent back at equal angles.

Bright things moreover the eyes avoid, and shun to
look upon. The sun, too, blinds, if you try to raise your
eyes to meet him, because his own power is great, and the
idols from him are borne through the clear air, sinking
heavily into the deep, and strike upon the eyes, disorder-
ing their texture. Moreover, any piercing brightness
often burns the eyes for the reason that it contains many
seeds of fire, which give birth to pain in the eyes, finding
their way in. Moreover, whatever the jaundiced look
upon becomes sickly-yellow, because many seeds of yellow
stream off from their bodies to meet the idols of things,
and many also are mixed in their eyes, which by their
infection tinge all things with their pallor.

New we see things that are in the light out of the dark-
ness, because, when the black air of the gloom, which is
nearer, first enters and seizes on the open eyes, there
follows in hot haste a bright air full of light, which, as
it were, cleanses the eyes and scatters abroad the dark
shadows of the former air. For the latter is many times
more nimble, many times finer and more potent. And
as soon as it has filled the passages of the eyes with light,
and opened up those which before the black air had

Book IV, ll, 346-376 ΠΣ

beleaguered, straightway follow the idols of the things
which are lying in the light, and excite our eyes so that
we see. But, on the other hand, we cannot do this in but not

the darkness out of the light, because the air of the gloom, Ἂ ΘΒ
which is denser, comes on afterwards, and fills all the out of
channels and beleaguers the passages of the eyes, so that ΣΝ Ἴ
none of the idols of things can be cast upon them and darkness
stir them chokes the
᾿ eyes.
And when we see from afar off ® the square towers of 4. Square

a town, it comes to pass for this cause that they often look Ὅν οἴ eo
round from

round, because every angle from a distance is seen flattened, a distance,
or rather it is not seen at all, and the blow from it passes προ
away, nor does its stroke come home to our eyes, because, worn off
while the idols are being borne on through much air, the pat
air by its frequent collisions constrains it to become

blunted. When for this cause every angle alike has escaped

our sense, 1t comes to pass that the structures of stone are

worn away as though turned on the lathe; yet they do not

look like things which are really round to a near view, but

a little resembling them as thoughinshadowy shape. Like- 3. Onr
shadow
seems to
to follow our footsteps and imitate our gait ; if indeed you follow us,

: 3 δ ._ because, as
believe that air bereft of light can step forward, following ,. eee
the movements and gait of men. For that which we are the light

, : . 3 is cnt off

wont to name a shadow can be nothing else but air devoid ΓΝ °
of light. But in very truth it is because in certain spots successive
: . . pieces of
in due order the ground is bereft of the light of the sun |. eroand!
wherever we, as we move on, cut it off, and likewise the

part of it which we have left is filled again ; for this cause

Wise our shadow seems to us to move in the sunshine, and

it comes to pass that, what was but now the shadow of
our body, seems always to follow unaltered straight along
with us. For always new rays of light are pouring out,
and the former perish, like wool drawn into a flame.

In all
such cases

sensation ts

not false,
but the

mind draws

a wrong
inference.

I. Station-
ary objects
seen from
a moving
ship seem
to move,

2. The
stars seem
to be at
rest.

3. Passages

between
mountains
are not
seen at a
distance,
4. To
giddy
persons
their sur-
roundings
seem to
spin,

5. The

rising sun

Book LV, Ul. 377-405

Therefore readily is the ground robbed of light, and is
likewise filled again and washes away its own black

156

shadows.

And yet we do not grant that in this the eyes are a whit
deceived. For it is theirs to see in what several spots
there is light and shade: but whether it is the same light
or not, whether it is the same shadow which was here,
that now passes there, or whether that rather comes to
pass which I said a little before, this the reasoning of the
mind alone must needs determine, nor can the eyes know
the nature of things. Do not then be prone to fasten
on the eyes this fault in the mind. The ship, in which
we journey," is borne along, when it seems to be standing
still; another, which remains at anchor, is thought to
be passing by. ‘The hills and plains seem to be flying
towards the stern, past which we are driving on our ship
with skimming sail. All the stars, fast set in the vault
of the firmament, seem to be still, and yet they are all in
ceaseless motion, inasmuch as they rise and return again
to their distant settings, when they have traversed the
heaven with their bright body. And in like manner sun
and moon seem to abide in their places, yet actual fact
shows that they are borne on. And mountains rising up
afar off from the middle of the waters, between which
there is a free wide issue for ships, yet seem united to
make a single island. When children have ceased turning
round themselves, so sure does it come to appear to them
that the halls are turning about, and the pillars racing
round, that scarcely now can they believe that the whole
roof is not threatening to fallin upon them. And again,
when nature begins to raise on high the sunbeam ruddy
with twinkling fires, and to lift it above the mountains,

Book LV, Ul. 406-434 Is7

those mountains above which the sun seems to you to seems
stand, as he touches them with his own fire, all aglow ee
close at hand, are scarce distant from us two thousand in the east.
flights of an arrow, nay often scarce five hundred casts of

a javelin: but between them and the sun lie the vast

levels of ocean, strewn beneath the wide coasts of heaven,

and many thousands of lands are set between, which

diverse races inhabit, and tribes of wild beasts. And yet 6. A tiny
a pool of water not deeper than a single finger-breadth, ae pe
which lies between the stones on the paved street, affords reflect the
us ἃ view beneath the earth to a depth as vast as the high “7 sky-
gaping mouth of heaven stretches above the earth; so

that you seem to descry the clouds and the heaven and

bodies wise hidden beneath the earth—yet in a magic

sky. Again, when our eager horse has stuck fast 7. A horse
amid a river, and we look down into the hurrying waters aes uy
of the stream, the force seems to be carrying on the body seems to
of the horse, though he stands still, athwart the current, eee
and to be thrusting it in hot haste up the stream; and
wherever we cast our eyes all things seem to be borne on

and flowing forward, as we are ourselves. ‘Though a 8. Per-
colonnade runs on straight-set lines all the way, and stands SP°"¥*
resting on equal columns from end to end, yet when its

whole length is seen from the top end, little by little it
contracts to the pointed head of a narrow cone, joining

roof with floor, and all the right hand with the left, until

it has brought all together into the point of a cone that

passes out of sight. It happens to sailors on the sea that g. Sunrise
the sun seems to rise from the waves, and again to set in ** το

the waves, and hide its light; since verily they behold

10. Re-
fraction.

11. Moving
clouds
inake the
stars seem
to miove,

12, A
finger on
the eyeball
makes it
see double.

13. Dreams.

158 Book IV, ll. 434-465

nothing else but water and sky; so that you must not
lightly think that the senses waver at every point. But to
those who know not the sea, ships in the harbour seem to
press upon the water maimed, and with broken poop.
For all the part of the oars which is raised up above the
salt sea spray, is straight, and the rudders are straight
above; but all that is sunk beneath the water, seems to
be broken back and turned round, yes, and to turn up-
wards again and twist back so that it almost floats on the
water’s surface. And when winds in the night season
carry scattered clouds across the sky, then the shining
signs seem to glide athwart the storm-clouds, and to be
moving on high in a direction far different from their true
course. ‘Then if by chance a hand be placed beneath
one eye and press it, it comes to pass by a new kind of
perception that all things which we look at seem to become
double as we look, double the lights of the lamps with
their flowery flames, double the furniture throughout
the whole house in twin sets, and double the faces of men,
double their bodies. Again, when sleep has bound our
limbs in sweet slumber, and all the body lies in complete
rest, yet then we seem to ourselves to be awake and
moving our limbs, and in the blind gloom of night we
think to see the sun and the light of day, and, though in
some walled room, we seem to pass to new sky, new sea,
new streams, and mountains, and on foot to cross over
plains, and to hear sounds, when the stern silence of
night is set all about us, and to give answer, when we do
not speak. Wondrously many other things of this sort
we see, all of which would fain spoil our trust in the
senses ; all in vain, since the greatest part of these things
deceives us on account of the opinions of the mind, which

Book LV, ll. 465-494 Τὺ

we add ourselves, so that things not seen by πε senses are
counted as seen. For nothing is harder than to dis-
tinguish things manifest from things uncertain, which the
mind straightway adds of itself.
Again, if any one thinks" that nothing is known, he If the
knows not whether that can be known either, since he ee ee
admits that he knows nothing. Against him then I will anything
refrain from joining issue, who plants himself with his ane
head in the place of his feet. And yet were I to grant how ee
that he knows this too, yet I would ask this one question ; = ΥΩ
«- . . ἃ
since he has never before seen any truth in things, whence Where does
does he know what is knowing, and not knowing each in ne ee his
‘ criterion
turn, what thing has begotten the concept of the true of truth?
and the false,2 what thing has proved that the doubtful
differs from the certain? You will find that the concept If the
of the true is begotten first from the senses, and that the ay to
. . A alse, he
senses cannot be gainsaid. For something must be found must find
with a greater surety, which can of its own authority 2 ter
standard,
refute the false by the true. Next then, what must be
held to be of greater surety than sense? Will reason, But (a)
sprung from false sensation,® avail to speak against the reason,
᾿ - c Ἰ 1] f ᾿ ; F SoD on
senses, when it is wholly sprung from the senses OF sensation,
unless they are true, all reason too becomes false, Or cannot
: b] a h reiute the
will the ears be able to pass judgement on the eyes, OF senses ;
touch on the ears? or again will the taste in the mouth (ὃ) the
- ᾿ δ is Ἴ di . yh senses
refute this touch; will the nostrils disprove it, or the gannot
eyes show it false? It is not so, I trow. For each sense relute one
: : . another ;
has its faculty set apart, each its own power, and so it
must needs be that we perceive in one way what is soft
or cold or hot, and in another the diverse colours of things,
and see all that goes along with colour." Likewise, the

taste of the mouth has its power apart ; in one way smells

160 Book IV, ll. 495-522

arise, in another sounds. And so it must needs be that

nor (c) can OMe sense cannot prove another false. Nor again will
the senses
convict

themselves. trust must at all times be placed in them. ‘Therefore,

they be able to pass judgement on themselves, since equal

Sensation whatever they have perceived on each occasion, is true.
is true,

It is better
toadmit things which close at hand were square, are seen round
ae fal {rom a distance, still it is better through lack of reasoning
thanto to be at fault in accounting for the causes of either
impugn the
senses, the
foundation from your grasp, and to assail the grounds of belief,
of all
knowledge,
andthe and existence rest. For not only would all reasoning

ae fall away ; life itself too would collapse straightway, un-
less you chose to trust the senses, and avoid headlong
spots and all other things of this kind which must be
shunned, and to make for what is opposite to these.
Todeny Know, then, that all this is but an empty store of words,
ce aaa which has been drawn up and arrayed against the senses.
isto build Again, just as in a building, if the first ruler is awry, and
ae if the square is wrong and out of the straight lines, if the
ee ) level sags a whit in any place, it must needs be that the
DOMES whole structure will be made faulty and crooked, all
awry, bulging, leaning forwards or backwards, and
out of harmony, so that some parts seem already to
long to fall, or do fall, all betrayed by the first wrong
Measurements ; even so then your reasoning of things
must be awry and false, which all springs from false
senses.

And if reason is unable to unravel the cause, why those

shape, rather than to let things clear seen slip abroad

and to pluck up the whole foundations on which life

The other Now it is left to explain in what manner the other
senses.

Book LV, ll. 522-549 161

senses perceive each their own object—a path by no means
stony to tread.
First of all, every kind of sound® and voice is heard, 1, Hear-

when they have found their way into the ears and struck ‘5 1»
produced

upon the sense with their body. For that voice too and when

: . .1.. sounds
sound are bodily you must grant, since they can strike ee

on the senses. Moreover, the voice often scrapes the sense.

throat and shouting makes the windpipe over-rough as it Sound 's
corporeal :

issues forth ; since, indeed, the first-beginnings of voices (qa) it can
have risen up in greater throng through the narrow as
passage, and begun to pass forth: and then, in truth, (6) ΤΟΤΕ
when the passages are crammed, the door too is scraped. ae aie
There is no doubt then that voices and words are composed core;

of bodily elements, so that they can hurt. And likewise it (¢) con-
does not escape you how much body is taken away and ee
drawn off from men’s very sinews and strength by speech weakens
continued without pause from the glimmer of rising dawn ἣν body:
to the shades of dark night, above all if it is poured out

with loud shouting. And so the voice must needs be of

bodily form, since one who speaks much loses a part from

his body. Now roughness of voice comes from rough- Roughness
ness in its first-beginnings, and likewise smoothness is be- ae
gotten of their smoothness. Nor do the first-beginnings sound is
due to the
form of the
deep with muffled tones, and when the barbarous Bere- component

cyntian pipe shrieks+ with shrill buzzing sound, and 20™
when the swans at night from the ccld marches of Helicon
lift with mournful voice their clear lament.?

These voices then, when we force them forth from deep

pierce the ears with like form, when the trumpet bellows

1 Read, with I. Vossius, e¢ reboat raucum Berecyntia
€ Read, with Bernays, εἰ gelidis cycni nocte oris

The voice
is formed
to words
by tongue
and lips.
At close
quarters it
keeps its
form,

but at
greater
distance is
dislocated
and
becomes
indistinct.

One voice
can travel
to many
ears,

or else it is
scattered
abroad,

Solid things

can beat
the voice
back.
Hence
the echo,

162

Book LV, ll. s49-581

within our body, and shoot them abroad straight through
our mouth, the pliant tongue, artificer of words, severs
apart, and the shaping of the lips in its turn gives them
form. ‘Therefore, when it is no long distance from which
each single utterance starts and reaches to us, it must
needs be that the very words too are clearly heard and
distinguished sound by sound. For each utterance pre-
serves its shaping and preservesitsform. But if the space
set between be over great, passing through much air the
words must needs be jostled together, and the utterance
disordered, while it flies across the breezes. And so it comes
to pass that you can perceive the sound, yet not distinguish
what is the meaning of the words: so confounded and
entangled does the utterance come to you. Again one
single word often awakes the ears of all in an assembly,
shot out from the crier’s mouth. ‘Therefore one voice
flies apart immediately into many voices, since it sunders
itself into all the several ears, imprinting on the words
a shape and a clear-cut sound. But that part of the
voices which falls not straight upon the ears, passes by
and perishes scattered in vain through the air. Some
beating upon solid spots are cast back, and give back the
sound, and at times mock us with the echo of a word.
And when you see this clearly, you could give account to
yourself and others, in what manner among solitary places
rocks give back the counterparts of words each in due
order, when we seek our comrades wandering amid the
dark hills, and with loud voice summon them scattered
here and there. I have seen places give back even six or
seven cries, when you sent forth but one: so surely did
one hill beat back to another and repeat the words trained
to come back again. Such places the dwellers around

Book LV, ll. 580-608 1 63

_ fancy to be the haunt of goat-footed satyrs and nymphs, which
and they say that there are fauns, by whose clamour He dee
spreading through the night and sportive revels they stories of
declare that the dumb silence is often broken; and that 49% ©
sounds of strings are awakened, and sweet sad melodies,

which the pipe pours forth, stopped by the fingers of
players; and that the race of country folk hears far and wide,

when Pan, tossing the piny covering of his half-monstrous

head, ofttimes with curling lip runs over the open reeds,

so that the pipe ceases not to pour forth woodland music.

All other marvels and prodigies of this kind they tell, lest

by chance they be thought to live in lonely places, de-

serted even of the gods. Therefore they boast such
wonders in discourse, or else are led on in some other way,

even as the whole race of man is over greedy of pratt-

ling tales.

For the rest, we need not wonder by what means voices We hear
come and arouse the ears through places, though which hie
the eyes cannot see things clear to view. Often too we
see a talk carried on through closed doors, because, we (a) because

may be sure, voice can pass unharmed through winding ΕΝ a
pores in things, but idols refuse to pass. For they are through

any kind
: ; ; of pores,
as are those in glass, through which every image can fly. the idols
of sight
: only
voices are begotten one from another, when once one through
voice has issued forth and sprung apart into many, even eae
. . . . ᾽
as a spark of fire is often wont to scatter itself into its (6) because
several fires. And so places hidden far from sight are ΠΕ ΕἾ
filled with voices; they are in a ferment all around, alive in all

torn asunder, unless they stream through straight pores,

Moreover, a voice is severed in every direction, since

1, 2

directions,
the idols

only move
straight as
they start.

2. Taste is
produced
when the
savour
squeezed
from the
food enters
the pores
of the
palate.

Smooth
elements
will produce
pleasant
taste,

rough un-
pleasant.

Taste

is confined
tothe
palate and
does not
accompany
digestion.

Different
foods suit
different
creatures,

164 Bock LV, ll. 608-634

with sound. But all idols press on in the direct line, as
they have once been started; wherefore no one can see
beyond the wall, but can perceive voices outside. And
yet even this voice, while it passes through the walls
of the house, is dulled, and enters the ear all con-
founded, and we seem to hear a sound rather than
words,

Nor do the tongue and palate," whereby we perceive
taste, need longer account or give more trouble. First of
all we perceive taste in our mouth, when we press it out
in chewing our food, just as if one by chance begins to
squeeze with the hand and dry a sponge full of water.
Then what we press out is all spread abroad through the
pores of the palate, and through the winding passages of
the loose-meshed tongue. ‘Therefore, when the bodies of
the oozing savour are smooth, they touch pleasantly, and
pleasantly stroke all around the moist sweating vault
above the tongue. But,on the other hand, the more each
several thing is filled with roughness, the more does it
prick the sense and tear it in its onslaught. Next pleasure
comes from the savour within the limit of the palate ;
but when it has passed headlong down through the jaws,
there is no pleasure while it is all being spread abroad into
the limbs. Nor does it matter a whit with what diet the
body is nourished, provided only you can digest what
you take, and spread it abroad in the limbs, and keep an
even moistness in the stomach.

Now how for different creatures there is different food
and poison I will unfold, or for what cause, what to some
is noisome and bitter, can yet seem to others most sweet

Book IV, ll. 634-664 165

and what
to eat. And there is herein a difference and disagreement is sweet to

Ε ἐ ΤῊΣ : one is
so great that what is food to one, is to others biting poison $ piter to

even as there is a certain serpent,! which, when touched another.
by a man’s spittle, dies and puts an end to itself by gnaw-

ing its own body. Moreover, to us hellebore is biting
poison, but it makes goats and quails growfat. That you

may be able to learn by what means this comes to be, first

of all it is right that you remember what we have said ere This is

now, that the seeds contained in things are mingled in ao?
many ways. Besides all living creatures which take food, many
just as they are unlike to outer view and a diverse outward hea
contour of the limbs encloses them each after their kind, mingled
so also are they fashioned of seeds of varying shape. And ee
further, since the seeds are unlike, so must the spaces and the forma-
passages, which we call the openings, be different in all Sea
their limbs, and in the mouth and palate too. Some of its pores
differs in
different
must be three-cornered for some creatures, square for animals.

others, many again round, and some of many angles in

these then must needs be smaller, some greater, they

many ways. For according as the arrangement of shapes

and the motions demand, so the shapes of the openings

must needs differ, and the passages vary according to the
texture which shuts them in. ‘Therefore, when what is

sweet to some becomes bitter to others, for the man to
whom it 15 sweet, the smoothest bodies must needs enter

the pores of the palate caressingly, but, on the other hand,

for those to whom the same thing is sour within, we can

be sure it is the rough and hooked bodies which penetrate

the passages. Now from these facts it is easy to learn For similar
of each case: thus when fever has attacked a man, and “*"5°S #

* The text is uncertain, but this must be the general sense,

166 Book LV, ll. 664-694

man’s taste his bile rises high, or the violence of disease is aroused in

ip aa some other way, then his whole body is disordered, and

is ill, then all the positions of the first-beginnings are changed
about; it comes to pass that the bodies which before
suited his taste, suit it no longer, and others are better
fitted, which can win their way in and beget a sour taste.
For both kinds are mingled in the savour of honey; as
I have often shown you above ere now.

3. Similarly Come now, I will tell™ in what manner the impact of

smell 1 ‘ :

streams of SMell touches the nostrils. First there must needs be

things to. many things whence the varying stream of scents flows

the nostrils, : Gus :
and rolls on, and we must think that it is always streaming
off and being cast and scattered everywhere abroad ; but

and dif one smell is better fitted to some living things, another

fe t ie ;
+ to others, on account of the unlike shapes of the elements.

attract

orrepel And so through the breezes bees are drawn on however
different

creatures, ‘47 by the scent of honey, and vultures by corpses. Then

the strength of dogs sent on before leads on the hunters
whithersoever the cloven hoof of the wild beasts has
turned its steps, and the white goose, saviour of the
citadel of Romulus’s sons, scents far ahead the smell of
man. So diverse scents assigned to diverse creatures lead
on each to its own food, and constrain them to recoil
from noisome poison, and in that way are preserved the
races of wild beasts.

Smellnever ‘This very smell then, whenever it stirs the nostrils,
travels
as far as

sound, yet no smell at all is carried as far as sound, as voice, I fore-
bear to say as the bodies which strike the pupil of the eyes
and stir the sight. For it strays abroad and comes but
slowly, and dies away too soon, its frail nature scattered
little by little among the breezes of air. Firstly, because

may in one case be thrown further than in another. But

Book LIV, ll. 694-721 167

_ coming from deep within ® it is not readily set loose from (a) because
the thing: for that smells stream off and depart from 7°"

‘ ; from deep
things far beneath the surface is shown because all things within
seem to smell more when broken, when crushed, when *!"8s:
melted in the fire. Again, one may see that it is fashioned (δ) because

ae : : : it is made
of larger first-beginnings than voice, since it does not find |, ΠΕΣ
a path through stone walls, where voice and sound com- atoms.
monly pass. Wherefore too you will see that it is not so Conse- |
. ἢ ἢ hich Meshes ὶ quently it
easy to trace in what spot that which smells has its ὡς jess ‘easy
place. For the blow grows cool as it dallies through to trace to
: ae : its source.
the air, nor do tidings of things rush hot to the sense. ‘
And so dogs often go astray, and have to look for the
footprints.

1'Yet this does not happen only among smells and in The same
the class of savours, but likewise the forms and colours of thing occurs

: with sight :
things are not all so well fitted to the senses of all, but certain
that certain of them are too pungent to the sight of some things hurt

. . . e eyes
creatures. Nay, indeed, ravening lions ® can by no means of ee
face and gaze upon the cock, whose wont it is with clapp- ee.

. - . . . . €.g. ions
ing wings to drive out the night, and with shrill cry to es ἸΘΟΣ
summon dawn ; so surely do they at once bethink them- @t cocks;
selves of flight, because, we may be sure, there are in the because
body of cocks certain seeds, which, when they are cast pee
into the eyes of lions, stab into the pupils, and cause sharp seeds in
cocks which
᾿ ᾿ hurt their
confidence ; and yet these things cannot in any way hurt eyes, but

our eyes, either because they do not pierce them or "οὐ OMS
because, although they do, a free outlet from the eyes

is afforded them, so that they cannot by staying there

hurt the eyes in any part.

pain, so that they cannot bear up against them in fierce

1 This section seems misplaced, and should possibly come betore
the preceding paragraph.

The cause
of thought.

Idols,
wandering
every-
where,
may unite,

and piercing
through to
the mind,
make us
think of
monstrous
forms,

The mind
sees as the
eyes do:

168 Book IV, ll. 722-751

Come now, let me tell you 2 what things stir the mind,
and learn in a few words whence come the things which
come into the understanding. First of all I say this,
that many idols of things wander about in many ways in
all directions on every side, fine idols, which easily become
linked with one another in the air, when they come across
one another’s path, like spider’s web and gold leaf. For
indeed these idols are far finer in their texture than those
which fill the eyes and arouse sight, since these pierce
through the pores of the body and awake the fine nature
of the mind within, and arouse its sensation. And so we
see Centaurs and the limbs of Scyllas, and the dog-faces
of Cerberus and idols of those who have met death, and
whose bones are held in the embrace of earth; since idols
of every kind are borne everywhere, some which are
created of their own accord even in the air, some which
depart in each case from diverse things, and those again
which are made and put together from the shapes of
these. For in truth the image of the Centaur comes not
from a living thing, since there never was the nature of
such a living creature, but when by chance the images
of man and horse have met, they cling together readily
at once, as we have said ere now, because of their subtle
nature and fine fabric. All other things of this kind are
fashioned in the same way. And when they move nimbly
with exceeding lightness, as 1 have shown ere now, any
one such subtle image stirs their mind; for the mind is
fine and of itself wondrous nimble.

That these things come to pass as I tell, you may easily
learn from this. Inasmuch as the one is like the other,
what we see with the mind, and what we see with the

Book LV, ll. 751-780 169

eyes, they must needs be created in like manner. Now, therefore
therefore, since I have shown that I see a lion maybe, fet eae
by means of idols, which severally stir the eyes, we may

know that the mind is moved in like manner, in that it

sees a lion and all else neither more nor less than the eyes,

except that it sees finer idols. And when sleep has re- So too the
laxed the limbs, the understanding of the mind is for no W10"s οὗ

sleep are
other cause awake, but that these same idols stir our caused by

images

; visiting the
seem surely to behold even one who has quitted life, and mind,

is holden by death and the earth. ‘This nature constrains

to come to pass just because all the senses of the body are

checked and at rest throughout the limbs, nor can they

refute the falsehood by true facts. Moreover, the memory and

lies at rest, and is torpid in slumber, nor does it argue fee
against us that he, whom the understanding believes that to check
it beholds alive, has long ago won to death and doom. Des
For the rest, it is not wonderful that the idols should The move-
move and toss their arms and their other limbs in rhythmic eee.
time. For it comes to pass that the image in sleep seems visions is
to do this; inasmuch as when the first image passes away “Ue to the
constant
and then another comes to birth in a different posture, flux of ever-

the former seems then to have changed its gesture. d oe
indeed we must suppose that this comes to pass in quick

minds then, as when we are awake, insomuch that we

process: so great is the speed, so great the store of things,
so great, in any one instant that we can perceive, the
abundance of the little parts of images, whereby the supply
may be continued.

And in these matters® many questions are asked, and Problems
there are many things we must make clear, if we wish to οἱ theusht

᾿ ᾿ ee and dreams.

set forth the truth plainly. First of all it is asked why, 1. How

whatever the whim may come to each of us to think of, “" “©

think at
once of
anything
we want ?

2. How in
sleep do we
see moving
images ?

Because

at every
instant
there is an
infinite
succession
of images ;

and the
mind only
sees sharply
those to
which it
attends,

The same
is really the
case with
waking

sight.

170 Book If’, ll. 780-811

straightway his mind thinks of that very thing. Do the
idols keep watch on our will, and does the image rise up
before us, as soon as we desire, whether it pleases us to
think of sea or land or sky either? Gatherings of men,
a procession, banquets, battles, does nature create all
things at a word, and make them ready for us? And that
when in the same place and spot the mind of others 1s
thinking of things all far different. What, again, when
in sleep we behold idols dancing forward in rhythmic
measure, and moving their supple limbs, when alter-
nately they shoot out swiftly their supple arms, and
Tepeat to the eyes a gesture made by the feet in harmony ἢ
Idols in sooth are steeped in art and wander about
trained to be able to tread their dance in the night-
time. Or will this be nearer truth? Because within
a single time, which we perceive, that is, when a single
word is uttered, many times lie unnoted, which reasoning
discovers, therefore it comes to pass that in any time
however small the several idols are there ready at hand in
all the several spots. So great is the speed, so great the
store of things. Therefore when the first image passes
away and then another comes to birth in a different
posture, the former seems then to have changed its
gesture, Again, because they are fine, the mind cannot
discern them sharply, save those which it strains to
see; therefore all that there are besides these pass
away, save those for which it has made itself ready.
Moreover, the mind makes itself ready, and hopes it will
come to pass that it will see what follows upon each
several thing; therefore it comes to be. Do you not see
the eyes too, when they begin to perceive things which are
fine, strain themselves and make themselves ready, and
that without that it cannot come to pass that we see
things sharply? And yet even in things plain to see you

Book LV, Ul. 811-8 42 τι

might notice that, if you do not turn your mind to them,
it is just as if the thing were sundered from you all the
time, and very far away. How then is it strange, if the
mind loses all else, save only the things to which it is
itself given up? Then too on small signs we base wide
opinions, and involve ourselves in the snare of self-
deceit.

It happens too that from time to time an image of The in-
different kind rises before us, and what was before SG palais
woman, seems now to have become a man before our very is not

But noticed

eyes, or else one face or age follows after another.
in sleep.

that we should not think this strange, sleep and its forget-
fulness secure.

Herein you must eagerly ® desire to shun this fault, and C. The
with foresighted fear to avoid this error; do not think ae
that the bright light of the eyes was created in order that not created
we may be able to look before us, or that, in order that ot the
we may have power to plant long paces, therefore the aaa
tops of shanks and thighs, based upon the feet, are able
to bend; or again, that the forearms are jointed to the
strong upper arms and hands given us to serve us on either
side, in order that we might be able to do what was
needful for life. All other ideas of this sort, which men
proclaim, by distorted reasoning set effect for cause, since
nothing at all was born in the body that we might be able

to use it, but what is born creates its own use. Nor did but being
created
evolved
ing in words before the tongue was created, but rather their use.

sight exist before the light of the eyes was born, nor plead-

the birth of the tongue came long before discourse, and
the ears were created much before sound was heard, and
in short all the limbs, I trow, existed before their use
came about: they cannot then have grown for the pur-

Art may
create
things for
a purpose,

but nature
has no
design.

The desire
for food is
caused by

172 Book LIV, ll. 842-871

pose of using them. But, on theother side, to join hands
in the strife of battle, to mangle limbs and befoul the
body with gore; these things were known long before
gleaming darts flew abroad, and nature constrained men
to avoid a wounding blow, before the left arm, trained
by art, held up the defence of a shield. And of a surety
to trust the tired body to rest was a habit far older than
the soft-spread bed, and the slaking of the thirst was
born before cups. These things, then, which are invented
to suit the needs of life, might well be thought to have
been discovered for the purpose of using them. But all
those other things lie apart, which were first born them-
selves, and thereafter revealed the concept of their use-
fulness. In this class first of all we see the senses and the
limbs ; wherefore, again and again, it cannot be that you
should believe that they could have been created for the
purpose of useful service.

This, likewise, is no cause for wonder, that the nature
of the body of every living thing of itself seeks food. For

the waste of verily I have shown ® that many bodies ebb and pass away

the body’s
tissue,

from things in many ways, but most are bound to pass

which food from living creatures. For because they are sorely tried

in turn
repairs.

Drink
quenches

by motion and many bodies by sweating are squeczed
and pass out from deep beneath, many are breathed out
through their mouths, when they pant in weariness ; by
these means then the body grows rare, and all the nature
is undermined; and on this follows pain. ‘Therefore
food is taken to support the limbs and renew strength
when it passes within, and to muzzle the gaping desire
for eating through all the limbs and veins. Likewise, mois-
ture spreads into all the spots which demand moisture;

Book IV, ll. 871-900 173

and the many gathered bodies of heat, which furnish the

the fires to our stomach, are scattered by the incoming ae ;
moisture, and quenched like a flame, that the dry heat heat in
may no longer be able to burn our body. Thus then the 'P¢ >°4y-
panting thirst is washed away from our body, thus the

hunery yearning is satisfied.

Next, how it comes to pass that we are able to plant Causes ot
our steps forward, when we wish, how it is granted us to τ OY
move our limbs in diverse ways, and what force is wont
to thrust forward this great bulk of our body, I will tell:
do you hearken to my words. I say that first of all idols 1. The
of walking fall upon our mind, and strike the mind, as we piel
have said before. Then comes the will; for indeed no moving is
one begins to do anything, ere the mind has seen before- es
hand what it will do, and inasmuch as it sees this before- mind: then
hand, an image of the thing is formed. And so, when the Seer
mind stirs itself so that it wishes to start and step forward, The mind
it straightway strikes the force of soul which is spread ene
abroad in the whole body throughout limbs and frame. atoms,
And that is easy to do, since it is held in union with it.

Then the soul goes on and strikes the body, and so little and the
by little the whole mass is thrust forward and set in aes ad
movement. Moreover, at such times the body too be- body. _
comes rarefied, and air (as indeed it needs must do, since eeiae
it is always quick to move), comes through the opened body, and
spaces, and pierces through the passages in abundance, τὸν ar
and so it is scattered to all the tiny parts of the body. with air,
Here then it is brought about by two causes acting Neti
severally, that the body, like a ship,! is borne on by sails

and wind.2 Nor yet herein is this cause for wonder, that There are

such tiny bodies can twist about a body so great, and turn Patallels for

1 This must be the sense, though the text is uncertain,

174 Book IV, Ul. 900-928

the moving round the whole mass of us. For in very truth the wind

ΓΞ ae that is finely wrought of a subtle body drives and pushes
ass ’

tiny causes: ON a great ship of great bulk, and a single hand steers it,
e.g. ἃ ship with whatever speed it be moving, and twists a single

In a win : ; :
oracrane, helm whithersoever it will; and by means of pulleys and

tread-wheels a crane can move many things of great

weight, and lift them up with light poise.
The cause | Now in what ways this sleep floads repose over the
ofsicepe Jimbs, and lets loose the cares of the mind from the
breast, I will proclaim in verses of sweet discourse, rather
than in many; even as the brief song of the swan is
better than the clamour of cranes, which spreads abroad
among the clouds of the south high in heaven. Do you
lend me a fine ear and an eager mind, lest you should
deny that what I say can be, and with a breast that
utterly rejects the words of truth part company with me,
Itcomes When you are yourself in error and cannot discern. First
pe of all sleep comes to pass® when the strength of the soul
pestis’ in is scattered about among the limbs, and in part has been
e limbs,

or driven ᾿ ὩΣ
out, or | pushed back and passed inward deeper within the body.

Sean deep For then indeed the limbs are loosened and droop. For

For sense there is no doubt that this sense exists in us, thanks to
is due to

the soul: ; ;
and its must suppose that the soul is disturbed and cast out

cessation abroad: yet not all of it; for then the body would lie
shows that

the soul bathed in the eternal chill of death. For indeed, when

a εν no part of the soul stayed behind hidden in the limbs,

utterly, for aS fire is hidden when choked beneath much ashes,

cast out abroad and gone its way, and in part has been

the soul; and when sleep hinders it from being, then we

that would whence could sense on a sudden be kindled again through-
mean death.

out the limbs, as flame can rise again from a secret
fire?

Book LV, ll. 929-959 ΤΑῚ

But by what means this new state of things is brought This is
about, and whence the soul can be disturbed and the body ee
grow slack, I will unfold: be it your care that I do not because
scatter my words to the winds. First of all it must needs the body is
be that the body on the outer side, since it is touched cee
close at hand by the breezes of air, is thumped and by air
buffeted by its oft-repeated blows, and for this cause it °Ms!4
is that wellnigh all things are covered either by a hide,
or else by shells, or by a hard skin, or by bark. Further, and inside,
as creatures breathe, the air at the same time smites on tees
the inner side, when it is drawn in and breathed out
again. Wherefore, since the body is buffeted on both The blows
sides alike, and since the blows pass on through the tiny ipa
pores to the first parts and first particles of our body, rupzion;
little by little there comes to be, as it were, a falling
asunder throughout our limbs. For the positions of the
first-beginnings of body and mind are disordered. Then and so the
it comes to pass that a portion of the soul is cast out abroad, ane Ae
and part retreats and hides within ; part too, torn asunder or sinks
through the limbs, cannot be united in itself, nor by eee
motion act and react; for nature bars its meetings and
chokes the ways; and so, when the motions are changed,

sense withdraws deep within. And since there is nothing and the un-
supported

; body sinks
feeble, and all the limbs are slackened ; arms and eyelids in slack-
ness,

which can, as it were, support the limbs, the body grows

droop, and the hams, even as you lie down, often give

way, and relax their strength. Again, sleep follows after Food acts
in just the
same way
itis being spread into all the veins, and theslumber which as air.

food, because food brings about just what air does, while

you take when full or weary, is much heavier because
then more bodies than ever are disordered, bruised with
the great effort. In the same manner the soul comes to

Dreams
repeat the
actions
which we
pursue in
waking life,

For
instance,
the games.

This is true
even of
animals ;

horses,

176 Book LV, ll. 959-990

be in part thrust deeper within ; it is also more abundantly
driven out abroad, and is more divided and torn asunder
in itself within.

And for the most part to whatever pursuit each man
clings and cleaves, or on whatever things we have before
spent much time, so that the mind was more strained in
the task than is its wont, in our sleep we seem mostly to
trafhe in the same things ; lawyers think that they plead
their cases and confront law with law, generals that they
fight and engage in battles, sailors that they pass a life
of conflict waged with winds, and we that we pursue our
task and seek for the nature of things for ever, and set it
forth, when it is found, in writings in our country’s
tongue. Thus for the most part all other pursuits and
arts seem to hold the minds of men in delusion during
their sleep. And if ever men have for many days in
succession given interest unflagging to the games, we see
for the most part, that even when they have ceased to
apprehend them with their senses, yet there remain open
passages in their minds, whereby the same images of things
may enter in. And so for many days the same sights
pass before their eyes, so that even wide awake they think
they see men dancing and moving their supple limbs,
and drink in with their ears the clear-toned chant of the
lyre, and its speaking strings, and behold the same assembly
and at the same time the diverse glories of the stage all
bright before them. So exceeding great is the import of
zeal and pleasure, and the tasks wherein not only men are
wont to spend their efforts, but even every living animal.
In truth you will see strong horses, when their limbs are
lain to rest, yet sweat in their sleep, and pant for ever,
and strain every nerve as though for victory, or else as

Book IV, ll. 990-1023 177

_ though the barriers were opened (struggle to start).

And hunters’ dogs often in their soft sleep yet suddenly hunting-
toss their legs, and all at once give tongue, and again and so
again snuff the air with their nostrils, as if they had found

and were following the tracks of wild beasts; yea, roused

from slumber they often pursue empty images of stags,

as though they saw them in eager flight, until they shake

off the delusion and return to themselves. But the fawn- house-dog:,
ing brood of pups brought up in the house, in a moment

shake their body and lift it from the ground, just as if

they beheld unknown forms and faces. And the wilder

any breed may be, the more must it needs rage in its

sleep. But the diverse tribes of birds fly off, and on birds,

a sudden in the night time trouble the peace of the

groves of the gods, if in their gentle sleep they have seen

hawks, flying in pursuit, offer fight and battle. More- and so of
men in

; é diverse
perform mighty tasks, often in sleep do and dare just the ways.

over, the minds of men, which with mighty movement

same; kings storm towns, are captured, join battle, raise
a loud cry, as though being murdered—all without mov-
ing. Many men fight hard, and utter groans through
their pain, and, as though they were bitten by the teeth
of a panther or savage lion, fill all around them with their
loud cries. Many in their sleep discourse of high affairs,
and very often have been witness to their own guilt.
Many meet death; many, as though they were falling They may
headlong with all their body from high mountains to nee
the earth, are beside themselves with fear, and, as death,
though bereft of reason, scarcely recover themselves
from sleep, quivering with the turmoil of their body.
1 The end of the line has been ousted by an intrusion from the

next: the sense was probably this, as Munro suggests.
546-15 M

or of trivial
needs.

The nature
of love
and desire.

It makes
us seek
union with
the object
by which
we are
sniltten.

D. Shun
Venus and
her cares
and desires.

178 Book LY, ll. 1024-1060

Likewise a man sits down thirsty beside a stream or
a pleasant spring, and gulps almost the whole river down
his throat. Innocent children often, if bound fast in
slumber they think they are lifting their dress at a latrine
or a’ roadside vessel, pour forth the filtered liquid from
their whole body, and the Babylonian coverlets of rich
beauty are soaked Later on to those, into the seething
waters of whose life the vital seed is passing for the first
time, when the ripeness of time has created it in their
limbs, there come from without idols from every body,
heralding a glorious face or beautiful colouring, which
stir and rouse their passion to bursting.

There is stirred in us that seed, whereof we spoke
before, when first the age of manhood strengthens our
limbs. For one cause moves and rouses one thing,
a different cause another; from man only the influence
of man stirs human seed. And as soon as it has been
aroused, bursting forth it makes its way from out the
whole body through the limbs and frame, coming together
into fixed places, and straightway rouses at last the natural
parts of the body ; and there arises the desire to seek that
body, by which the mind is smitten with love. For as
a rule all men fall towards the wound, and the blood
spirts out in that direction, whence we are struck by the
blow, and, if it is near at hand, the red stream reaches
our foe. Thus, then, he who receives a blow from the
darts of Venus, whoso’er it be who wounds him, inclines
to that whereby he is smitten; for an unspoken desire
foretells the pleasure to come.

This pleasure is Venus for us; from it comes Cupid,
our name for love, from it first of all that drop of Venus’s
sweetness has trickled into our heart and chilly care has

Book LIV, ll. 1060-1089 179

followed after. For if the object of your love is away,

yet images of her are at hand, her loved name is present

to your ears. But it is best to flee those images," and

scare away from you what feeds your love, and to turn

your mind some other way, and vent your passion on

other objects, and not to keep it, set once for all on the

love of one, and thereby store up for yourself care and

certain pain. For the sore gains strength and festers For the
by feeding, and day by day the madness grows, and the aH eee
misery becomes heavier, unless you dissipate the first indulgence.
wounds by new blows, and heal them while still fresh,
wandering after some wanton, or else can turn the move-

ments of the mind elsewhere.

Nor is he who shuns love bereft of the fruits of Venus, The lover’s
but rather he chooses those joys which bring no pain. aaion:
For surely the pleasure from these things is more un- pain,
tainted for the heart-whole than for the love-sick; for
in the very moment of possession the passion of lovers
ebbs and flows with undetermined current, nor are they
sure what first to enjoy with eyes or hands. What they
have grasped, they closely press and cause pain to the
body, and often fasten their teeth in the lips, and dash
mouth against mouth in kissing, because their pleasure is
not unalloyed, and there are secret stings which spur them
to hurt even the very thing, be it what it may, whence
arise those germs of madness. But Venus lightly breaks
the force of these pains in love, and fond pleasure mingled
with them sets a curb upon their teeth. For therein there
is hope that from the same body, whence comes the source
of their flame, the fire may in turn be quenched. Yet and satiety
nature protests that all this happens just the other way ; 0".
and this is the one thing, whereof the more and more we

M 2

Satisfaction
only begets
new desire.

Love saps
strength

180 Book 177, ll. 1089-1122

have, the more does our heart burn with the cursed desire.
For meat and drink are taken within the limbs ; and since
they are able to take up their abode in certain parts,
thereby the desire for water and bread is easily sated.
But from the face and beauteous bloom of man nothing
passes into the body to be enjoyed save delicate images ;
and often this love-sick hope is scattered to the winds,
Just as when in a dream a thirsty man seeks to drink and
no liquid is granted him, which could allay the fire in his
limbs, but he seeks after images of water, and struggles
in vain, and is still thirsty, though he drinks amid the
torrent stream, even so in love Venus mocks the lovers
with images, nor can the body sate them, though they
gaze on it with all their eyes, nor can they with their
hands tear off aught from the tender limbs, as they
wander aimless over all the body. Even at last when
the lovers embrace and taste the flower of their years,
eagerly they clasp and kiss, and pressing lip on lip breathe
deeply; yet all for naught, since they cannot tear off
aught thence, nor enter in and pass away, merging the
whole body in the other’s frame ; for at times they seem
to strive and struggle to do it. And at length when the
gathering desire is sated, then for a while comes a little
respite in their furious passion. ‘Then the same madness
returns, the old frenzy is back upon them, when they
yearn to find out what in truth they desire to attain, nor
can they discover what device may conquer their discase ;
in such deep doubt they waste beneath their secret
wound.

Remember too that they waste their strength and are
worn away with effort, remember that their life is passed

Book LV, Wl. 1122-1149 181

beneath another’s sway. Meanwhile their substance slips and in-
away, and is turned to Babylonian coverlets, their duties eee
etow slack, and their fair name totters and sickens : while and honour.
on the mistress’s feet laugh. . . . . . and lovely pe
Sicyonian slippers; yes, and huge emeralds with their dered in
green flash are set in gold, and the sea-dark dress is for nee
ever being frayed, and roughly used it drinks in sweat. and enter-
The well-gotten wealth of their fathers becomes hair- ne
ribbons and diadems; sometimes it is turned to Greek

robes and stuffs of Elis and Ceos. With gorgeous napery

and viands feasts are set out, and games and countless

cups, perfumes, and wreaths and garlands; all in vain, and all is
since from the heart of this fountain of delights wells up ee oe
some bitter taste to choke them even amid the flowers— thought of

either when the conscience-stricken mind feels the bite ee
of remorse that life is being spent in sloth, and is passing

to ruin in wantonness, or because she has thrown out some

idle word and left its sense in doubt, and it is planted

deep in the passionate heart, and becomes alive like

a flame, or because he thinks she casts her eyes around

too freely, and looks upon some other, or sees in her face

some trace of laughter.

And these ills are found in love that is true and fully Crossed
prosperous ; but when love is crossed and hopeless there ok ae
are ills, which you might detect even with closed eyes, ills
without number ; so that it is better to be on the watch Avoid love
beforehand, even as I have taught you, and to beware then, before
that you be not entrapped. For to avoid being drawn ane
into the meshes of love, is not so hard a task as when
caught amid the toils to issue out and break through the
strong bonds of Venus. And yet even when trammelled

1 Jt is impossible to replace with certainty the mutilated word,

or if caught
do not

shut your
eyes to
defects,

and cover
them with
endearing
glosses.

Even the
fairest is
nol in-
dispensable,
and is

not really
different
from others.

A lover,
when he
finds this
out, is often
offended.

182 Book LV, ll. 1149-1179

and fettered you might escape the snare, unless you still
stand in your own way, and at the first o’erlook all the
blemishes of mind and body in her, whom you seek and
woo. For for the most part men act blinded by passion,
and assign to women excellencies which are not truly theirs.
And so we see those in many ways deformed and ugly
dearly loved, yea, prospering in high favour. And one
man laughs at another, and urges him to appease Venus,
since he is wallowing in a base passion, yet often, poor
wretch, he cannot see his own ills, far greater than the
rest. A black love is called ‘ honey-dark’, the foul and
filthy ‘unadorned’, the green-eyed ‘Athena’s image’, the
wiry and wooden ‘a gazelle’, the squat and dwarfish
‘one of the graces’, ‘all pure delight’, the lumpy and
ungainly ‘a wonder’, and ‘fullof majesty’. Shestammers
and cannot speak, ‘she has a lisp’; the dumb is ‘modest’;
the fiery, spiteful gossip is ‘a burning torch’. One be-
comes a ‘slender darling ’, when she can scarce live from
decline ; another half dead with cough is ‘frail’. Then
the fat and full-bosomed is ‘ Ceres’ self with Bacchus at
breast’; the snub-nosed is ‘sister to Silenus, or a Satyr’;
the thick-lipped is ‘a living kiss’, More of this sort it
were tedious for me to try to tell. But yet let her be
fair of face as you will, and from her every limb let the
power of Venus issue forth: yet surely there are others
too: surely we have lived without her before, surely she
does just the same in all] things, and we know it, as the
ugly, and of herself, poor wretch, reeks of noisome smells,
and her maids flee far from her and giggle in secret. But
the tearful lover, denied entry, often smothers the thresh-
hold with flowers and garlands, and anoints the haughty
door-posts with marjoram, and plants his kisses, poor

Book IV, Ul. 1179-1218 18 3

wretch, upon the doors; yet if, admitted at last, one

single breath should meet him as he comes, he would seek

some honest pretext to be gone, and the deep-drawn

lament long-planned would fall idle, and then and there

he would curse his folly, because he sees that he has

assigned more to her than it is right to grant to any

mortal. Nor is this unknown to our queens of love;

nay the more are they at pains to hide all behind the

scenes from those whom they wish to keep fettered in

love; all for naught, since you can even so by thought It is better
bring it all to light and seek the cause of all this laughter, ae
and if she is of a fair mind, and not spiteful, o’erlook allowance.
faults in your turn, and pardon human weaknesses.

Nor does the woman sigh always with feigned love, The female
when clasping her lover she holds him fast, showering her eae Due
kesses. For often she does it from the heart, and yearning well as
for mutual joys she woos him to reach the goal of love. the mele.
And in no other way would birds, cattle, wild beasts, the
flocks, and mares be able to submit to the males, except
because their nature too is afire, and is burning to over-
flow. Do you not see too how those whom mutual
pleasure has bound, are often tortured in their common
chains? Wherefore, again and again, as I say, the pleasure
is common.

And often when in the mingling of sex the woman by The causes
sudden force has mastered the man’s might and seized δι Lee
on it with her own, then children are borne like the parent,
mother, thanks to the mother’s seed, just as the father’s
seed may make them like the father. But those whom
you see with the form of both, mingling side by side the
features of both parents, spring alike from the father’s
body and the mother’s blood. It comes to pass too some-

or to
ancestors,

and its
connexion
with the
child’s sex,

Causes of
sterility.

184 Book LV, ll. 1218-1256

times that they can be created like their grandparents,
and often recall the form of their grandparents’ parents,
for the reason that many first-beginnings in many ways
are often mingled and concealed in the body of their
parents, which, starting from the stock of the race, father
hands on to father ; therefrom Venus unfolds forms with
varying chance, and recalls the look, the voice, the hair
of ancestors ; since indeed these things are none the more
created from a seed determined than are our faces and
bodies and limbs. Again the female sex may spring from
the father’s seed, and males come forth formed from the
mother’s body. For every offspring is fashioned of the
two seeds, and whichever of the two that which is created
more resembles, of that parent it has more than an equal
share; as you can yourself discern, whether it be a male
offspring or a female birth.

Nor do powers divine deny to any man a fruitful sowing
of seed, that he may never be called father by sweet
children, but must live out his years in barren wedlock ;
as men believe for the most part, and sorrowing sprinkle
the altars with streams of blood and fire the high places
with their gifts, that they may make their wives pregnant
with bounteous seed. Yet al] in vain they weary the
majesty of the gods and their sacred lots. For the coup-
lings in wedlock are seen to be very diverse. And many
women have been barren in several wedlocks before, yet
at length have found a mate from whom they might
conceive children, and grow rich with sweet offspring.
And often even for those, for whom wives fruitful ere
now in the house had been unable to bear, a well-matched
nature has been found, so that they might fortify their
old age with children.

Book LV, ll. 1278-1287 185

Sometimes ’tis by no divine act or through the shafts A woman
of Venus that a woman of form less fair is loved. For at ,” eee
times a woman may bring it about by her own doing, by win love by
her unselfish ways, and the neat adornment of her body, cee
that she accustoms you easily to live your life with her. mere habit.
Nay more, habit alone can win love; for that which is
struck ever and again by a blow, however light, is yet
mastered in long lapse of time, and gives way. Do you
not see too how drops of water falling upon rocks in long

lapse of time drill through the rocks?

Intro-
duction.
Epicurus,
who dis-
covered our
philosophy,

is a god,

His services
to men are
far greater
than those
of the gods
and heroes
of olds

even ot
Hercules,

BOOK V

Wo can avail by might of mind to build a poem worthy
to match the majesty of truth and these discoveries? Or
who has such skill in speech, that he can fashion praises
to match his deserts, who has left us such prizes, con-
ceived and sought out by his own mind? There will be
no one, I trow, born of mortal body. For if we must
speak as befits the majesty of the truth now known to us,
then he was a god, yea a god, noble Memmius, who first
found out that principle of life, which now is called
wisdom, and who by his skill saved our life from high
seas and thick darkness, and enclosed it in calm waters
and bright light. For set against this the heaven-sent
discoveries of others in the days of old. Ceres is fabled to
have taught to men the growing of corn, and Liber the
liquid of the vine-born juice; and yet life could have
gone on without these things, as tales tell us that some
races live even now. Buta good life could not be without
a clean heart ; wherefore more rightly is he counted a god
by us, thanks to whom now sweet solaces for life soothe
the mind, spread even far and wide among great peoples.
But if you think that the deeds of Hercules® excel this,
you will be carried still further adrift from true reasoning.
For what harm to us now were the great gaping jaws of
the old Nemean lion and the bristling boar of Arcadia?
Or what could the bull of Crete do, or the curse of
Lerna, the hydra with its pallisade of poisonous snakes?
what the triple-breasted might of threefold Geryon?

Bock V, Ul. 29-58 187

(How could those birds) have done us such great hurt,
who dwelt in the Stymphalian (fen),! or the horses of
Diomede the Thracian, breathing fire from their nostrils
near the coasts of the Bistones and Ismara? Or the
guardian of the glowing golden apples of Hesperus’s
daughters, the dragon, fierce, with fiery glance, with his
vast body twined around the tree-trunk, yea, what harm
could he have done beside the Atlantic shore and the
grim tracts of ocean, where none of us draws near nor
barbarian dares to venture? And all other monsters of
this sort which were destroyed, had they not been van-
quished, what hurt, pray, could they have done alive?
Not a jot, I trow: the earth even now teems in such
abundance with wild beasts, and is filled with trembling
terrors throughout forests and mighty mountains and
deep woods; but for the most part we have power to
shun those spots. But unless the heart is cleansed, what
battles and perils must we then enter into despite our
will? What sharp pangs of passion then rend the troubled
man, yea and what fears besides? what of pride, filthi-
ness and wantonness? what havoc they work? what of
luxury and sloth? He then who has subdued all these
and driven them from the mind by speech, not arms,
shall this man not rightly be found worthy to rank among
the gods? Above all, since ’twas his wont to speak many
sayings in good and godlike words about the immortal
gods themselves, and in his discourse to reveal the whole
nature of things.

In his footsteps I tread, and while I follow his reason-
ings and set out in my discourse, by what law all things
are created, and how they must needs abide by it, nor

1 A line is lost, of which the words in brackets give the general sense,

For he
gave us a
clean heart,

and taught
us about
the gods
and nature.

Now that 3
have shown
aws

of nature,

and the
mortality
of the soul,

I must
prove that
the world
is mortal,
and how
it came to
be made.

I must
treat of the
creation of
animals,

of the
growth of
speech, of
the origin
of the fear
of the gods,

and of the
courses

of the
heavenly
bodies.

All these
things come
to pass
without the
interference
of the gods.

188 Book V, Ul. 58-88

can they break through the firm ordinances of their being,
even as first of all the nature of the mind has been found
to be formed and created above other things with a body
that has birth, and to be unable to endure unharmed
through the long ages, but it is images that are wont in
sleep to deceive the mind, when we seem to behold one
whom life has left; for what remains, the train of my
reasoning has now brought me to this point, that I must
give account how the world is made of mortal body and
also came to birth; and in what ways that gathering of
matter established earth, sky, sea, stars, sun, and the ball
of the moon; then what living creatures sprang from the
earth, and which have never been born at any time;
and in what manner the race of men began to use ever-
varying speech one to another by naming things; and
in what ways that fear of the gods found its way into
their breasts, which throughout the circle of the world
keeps revered shrines, lakes, groves, altars, and images of
the gods. Moreover, I will unfold by what power nature,
the helmsman, steers the courses of the sun and the
wanderings of the moon; lest by chance we should think
that they of their own will ’twixt earth and sky fulfil
their courses from year to year, with kindly favour to the
increase of earth’s fruits and living creatures, or should
suppose that they roll on by any forethought of the gods.
For those who have learnt aright that the gods lead a life
free from care, yet if from time to time they wonder by
what means all things can be carried on, above all among
those things which are descried above our heads in the
coasts of heaven, are borne back again into the old beliefs
of religion, and adopt stern overlords, whom in their
misery they believe have all power, knowing not what

Book Κ᾽, Ul. 88-116 189

can be and what cannot, yea and in what way each thing
has its power limited, and its deep-set boundary-stone.

For the rest, that I may delay you no more with pro- The world
mises, first of all look upon seas, and lands, and sky ; their ἈΝ d.
threefold nature, their three bodies, Memmius, their
three forms so diverse, their three textures so vast, one
single day shall hurl to ruin; and the massive form and
fabric of the world, held up for many years, shall fall head-
long. Nor does it escape me in my mind, how strangely This sounds
and wonderfully this strikes upon the understanding, the st!nse, aud
destruction of heaven and earth that is to be, and how εἰ ἢ
hard it is for me to prove it surely in my discourse ; even
as it always happens, when you bring to men’s ears some-
thing unknown before, and yet you cannot place it before
the sight of their eyes, nor lay hands upon it ; for by this
way the paved path of belief leads straightest into the heart
of man and the quarters of his mind. Yet still I will Perhaps |
speak out. Maybe that the very fact will give credence ree
to my words, that earthquakes will arise and within sible proofs
a little while you will behold all things shaken in mighty
shock. But may fortune at the helm steer this far away put reason-
from us, and may reasoning rather than the very fact ing must
make us believe that all things can fall in with a hideous aoa
rending crash.

Yet before I essay on this point to declare destiny in It is no
more holy wise, and with reasoning far more sure than ae
the Pythian priestess, who speaks out from the tripod and the world
laurel of Phoebus, I will unfold many a solace for you in med
my learned discourse; lest by chance restrained by re- bodies are
ligion you should think that earth and sun, and sky, sea, divine.
stars, and moon must needs abide for everlasting, because

of their divine body, and therefore should suppose it right

They are
not even
sentient.

Soul and

Book V, Il, 116-148

that after the manner of the giants” all should pay penalty
for their monstrous crime, who by their reasoning shake
the walls of the world, and would fain quench the glorious
sun in heaven, branding things immortal with mortal
names; yet these are things so far sundered from divine

190

power, and are so unworthy to be reckoned among
gods, that they are thought rather to be able to afford
us the concept of what is far removed from vital motion
and sense. For verily it cannot be that we should
suppose that the nature of mind and understanding can

mind, like be linked with every body: even as a tree cannot exist

all other

things, have

their
appointed

place, apar

from which thing can grow and have its place.
they cannot

exist,

They
cannot be
in earth
or the
heavenly
bodies.

The gods
have no
dwellings
in the
world:

: in stones.

in the sky, nor clouds in the salt waters, nor can fishes
live in the fields, nor blood be present in wood nor sap
It is determined and ordained where each
So the nature of
mind cannot come to birth alone without body, nor
exist far apart from sinews and blood. But if this could
be, far sooner might the force of mind itself exist in
head or shoulders, or right down in the heels, and be
wont to be born in any part you will, but at least remain
in the same man or the same vessel. But since even
within our body it is determined and seen to be ordained
where soul and mind can dwell apart and grow, all the
more must we deny that outside the whole body and the
living creature’s form, it could last on in the crumbling
sods of earth or in the fire of the sun or in water or in the
high coasts of heaven. ‘They are not then created en-
dowed with divine feeling, inasmuch as they cannot be
quickened with the sense of life.

This, too, it cannot be that you should believe, that
there are holy abodes of the gods in any parts of the
world. For the fine nature of the gods, far sundered

Book V, ll. 149-180 191

from our senses, is scarcely seen by the understanding of
the mind ; and since it lies far beneath all touch or blow
from our hands, it cannot indeed touch anything which
can be touched by us. For nothing can touch which
may not itself be touched. ‘Therefore even their abodes
too must needs be unlike our abodes, fine even as are
their bodies ; all which I will hereafter prove to you ἃ

with plenteous argument. Further, to say that for man’s nor did
they make
the world
the world, and for that cause ’tis fitting to praise the for the sake
of man,

sake they were willing to fashion the glorious nature of

work of the gods, which is worthy to be praised, and to
believe that it will be everlasting and immortal, and that
it is sin ever to stir from its seats by any force what was
established for the races of men for all time by the ancient
wisdom of the gods, or to assail it with argument, and to
overthrow it from top to bottom ; to imagine and to add
all else of this sort, Memmius, is but foolishness. For Our thanks
what profit could our thanks bestow on the immortal and ee νὰ
blessed ones, that they should essay to do anything for them,
our sakes? Or what new thing could have enticed them nor could
so long after, when they were aforetime at rest, to desire τἀ ΩΝ
to change their former life? For it is clear that he must for novelty:
take joy in new things, to whom the old are painful; but
for him, whom no sorrow has befallen in the time gone
by, when he led a life of happiness, for such an one what
could have kindled a passion for new things? Or what nor would
ill had it been to us never to have been made? Did tee Ἵ
our life, forsooth, lie wallowing in darkness and grief, we had
until the first creation of things dawned upon us? For "¢vet been
: “ὦ ὁ Created.
whosoever has been born must needs wish to abide in
life, so long as enticing pleasure shall hold him. But for

him, who has never tasted the love of life, and was never

Teo Book Vy, Ul. 180-209

in the ranks of the living, what harm is it never to have
How, been made? Further, how was there first implanted in
again, could : :
Te Gee the gods a pattern for the begetting of things, yea, and
have had a the concept of man,® so that they might know and see
pattern or . : : : :
anideato 8 their mind what they wished to do, or in what way
work on? was the power of the first-beginnings ever learnt, or what

they could do when they shifted their order one with the

other, if nature did not herself give a model of creation?
No; the For so many first-beginnings of things in many ways,

-orld w ᾿ : . .
ΟΡ driven on by blows from time everlasting until now, and
y 6

made by

the chance moved by their own weight, have been wont to be borne

arrange~ . . ᾿ ᾿

ment of ἢ, and to unite in every way, and essay everything that

atoms, they might create, meeting one with another, that it is
no wonder if they have fallen also into such arrangements,
and have passed into such movements, as those whereby
this present sum of things is carried on, ever and again
replenished.

That the But even if I knew not® what are the first-beginnings

world is not ° : ᾿

divinely οὗ things, yet this I would dare to aflirm from the very

made for workings of heaven, and to prove from many other things

ἘΝ ἢ, as well, that by no means has the nature of things been

be proved

by itsim- fashioned for us by divine grace: so great are the flaws
fe ti . . Φ . ν

ΝΠ with which it stands beset. First, of all that the huge

tracts of — expanse of heaven covers, half thereof mountains and
the earth : : :
are useless forests of wild beasts have greedily seized; rocks possess
forman, it, and waste pools and the sea, which holds far apart the
shores of the lands. Besides, two thirds almost burning
heat and the ceaseless fall of frost steal from mortals. Of
all the field-land that remains, yet nature would by her
force cover it up with thorns, were it not that the force
of man resisted her, ever wont for his livelihood to groan

over the strong mattock and to furrow the earth with the

Book V, ll. 209-239 193

deep-pressed plough. But that by turning the fertile and only
clods with the share, and subduing the soil of the earth [is toll can
we summon them to birth, of their own accord the crops to profit.
could not spring up into the liquid air; and even now
sometimes, when won by great toil things grow leafy
throughout the land, and are all in flower, either the sun
in heaven burns them with too much heat, or sudden
rains destroy them and chill frosts, and the blasts
of the winds harry them with headstrong hurricane.
Moreover, why does nature foster and increase the awe- 2. He is
some tribe of wild beasts to do harm to the race of man ies
by land and sea? Why do the seasons of the year bring Be
maladies? Why does death stalk abroad before her time? sara Ἢ
Then again, the child, like a sailor tossed ashore by the 5, The
cruel waves, lies naked on the ground, dumb, lacking all ape
help for life, when first nature has cast him forth by helpless and.
travail from his mother’s womb into the coasts of light, ¢elencetess.
and he fills the place with woful wailing, as is but right
for one for whom it remains in life to pass through so
much trouble. But the diverse flocks and herds grow up
and the wild beasts, nor have they need of rattles, nor
must there be spoken to any of them the fond and broken
prattle of the fostering nurse, nor do they seek diverse
garments to suit the season of heaven, nay, and they have
no need of weapons or lofty walls, whereby to protect
their own, since for all of them the earth itself brings
forth all things bounteously, and nature, the quaint
artificer of things.

First of all,® since the body of earth and moisture, and A. The
the light breath of the winds and burning heat, of which ae
this sum of things is seen to be made up, are all created (a) because:

of a body that has birth and death, of such, too, must we cers

ponent
546-15 N

parts are
morta!.

To prove
this of the
separate
elements:
1. Earth is
mortal.

It flies
away in
clouds of
dust,

or is de-
stroyed by
moisture.
Earth is the
universal
mother

and the
universal
tomb.

4. Water
is mortal :

it is drawn
up from
the sea

by wind
aud sun,

194 Book V, Ul. 239-268

think that the whole nature of the world is fashioned.
For verily things whose parts and limbs we see to be of
a body that has birth and of mortal shapes, themselves
too we perceive always to have death and birth likewise.
Wherefore, when we see the mighty members and parts
of the world consumed away and brought to birth again,
we may know that sky too likewise and earth had some
time of first-beginning, and will suffer destruction.

Herein, lest you should think that I have snatched at
this proof for myself, because I have assumed that earth
and fire are mortal things, nor have hesitated to say that
moisture and breezes perish, and have maintained that
they too are born again and increase, first of all, some
part of earth, when baked by ceaseless suns, trodden by
the force of many feet, gives off a mist and flying clouds
of dust, which stormy winds scatter through all the air.
Part too of its sods is summoned back to swamp by the
rains, and streams graze and gnaw their banks. More-
over, whatever the earth nourishes and increases, is, in its
own proportion, restored; and since without doubt the
parent of all is seen herself to be the universal tomb of
things, therefore you may see that the earth is eaten
away, and again increases and grows.

For the rest, that sea, streams, and springs are ever
filling with new moisture, and that waters are ceaselessly
oozing forth, there is no need of words to prove: the
great downrush of waters on every side shows this forth.
But the water which is foremost is ever taken away, and
80 it comes to pass that there is never overmuch moisture
in the sum, partly because the strong winds as they sweep
the seas, diminish them, and so does the sun in heaven,
as he unravels their fabric with his rays, partly because

Book V, ll. 268-297 19s

it is sent hither and thither under every land. For the and passes

brine is strained through, and the substance of the moisture Meo. ἴῃς

oozes back, and all streams together at the fountain-head reappear
of rivers, and thence comes back over the lands with ἢ SP'"8*
freshened current, where the channel once cleft has

brought down the waters in their liquid march.

Next then I will speak of air, which changes in its whole 3. Air is

mortal :

it is cons

whatever flows off from things, is all carried into the stantly

k being
created by

bodies to things, and replenish them as they flow away, the efflux

d fromthings,
and renew-

into air, Air then ceases not to be created from things, ing them

and to pass back into things, since it is sure that all things >Y "
. restoration.
are constantly flowing away.

Likewise that bounteous source™ of liquid light, the 4. Fire is
sun in heaven, ceaselessly floods the sky with fresh bright- ie -ς
ness, and at once supplies the place of light with new always
sending out

. ; new sup-
perishes, on whatever spot it falls. That you may learn plies, and
from this: that as soon as clouds have begun for an instant cate
to pass beneath the sun, and, as it were, to break off the they fall.

rays of light, straightway all the part of the rays beneath Rae,
perishes, and the earth is overshadowed, wherever the cut off
clouds are carried; so that you may learn that things by clouds.
ever have need of fresh brilliance, and that the foremost

shaft of light ever perishes, nor in any other way can

things be seen in the sunlight, except that the very

body in countless ways each single hour. For always,
great sea of air; and unless in turn it were to give bac

all things would by now have been dissolved and turne

light. For that which is foremost of its brightness, ever

fountain-head of light gives supply for ever. Nay more, So even
lights at night, which are on the earth, hanging lamps lights on
Aoi Bech “hy chetmaneehi fy 4 carth have
and oily torches, bright with their flashing tres and 4, peep up
thick smoke, in like manner hasten by aid of their heat constant

N 2

supply of

flame.

We con-
stantly see
examples
of the
mortality
of the
strongest
things.

If the sky
is the
universal
parent, it
is mortal:
for it is
constantly
diminished
and in-
creased.

(δ) There

are many

196 Book V, lt. 298-325

to supply new light; they are quick to flicker with their
fires, yea quick, nor is the light, as it were, broken off, nor
does it quit the spot. In such eager haste is its destruc-
tion hidden by the quick birth of flame from all the fires.
So then we must think that sun, moon, and stars throw
out their light from new supplies, rising again and again,
and lose ever what is foremost of their flames; lest you
should by chance believe that they are strong with a
strength inviolable.

Again, do you not behold stones too vanquished by time,
high towers falling in ruins, and rocks crumbling away,
shrines and images of the gods growing weary and worn,
while the sacred presence cannot prolong the boundaries
of fate nor struggle against the laws of nature? Again,
do we not see the monuments of men fallen to bits, and
inquiring moreover whether you believe that they grow
old ?! And stones torn up from high mountains rushing
headlong, unable to brook or bear the stern strength of
a limited time? For indeed they would not be suddenly
torn up and fall headlong, if from time everlasting they
had held out against all the siege of age without breaking.

Now once again gaze on this sky, which above and all
around holds the whole earth in its embrace: if it begets
all things out of itself, as some tell," and receives them
again when they perish, it is made altogether of a body
that has birth and death. For whatsoever increases and
nourishes other things out of itself, must needs be lessened,
and replenished when it receives things back.

Moreover, if there was no birth and beginning of the
earth and sky, and they were always from everlasting,

1 The line is corrupt, and 1 have translated Munro’s correction:
quaerere proporro silt sene senescere credas,

Book V, ll. 326-355 197

why beyond the Theban war and the doom of Troy have proofs that

aot other poets sung of other happenings as well? whither ἐὰν ous

have so many deeds of men so often passed away? why meee
are they nowhere enshrined in glory in the everlasting
memorials of fame? But indeed, I trow, our whole

world is in its youth, and quite new is the nature of the
firmament, nor long ago did it receive its first-beginnings.
Wherefore even now certain arts are being perfected,

even now are growing; much now has been added to

ships, but a while ago musicians gave birth to tuneful
harmonies. Again, this nature of things, this philo-

sophy, is but lately discovered, and I myself was found

the very first of all who could turn it into the speech of

my country. But if by chance you think that all these Ifyou think
same things were aforetime, but that the generations of re
men perished in burning heat, or that cities have fallen tions have
in some great upheaval of the world, or that from cease- ΠΕΣ ey
less rains ravening rivers have issued over the lands and world-
swallowed up cities, all the more must you be vanquished oan ἢ
and confess that there will come to pass a perishing of prove that
earth and sky as well. For when things were assailed by Nias
such great maladies and dangers, then if a more fatal cause

had pressed upon them, far and wide would they have

spread their destruction and mighty ruin. Nor in any

other way do we see one another to be mortal; except

that we fall sick of the same discases as those whom

nature has sundered from life.

Moreover, if ever things abide™® for everlasting, it must (¢) The
needs be either that, because they are of solid body, they wet na
beat back assaults, nor suffcr anything to come within any of the
them, which might unloose the close-locked parts within, ean
such as are the bodies of matter, whose nature we have tality.

{t must
then be
subject io

death,

and have

had a birth.

(7) he

great con-
test of the
elements
may one
day be
brought to

198 Book Vy, Ul. 355-384

declared before ; or that they are able to continue through
all time, because they are exempt from blows, as is the
void, which abides untouched nor suffers a whit from
assault; or else because there is no supply of room all
around, into which things might part asunder and be
broken up—even as the sum of sums is eternal—-nor is
there any room without into which they may leap apart,
nor are there bodies which might fall upon them and
break them up with stout blow. But neither, as I have
shown, is the nature of the world endowed with solid
body, since there is void mingled in things ; nor yet is it
as the void, nor indeed are bodies lacking, which might
by chance gather together out of infinite space and over-
whelm this sum of things with headstrong hurricane, or
bear down on it some other form of dangerous destruc-
tion; nor again is there nature of room or space in
the deep wanting, into which the walls of the world might
be scattered forth; or else they may be pounded and
perish by any other force you will. The gate of death
then is not shut on sky or sun or earth or the deep waters
of the sea, but it stands open facing them with huge
vast gaping maw. Wherefore, again, you must needs con-
fess that these same things have a birth; for indeed,
things that are of mortal body could not from limitless
time up till now have been able to set at defiance the
stern strength of immeasurable age.

Again, since the mighty members of the world so
furiously fight one against the other, stirred up in most
unhallowed warfare, do you not see that some end may
be set to their long contest? Either when the sun and
every kind of heat have drunk up all the moisture and

Bock V, Ul. 384-413 199

won the day: which they are struggling to do, but as an end by
yet they have not accomplished their effort: so great pea
a supply do the rivers bring and threaten to go beyond the other.
their bounds, and deluge all things from out the deep

abyss of ocean; all in vain, since the winds as they

sweep the seas, diminish them, and so does the sun

in heaven, as he unravels their fabric with his rays,

and they boast that they can dry up all things, ere
moisture can reach the end of its task. So vast a war Story tells
do they breathe out in equal contest, as they struggle pics
and strive one with another for mighty issues; yet once water have
in this fight fire gained the upper hand, and once, as the ΠΣ ΤΙΣ
story goes, moisture reigned supreme on the plains. For upper hand.
fire won its way and burnt up many things, all-devouring,

when the resistless might of the horses of the sun went

astray and carried Phaethon amain through the whole

heavens and over alllands. But, thereupon, the almighty The myth
father, thrilled with keen anger, with sudden stroke of er
his thunder dashed high-souled Phaethon from his chariot

to earth, and the sun, meeting him as he fell, caught the
everlasting lamp of the world, and tamed the scattered

steeds, and yoked them trembling, and so guiding them

along their own path, replenished all things ; so forsooth

sang the old poets of the Greeks : but it is exceeding far

removed from true reasoning. For fire can only prevail represents
when more bodies of its substance have risen up out of ee
infinite space; and then its strength fails, vanquished in atoms.
some way, or else things perish, burnt up by its fiery

breath. Moisture likewise,? once gathered together and The story
; ς of the
began to prevail, as the story goes, when it overwhelmed iene

living men with its waves. Thereafter, when its force

B. The
Birth of
the World.
It was not
made by
design, but
by the
chance
concourse
of atoms
after ages.

First atoms
gathered
together

in a wild
discordant
storm,

Then the

various

200 Book V, Ul. 413-444

was by some means turned aside and went its way, even all
that had gathered together from infinite space, the rains
ceased, and the strength of the rivers was brought low.

But by what means that gathering together of matter
established earth and sky and the depths of ocean, and
the courses of sun and moon, [ will set forth in order.
For in very truth not by design did the first-beginnings
of things place themselves each in their order with fore-
seeing mind, nor indeed did they make compact what
movements each should start; but because many first-
beginnings of things in many ways, driven on by blows
from time everlasting until now, and moved by their own
weight, have been wont to be borne on, and to unite in
every way and essay everything that they might create,
meeting one with another, therefore it comes to pass that
scattered abroad through a great age, as they try meet-
ings and motions of every kind, at last those come together,
which, suddenly cast together, become often the begin-
nings of great things, of earth, sea and sky, and the race
of living things.

Then, when things were so, neither could the sun’s orb
be seen, flying on high with its bounteous light, nor the
stars of the great world, nor sea nor sky, nay nor earth
nor air, nor anything at all like to the things we know,
but only a sort of fresh-formed storm, a mass gathered
together of first-beginnings of every kind, whose discord
was waging war and confounding interspaces, paths, inter-
lacings, weights, blows, meetings, and motions, because
owing to their unlike forms and diverse shapes, all things
were unable to remain in union, as they do now, and to
give and receive harmonious motions. From this mass ®
parts began to fly off hither and thither, and like things

Book V, ll. 444-475 201

to unite with like, and so to unfold a world, and to sunder parts of
: ο . the world
its members and dispose its great parts, that is, to... on
mark off the high heaven from the earth, and the sea by rated oif.
itself, so that it might spread out with its moisture kept
apart, and likewise the fires of the sky by themselves, un-
mixed and kept apart.
Yea, verily, first of all the several bodies of earth, The earth
; particles
because they were heavy and interlaced, met together ἐπ ἐπι
in the middle, and all took up the lowest places ; and the together at
more they met and interlaced, the more did they squeeze ae aise
out those which were to make sea, stars, sun, and moon, squeezed
and the walls of the great world. For all these are of 951 those
which were
smoother and rounder seeds, and of much smaller par- to form
ticles than earth. And so, bursting out from the quarter "58 2"¢
heavenly

of the earth through its loose-knit openings, first of all bodies.
The light

; ᾿ ᾿ ᾿ particles
it many fires, in not far different wise than often we see of ether

now, when first the golden morning light of the radiant ἢ "P
sun reddens over the grass bejewelled with dew, and the

pools and ever-running streams give off a mist, yea, even

as the earth from time to time is seen to steam: and

when all these are gathered together as they move up-

wards, clouds with body now formed weave a web beneath

the sky on high. ‘Thus then at that time the light and and formed
spreading ether, with body now formed, was set all around εὐο ὼς
and curved on every side, and spreading wide towards

every part on all sides, thus fenced in all else in its greedy

embrace. There followed then the beginnings of sun and Sun and
moon, whose spheres turn in air midway betwixt earth (708) °°
and ether; for neither earth nor the great ether claimed

them for itself, because they were neither heavy enough

to sink and settle down, nor light enough to be able to

the fiery ether rose up and, being so light, carried off with

Then earth
sank in
the middle
and formed
the sea,

while
mountains
were left
standing.

Summary :
earth sank
with sea,
air, and
ether
unmixed
above it,

Highest of
all the
ether moves
on in its
constant
untroubled
course,

202 Book Κ΄, Ul. 475-507

glide along the topmost coasts, yet they are so set between
the two that they can move along their living bodies, and
are parts of the whole world; even as in our bodies some
limbs may abide in their place, while yet there are others
moving. So when these things were withdrawn, at once
the earth sank down, where now the vast blue belt of
ocean stretches, and flooded the furrows with salt surge.
And day by day, the more the tide of ether and the
rays of the sun with constant blows along its outer edges
constrained the earth into closer texture, so that thus
smitten it condensed and drew together round its centre,
the more did the salt sweat, squeezed out from its body,
go to increase the sea and the swimming plains, as it
trickled forth ; yea, and the more did those many bodies
of heat and air slip forth and fly abroad, and far away from
earth condense the high glowing quarters of the sky.
Plains sank down, lofty mountains grew in height; for
indeed the rocks could not settle down, nor could all parts
subside equally in the same degree.

So then the weight of earth, with body now formed,
sank to its place, and, as it were, all the slime of the world
slid heavily to the bottom, and sank right down like dregs ;
then the sea and then the air and then the fiery ether
itself were all left unmixed with their liquid bodies ; they
are lighter each than the next beneath, and ether, most
liquid and lightest of all, floats above the breezes of air,
nor does it mingle its liquid body with the boisterous
breezes of air; it suffers all our air below to be churned
by headstrong hurricanes, it suffers it to brawl with shift-
ing storms, but itself bears on its fires as it glides in change-
less advance. For that the ether can follow on quietly
and with one constant effort, the Pontos proves, the sea

Book V, ll. 507-531 203

which flows on with changeless tide, preserving ever the
one constant rhythm of its gliding.

1 Now let us sing what is the cause of the motions of C. The
the stars. First of all, if the great globe of the sky turns Lee:
round,2 we must say that the air presses on the pole at 1. Ifthe
either end, and holds it outside and closes it in at both sic: Sy
ends; and that then another current of air flows above, round, it
straining on to the same goal, towards which the twink- pie
ling stars of the everlasting world roll on; or else that either by

Ξ - a current
there is another current beneath, to drive up the sphere ας τ
reversely, as we see streams moving round wheels with a current

their scoops. It may be also that the whole sky can age.

Bas , ae . : 8
abide in its place, while yet the shining signs are sky remains
firm, the
eae ᾿ stars are
shut within them, and seeking a way out are turned moved

round and round, and so roll on the fires this way and “ther (@)
ἢ by fireinside

that through the nightly quarters of the sky; or else an them

air streaming from some other quarter without turns and Οἵ 2)
exterior

drives the fires; or else they can themselves creep on, currents,
whither its own food invites and summons each as they Rae Ὁ
move on, feeding their flaming bodies everywhere through- reach their
out the sky. For it is hard to declare for certain which ni ic bein
of these causes it is in this world; but what can happen causes act
and does happen through the universe in the diverse east
worlds, fashioned on diverse plans, that is what I teach, universe.
and go on to set forth many causes for the motions of

the stars, which may exist throughout the universe; and

of these it must needs be one which in our world too

carried on; either because swift currents of ether are

1 This paragraph seems misplaced: but it is not clear where it
should come in (possibly after the next paragraph), and it may be
a subsequent addition, which the poet did not properly work into its
context,

204 Book V, Ul. $31-561

gives strength to the motions of the heavenly signs ; but
to affirm which of them it is, is in no wise the task of

one treading forward step by step.
The earth | Now that the earth may rest quiet in the mid region
iS Bee of the world, it is natural that its mass should® gradually
‘second thin out and grow less, and that it should have another
ΕΣ ΕΠ ἢ τ nature underneath from the beginning of its being, linked
which is | and closely bound in one with those airy parts of the
saat! cap, World amid which it has its place and life. For this
the air, Cause it is no burden, nor does it weigh down the air ;
as even as for every man his own limbs are no weight, nor
limbs are is the head a burden to the neck, nay nor do we feel that
πὶ ‘haa the whole weight of the body is resting on the feet; but
because of all weights which come from without and are laid upon
ΣΡ ΟΕ us, hurt us, though often they are many times smaller.
” Of such great matter is it, what is the power of each thing.
So then the earth is not suddenly brought in as some
alien body, nor cast from elsewhere on alien air, but it
has been begotten along with it from the first beginning
of the world, a determined part of it, as our limbs are
2. the seen to be of us. Moreover, the earth, when shaken

~-

hee suddenly by violent thunder, shakes with its motion all

nexion that is above it; which it could not by any means do,

ee were it not bound up with the airy parts of the world
communi- and with the sky. For they cling one to the other with

ee ie common roots, linked and closely bound in one from the
shocks; beginning of their being. Do you not see too how great
3- the is the weight of our body, which the force of the soul,

soul, thanks . 5 ae
to its close though exceeding fine, supports, just because it is so

Shea nearly linked and closely bound in one with it? And again,
the body, What can lift the body in a nimble leap save the force of

the soul, which steers the limbs? Do you not see now

ve

7]

Book V, Ul. 561-591 205

how great can be the power of a fine nature, when it is
linked with a heavy body, even as the air is linked with
earth, and the force of the mind with us?

Nor can the sun’s blazing wheel® be much greater or The sun

is not much
j ii, larger or
soever distances fires can throw us their light and breathe smallerthan
we see it,

ἱ ; _ For fires,
the body of their flames because of the interspaces, their so long as
fire is no whit shrunken to the sight. Even so, since the ἐὸν ἽΝ
heat of the sun and the light he sheds, arrive at our not look
smaller.

less, than it is seen to be by our senses. For from what-

their warm heat upon our limbs, they lose nothing of

senses and cheer the spots on which they fall, the form
and bulk of the sun as well must needs be seen truly from
earth, so that you could alter it almost nothing to greater

or less. ‘The moon, too, whether she illumines places with The moon
a borrowed light as she moves along, or throws out her '§ Just the
ὰ : size we

own rays from her own body, however that may be, moves see it.

on with a shape no whit greater than seems that shape,

with which we perceive her with our eyes. For all things For as long
which we behold far sundered from us through much air, gee
are seen to grow confused in shape, ere their outline is outline,
lessened. Wherefore it must needs be that the moon, es do not
inasmuch as she shows a clear-marked shape and an out- smaller.
line well defined, is seen by us from earth in the heights,

just as she is, clear-cut all along her outer edges, and just

the size she is. Lastly, all the fires of heaven that you The stars
may be

. eae . slightly

so long as their twinkling light is clear, so long as their smaller or

larger than

. ᾿ we sce

some very small degree from time to time to greater OF them.

less, the further they are away: so we may know that
the heavenly fires can only be a very minute degree
smaller or larger by a little tiny piece.

see from earth ; inasmuch as all fires that we see on earth

blaze is perceived, are seen to change their size only in

206 Book V, ll. 392-623

The great This, too, is not wonderful,2 how the sun, small as it is,
an ΠΝ can send out so great light, to fill seas and all] lands and
small sun sky with its flood, and to bathe all things in its warm heat.
may "For it may be that from this spot the one well of light
(a) because for the whole world is opened up and teems with boun-
" Ἢ ee teous stream, and shoots out its rays, because the particles
head of all of heat from all the world gather together on every side,
ies and their meeting mass flows together in such wise, that
here from a single fountain-head their blazing light
streams forth. Do you not see too how widely a tiny
spring of water sometimes moistens the fields, and floods
(b) because OUt over the plains? Or again, it may be that from the
Sani sun’s fire, though it be not great, blazing light seizes on
rounding the air with its burning heat, if by chance there is air
as ready to hand and rightly suited to be kindled when
smitten by tiny rays of heat; even as sometimes we see
crops or straw caught in widespread fire from one single
(c) because spark. Perhaps, too, the sun, shining on high with its
ee rosy torch, has at his command much fire with hidden
heat all heat all around him, fire which is never marked by any
around it radiance, so that it is only laden with heat and increases
the stroke of the sun’s rays.

The orbits Nor is there any single and straightforward account 3
of sun,

moon, and ; ᾿ ;
stars may near the winter turning-point of Capricorn, and how turn-

be caused ing back thence, he betakes himself to the solstice-goal of
Cancer ; and how the moon is seen in single months to
traverse that course, on which the sun spends the period
(«) ae of a yearasheruns. There is not, I say, any single cause
a heavenly assigned for these things. For, first and foremost, it is
body is to Clear that it may come to pass, as the judgement of the

earth, the é
more slowly holy man, Democritus, sets before us, that the nearer the

of the sun, to show how from the summer regions he draws

Book V, ll. 623-655 207

several stars are to earth, the less can they be borne on is it moved

: : : : t
with the whirl of heaven. For its swift keen strength lee
passes away and is lessened beneath, and so little by little heaven,

: : : . : The sun
the sun is left behind with the hindmost signs, because |, oo.
it is much lower than the burning signs. And even more less swiftly
the moon: the lower her course, the further it 1s from the pee τ
sky and nearer to earth, the less can she strain on her course moon than
level with the signs. Moreover the weaker the whirl (6 ὑπ,

. : a ; Therefore
with which she is borne along, being lower than the sun, the moon
the more do all the signs catch her up all around and pass “°° τ
her. Therefore, it comes to pass that she seems to turn quickest in
back more speedily to each several sign, because the signs pet
come back to her. It may be too that from quarters of (δ) because
the world athwart his path two airs may stream alter- ‘ete ἅτε

transverse

nately, each at a fixed season, one such as to push the sun currents
away from the summer signs right to the winter turning- “hich blow

ἐν ᾿ the sun
places and their icy frost, and the other to hurl him back from one
from the icy shades of cold right to the heat-laden quarters OPI 10

; ᾿ ee: the other:
and the burning signs. And in like manner must we and so

think that the moon and those stars which roll through 2 ae a
the great years in great orbits, can be moved by airs

from the opposite quarters in turn. Do you not see

how by contrary winds the lower clouds too are moved

in directions contrary to those above? Why should

those stars be less able to be borne on by currents con-

trary one to the other through the great orbits in the

heaven?

But night shrouds the earth in thick darkness, either Nicht
when after his long journey the sun has trodden the ἴδ ma
farthest parts of heaven, and fainting has breathed out G ἘΞΣΣ
his fires shaken by the journey and made weak by much the sun's

: ‘ Σ ‘ light is ex-
air, or because the same force, which carried on his orb tinguished

or (δ)
because he
travels under
the earth.
Dawn is
caused
either

(a) because
the return-
ing sun
sends his
rays in
advance

or (δ)
because the
fires which
compose
the new sun
gradually
collect.
Such regular
recurrence
is not
wonderful.
It has many
parallels in
nature,

Where
causes are
original,
effects come
in due
sequence,
The dis-
proportion
of night
and day,
except at
the equinox,
τᾶν be
caused
either

(a) because

208 Book V, Ul. 654-686

above the earth, constrains him to turn his course back
beneath the earth.

Likewise ata fixed time Matuta® sends abroad the rosy
dawn through the coasts of heaven, and spreads the light,
either because the same sun, returning again beneath the
earth, seizes the sky in advance with his rays, fain to
kindle it, or because the fires come together and many
seeds of heat are wont to stream together at a fixed time,
which each day cause the light of a new sun to come
to birth. Even sostory tells that from the high mountains
of Ida scattered fires are seen as the light rises, and then
they gather as if into a single ball, and make up the orb.
Nor again ought this to be cause of wonder herein, that
these seeds of fire can stream together at so fixed a time
and renew the brightness of the sun. For we see many
events, which come to pass at a fixed time in ail things.
Trees blossom at a fixed time, and at a fixed time lose
their flower. Even so at a fixed time age bids the teeth
fall, and the hairless youth grow hairy with soft down
and let a soft beard flow alike from either cheek. Lastly,
thunder, snow, rains, clouds, winds come to pass at sea-
sons of the year more or less fixed. For since the first-
beginnings of causes were ever thus and things have so
fallen out from the first outset of the world, one after the
other they come round even now in fixed order.

And likewise it may be that days grow longer and nights
wane, and again daylight grows less, when nights take
increase; either because the same sun," as he fulfils his
course in unequal arcs below the earth and above, parts
the coasts of heaven, and divides his circuit into unequal
portions ; and whatever he has taken away from the one
part, so much the more he replaces, as he goes round, in

Book V, ll. 686-714 209

the part opposite it, until he arrives at that sign in the at that
sky, where the node of the year makes the shades of night "™° pS

j arcs of day
equal to the daylight. For in the mid-course of the blast and night
of the north wind and of the south wind, the sky holds aes
his turning-points apart at a distance then made equal, divides
his daily
; j τ revolution
which the sun covers the space of a year in his winding are neces-
sarily equa-

lized ;

on account of the position of the whole starry orbit, in

course, as he lights earth and heaven with his slanting
rays : as is shown by the plans of those who have marked
out all the quarters of the sky, adorned with their signs
in due order. Or else, because™ the air is thicker in or (δ)
certain regions, and therefore the trembling ray of his ἀν
fire is delayed beneath the earth, nor can it easily pierce seasons, the
through and burst out to its rising. Therefore in winter sae aoe
time the long nights lag on, until the radiant ensign of dense air;

day comes forth. Or else again, because in the same way οἵ ©
because his

in alternate parts of the year the fires, which cause the fires gather
together

ὃ more
now more slowly, now more quickly, therefore it is that slowly.

sun to rise from a fixed quarter, are wont to stream together

those seem to speak the truth (who say that a new sun
is born every day).}
The moon may shine ® when struck by the sun’s rays, The phases

and day by day turn that light more straightly to our ce

sight, the more she retires from the sun’s orb, until be caused,

opposite him she has glowed with quite full light and, ὑπ τς

as she rises, towering on high, has seen his setting ; then shines by

little by little she must needs retire back again, and, as ΠΣ

it were, hide her light, the nearer she glides now to the her gradual

sun’s fire from the opposite quarter through the orbit of movement
to and from

the signs ; as those have it, who picture that the moon is a position
like a ball, and keeps to the path of her course below the eee
3 A line is lost, of which this was possibly the sense.
646-15 ὃ

(δ) If she
shines by
her owu
light ;

1. by
another
opaque
body which
accom-
panies and
hides her ;
2. because
she has
one light
side, which
she turns
towards us
and away
again.

(ΟἿ
fresh moon
is created
daily, by a
regular
succession
of forms,
like the
succession
of the
seasons.

210 Book V, Ul. 714-745

sun. ‘There is also a way by which she can roll on with
her own light, and yet show changing phases of brightness.
For there may be another body, which is borne on and
glides together with her, in every way obstructing and
obscuring her; yet it cannot be seen, because it is borne
on without light. Or she may turn round, just like, if it
so chance, the sphere of a ball, tinged over half its surface
with gleaming light, and so by turning round the sphere
produce changing phases, until she turns to our sight and
open eyes that side, whichever it be, that is endowed
with fires; and then little by little she twists back again
and carries away from us the light-giving part of the
round mass of the ball; as the Babylonian teaching of
the Chaldaeans, denying the science of the astronomers,
essays tO prove in opposition ; just as if what each of
them fights for may not be the truth, or there were any
cause why you should venture to adopt the one less than
the other. Or again, why a fresh moon could not be
created every day with fixed succession of phases and
fixed shapes, so that each several day the moon created
would pass away, and another be supplied in its room
and place, it 1s difficult to teach by reasoning or prove
by words, since so many things can be created in fixed
order. Spring goes on her way ® and Venus, and before
them treads Venus’s winged harbinger; and following
close on the steps of Zephyrus, mother Flora strews and
fills all the way before them with glorious colours and
scents. Next after follows parching heat, and as com-
panion at her side dusty Ceres and the etesian blasts of
the north winds. Then autumn advances, and step by
step with her Euhius Euan. Then follow the other
seasons and their winds, Volturnus, thundering on high,

Book V, Ul. 745-775 211

and the south wind, whose strength is the lightning. Last
of all the year’s end brings snow, and winter renews
numbing frost; it is followed by cold, with chattering
teeth. Wherefore it is less wonderful if the moon is born
at a fixed time, and again at a fixed time is blotted out,
since so many things can come to pass at fixed times.
Likewise also the eclipses of the sun® and the hidings Eclipses of
- the sun
of the moon, you must think may be brought about by ay pe
several causes. For why should the moon be able to caused
shut out the earth from the sun’s light, and thrust her Pe τῆς
head high before him in the line of earth, throwing her (6) by some
dark orb before his glorious rays; and at the same time coe
it should not be thought that another body could do this, body ;
which glides on ever without light. And besides, why (6) wen
; / he passes
should not the sun be able at a fixed time to faint and through
regions
3 ; which
journey through the air, he has passed by places hostile choke his
to his flames, which cause his fires to be put out and perish? (8°
: Eclipses of
And why should the earth be able in turn to rob the the moon
moon of light, and herself on high to keep the sun hidden pa
beneath, while the moon in her monthly journey glides (a) when
through the sharp-drawn shadows of the cone; and at ee a
᾿ etween
the same time another body be unable to run beneath sun and
the moon or glide above the sun’s orb, to break off his 70°"?
᾿ } ; ; (δ) and (c)
rays and streaming light? And indeed, if the moon as in the
shines with her own light, why should she not be able “τὸς ohne
to grow faint in a certain region of the world, while she

passes out through spots unfriendly to her own light? _.

For the rest, since I have unfolded in what manner each D. We

: ὲ τ must return
thing could take place throughout the blue vault of the. τὰς a
great world, so that we might learn what force and what days of
cause started the diverse courses of the sun, and the ek

ΟΖ

lose his fires, and again renew his light, when, in his

The earth
brought
forth first
vegetable
life,

then
living
creatures :

first birds,

springing
from eggs ;

then
animals,

21 Book V, Wl. 774-806

journeyings of the moon, and in what way they might go
hiding with their light obscured, and shroud the unexpect-
ing earth in darkness, when, as it were, they wink and once
again open their eye and look upon all places shining with
their clear rays ; now I return to the youth of the world,
and the soft fields of earth, and what first with new power
of creation they resolved to raise into the coasts of light
and entrust to the gusty winds.

First of all the earth gave birth to the tribes of herbage
and bright verdure all around the hills and over all the
plains, the flowering fields gleamed in their green hue,
and thereafter the diverse trees were started with loose
rein on their great race of growing through the air. Even
as down and hair and bristles are first tormed on the limbs
of four-footed beasts and the body of fowls strong of
wing, so then the newborn earth raised up herbage and
shrubs first, and thereafter produced the races of mortal
things, many races born in many ways by diverse means.
For neither can living animals have fallen from the sky nor
the beasts of earth have issued forth from the salt pools.
It remains that rightly has the earth won the name of
mother, since out of earth all things are produced. And
even now many animals spring forth from the earth,
formed by the rains and the warm heat of the sun ; where-
fore we may wonder the less, if then more animals and
greater were born, reaching their full growth when earth
and air were fresh. First of all the tribe of winged fowls
and the diverse birds left their eggs, hatched out in the
spring season, as now in the summer the grasshoppers of
their own will leave their smooth shells, seeking life and
livelihood. ‘Then it was that the earth first gave birth to
the race of mortal things. For much heat and moisture

Book V, Ul. 806-836

abounded then in the fields; thereby, wherever a suit-
able spot or place was afforded, there grew up wombs,®
clinging to the earth by their roots; and when in the
fullness of time the age of the little ones, fleeing moisture
and eager for air, had opened them, nature would turn
to that place the pores in the earth and constrain them to

213

give forth from their opened veins asap, most like to milk;
even as now every woman, when she has brought forth,
is filled with sweet milk, because all the current of her
nourishment is turned towards her paps. ‘The earth fur-
nished food for the young, the warmth raiment, the grass
a couch rich in much soft down. But the youth of the
world called not into being hard frosts nor exceeding heat
nor winds of mighty violence: for all things grow and
come to their strength in like degrees.

Wherefore, again and again, rightly has the earth won,

rightly does she keep the name of mother, since she her-

self formed the race of men, and almost at a fixed time
brought forth every animal which ranges madly every-
where on the mighty mountains, and with them the fowls
of the air with their diverse forms. But because she must
needs come to some end of child-bearing, she ceased, like
a woman worn with the lapse of age. For time changes
the nature of the whole world, and one state after another
must needs overtake all things, nor does anything abide
like itself : all things change their abode, nature alters all
things and constrains them to turn. For one thing rots
away and grows faint and feeble with age, thereon another
grows up and issues from its place ofscorn. So then time
changes the nature of the whole world, and one state after
another overtakes the earth, so that it cannot bear what
it did, but can bear what it did not of old.

springing
from
wombs
rooted in
the earth.

Nature fed
and clothed
them:

nor was
there
excessive
cold, heat,
or wind.

Earth was
thus the

mother of
all things ;

but in time
she ceased
to bear

in accord-
ance

with the
universal
law of
change and
succession,

Nature first

created
sany

deformities,

but they
rould not
survive or
propagate
their kind,

Many races
perished
which could
not protect
themselves

or claim
man’s
protection
as a return
for their
services.

214 Book V, Wl. 837-867

And many monsters too earth ® then essayed to create,
born with strange faces and strange limbs, the man-
woman, between the two, yet not either, sundered from
both sexes, some things bereft of feet, or in turn robbed
of hands, things too found dumb without mouths, or
blind without eyes, or locked through the whole body
by the clinging of the limbs, so that they could not do
anything or move towards any side or avoid calamity or
take what they needed. All other monsters and prodigies
of this sort she would create; all in vain, since nature
forbade their increase, nor could they reach the coveted
bloom of age nor find food nor join in the work of Venus.
For we see that many happenings must be united for
things, that they may be able to beget and propagate
their races ; first that they may have food, and then a way
whereby birth-giving seeds may pass through their
frames, and issue from their slackened limbs; and that
woman may be joined with man, they must needs each
have means whereby they can interchange mutual Joys.

And it must needs be that many races of living things
then perished and could not beget and propagate their
offspring. For whatever animals you see feeding on the
breath of life, either their craft or bravery, aye or their
swiftness has protected and preserved their kind from the
beginning of their being. And many there are, which
by their usefulness are commended to us, and so abide,
trusted to our tutelage. First of all the fierce race of
lions, that savage stock, their bravery has protected, foxes
their cunning, and deer their fleet foot. But the lightly-
sleeping minds of dogs with their loyal heart, and all the
race which is born of the seed of beasts of burden, and
withal the fleecy flocks and the horned herds, are all trusted

Book V, Ul. 867-896 aT

to the tutelage of men, Memmius. For eagerly did they
flee the wild beasts and ensue peace and bounteous fodder
gained without toil of theirs, which we grant them as
a reward because of their usefulness. But those to whom
nature granted none of these things, neither that they
might live on by themselves of their own might, nor do
us any useful service, for which we might suffer their kind
to feed and be kept safe under our defence, you may know
that these fell a prey and spoil to others, all entangled in
the fateful trammels of their own being, until nature
brought their kind to destruction.

But neither were there Centaurs,® nor at any time can Monsters
there be animals of twofold nature and double body, put oa ‘haan
together of limbs of alien birth, so that the power and animals of
strength of each,! derived from this parent and that, could ee
be equal. That we may learn, however dull be our nevercould
understanding, from this. First of all, when three years Πᾶνε

existed, for
have come round, the horse is in the prime of vigour, the growths
but the child by no means so; for often even now in his meee
sleep he will clutch for the milky paps of his mother’s animals are
breasts. Afterwards, when the stout strength and limbs "°t parallel,
of horses fail through old age and droop, as life flees from
them, then at last youth sets in in the prime of boyish
years, and clothes the cheeks with soft down; that
you may not by chance believe that Centaurs can be
created or exist, formed of a man and the load-laden
breed of horses, or Scyllas either, with bodies half of sea-
monsters, girt about with ravening dogs, or any other
beasts of their kind, whose limbs we see cannot agree one
with another ; for they neither reach their prime together
nor gain the full strength of their bodies nor let it fall

2 The text is uncertain, but this must have been the general sense.

216 Book Vy ll. 896-925

nor their away in old age, nor are they fired with a like love, nor do
tastes and

. - Oo ΗΝ Ξ oO fe .
habits alike, THEY agree in ἃ single character, nor are the same things

pleasant to them throughout their frame. Indeed, we
may see the bearded goats often grow fat on hemlock,
which to man is rank poison. Since moreover flame is
wont to scorch and burn the tawny bodies of lions just
as much as every kind of flesh and blood that exists on
the earth, how could it have come to pass that the Chi-
maera, one in her threefold body, in front a lion, in the
rear a dragon, in the middle, as her name shows, a goat,
should breathe out at her mouth fierce flame from her
The notion body? Wherefore again, he who feigns that when the
oie earth was young and the sky new-born, such animals could

youth of ὲ ; : τι;
the world have been begotten, trusting only in this one empty plea

has led ; : i en
any of the world’s youth, may blurt out many things in like
similar manner from his lips; he may say that then streams of

absurdities. 5414 flowed everywhere over the lands, and that trees

were wont to blossom with jewels, or that a man was born
with such expanse of limbs, that he could plant his foot-
steps right across the deep seas, and with his hands twist
Such com- the whole sky about him. For because there were in

binations the earth many seeds of things at the time when first the
were no : . i
more land brought forth animals, yet that is no proof that
possible "beasts of mingled breed could have been born, or the
then τη4 ΤῊΝ ;

now. limbs of living creatures put together in one; because

the races of herbage and the crops and fruitful trees,
which even now spring forth abundantly from the earth,
yet cannot be created intertwined one with another, but
each of these things comes forth after its own manner,
and all preserve their separate marks by a fixed law of
“nature.

ὧι But the race of man® was much hardier then in the

Book V, Ul. 925-956 7.17

fields, as was seemly for a race born οἱ the hard earth : Primitive

it was built up on larger and more solid bones within, ἐπ νης
fastened with strong sinews traversing the flesh; not hardy

Ὁ easily to be harmed by heat or cold or strange food or “=>
any taint of the body. And during many lustres of the

sun rolling through the sky they prolonged their lives and long-
after the roving manner of wild beasts. Nor was there sais ‘1
any sturdy steerer of the bent plough, nor knew any one not till,
how to work the fields with iron, or to plant young shoots

in the earth, or cut down the old branches off high trees

with knives. What sun and rains had brought 1 to Ὁ birth, but lived
to appease their hearts. Among oaks Loma with acorns the trees,
they would refresh their bodies for the most part; and

the arbute-berries, which now you see ripening in winter-

time with scarlet hue, the earth bore then in abundance,

yea and larger. And besides these the flowering youth

of the world then bare much other rough sustenance,

enough and to spare for miserable mortals. But to slake and drank
their thirst streams and springs summoned them, even pan,
as now the downrush of water from the great mountains

calls clear far and wide to the thirsting tribes of wild

beasts. Or again they dwelt in the woodland haunts

of the nymphs, which they had learnt in their wander-

ings, from which they knew that gliding streams of water

washed the wet rocks with bounteous flood, yea washed

the wet rocks, as they dripped down over the green moss,

and here and there welled up and burst forth over the

level plain. Nor as yet did they know how to serve their He had no
purposes with fire, nor to use skins and clothe their body “thing

or house
in the spoils of wild beasts, but dwelt in woods and the but Ἰγεα τὰ

caves and
forests.

There was
no common
life,

and love
was pro-
miscuous,

Some beasts
he hunted,
some he
avoided.

At night
he lay on
the ground,

and did
not fear the
darkness

so much as
the attacks
of wild
beasts.

218 Book V, Ul. os56-98s

caves on mountains and forests, and amid brushwood
would hide their rough limbs, when constrained to shun
the shock of winds and the rain-showers. Nor could
they look to the common weal, nor had they knowledge
to make mutual use of any customs or laws. Whatever
booty chance had offered to each, he bore it off; for
each was taught at his own will to live and thrive for
himself alone. And Venus would unite lovers in the
woods ; for each woman was wooed either by mutual
passion, or by the man’s fierce force and reckless lust, or
by a price, acorns and arbute-berries or choice pears.
And trusting in their strange strength of hand and foot
they would hunt the woodland tribes of wild beasts with
stones to hurl or clubs of huge weight ; many they would
vanquish, a few they would avoid in hiding; and like
bristly boars these woodland men would lay their limbs
naked on the ground, when overtaken by night time,
wrapping themselves up around with leaves and foliage.
Nor did they look for daylight and the sun with loud
wailing, wandering fearful through the fields in the dark-
ness of night, but silent and buried in sleep waited mind-
ful, until the sun with rosy torch should bring the light
into the sky. For, because they had been wont ever
from childhood to behold darkness and light begotten,
turn by turn, it could not come to pass that they should
ever wonder, or feel mistrust lest the light of the sun
should be withdrawn for ever, and never-ending night
possess the earth. But much greater was another care,
inasmuch as the tribes of wild beasts often made rest
dangerous for wretched men. Driven from their home
they would flee from their rocky roof at the coming of a
foaming boar or a mighty lion, and in the dead of night in

Book V, il. 986-1015 219

terror they would yield their couches spread with leaves
to their cruel guests.

Nor then much more than now would the races of Then more
For ™e" fell

a prey to
then more often would some one of them be caught and wild beasts

furnish living food to the wild beasts, devoured by their ΠἸΠΊΝΑΘΙ;
teeth, and would fill woods and mountains and forests
with his groaning, as he looked on his living flesh being
buried in a living tomb. And those whom flight had
saved with mangled body, thereafter, holding trembling
hands over their noisome sores, would summon Orcus

men leave the sweet light of life with lamentation.

with terrible cries, until savage griping pains had robbed

them of life, all helpless and knowing not what wounds

wanted. Yet never were many thousands of men led but thou-
beneath the standards and done to death in a single day, me
nor did the stormy waters of ocean dash ships and men in battle,
upon the rocks. Then rashly, idly, in vain would the sea nor
often arise and rage, and lightly lay aside its empty Sars
threatenings, nor could the treacherous wiles of the wind-

less waves lure any man to destruction with smiling

waters; then the wanton art of sailing lay as yet un-

known. Then, too, want of food would give over their They died
of hunger,
: f : Not surteit ;
surfeit of good things brings them low. They all un- they

drooping limbs to death, now on the other hand ’tis

witting would often pour out poison for themselves, now P!soned
.- : ae themselves,
with more skill they give it to others. πον Εἰ ΕΙΣ

Then after they got themselves huts and skins and fire, E. Begin-
and woman yoked with man retired to a single (home, "8%.

; civilization,

and the laws of marriage) 1 were learnt, and they saw Fire, cloth-
children sprung from them, then first the race of man "8 "4

shelter
began to soften. For fire brought it about that their led to

1 A line is lost, of which this was probably the sense, home life,

and friend-
ship with
neighbours.

Compacts
were for
the most
part ob-
served,

Origin of
language,
Words
grew up
naturally by
experiment,
just as
children
and animals
try their
various
powers,

Language
cannot
have been
deliberately
invented by
any man,
Why
should one

26516) Book V, Ul. 1015-1046

chilly limbs could not now so well bear cold under the
roof of heaven, and Venus lessened their strength, and
children, by their winning ways, easily broke down the
haughty will of their parents. Then, too, neighbours
began eagerly to form friendship one with another, not
to hurt or be harmed,® and they commended to mercy
children and the race of women, when with cries and
gestures they taught by broken words that ’tis right for
all men to have pity on the weak. Yet not in all ways
could unity be begotten, but αἱ good part, the larger part,
ly; or else the human
all destroyed, nor could

would keep their compa
race would even then ha
breeding have prolonged th®®énerations until now.

But the diverse sounds of the tongue” nature con-
strained men to utter, and use shaped the names of
things, in a manner not far other than the very speech-
lessness of their tongue is scen to lead children on to
gesture, when it makes them point out with the finger
the things that are before their eyes. For every one feels
to what purpose he can use his own powers. Before the
horns of a calf appear and sprout from his forehead, he
butts with them when angry, and pushes passion ys V
But the whelps of panthers and lion-cubs already fight
with claws and feet and biting, when their teeth and
claws are scarce yet formed. Further, we see all the
tribe of winged fowls trusting to their wings, and secking
an unsteady aid from their pinions. Again, to think that
any one then parcelled out names to things, and that from
him men learnt their first words, is mere folly. For why
should he be able to mark off all things by words, and to
utter the diverse sounds of the tongue, and at the same
time others be thought unable to do this? Moreover, if

Bock Vy, ll. 1046-1077 21

others too had not used words to one another, whence man be

: an - & able to do
was implanted in him the concept of their use ; whence ἝΞ.
was he given the first power to know and see in his mind others?
what he wanted to do? Likewise one man could not agin αν
avail to constrain many, and vanquish them to his will, the con-

ception of

that they should be willing to learn all his names for eguane?
things; nor indeed is it easy in any way to teach and or make
persuade the deaf what it is needful to do; Jfor they se ie?
would not endure it, nor in any way suffer the sounds of

words unheard before to batter on their ears any more to

no purpose. Lastly, what is there so marvellous in this, It is not
if the human race, with strong voice and tongue, should sia
mark off things with diverse sounds for diverse feelings? evolved
When the dumb cattle, yea and the races of wild beasts rnguass,
are wont to give forth diverse unlike sounds, when they animals
are in fear or pain, or again when their joys grow strong. ie
Yea™@prily, this we may learn from things clear to see. feelings
When the large loose lips of Molossian dogs start to snarl by different
in anger, baring their hard teeth, thus drawn back in cpa
rage, they threaten with a noise far other than when they 498,
bark and fill all around with their clamour. Yet when

they essay fondly to lick their cubs with their tongue, or

when they toss them with their feet, and making for them

with open mouth, feign gently to swallow them, checking

their closing teeth, they fondle them with growling voice

in a way far other than when left alone in the house they

bay, or when whining they shrink from a beating with
cringing body. Again, is not neighing seen to differ the horse,
likewise, when a young stallion in the flower of his years

rages among the mares, pricked by the spur of winged

love, and from spreading nostrils snorts for the fray,

and when, it may be, at other times he whinnies with

and even
birds,

222 Book V, Ul. 1077-1107

trembling limbs? Lastly, the tribe of winged fowls and the
diverse birds, hawks and ospreys and gulls amid the sea-
waves, seeking in the salt waters for life and livelihood,

utter at other times cries far other than when they are

Lightning
brought
men fires

or else the
ignition
of trees by
friction,

ugeling for their food and fighting for their prey.
And some of them change their harsh notes with the
weather, as the long-lived tribes of crows and flocks of
rooks, when they are said to cry for water and rains, and
anon to summon the winds and breezes. And so, if
diverse feelings constrain animals, though they are dumb,
to utter diverse sounds, how much more likely is it that
mortals should then have been able to mark off things
unlike with one sound and another.

1 Herein, lest by chance you should ask a silent question,
it was the lightning that first of all brought fire to earth
for mortals, and from it all the heat of flames is spread
abroad. For we see many things flare up, kindled with
flames from heaven, when a stroke from the sky has
brought the gift of heat. Yet again, when a branching
tree is lashed by the winds and sways to and fro, reeling
and pressing on the branches of another tree, fire is struck
out by the strong force of the rubbing, anon the fiery heat
of flame sparkles out, while branches and trunks rub each
against the other. Either of these happenings may have

The action given fire to mortals. And then the sun taught them to

of the
sun’s rays
taught
them
cooking.

cook food and soften it by the heat of flame, since they
saw many things among the fields grow mellow, van-
quished by the lashing of his rays and by the heat.
And day by day those who excelled in understanding
1 This and the next two paragraphs seem rather out of place here:

possibly they shonld be placed before the preceding paragraph, or else
they may be a later addition by the poet.

Book V, Ul. t10s-1135 223

and were strong in mind showed them more and more Thencame
how to change their former life and livelihood for new * cel ho
habits and for fire. Kings began to build cities and to Kings built
found a citadel, to be for themselves a stronghold and “"*
a refuge; and they parcelled out and gave flocks and andassigned
fields to each man for his beauty or his strength or under- reas
standing ; for beauty was then of much avail, and strength personal

: : merit.
stood nee. Thereafter property was invented and gold wo came
found, which easily robbed the strong and beautiful of the dis-
covery of
; ; gold, which
born, however beautiful their body, they follow the lead altered
everything.

honour ; for, for the most part, however strong men are

of the richer man. Yet if a man would steer his life by
true reasoning, it is great riches to a man to live thriftily
with calm mind ; for never can he lack for a little. But It prompts
men wished to be famous and powerful, that their fortune we
might rest on a sure foundation, and they might in wealth |

lead a peaceful life; all in vain, since struggling to rise

to the heights of honour, they made the path of their which goes
journey beset with danger, and yet from the top, like ee
lightning, envy smites them and casts them down anon

in scorn to a noisome Hell ; since by envy, as by lightning,

the topmost heights are most often set ablaze, and all

places that rise high above others; so that it is far better

to obey in peace than to long to rule the world with

kingly power and to sway kingdoms. Wherefore let them Such ἃ life
sweat out their life-blood, worn away to no purpose, a tera
battling their-way along the narrow path of ambition ;
inasmuch as their wisdom is but from the lips of others,

and they seek things rather through hearsay than from

their own feelings, and that is of no more avail now nor

shall be hereafter than it was of old.

Monarchy
was over-
thrown,

and anarchy
prevailed :

then magis-
trates and
laws were
made,

and crime
restrained
by punish-

ment,

Thence
arose the
fear of
punish-

ment,

which
makes a
quiet life
impossible,
Ce ell

Origin of
the belief
in the gods.

224 Book Vy ll. 1136-1165

And so the kings were put to death and the ancient
majesty of thrones and proud sceptres was overthrown
and lay in ruins, and the glorious emblem on the head of
kings was stained with blood, and beneath the feet of the
mob mourned the loss of its high honour; for once
dreaded overmuch, eagerly now it is trampled. And so
things would pass to the utmost dregs of disorder, when
every man sought for himself the power and the head-
ship. ‘Then some of them taught men to appoint magis-
trates and establish laws that they might consent to obey
ordinances. for the race of men, worn out with leading
a life of violence, lay faint from its feuds; wherefore the
more easily of its own will it gave in to ordinances and
the close mesh of laws. For since each man set out to
avenge himself more fiercely in his passion than is now
suffered by equal laws, for this cause men were weary of
leading a life of violence. Thence fear of punishment
taints the prizes of life. For violence and hurt tangle
every man in their toils, and for the most part fall on
the head of him, from whom they had their rise, nor is it
easy for one who by his act breaks the common pact of
peace to lead a calm and quiet life. For though he be
unnoticed of the race of gods and men, yet he must needs
mistrust that his secret will be kept for ever ; nay indeed,
many by speaking in their sleep or raving in fever have
often, so 5 said, betrayed themselves, and brought tu
light misdeeds long hidden.

“Next, what cause spread abroad the divine powers of
the gods among great nations, and filled cities with altars,
and taught men to undertake sacred rites at yearly.fes-
tivals, rites which are honoured to-day in great empires
and at great places ; whence even now there is implanted

Book Κ΄, ll. 1165-1196 225

in mortals a shuddering dread, which raises new shrines
of the gods over all the world, and constrains men to
throng them on the holy days; of all this it is not hard
to give account in words. For indeed already the races 1. Men
of mortals” used to perceive the glorious shapes of the gods ieee ge
with waking mind, and all the more in sleep with won- and beauti-
drous bulk of body. To these then they would assign Hs ai
sense because they were seen to move their limbs, and to believed
utter haughty sounds befitting their noble mien and hes ὙΠ
ample strength. And they gave them everlasting life to be
because their images came in constant stream and the 'mmortal,
form remained unchanged,/and indeed above all because
they thought that those endowed with such strength
could not readily be vanquished by any force. They and to be
thought that they far excelled in happiness, because the ΡΥ:
fear of death never harassed any of them, and at the same
time because in sleep they saw them accomplish many
marvels, yet themselves not undergo any toil. Moreover, 2. They
they beheld the workings of the sky in due order, and the ee 4
diverse seasons of the year come round, nor could they celestial
learn by what causes that was brought about. And so Pees
they made it their refuge to lay all to the charge of the buted them
gods, and to suppose that all was guided by their will. ee
And they placed the abodes and quarters of the gods in the whom they
sky, because through the sky night and the moon are seen ΡΟΝ τὰ ne
to roll on their way, moon, day and night, and the stern the sky.
signs of night, and the torches of heaven that rove through
the night, and the flying flames, clouds, sunlight, rain,
snow, winds, lightning, hail, and the rapid roar and
mighty murmurings of heaven’s threats.

Ah! unhappy race of men, when it has assigned such What
acts to the gods and joined therewith bitter anger! what” 7 ae

546.15 Ῥ

belief
causes.
True piety
consists not
in worship,
but the
peaceful
mind,

Yet the
wonders of
heaven
may well
wake a
belief in
divine
power.

So too
may a
tnunder-
s.Orm,

or a storm
at sea,

226 Book V, ll. 1196-1227

groaning did they then beget for themselves, what sores
for us, what tears for our children to come! Nor is it
piety at all to be seen often with veiled head turning
towards a stone,® and to draw near to every altar, no, nor
to lie prostrate on the ground with outstretched palms
before the shrines of the gods, nor to sprinkle the altars
with the streaming blood of beasts, nor to link vow to
vow, but rather to be able to contemplate all things with
a mind at rest. For indeed when we look up at the
heavenly quarters of the great world, and the firm-set ether
above the twinkling stars, and it comes to our mind to
think of the journeyings of sun and moon, then into our
hearts weighed down with other ills, this misgiving too
begins to raise up its wakened head, that there may be
perchance some immeasurable power of the gods over us,
which whirls on the bright stars in their diverse motions.
For lack of reasoning assails our mind with doubt, whether
there was any creation and beginning of the world, and
again whether there is an end, until which the walls of
the world may be able to endure this weariness of restless
motion, or whether gifted by the gods’ will with an ever-
lasting being they may be able to glide on down the ever-
lasting groove of time, and Sgt at naught the mighty
strength of measurcless time.'; Moreover, whose heart
does not shrink with terror of the gods, whose limbs do
not crouch in fear, when the parched earth trembles
beneath the awful stroke of lightning and rumblings run
across the great sky? Do not the peoples and nations
tremble, and proud kings shrink in every limb, thrilled
with the fear of the gods, lest for some foul crime or
haughty word the heavy time of retribution be ripe? Or
again, when the fiercest force of furious wind at sea sweeps

Book V, Ul. 1227-1257 227

the commander of a fleet over the waters with his strong
legions and his elephants, all in like case, does he not seek
with vows the peace of the gods, and fearfully crave in
prayer a calm from wind and favouring breezes ; all in
vain, since often when caught in the headstrong hurricane
he is borne for all his prayers to the shallow waters οὗ
death? So greatly does some secret force grind beneath
its heel the greatness of men, and it is seen to tread down
and make sport for itself of the glorious rods and relent-
less axes." Again, when the whole earth rocks beneath or an
men’s feet, and citics are shaken to their fall or threaten eae
doubtful of their doom, what wonder if the races of
mortal men despise themselves and leave room in the
world for the mighty power and marvellous strength of
the gods, to guide all things?
For the rest, copper and gold and iron were discovered, Metals were
and with them the weight of silver and the usefulness of eee bY

te great
lead, when a fire had burnt down vast forests with its forest fire,

however

heat on mighty mountains, either when heaven’s light- ee

ning was hurled upon it, or because waging a forest-war

with one another men had carried fire among the foe to

rouse panic, or else because allured by the richness of the

Jand they desired to clear the fat fields, and make the
countryside into pasture, or else to put the wild beasts

to death, and enrich themselves with prey. Tor hunting

with pit and fire arose first before fencing the grove with

nets and scaring the beasts with dogs. However that

may be, for whatever cause the flaming heat had eaten

up the forests from their deep roots with terrible crackling,

and had baked the earth with fire, the streams of silver and

gold, and likewise of copper and lead, gathered together cc a
and trickled from the boiling veins into hollow places in cooled on

P 2

the ground
suggested
the working
of metals
with fire,

and the
forging of
weapons
and instru-
ments.

Gold was
then de-
spised and
copper valu-
able: now
this is
reversed,

The uses of
iron and
bronze
were then
discovered.

Bronze was
used first,

228 Book ον

the ground. And when they saw them afterwards
hardened and shining on the ground with brilliant hue,
they picked them up, charmed by their smooth bright
beauty, and saw that they were shaped with outline like
that of the several prints of the holiows. Then it came
home to them that these metals might be melted by heat,
and would run into the form and figure of anything, and
indeed might be hammered out and shaped into points
and tips, however sharp and fine, so that they might
fashion weapons for themselves, and be able to cut down
forests and hew timber and plane beams smooth, yea, and
to bore and punch and drill holes. And, first of all, they
set forth to do this no less with silver and gold than with
the resistless strength of stout copper; all in vain, since
their power was vanquished and yielded, nor could they
like the others endure the cruel strain. For copper
was of more value, and gold was despised for its uscless-
ness, sosoon blunted with its dull edge. Now copper is
despised, gold has risen to the height of μοῖς ἔν
rolling time changes the seasons of things.) Whee was of
value, becomes in turn of no worth; and then another
thing rises up and leaves its place of scorn, and is sought
more and more each day, and when found blossoms into
fame, and is of wondrous honour among men.

Now, in what manner the nature of iron was found, it
is easy for you to learn of yourself, Memmius. Their
arms of old were hands, nails, and teeth, and stones, and
likewise branches torn from the forests, and flame and fires,
when once they were known. ‘Thereafter the strength of
iron and bronze was discovered. And the use of bronze
was learnt before that of iron, inasmuch as its nature 1s
more tractable, and it is found in greater stores. With

Book V, Ul. 1289-1320 229

bronze they would work the soil of the earth, and with
bronze mingle in billowy warfare, and deal wasting wounds i,
and seize upon flocks and fields. For all things naked
and unarmed would readily give in to them equipped
with arms. Then, little by little, the iron sword made and then
its way,/and the form of the bronze sickle 2 was made ee oy
a thing of scorn, and with iron they began to plough up
the soil of earth ; and the contests of war, now hovering
in doubt, were made equal. It was their way to climb Horses
armed on to the flanks of a horse, to guide it with reins, ἀνὰ νὰ
and do doughty deeds with the right hand, before they before
learnt to essay the dangers of war in a two-horsed chariot. chaeiots
And the yoking of two horses came before yoking four, invented.
and climbing up armed into chariots set with scythes.
Then it was the Poeni who taught the Lucanian kine,” The Car-
with towered body, grim beasts with snaky hands, to bear ae
the wounds of warfare, and work havoc among the hosts elephants
of Mars. So did gloomy discord beget one thing after to battle.
another, to bring panic into the races of men in warfare,
and day by day gave increase to the terrors of war.

They tried bulls, too, in the service of war, and essayed Other
to send savage boars against the foe. And some sent on ἌΝ :
before them mighty lions with armed trainers and cruel too in
masters, who might be able to control them, and hold ees
them in chains ; all in vain, since in the heat of the mellay more harin
of slaughter they grew savage, and made havoc of the ' a
hosts, both sides alike, tossing everywhere the fearful eS
manes upon their heads, nor could the horsemen soothe
the hearts of their horses, alarmed at the roaring, and
turn them with their bridles against the foe. The lionesses
launched their furious bodies in a leap on every side, and

made for the faces of those that came against them, or

balls ;

boars,

230 Book V, Ul. 1320-1347

tore them down in the rear when off their guard, and
twining round them hurled them to the ground foredone
with the wound, fastening on them with their strong bite
and crooked claws. The bulls tossed their own friends
and trampled them with their feet, and with their horns
gashed the flanks and bellies of the horses underneath,
and ploughed up the ground with threatening purpose.
And the boars gored their masters with their strong
tusks, savagely splashing with their own blood the weapons
broken in them, and threw to the ground horsemen and
footmen in one heap. For the horses would swerve aside
to avoid the fierce onset of a tusk, or rear and beat the
air with their feet; all in vain, since you would see them
tumble with tendons severed, and strew the ground in
their heavy fall. If ever they thought they had been
tamed enough at home before the fight, they saw them
burst into fury, when it came to conflict, maddened by
the wounds, shouting, flying, panic, and confusion, nor
could they rally any part of them; for all the diverse
kinds of wild beasts would scatter hither and thither;
even as now often the Lucanian kine cruelly mangled by
the steel, scatter abroad, when they have dealt many
deadly deeds to their own friends. (If indeed they
ever acted thus. But scarce can I be brought to believe
that, before this dire disaster befell both sides alike, they
could not foresee and perceive in mind what would come
to pass. And you could more readily maintain ® that this
was done somewhere in the universe, in the diverse worlds
fashioned in diverse fashion, than on any one determined
earth.)1 But indeed they wished to do it not so much in

1 These six lines were probably written by the poet as a later
addition,

- ae

Book V, Ul. 1347-1379 pi

the hope of victory, as to give the foemen cause to moan, It was only
resolved to perish themselves, since they mistrusted their ee
numbers and lacked arms.

A garment tied together came before woven raiment. After iron
Woven fabric comes after iron, for by iron the loom is ion
fashioned, nor in any other way can such smooth treadles
be made, or spindles or shuttles and ringing rods. And Men first
nature constrained men to work wool before the race of ered ie

loom, but

women; for all the race of men far excels in skill and is afterwards
left it to
women and

scorn of it, so that they were glad to leave it to women’s worked in
hands, and themselves share in enduring hard toil, and eno
in hard work to harden limbs and hands.

But nature herself, creatress of things, was first a pattern Nature
for sowing and the beginning of grafting, since berries and jaa
acorns fallen from the trees in due time put forth swarms grafting.

of shoots beneath ; from nature, too, they learnt to insert

much more cunning; until the sturdy husbandman made

grafts into branches, and to plant young saplings in the

ground over the fields. Then one after another they New kines
Aap : πῆς of cu'tiva-
essayed ways of tilling their smiling plot, and saw the cares a0
tame wild fruits with tender care and fond tilling. And tried and
the wocds
; ᾿ ᾿ driven
more to retire up the mountains, and to give up the land further up
beneath to tilth, that on hills and plains they might have the hills

; = The plain
meadows, pools, streams, crops, and glad vineyards, and was brig'it
the grey belt of olives might run between with its clear eee?
line, spreading over hillocks and hollows and plains ; even cultivation.

day by day they would constrain the woods more and

as now you see all the land clear marked with diverse
beauties, where men make it bright by planting it here
and there with sweet fruit-trees, and fence it by planting
it all round with fruitful shrubs.

But imitating with the mouth the liquid notes of birds

Music arose
by the
imitation
of the

notes of
birds and
wind in
the reeds.

Their
rough songs
delighted
them after
meals in the
open alr,

with rough
dances to
match,

Modern
improve-
ments

have not
increased
thepleasure.

7.5 Book V, Ul. 1380-1412

came long before men were able to sing in melody right
through smooth songs and please theear. And the whist-
ling of the zephyr through the hollows of reeds first taught
the men of the countryside to breathe into hollowed
hemlock-stalks. Then little by little they learned the
sweet lament, which the pipe pours forth, stopped by the
players’ fingers, the pipe invented amid the pathless
woods and forests and glades, among the desolate haunts
of shepherds, and the divine places of their rest. “ These
tunes would soothe their minds and please them when
sated with food; for then all things win the heart. And
so often, lying in friendly groups on the soft grass near
some stream of water under the branches of a tall tree,
at no great cost they would give pleasure to their bodies,
above all when the weather smiled and the season of the
year painted the green grass with flowers. Then were
there wont to be jests, and talk, and merry laughter. For
then the rustic muse was at its best; then glad mirth
would prompt to wreathe head and shoulders with gar-
lands twined of flowers and foliage, and to dance all out
of step, moving their limbs heavily, and with heavy foot
to strike mother earth; whence arose smiles and merry
laughter, for all these things then were strong in fresh-
ness and wonder. And hence came to the wakeful a
solace for lost sleep, to guide their voices through many
notes, and follow the windings of a song, and to run over
the reeds with curling lip; whence even now the watch-
men preserve these traditions, and have learnt to keep to
the rhythm of the song, nor yet for all that do they gain
a whit greater enjoyment from the pleasure, than the
woodland race of earthborn men of old. For what is

Book V, Ul. 1412-1442 238

here at hand, unless we have learnt anything sweeter

before, pleases us above all, and is thought to excel, but

for the most part the better thing found later on destroys κ΄

or changes our feeling for all the old things. So hatred The old

for their acorns set in, and the old couches strewn with sane tind

grass and piled with leaves were deserted. Likewise the despised,

garment of wild beasts’ skin fell into contempt; yet

I suppose that of old it was so envied when found, that

he who first wore it was waylaid and put to death, though

after all it was torn to pieces among them, and was spoiled __.

with much blood, and could be turned to no profit. Te bu but now

was skins then in those days, and now gold and purple that Hee

vex men’s life with cares and weary them out with war $; purple, as

and for this, I think, the greater fault lies with us. For peek”

cold used to torture the earth-born, as they lay naked

without skins ; but it does us no hurt to go without our .:

purple robes, set with gold and massy figures, if only there

be some common garment to protect us. And so the

race of men toils fruitlessly and in vain for ever, and wastes

its life in idle cares, because, we may be sure, it has not

learned what are the limits of possession, nor at all how

far true pleasure can increase. And this, little by little, This brings

has advanced life to its high plane, and has stirred “ivilization
and warfare.

up from the lowest depths the great seething tide |

of war.

4
\

But sun and moon, like watchmen, traversing with their From sun

light all round the great turning vault of the world, and moon
men learnt

taught men that the seasons of the year come round, the regu-
larity of

and that the work goes on after a sure plan and a sure
the seasons.

order.
Now fenced in with strong towers they would live their Then came
life, and the land was parcelled out and marked off: then walled

711} Book V, ll. 1442-1457

towns, sea- thesea was gay with the flying sails of ships :? now treaties
zane were drawn up, and they had auxiliaries and allies, when
poets told poets first began to hand down men’s deeds in songs ; yet
me not much before that were letters discovered. There-
fore our age cannot look back to see what was done before,
unless in any way reason points out traces.
Gradually Ships and the tilling of the land, walls, laws, weapons,
all the aq Toads, dress, and all things of this kind, all the prizes, and
fine arts the luxuries of life, one and all, songs and pictures, and
ΠετεΟρο ΠΝ" polishing of quaintly-wrought statues, practice and
therewith the experience of the eager mind taught them
little by little, as they went forward step by step. 90,
little by little, time brings out each several thing into
view, and reason raises it up into the coasts of light. For
they saw one thing after another grow clear in their mind,
until by their arts they reached the topmost pinnacle.
1 Two words at the end of the line are corrupt ; puppibus or narvibus
must have been the first.

BOOK VI

In time gone by Athens, of glorious name, first spread Intro-
among struggling mortals the fruits that bear corn, and ΤΟΣ
fashioned life afresh, and enacted laws; she, too, first glory of
gave sweet solace for life, when she gave birth to the man es
gifted with the great mind, who once poured forth all produced
wisdom from his truthful lips ; yea, even when his light πολ:
was quenched, thanks to his divine discoveries his glory,
noised abroad of old, is now lifted to the sky. For when He saw
he saw that mortals had by now attained wellnigh all eon
things which their needs crave for subsistence, and that, all outward
as far as they could, their life was established in safety, ieee
that men abounded in power through wealth and honours miserable,
and renown, and were haughty in the good name of their
children, and yet not one of them for all that had at
home a heart less anguished, but with torture of mind
lived a fretful life without any respite, and was constrained
to rage with savage compiaining, he then did understand and realized
that it was the vessel itself which wrought the disease, and a a
that by its disease all things were corrupted within, what- the heart.
soever came into it gathered from without, yea even
blessings; in part because he saw that it was leaking?
and full of holes, so that by no means could it ever be
filled ; in part because he perceived that it tainted as
with a foul savour all things within it, which it had taken
in. And so with his discourse of truthful words he
purged the heart and set a limit to its desire and fear, ie τοι

and set forth what is the highest good, towards which we and taught

2316 Book VI, ll. 26-52

it the path all strive, and pointed out the path, whereby along a
to the
highest
good, course ; he showed what there is of ill in the affairs of

narrow track we may strain on towards it in a straight

andthe mortals everywhere, coming to being and flying abroad
means of ἴῃ diverse forms, be it by the ch he force of
cease ἧς erse forms, be it by the chance or the force o
ills of life. nature,® because nature had so brought it to pass; he
showed from what gates it is meet to sally out against
each ill, and he proved that ’tis in vain for the most part
that the race of men set tossing in their hearts the gloomy
The dark- billows of care. For even as children tremble and fear
ness of the ἌΝ A bina Ae . dreatl
mind must CVerything in blinding darkness, so we sometimes drea
re a pelle in the light things that are no whit more to be feared than
ke what children shudder at in the dark and imagine will
come to pass. This terror then, this darkness of the
mind, must needs be scattered not by the rays and the
gleaming shafts of day, but by the outer view and the
inner law of nature. Wherefore I will hasten the more
to weave the thread of my task in my discourse.
T must And now that I have shown that the quarters of the
pees firmament are mortal, and that the heaven is fashioned
phenomena of a body that has birth, and have unravelled wellnigh
of the sky3 31) that happens therein, and must nceds happen, listen
still to what remains; forasmuch as once {1 have made
bold) to climb the@lonious car ΠΤ -
(1 will tell how the tempests) of the winds arise,” and
which men are appeased, and all that once was raging is changed
falsel . : ἢ : ἢ
heliewe —--241n, when its fury is appeased; and all else which
tobe the mortals see coming to pass on earth and in the sky,
work of When often they are in suspense with panic-stricken

gods : : ; :
J, mind—things which bring their hearts low through dread

1 Two or more lines must here be lost.
7 Read exsistant, placentur et omnia rursum quae Jurerent,

Book Vi, HU. 52-85 37

of the gods, and bow them down grovelling to earth,

because their ignorance of true causes constrains them to

assign things to the ordinance of the gods, and to admit

their domination. For those who have learnt aright that

the gods lead a life free from care, yet if from time to

time they wonder by what means all things can be carried

on, above all among those things which are descried

above our heads in the coasts of heaven, are borne back

again into the old beliefs of religion, and adopt stern
overlords, whom in their misery they believe have all

power, knowing not what can be and what cannot, yea, through
and in what way each thing has its power limited, and oon
its deepset boundary-stone : wherefore all the more they laws.
stray, borne on by a blind reasoning. And unless you Such belief
spew out all this from your mind and banish far away oa
thoughts unworthy of the gods and alien to their peace, the gods
the holy powers of the gods, degraded by thy thought, pe
will often do thee harm; not that the high majesty of your own
the gods" can be polluted by thee, so that in wrath they eon
should yearn to seek sharp retribution, but because you worship.
yourself will imagine that those tranquil beings in their

placid peace set tossing the great billows of wrath, nor

with quiet breast will you approach the shrines of the

gods, nor have strength to drink in with tranquil peace of

mind the images which are borne from their holy body

to herald their divine form to the minds of men. And
therefore what manner of life will follow, you may per-

ceive. And in order that truest reasoning may drive

this far from us, although much has already gone forth

from me, yet much remains to be adorned with polished

verse ; We must grasp the outer view and inner Jaw of the We must

sky, we must sing of storms and flashing lightnings, of 84 ot

the laws of
storms and

lightnings.

A. Celestial
pheno-
mena,

1. Thunder
may be
caused

(a) when
clouds clash
together
face to face;
(being of

a texture
neither
close nor
rare) ;

(6) when
they scrape
along one
another's
sides, and
make a
noise like
wind in a
flapping
awning or
paper ;

238 Book Vi, ll. &5-126

how they act and by what cause they are severally carried
along; that you may not mark out the quarters of the
sky, and ask in frenzied anxiety, whence came this winged
flash, or to what quarter it departed hence, in what
manner it won its way through walled places, and how
after tyrant deeds it brought itself forth again: the causes
of these workings they can by no means see, and think that
a divine power brings them about. Do thou, as I speed
towards the white line of the final goal, mark out the track
before me, Calliope, muse of knowledge, thou who art rest
to men and pleasure to the gods, that with thee to guice
J may win the wreath with praise conspicuous,

First of all the blue of the sky is shaken by thunder
because the clouds in high heaven, scudding aloft, clash
together when the winds are fighting in combat. For
the sound comes not from a clear quarter of the sky, but
wherever the clouds are massed in denser host, from there
more often comes the roar and its loud rumbling. More-
over, the clouds cannot be of so dense a body as are
stocks and stones, nor yet so thin as are mists and flying
smoke. For either they were bound to fall dragged down
by their dead weight, as do stones, or like smoke they
could not hold together or keep within them chill snow
and showers of hail. Again, they give forth a sound over
the levels of the spreading firmament, as often an awning
stretched over a great theatre gives a crack, as it tosses
among the posts and beams; sometimes, too, it rages
madly, rent by the boisterous breezes, and imitates the
rending noise of sheets of paper—for that kind of sound
too you may recognize in the thunder—or else a sound
as when the winds buffet with their blows and beat
through the air a hanging garment or flying papers. For

Book VJ, Ul. 126-143 239

indeed it also comes to pass at times that the clouds
cannot so much clash together face to face, but rather
pass along the flank, moving from diverse quarters, and
slowly grazing body against body; and then the dry
sound brushes upon the ears, and is drawn out long, until
they have issued from their close quarters.

In this way, too, all things seem often to tremble with (¢) when
heavy thunder, and the great walls of the containing ene

caught In a

world to be torn apart suddenly and leap asunder, when cloud and

: : : suddenly
all at once a gathered storm of mighty wind has twisted purse it;
its way into the clouds, and, shut up there with its whirl-
ing eddy, constrains the cloud more and more on all
sides to hollow itself out with body thickening all around ;
and then, when the force and fierce onslaught of the
wind have weakened it, it splits and makes a rending
crash with a frightful cracking sound. Nor is that
strange, when a little bladder full of air often likewise
gives forth a little noise, if suddenly burst.

There is also another way, when winds blow through (d) when
clouds, whereby they may make a noise. For often we ee
see clouds borne along, branching in many ways, and the clouds,
rough-edged ; even as, we may be sure, when the blasts ΝΣ
of the north-west blow through a dense forest, the leaves ;
give out a noise and the branches a rending crash. It (e) when
comes to pass, too, sometimes, that the force of a mighty aeabe
wind rushing on tears through the cloud and breaks it cloud open;
asunder with a front attack. For what the blast can do
there is shown by things clear to see here on earth, where
the wind is gentler and yet it tears out and sucks up
tall trees from their lowest roots. ‘There are, too, waves (f) when
moving through the clouds, which as it were make a the rain-

᾿ ᾿ ᾿ : waves in
heavy roar in breaking ; just as it comes to pass 1n deeP the clouds

break ;

(5) when
lightning,
falling from
one clond
into
another,
hisses or

(kh) burns
the clond

UP s

(ὃ when
the ice and
hail in the
clouds
crash,

2. Light-
ning may
be caused
(a) when
two clouds
colliding
strike fire.
(We see it
before we
hear the
thunder,
because
light travels
faster than
sound.)

24.0 Book VI, Ul. 144-173

Trivers and the great sea, when the tide breaks. This
happens too, when the fiery force of the thunderbolt falls
from cloud to cloud ; if by chance the cloud has received
the flame in deep moisture, it straightway slays it with
a great noise ; just as often iron white-hot from the fiery
furnaces hisses, when we have plunged it quickly into cold
water. Or again, if a drier cloud receives the flame, it is
at once fired, and burns with a vast noise; just as if
among the laurel-leafed mountains flame were to roam
abroad beneath the eddying of the winds, burning them
up in its mighty onset ; nor is there any other thing which
is burnt up by the crackling flame with sound so terrible
as the Delphic laurel of Phoebus. Again, often the great
cracking of ice and the falling of hail makes a noise in the
mighty clouds on high. For when the wind packs them
tight, the mountains of storm-clouds, frozen close and
mingled with hail, break up.

It lightens likewise, when the clouds at their clashing
have struck out many seeds of fire; just as if stone should
strike on stone or on iron; for then, too, a flash leaps out
and scatters abroad bright sparks of fire. But it comes to
pass that we receive the thunder in our ears after our
eyes perceive the lightning, because things always move
more slowly ® to the ears than things which stir the eyes.
That you may learn from this too; if you see some one
far off cutting down a giant tree with double-edged axe,
it comes to pass that you see the stroke before the blow
resounds in your ear; even so we see the lightning too
before we hear the thunder, which is sent abroad at the
same moment with the flash, from a like cause, yea, born
indeed from the same collision.

In this manner, too, the clouds colour places with leap-

|

Ovens 172 2] 24:1

ing light, and the storm lightens with quivering dart. (5) when

When wind has come within a cloud, and moving there has, wine

as I have shown before, made the hollow cloud grow thick, whirls itself
round till

it grows hot with its own swift movement; even as you...
it ignites.

see all things become hot and catch fire through motion,
yea, even a ball of lead too, whirling in a long course, will
melt. And so when this heated wind has torn through
the black cloud, it scatters abroad seeds of fire, as though
struck out all at once by force, and they make the pulsing
flashes of flame; thereafter follows the sound, which
reaclies our ears more slowly than things which come to
the light of our eyes. This, we must know, comes to This
pass in thick clouds, which are also piled up high one on Re
the other in wondrous slope ; Icst you be deceived because Seay ΕἼ
we below see how broad they are rather than to what Clouds:
a height they stand piled up. For do but look, when
next the winds carry athwart the air clouds in the sem-
blance of mountains, or when you see them heaped along
a mighty mountain-range one above the other, pressing
down from above, at rest in their appointed place, when
the winds on all sides are in their graves. Then you will
be able to mark their mighty mass, and to see their
caverns built up, as it were, of hanging rocks: and when
the storm has risen and the winds have filled them, with the wind
loud roar they chafe prisoned in the clouds, and threaten collects all
: : : —— the seeds of
like wild beasts in cages; now from this side, now from fre in one
that they send forth their roaring through the clouds, and then
and seeking an outlet they move round and round, and oe
roll together the seeds of fire from out the clouds, and the cloud;
so drive many into a mass and set the flame whirling
within the hollow furnaces, until they have rent asunder
the cloud and flashed blazing out.

546-15 Ω

(c) when
the fire in
the clouds
themselves
is driven
out as they
collide,

(d) or falls
naturally
as they
break:
this causes
sheet
lightning.

3. Thunder-
bolts are of
fiery nature,

and formed
of exceed-
ingly subtle
fire, as we
may see
from their
effects,

Ae Book VI, Ul, 204-232

For this cause, too, it comes to pass that this swift
golden tinge of liquid fire flies down to earth, because it
must needs be that the clouds have in themselves very
many seeds of fire; for indeed when they are without
any moisture, they have for the most part a bright and
flaming colour. For verily it must needs be that they
catch many such from the sun’s light, so that with reason
they are red, and pour forth their fires. When then the
wind as it drives them has pushed and packed and com-
pelled them into one spot, they squeeze out and pour
forth the seeds which make the colours of flame to flash.
It lightens likewise, also when the clouds of heaven grow
thin. For when the wind lightly draws them asunder as
they move, and breaks them up, it must needs be that
those seeds, which make the flash, fall out unbidden.
Then it lightens without hideous alarm, without noise,
and with no uproar.

For the rest, with what kind of nature the thunderbolts
are endowed, is shown by the blows and the burned mark-
ings of their heat and the brands which breathe out noisome
vapours of sulphur. For these are marks of fire, not of
wind nor rain. Moreover, often too they set the roofs of
dwellings on fire, and with swiftly-moving flame play the
tyrant even within the houses. This fire, you must know,
nature has fashioned most subtle of all subtle fires, of tiny
swift-moving bodies—a flame to which nothing at all can
bea barrier. For the strong thunderbolt can pass through
the walls of houses, even as shouts and cries, can pass
through rocks, through things of bronze, and in a moment
of timecan melt bronze and gold; likewise it causes wine
in an instant to flee away, though the vessels be untouched,
because, we may be sure, its heat as it comes easily loosens

Book VI, Ut. 232-262 243

all around and makes rarefied the porcelain of the vessel,
and finding its way right into the wine, with quick motion
dissolves and scatters the first-beginnings of the wine. Yet
this the heat of the sun is seen to be unable to bring about
in a long age, though it has such exceeding strength in its
flashing blaze. So much swifter and more masterful is
this force of the thunderbolt.

Now in what manner they are fashioned and made with
such force that they can with their blow burst open
towers, overthrow houses, pluck up beams and joists, and
upset and (destroy) ! the monuments of men, take the
life from men, lay low the flocks on every side; by what
force they are able to do all other things of this sort, I will
set forth, nor keep thee longer waiting on my promise.

We must suppose that thunderbolts are produced from
thick clouds, piled up on high ; for none are ever hurled
abroad from the clear sky or from clouds of slight thick-

ness. For without doubt clear-seen facts show that this ;

comes to pass; at such times clouds grow into a mass
throughout all the air, so that on all sides we might think
that all darkness has left Acheron and filled the great
vault of the sky; so terribly, when the noisome night of
clouds has gathered together, do the shapes of black fear
hang over us on high, when the storm begins to forge its
thunderbolts. Moreover, very often a black storm-cloud
too, over the sea, like a stream of pitch shot from the sky,
falls upon the waters, laden with darkness afar off, and
draws on a black storm big with thunderbolts and hurri-
canes, itself more than all filled full with fires and winds in
such wise that even on land men shudder and seek for
shelter. ‘Thus then above our head must we suppose the

1 The last word of the line is uncertain,

9 72

We must
explain
their power
and action.

They are
created only
when clouds
are densely
piled on

>

as we sce
them some-
times over
the sea,

Such clouds

ate full
of wind
and fire,

The wind
with the
fire forms
an eddy,

which
bursts the
cloud and
comes out
asa
thunder-
bolt,
bringing
with it
thunder,
lightning,
storm,
and fain.

244 Book VI, ll. 262-292

storm is raised high. For indeed they would not shroud
the earth in such thick gloom, unless there were many
clouds built up aloft on many others, shutting out all
sunlight; nor when they come could they drown it in
such heavy rain, as to make the rivers overflow and the
fields swim, unless the ether were filled with clouds piled
up onhigh. Here, then, all is full of winds and fires ; for
this cause all around come crashings and lightnings. For
verily I have shown ere now that the hollow clouds
possess very many seeds of heat, and many they must
needs catch from the sun’s rays and their blaze. ‘There-
fore, when the same wind, which drives them together, as
it chances, into some one place, has squeezed out many
seeds of heat, and at the same time has mingled itself
with this fire, an eddy finds its way in there and whirls
round in a narrow space and sharpens the thunderbolt in
the hot furnaces within. For it is kindled in two ways,
both when it grows hot with its own swift motion, and
from contact with the fire. Next, when the force of the
wind has grown exceeding hot, and the fierce onset of
the fire has entered in, then the thunderbolt, full-forged,
as it were, suddenly rends through the cloud, and shot
out is borne on flooding all places with its blazing light.
In its train follows a heavy crash, so that the quarters of
the sky above seem to be burst asunder on a sudden and
crush us. Then a trembling thrills violently through the
earth, and rumblings race over the high heaven; for then
all the storm is shaken into trembling and roarings move
abroad. And from this shock follows rain, heavy and
abundant, so that all the air seems to be turned into rain,
and thus falling headlong to summon earth back to

“ὦ ὦ.»

Book V1, Ul. 292-320 245

deluge: so great a shower is shot forth with the rending

of the cloud and the hurricane of wind, when the thunder-

clap flies forth with its burning blow. At times, too, the Sometimes
rushing force of wind falls from without upon the cloud ees
hot with its new-forged thunderbolt; and when it has external
rent the cloud, straightway there falls out that flery eddy suing:
which we call by the name our fathers gave it, the thunder-

bolt. The same thing happens in other directions,

wherever its force has carried it. It comes to pass, too, Sometimes
sometimes that the force of the wind, starting without slate
fire, yet catches fire on its course and its long wandering, in its

as it loses in its journey, while it is approaching, certain COUrSé;
large bodies, which cannot like the others make their way

through the air; and gathering other small bodies from

the air itself it carries them along, and they mingling with

it make fire in their flight; in no other way than often like a fiying
a ball of lead grows hot in its course, when dropping many ΠΝ of lead.
bodies of stiff cold it has taken in fire in the air. It comes Or the

to pass, too, that the force of the very blow rouses frre, woe a
when the force of the wind, starting cold without fire, cloud may
has struck its stroke; because, we may be sure, when it ταῖς fre,
has hit with violent blow, particles of heat can stream
together out of the wind itself, and at the same time from

the thing which then receives the blow; just as, when we like iron
striking on

strike a stone with iron, fire flies out, nor do the seeds eee
Ρ

of blazing heat rush together any more slowly at its blow,

because the force of the iron is cold. ‘Thus then a thing

is bound to be kindled by the thunderbolt too, if by

chance it is made fit and suitable for flame. Nor must we for the
rashly think that the force of the wind can be wholly and Wind itself

is not
utterly cold, when it has been discharged with such force wholly cold.

The
velocity of
the thunder-
bolt is
caused

(a) by the
impulse
with which
it is shot
from the
cloud ;

(b) because
it is made
of small
smooth
particles ;

(c) because
gravitation
is aug~
mented by
a blow ;

(4) because
in its long
course it
overcomes
internal
vibration.

(6) perhaps
because it
is helped
by particles

246 Book VI, dl. 320-348

on high; rather, if it is not beforehand on its journey
kindled with fire, yet it arrives warmed and mingled
with heat.

But the great speed of the thunderbolt and its heavy
blow comes to pass, yea, the thunderbolts always run
their course with swift descent, because their force un-
aided is first of all set in motion in each case, and gathers
itself within the clouds, and conceives a great effort for
starting ; and then, when the cloud has not been able
to contain the growing strength of its onset, its force 1s
squeezed out, and so flies with wondrous impulse even
as the missiles which are borne on, when shot from engines
of war. Remember, too, that it is made of small and
smooth particles, nor is it easy for anything to withstand
such a nature: for it flies in between and pierces through
the hollow passages, and so it is not clogged and delayed
by many obstacles, and therefore it flies on falling with
swift impulse. Again, because all weights by nature
always press downwards, but when a blowis given as well,
their swiftness is doubled and the impulse grows stronger,
so that the more violently and quickly does it scatter with
its blows all that impedes it, and continues on its journey.
Once again, because it comes with long-lasting impulse,”
it is bound to gather speed ever more and more, which
grows as it moves, and increases its strong might and
strengthens its stroke. For it brings it about that the
seeds of the thunderbolt are one and all carried in a
straight line, as it were towards one spot, driving them
all as they fly into the same course. It may chance too
that as it goes it picks up certain bodies even from the
air, which kindle its swiftness by their blows. And it
passes through things without harming them, and goes

Book VI, ll. 348-377 247

tight through many things, and leaves them whole, be- gathered
cause the liquid fire flies through the pores. And it See eee
pierces through many things, since the very bodies of the penetrate
thunderbolt have fallen on the bodies of things just where et
they are interlaced and held together. Moreover, it because it
easily melts bronze and in an instant makes gold to boil, oe
because its force is fashioned delicately of tiny bodies where their
and of smooth particles, which easily force a way within, ae
and being there at once loose all the knots and slacken

the bonds. And most in autumn is the house of heaven, Thunder-
set with shining stars, shaken on all sides and all the earth, ana
and again when the flowery season of spring spreads itself spring and
abroad. For in the cold fires are lacking, and in the heat arte
winds fail, nor are clouds of so dense a body. And 50 the various
when the seasons of heaven stand midway between the eae
two, then all the diverse causes of the thunderbolt meet their com-
together. For the narrow channel® of the year of itself Rape
mingles cold and heat—of both of which the cloud has coincide.
need for the forging of thunderbolts—so that there is

a wrangling among things, and with great uproar the air

rages and tosses with fires and winds. For the first part

of the heat is the last of the stiff cold, that is the spring

season: wherefore it must needs be that different ele-

ments, mingled with one another, make battle and tur-

moil. And again, when the last heat rolls on mingled

with the first cold—the season which is called by the

name of autumn—then, too, keen winters do battle with

summers. For this cause these seasons must be called

the narrow channels of the year, nor is it strange, if at

that time thunderbolts come most often, and a turbulent

tempest is gathered in the sky, since from either side is

The
thunderbolt
is no sign
of divine
wrath,

Ifso,why do
the gods hit
the innocent
and leave

the guilty ?

Why waste
their strokes
on deserts ?

Why not
hurl them
from the
clear sky?

Why at
the sea?

248 Book VI, Wl. 377-405

roused the turmoil of doubtful battle, on the one side
with flames, on the other with mingled wind and wet.
This is the way to see into the true nature of the
thunderbolt, and to perceive by what force it does each
thing, and not by unrolling vainly the Tyrrhenian pro-
phecies ® and seeking out tokens of the hidden purpose of
the gods, marking whence came the winged flash, or to
what quarter it departed hence, in what manner it won
its way through walled places, and how after tyrant deeds
it brought itself forth again, or what harm the stroke of
the thunderbolt from heaven can do. But if Jupiter2
and the other gods shake the shining quarters of heaven
with awe-inspiring crash and hurl the fire to whatever
point each may will, why do they not bring it about that
those who have not guarded against some sin from which
men hide their face, are struck and reek of the flames of
lightning, with their breast pierced through, a sharp lesson
to mortals? why rather is one conscious of no foul guilt
wrapt and entangled, all innocent, in the flames, caught
up in a moment in the fiery whirlwind of heaven? why
again do they aim at waste places and spend their strength
for naught? are they then practising their arms and
strengthening their muscles? and why do they suffer
the father’s weapon to be blunted on the earth? why
does he himself endure it and not spare it for his foes?
Again, why does Jupiter never hurl his thunderbolt to
earth and pour forth his thunders when the heaven is
clear on all sides? Or, as soon as the clouds have come
up, does he himself then come down into them, so that
from them he may direct the blow of his weapon from
close at hand? Again, with what purpose does he throw
into the sea? what charge has he against the waves, the

Book VI, Ul. 405-435 249

mass of water and the floating fields? Moreover, if he Does
wishes us to beware of the thunderbolt’s stroke, why is he ce =
reluctant to let us be able to see its cast? but if he wishes beware

to overwhelm us with the fire when off our guard, why ” ure
does he thunder from that quarter, so that we can shun

it? why does he gather darkness beforehand and rumb-

lings and roarings? And how can you believe that he How caa
hurls his bolts at once to many sides ? or would you dare see
to argue that this has never come to pass, that several at once?
strokes were made at one time? Nay, but very often has

it happened and must needs happen, that as it rains and

showers fall in many regions, so many thunderbolts are
fashioned atone time. Lastly, why does he smite asunder Why

the sacred shrines of the gods and his own glorious dwell- ¢estt0Y
ing-places with hostile bolt? why does he destroy the temples
fair-fashioned idols of the gods and take away their beauty 2%4 images?
from his images with his furious wound? And why does or scar |
he aim mostly at lofty spots, so that we see most traces of ἀλη ae
his fire on mountain-tops?

Next after this, it is easy to learn from these things in 4. Water-
what way there come into the sea, shot from on high, Sheer ὅν
what the Greeks from their nature have named fiery
presters.2 For it comes to pass sometimes that as it were
a column let down descends from the sky into the sea,
around which the surges boil, violently stirred by breath-
ing blasts, and all ships that are then caught in that tur-
moil, are harried and come into great danger. ‘This comes when wind
to pass sometimes when the force of the wind set in suanengic τ,
motion cannot burst the cloud it starts to burst, but a cloud but
presses it down, so that it is weighed down like a column Πρ τες ee
from sky to sea, little by little, as though something were meet the

being thrust down and stretched out into the waves by S35

or else
an eddy
gathers

clouds about
it and drops
to the earth.

5. Clouds

are formed

(a) as
particles
gather in
the air in
masses
gradually
growing
larger ;

especially
round
mountain
tops,
whither
they are
driven by
wind ;

Book VI, Ul. 434-465

a fist and the pushing of an arm above; and when it has
rent this cloud asunder, the force of the wind bursts forth

250

thence into the sea and brings to pass a wondrous seething
in the waters. For a whirling eddy descends and brings
down along with it that cloud of pliant body; and as
soon as it has forced it down pregnant on to the levels of
ocean, the eddy on a sudden plunges its whole self into
the water, and stirs up all the sea with a gieat roar, con-
straining it toseethe. It comes to pass also that an eddy
of wind by itself wraps itself in clouds, gathering together
seeds of cloud from the air and, as it were, imitates the
prester let down from the sky. When this eddy has let
itself down to earth and broken up, it vomits forth a
furious force of whirlwind and storm. But because this
happens but rarely at all, and mountains must needs bar
it on land, it is seen more often on a wide prospect of sea,
and in an open stretch of sky.

Clouds gather up, when many bodies as they fly in this
upper expanse of heaven have all at once come together—
bodies of rougher kind, such as can, though they be but
intertwined with slight links, yet grasp and cling to one
another. These first of all cause little clouds to form ;
then these grip hold of one another and flock together,
and uniting they grow and are borne on by the winds,
until at last a furious tempest has gathered together. It
comes to pass, too, that mountain-tops, the closer they
are to the sky, the more at that height do they smoke
continually with the thick darkness of a murky cloud,
because, when first the clouds form, still thin, before the
eyes can see them, the winds carry them and drive them
together to the topmost peaks of the mountain. There
it comes to pass at last that, gathered now in a greater

Book Vd, ll. 465-498 251

throng and thickened, they can be seen, and at once they

seem to rise into the open sky from the very summit of

the mountain. For clear fact and our sense, when we

climb high mountains, proclaim that windy regions

stretch above. Moreover, that nature lifts up many such (6) as par-
bodies all over the sea is shown by clothes hung out on Bese
the shore, when they take in a clinging moisture. Where- rise from
fore it is all the more seen that many bodies too can rise ἐς

to swell the clouds from the salt tossing ocean; for in

all their nature these two moistures are akin. Moreover, or from
rivers, or

we see clouds and vapour rising from all rivers, and like- | acl

wise from the very earth which, like a breath, are forced
out hence and carried upwards, and curtain the heaven
with their darkness, and little by little, as they meet,
build up the clouds on high. For the vapour of the
starry ether above presses down on them too, and, as it
were by thickening, weaves a web of storm-cloud beneath
the blue. It happens, too, that there come into our ate
sky those bodies from without which make clouds and in fom
flying storms. For I have shown that their number is aoe
innumerable, and the sum of the deep measureless, and
I have set forth with what speed the bodies fly, and how
in a moment they are wont to traverse through space that
none can tell. So it is not strange if often in a short time
storm and darkness cover up sea and land with such great
storm-clouds,’ brooding above, inasmuch as on all sides
through all the pores of the ether, and, as it were, through
the breathing-holes of the great world all around there is
furnished for the particles exit and entrance.

Come now, in what manner the rainy moisture gathers 6. Rain is
together in the high clouds, and how the shower falls shot ae
down upon the earth, I will unfold. First of all it will the clouds

2 Translating Lachmann’s nimbis for montis,

contain
much
moisture ;

(δ) because
it rises into
them from
the sea

and the
rivers $

and is then
squeezed

out by the
force of the
wind and

the mass of
the clouds ;

or again,
when the
clouds are
thin, by the
sun’s heat,

Rain is
heavy when
the pressure
is violent,
and long
when there
is much
moisture.

The rain-
bow is
caused by
the sun
shining on
the rain.
Similarly
all meteoro-
logical

ἜΤ»:

Book VI, Ul. 497-528

be granted me that already many seeds of water rise up
with the clouds themselves from out of all things, and
that both alike grow in this manner, both clouds and all
water that is in the clouds, just as our body grows along
with its blood, and likewise sweat and all the moisture too
that is within the limbs. Besides, they often take in also
much moisture from the sea, just like hanging fleeces of
wool, when the winds carry the clouds over the great sea.
In like manner moisture from all streams is raised to the
clouds. And when many seeds of waters in many ways
have duly come together there, increased from all quarters,
the packed clouds are eager to shoot out the moisture for
a double cause; for the force of the wind pushes it on
and the very mass of the clouds, driven together in greater
throng, presses on it and weighs it down from above, and
makes the showers stream out. Moreover, when the
clouds, too, are thinned by the winds or broken up,
smitten by the sun’s heat above, they send out the rainy
moisture and drip, even as wax over a hot fire melts and
flows in a thick stream. But a violent downpour comes
to pass, when the clouds are violently pressed by either
force, their own mass and the impulse of the wind. Yea,
and the rains are wont to hold on long and make a great
stay, when many seeds of water are gathered, and clouds
piled upon clouds and streaming storms above them are
borne on from every quarter, and when the whole earth
smoking, breathes out its moisture. When at such time
the sun amid the dark tempest has shone out with its
rays full against the spray of the storm-clouds, then
among the black clouds stand out the hues of the rainbow.

All other things which grow above and are brought to
being above, and which gather together in the clouds,

Book VI, ul. 528-558 gee

all, yea all of them, snow, winds, hail, chill hoar-frosts, phenomena
and the great force of ice, that great hardener of waters, ae a.
the curb which everywhere reins in the eager streams,
it is yet right easy to find these out, and to see in the
mind in what manner they all come to be and in what
way they are brought to being, when you have duly
learned the powers that are vouchsafed to the elements.

Come now and learn what is the law of earthquakes. B. Pheno-
And first of all let yourself suppose that the earth is below, men a

just as above, full on all sides of windy caverns ; and you t. Earth-

quakes.
; ; The earth
pools and cliffs and sheer rocks; and that many rivers underneath
hidden beneath the back of the earth roll on amain their a ee
waves and submerged stones. For clear fact demands ® and rocks,
that it should be in all parts like itself. When these things
then are placed and linked together beneath it, the earth (@) When
above trembles, shaken by great falling masses, when S°M¢e cavern

; : falls in, an
beneath time has caused huge caverns to fall in; nay, earthquake
indeed, whole mountains fall, and at the great sudden 's caused,
shock tremblings creep abroad thence far and wide. And
with good reason, since whole houses by the roadside just as
tremble when shaken by a wagon of no great weight, and ὑφ τ ὩΣ

Β Ξ FOCKE
rock none the less, whenever a stone in the road jolts passing ᾿
on the iron circles of the wheels on either side! It comes ¥48"55
: or the Jand

to pass too, when a vast mass of soil, loosened by age from py an
the earth, rolls down into huge wide pools of water, that avalanche
falling into
the earth too tosses and sways beneath the wave of water $ a Jake,
even as a vessel sometimes cannot stand still, unless the like water
ere dea cad d ae rocking in
iquid within has ceased to toss with unsteady wave. a vessel.
Moreover, when the wind gathering throughout the (4) An

cavernous places of the earth blows strong from one point, ¢4"thquake

must think it bears in its bosom many lakes and many

1 The text is uncertain, but this seems to be the sense,

254 Book VI, Ul. 558-387

may be and with all its weight presses on the lofty caves with

caused by ὃ
ἃ great mighty strength, the earth leans over to where the

subter- swooping force of the wind presses it. ‘Then the houses
ranean wind ;

blowing that are built up upon the earth, yea, the more they are
violently severally raised towards the sky, bend over in suspense,

Bes tottering towards the same quarter, and the timbers

direction.

And yet driven forward hang out ready to fall. And yet men fear
pe. to believe that a time of destruction and ruin awaits the
in the nature of the great world, even when they see so great
uitimate 4 mass of earth bowing to its fall. Why, unless the winds
destruction ᾿ : ©

of the breathed in again, no force could put a curb on things or

fe, avail to pull them back from destruction as they fell. As
the altera- it is, because turn by turn they breathe in and then grow
tion of the
wind which j
restores | and then are driven back and give ground, for this reason

equilibrium. the earth more often threatens a fall than brings it to

violent, because, as it were, they rally and charge again

pass; for it leans over and then sways back again, and
after falling forward recovers its position to a steady poise.
In this way, then, the whole building rocks, the top more
than the middle, the middle more than the bottom, the
bottom but a very little.
(c) Some- ‘There is this cause, too, of that same great shaking,
times the when suddenly wind and some exceeding great force of

imprisoned : : ; ἘΠῊΝ
air bursts air, gathering either from without or within the earth

pe? ᾿ itself, have hurled themselves into the hollow places of
makin ‘

great "the earth, and there first rage among the great caves in
chasmz = turmoil, and rise, carried on in a whirl; and when after-

wards the moving force driven forth bursts out and at
the same time cleaves the earth and causes a huge chasm.
Even as it came to pass at Sidon in Syria, and as was the
case at Aegium in Peloponnese, cities overthrown by this

Book VI, ul. 586-613 255

issue of air and the quaking of the earth which arose.

And besides many walled towns have fallen through

great movements on land, and many cities have sunk down

deep into the sea, inhabitants andall. Andevenifitdoes or
not burst forth, yet the very impulse of the air and the ρα
fierce force of the wind are spread, like a fit of shivering, causes the
throughout the riddling passages of the earth, and thereby era
induce a trembling: even as cold, when it comes deep

into our members, shakes them against their will and con-

strains them to tremble and to move. So men quiver

with anxious terror throughout the cities, they fear the

houses above, they dread the hollow places beneath, lest

the nature of the earth should break them open all at

once, and lest torn asunder she should open wide her

maw, and, tumbled all together, desire to fill it with her

own falling ruins. Let them then believe as they will It isa
that heaven and earth will be indestructible, entrusted to are
some everlasting protection; and yet from time to time world may
the very present force of danger applies on some side or ee 4.
other this goad of fear, lest the earth, snatched away sud-

denly from beneath their feet be carried into the abyss, and

the sum of things, left utterly without foundation, follow

on, and there be a tumbling wreck of the whole world.

1 First of allthey wonder that nature does not make the 2, why does
sea bigger, since there comes into it so great a downpour ἜΣ =
of water, yea, all the streams from every quarter. Add,
if you will, the shifting showers and the scudding storms,
which bespatter and drench all seas and lands; add too

its Own springs ; yet compared to the sum of the sea all
1 Either this paragraph is a disconnected fragment, or more probably

something has been lost before it, introducing a new section of the
paradoxes of nature on earth,

256 Book VI, ll. 613-645

(a) Because these things will scarce be equal to the increase of a single

all that is evet ee

; : it is the less strang
added to it ΟΡ; ἃ erefore it e less strange that the great sea
isbut2 | does not increase. Nloreover, the sun draws off a great
drop in part by his heat. For verily we see the sun with its
the ocean ;

(b) because blazing rays dry clothes wringing with moisture; and
much water
is drawn ;
off by sun, Therefore, although from each single place the sun sucks

yet we see many oceans spread wide beneath earth’s level.

up but a small part of moisture from the level sea; yet
in so great a space it will draw largely from the waves.
by wind, Then again, the winds too can lift a great part of moisture
as they sweep the level seas, since very often we see roads
dried by the wind in a single night, and the soft mud
and by harden into crusts. Moreover, I have shown that the
clouds; clouds too lift up much moisture taken in from the great
level of ocean, and scatter it broadcast over all the circle
of lands, when it rains on the earth and the winds carry

or (6) oozeson the clouds. Lastly, since the earth is formed of
into the

porous body, and is continuous, surrounding on all sides
earth. ? 5

the shores of the sea, it must needs be that, just as the
moisture of water passes into the sea from the lands, it
likewise filters through into the land from the salt sea
levels ; for the brine is strained through, and the sub-
stance of moisture oozes back and all streams together
at the fountain-head of rivers, and thence comes back over
the lands with freshened current, where the channel once
cleft has brought down the waters in their liquid march.

Ξ Τῆς Now what is the reason that through the jaws of Mount
eruption

of Rina, Ἑτὴδ flames sometimes breathe forth in so great a hurri-

cane, I willunfold. For indeed the flaming storm gathered
with no moderate force of destruction and ruled tyrant
through the fields of the Sicilians and turned to itself the
gaze of neighbouring nations, when they saw all the

Book VI, Hl. 644-674 277

quarters of the heavens smoke and sparkle, and filled their
breasts with shuddering anxiety for what new change
nature might be planning.

Herein you must look far and deep and take a wide Remember
view to every quarter, that you may remember that the Pee
sum of things is unfathomable, and see how small, how universe.
infinitely small a part of the whole sum is one single
heaven—not so large a part, as is a single man of the
whole earth. And if you have this duly before you and
look clearly at it and see it clearly, you would cease to

wonder at many things. For does any of us wonder, if Just as
many

diseases
ing heat, or any other painful disease in his members? may come

to the body,

a man has caught in his limbs a fever gathering with burn-

For a foot will swell suddenly, often a sharp pain seizes
on the teeth or makes its way right into the eyes; the
holy fire ® breaks out and creeping about in the body burns
any part which it has seized, and crawls through the
limbs, because, as we may be sure, there are seeds of many
things, and this earth and heaven has enough disease and
malady, from which the.force of measureless disease might

avail to spread abroad. So then we must suppose tliat so the
infinite can
supply in-
heaven and earth in number enough tnat on a sudden numerable
seeds of
malady to
hurricane course over sea and Jand, the fire of Etna well heaven

forth, and the heaven be aflame. For that too comes to *™¢ "t™
pass, and the quarters of heaven blaze, and there are rain-

out of the infinite all things are supplied to the whole

the earth might be shaken and moved, and a tearing

storms gathering in heavier mass, when by chance the

seeds of the waters have so arranged themselves. ‘ Nay, The erup-
2 . : ° -_» tion seenis

but the stormy blaze of this fire is exceeding Bigantic.’ « κί σαπεῖς ",

So, too, be sure, is the river which 1s the greatest seen but so

546-15 RB

always does
the greatest
thing of its
kind which
we have
seen.

The erup-
tion is
caused
because
wind gathers
in subter-
ranean
caverns,

heats itself
and all
around it,
and then
bursts out.

There are
also passages
from the
neighbour-
ing sea,

by which
blasts of
wind

enter in,

258 Book VI, ll. 674-702

by a man, who has never before seen any greater: so
a tree of a Man may seem gigantic, and in every kind of
thing, the greatest that each man has seen, he always
imagines gigantic, and yet all of them together, yea, with
heaven and earth and sea besides, are nothing to the whole
sum of the universal sum.

But now in what ways that flame is suddenly excited
and breathes abroad from out the vast furnaces of Etna,
I will unfold. First of all the nature of the whole moun-
tain is hollow beneath, resting everywhere on caverns of
basalt. Moreover, in all the caves there is wind and air.
For air becomes wind, when® it is set in motion and
aroused. When it has grown hot, and as it rages has
heated all the rocks and the earth around wherever it
touches them, and has struck out from them a fire hot
with swift flames, it rises up and so drives itself forth on
high straight through the mountain’s jaws. And so it
carries its heat far, and afar it scatters the ash and rolls
on a smoke with thick murky darkness, and all the while
hurls out rocks of marvellous weight ; for you must not
doubt that this is the stormy force of air. Moreover, in
great part the sea makes its waves break and sucks in its
tide at the roots of that mountain. From this sea caves
stretch underneath right to the deep jaws of the mountain.
By this path we must admit that (water ) passes in, andthe
fact compels us {το believe that wind is mingled with it )*
and pierces deep in from the open sea, and then breathes
out, and so lifts up the flame and casts up rocks and raises
clouds of dust. For on the topmost peak are craters, as
the inhabitants name them ; what we call jaws or mouths.

1 A line is lost, of which the words in brackets give the probable

SCILSE,

-

Book VI, ll. 703-733 259

Some things there are, too, not a few, for which to For some
i things we
ὦ . must men-
which is yet the actual cause ; just as if you yourself were tion several
to see the lifeless body of a man lying before you, it would peel:

ἷ ᾿ causes, one
be right that you should name all causes of death, 1n order of which

that the one cause of that man’s death might be told. Wt! be

For you could not prove that he had perished by the the given

tell one cause is not enough ; we must give more, one o

sword or of cold, or by disease or perchance by poison, “***
but we know that it was something of this sort which was
his fate. Likewise, we can say the same in many cases.

The Nile, the river of all Egypt, alone in the world 4. The rise
It of the Nile
; ἶ may be
waters Egypt often amid the hot season, either because caused

in summer the north winds, which at that time are said (5) by the
; ; 2 ; i north winds

to be the etesian winds, are dead against its mouths ; opposing

blowing against its stream they check it, and driving the δ λα;

waters upwards fill the channel and make it stop. For

without doubt these blasts, which are started from the

chill constellations of the pole are driven full against the

stream. The river comes from the south out of the

quarter where heat is born, rising among the black races

rises, as summer comes, and overflows the plains.

of men of sunburnt cclour far inland in the region of

mid-day. It may be too that a great heaping up of sand (6) bya
may choke up the mouths as a bar against the opposing Been
waves, when the sea, troubled by the winds, drives the stream ;
sand within ; and in this manner it comes to pass that the

river has less free issue, and the waves likewise a less easy
downward flow. It may be, too, perhaps that rains occur (¢) by
more at its source at that season, because the etesian blasts ©.)
of the north winds then drive all the clouds together into interior ;
those quarters. And, we may suppose, when they have

come together driven towards the region of mid-day,

R 2

(d) by the
melting of
snow on the
mountains.

5. Avernian
spots 3 so-
called as
they are
fatal to
birds.

Such as lake

Avernus,

a spot
by the
Parthenon,

and a place
in Syria.

All owe
their power

260 Book V1, ll. 733-761

there at last the clouds, thrust together upon the high
mountains, are massed and violently pressed. Perchance
it swells from deep among the high mountains of the
Ethiopians, where the sun, traversing all with his melting
rays, forces the white snows to run down into the
plains.

Come now, I will unfold to you with what nature are
endowed all Avernian places and lakes. First of all, in
that they are called by the name Avernian,® that is given
them from the fact, because they are harmful to all birds,
in that, when they have come right over those spots in
their flight, forgetting the oarage of their wings, they
slack their sails, and fall headlong, drooping with languid
neck to earth, if by chance the nature of the spots so
determines it, or into the water, if by chance the lake of
Avernus spreads beneath them. ‘That spot is by Cumae,
where mountains smoke, choked with biting sulphur and
enriched with hot springs. There is too a spot within
the walls of Athens, on the very summit of the citadel,
by the temple of Pallas Tritonis, the life-giver, whither
croaking crows never steer their bodies on the wing, not
even when the altars smoke with offerings. So surely do
they fly, not in truth from the fierce wrath of Pallas,
because of their vigil, as the poets of the Greeks have
sung, but the nature of the spot of its own force accom-
plishes the task. In Syria, too, it is said that there is
likewise a spot to be seen, where, as soon as even four-
footed beasts have set foot, its natural force constrains
them to fall heavily, as though they were on a sudden
slaughtered to the gods of the dead. Yet all these things
are brought about by a natural law, and it is clearly seen

Book VI, ll. 761-790 261

from what causes to begin with they come to be; lest to natural
by chance ! the gateway of Orcus should be thought to be ieee ie
in these regions; and thereafter we should by chance gates of hell.
believe that the gods of the dead lead the souls below
from this spot to the shores of Acheron; even as stags
of winged feet are often thought by their scent to drag
from their lairs the races of crawling serpents. And how
far removed this is from true reason, now learn; for now
I will try to tell of the true fact.
First of all I say, what I have often said before as well, Earth
that in the earth there are shapes of things of every kind ; Comins the

; ; ? elements οἵ
many which are good fur food, helpful to life, and many all things,

which can induce diseases and hasten death. And that ἐπῶν
for different animals different things are suited for the
purpose of life, I have shown before, because their nature
and texture and the shapes of their first-beginnings are

unlike, the one to the other. Many things which are And among
them many
f things
and rough to draw in? find their way even through the noxious to

nostrils, nor are there a few which should be avoided by paras the
the touch, yea, and shunned by the sight, or else are bitter ᾿
ἴο 1ῆε taste:

Next we may see how many things are for man of Many such
exhalations
; ; are poisons
first, certain trees are endowed with a shade so exceeding ons to man,

noxious, that often they cause an aching of the head, if pices:
one has lain beneath them, stretched upon the grass.
There is, too, a tree on the great mountains of Helicon,
which is wont to kill a man with the noisome scent of its

harmful pass through the ears, many which are dangerous

a sensation keenly harmful, and are nauseous and noxious ;

flower. We may be sure that these things all grow in
this way from the earth, because the earth contains in

1 Reading forte his for pote:s with Munro,
* Reading tractu with Polle.

An extine
guished
candle to an
epileptic.

Castor to
a woman.

A hot bath

after a meal.

Charcoal.

Wine to the
Severish,

Mines to
those who
work in
them,

262 Book Vi, ul. 789-816

itself many seeds of many things, mingled in many ways,
and gives them forth singled out. Again, a light but
newly extinguished at night, when it meets the nostrils
with its pungent smell, at once puts to sleep a man who
is wont through disease to fall down and foam at the
mouth. And a woman will fall back asleep with the
heavy scent of castor, and her gay-coloured work slips
from her delicate hands, if she has smelt it at the time
when she has her monthly discharge. And many other
things too slacken the drooping members throughout the
frame, and make the soul totter within its abode. Once
again, if vou dally in the hot bath when you are too full,
how easily it comes to pass often that you fal] down, as
you sit on the stool in the middle of the boiling water.
And how easily the noxious force and smell of charcoal
finds its way into the brain, unless we have taken water
beforehand. And when the burning fever has seized
and subdued the limbs, then the smell of wine is like
a slaughtering blow. Do you not see, too, sulphur pro-
duced in the very earth and pitch harden into crusts of
a noisome scent? and again, when men are following up
the veins of gold and silver, probing with the pick deep
into the hidden parts of earth, what stenches Scaptensula®
breathes out underground? And what poison gold mines
may exhale! how strange they make men’s faces, how
they change their colour! Have you not seen or heard
how they are wont to die in a short time and how the
powers of life fail those, whom the strong force of neces-
sity imprisons in such work? All these effluences then

1 + e e . . «
The reading is extremely uncertain: Heinrichsen’s suggestion
membra domans percepit fervida febris may be right.

Book VI, Ul. 816-8 go 263

earth sends steaming forth, and breathes them out into
the open and the clear spaces of heaven.

So these Avernian spots too must needs send up some Similarly
fume deadly to the birds, which rises from the earth into pie aa
the air, so that it poisons the expanse of heaven in a exhalation,
certain quarter ; and at the very moment when the bird των εἶ
is carried thither on its wings, it is checked there, seized birds, and
by the secret poison, so that it tumbles straight down on aaa
the spot, where the effluence has its course. And when they fall,
it has fallen into it, there the same force of the efiluence
takes away the remnant of life out of all its limbs. For
verily first of all it causes a kind of dizzy seething in the
birds: afterwards it comes to pass that, when they have
fallen right into the sources of the poison, there they must
needs vomit forth their life as well, because there is great
store of poison all around them.

It may happen, too, sometimes that this force and it may

be that the
effluence
between the birds and the ground, so that there 15 left dispels the

here an almost empty space. And when the birds in air, and so
? : : : the birds

their flight have come straight over this place, on 4 fall ina

sudden the lifting force of their pinions is crippled and ‘@cu™-

useless, and all the effort of their wings fails on either side.

effluence of Avernus dispels all the air that is situate

And then, when they cannot support themselves or rest
upon their wings, of course nature constrains them to
sink by their weight to the ground, and lying in death in
what is now almost empty void, they scatter abroad their

soul through allatie pores of their body τ΄. = 2. .
1 χε:,.

. s e ° e . e

moreover, the water in wells becomes colder in summer, 6, Wells are

1 A considerable passage is lost, in which the poet passed to a quite
hew subject.

cold in
summer,
because
earth gives
out its heat
into the air,
and warm
in winter,
because it
sends its
heat into
the wells.
The foun-
tain of
Ammon
grows cold
in the day
and warm
at night
for exactly
similar
reasons,

Book VI, ll, 841-869

because the earth grows porous with the heat, and if by
chance it has any seeds of heat of its own, it sends them
abroad into the air. The more then earth is exhausted
of its heat, the colder too becomes the moisture which is
hidden in the earth. Moreover, when all the earth is
hard pressed with cold, and contracts and, as it were, con-

264.

geals, of course it comes to pass that, as it contracts, it
squeezes out into the wells any heat it bears in itself.
There is said to be near the shrine of Ammon” a foun-
tain, cold in the daylight and warm in the night time.
At this fountain men marvel overmuch, and think that it
is made to boil in haste by the fierceness of the sun beneath
the earth, when night has shrouded earth in dreadful
darkness. But this is exceeding far removed from true
For verily, when the sun, touching the un-
covered body of the water, could not make it warm on
the upper side, though its light in the upper air enjoys
heat so great, how could it beneath the earth with its
body so dense boil the water and fill it with warm heat?
and that when it can scarcely with its blazing rays make
its hot effluence pierce through the walls of houses. What
then is the reason? We may be sure, because the ground

reasoning.

is rarer and warmer around the fountain than the rest of
the earth, and there are many seeds of fire near the body
of the water. Therefore, when night covers the earth
with the shadows that bring the dew, straightway the
earth grows cold deep within and contracts. By this
means it comes to pass that, as though it were pressed by
the hand, it squeezes out into the fountain all the seeds
of fire it has, which make warm the touch and vapour
of the water. Then when the rising sun has parted

Book VI, Ul. 869-898 26.

asunder the ground with his rays, and has made it rarer,

as his warm heat grows stronger, the first-beginnings of

fire pass back again into their old abode, and all the heat

of the water retires into the earth. For this cause the

fountain becomes cold in the light of day. Moreover, also be-
the moisture of the water is buffeted by the sun’s rays, ue
and in the light grows rarer through the throbbing heat ; breaks up
therefore it comes to pass that it loses all the seeds of vas ee
fire that it has; just as often it gives out the frost that the heat in
it contains in itself, and melts the ice and loosens its them.
bindings.

There is also a cold spring, over which if tow be held, The cold
it often straightway catches fire and casts out a flame, and πε: ἐνὶ
a torch in like manner is kindled and shines over the torches
catch fire,

owes its
Because, we may be sure, there are in the water very power to

many seeds of heat, and it must needs be that from the oe oe
re, which

very earth at the bottom bodies of fire rise up through shoot up
the whole spring, and at the same time are breathed forth ee
and issue into the air, yet not so many of them that the the water
spring can be made hot. Moreover, a force constrains Saag in
them suddenly to burst forth through the water scattered the torch.

singly, and then to enter into union up above. Even as It is like

springs of
; fresh water
up with fresh water and parts the salt waters asunder all in the sea.

around it; and in many other spots too the level sea
affords a welcome help to thirsty sailors, because amid the
salt it vomits forth fresh water. So then those seeds are
able to burst out through that spring, and to bubble out --

waters, wherever, as it floats, it is driven by the breezes.

there is a spring within the sea at Aradus," which bubbles

into the tow; and when they gather together or cling
to the body of the torch, readily they blaze out all

Observe
how the
wick
catches
before it
touches
the flame.

". ile
magnet,
and how it
holds its
chain of
tings sus-
pended.

Much must
be pre-
mised.

(a) From
all things
bodies are
always
streaming
off, which
arouse our
senses,

266 Book VI, Ul. 898-928

at once, because the tow and torches too have many seeds
of hidden fire in themselves. Do you not see too, when
you move a wick just extinguished near a night-lamp,
that it is kindled before it has touched the flame, and
a torch in like manner? And many other things as well
are touched first by the mere heat and blaze out at a
distance, before the fire soaks them close at hand. ‘This
then we must suppose comes to pass in that spring too.

For what follows, I willessay to tell by what law of nature
it comes to pass that iron can be attracted by the stone
which the Greeks call the magnet, from the name of its
native place, because it has its origin within the boundaries
of its native country, the land of the Magnetes. At this
stone men marvel ; indeed, it often makes a chain of rings
all hanging to itself. For sometimes you may see five or
more in a hanging chain, and swaying in the light
breezes, when one hangs on to the other, clinging to it
beneath, and each from the next comes to feel the bind-
ing force of the stone: in such penetrating fashion does
its force prevail.

In things of this kind much must be made certain before
you can give account of the thing itself, and you must
approach by a circuit exceeding long: therefore all the
more [| ask for attentive ears and mind.

First of all from all things, whatsoever we can see,
it must needs be that there stream off, shot out and
scattered abroad, bodies such as to strike the eyes and
awake our vision. And from certain things scents stream
off unceasingly ; even as cold streams from rivers, heat
from the sun, spray from the waves of the sea, which
gnaws away the walls by the seashore. Nor do diverse
sounds cease to ooze through the air. Again, moisture of

Book VI, Ul. 928-956 267

a salt savour often comes into our mouth, when we walk
by the sea, and on the other hand, when we behold worm-
wood being diluted and mixed, a bitter taste touches it.
So surely from all things each several thing is carried off
ina stream, and issent abroad to every quarter on all sides,
nor is any delay or respite granted in this flux, since we
perceive unceasingly, and we are suffered always to descry
and smell all things, and to hear them sound.

Now I will tell over again of how rarefied a body all (Ὁ) The

: here : ee bodies of
things are ; which is clearly shown in the beginning of my qj things
poem too." For verily, although it is of great matter to are porous;
learn this for many things, it is above all necessary for this
very thing, about which I am essaying to discourse, to
make it sure that there is nothing perceptible except body
mingled with void. First of all it comes to pass that in e.g. rocks,
caves the upper rocks sweat with moisture and drip with
trickling drops. Likewise sweat oozes out from all our the heman
body, the beard grows and hairs over all our limbs and ash
members, food is spread abroad into all the veins, yea, it
increases and nourishes even the extreme parts of the
body, and the tiny nails. We feel cold likewise pass metals,
through bronze and warm heat, we feel it likewise pass
through gold and through silver, when we hold full cups
in our hands. Again voices fly through stone partitions walls,
in houses, smell penetrates and cold and the heat of fire,
which is wont to pierce too through the strength of iron.
Again, where the breastplate of the sky!™ closes in the even the
world all around <the bodies of clouds and the seeds of Paice τὶ
storms enter in),and with them the force of disease, when the world.
it finds its way in from without; and tempests, gathering

1 The MS. reading caeli lorica is probably quite right, and a line is
lost, of which this, as Giussani suggests, was probably the sense.

(c) These
effluences
affect
different
things
differently :
e.g. sun-
light may
melt or
harden.

The wild
olive is
good to
goats,
loathsome
to us.
Pigs hate
marjoram,
and we

loathe mud.

(d) The

pores and
passages

in things
differ, and
let different
things pass
through
them,

268 Book VI, ll. 956-087

from earth and heaven, hasten naturally to remote parts
of heaven and earth; since there is nothing but has
a rare texture of body.

There is this besides, that not all bodies, which are
thrown off severally from things, are endowed with the
same effect of sense, nor suited in the same way to all
things. First of all the sun bakes the ground and parches
it, but ice it thaws and causes the snows piled high on the
high mountains to melt beneath its rays. Again, wax
Fire like-
wise makes bronze liquid and fuses gold, but skins and
flesh it shriveis and draws all together. Moreover, the
moisture of water hardens iron fresh from the fire, but
skins and flesh it softens, when hardened in the heat.
The wild olive as much delights the bearded she-goats, as
though it breathed out a flavour steeped in ambrosia and
real nectar; and yet for a man there is no leafy plant
more bitter than this for food. Again, the pig shuns mar-

becomes liquid when placed in the sun’s heat.

jorain, and fears every kind of ointment ; for to bristling
pigs it is deadly poison, though to us it sometimes
seems almost to give new life. But on the other hand,
though to us mud is the foulest filth, this very thing is
seen to be pleasant to pigs, so that they wallow all over
in it and never have enough.

This too remains, which it is clearshould be said, before
I start to speak of the thing itself.
assigned to diverse things, they must nceds be endowed
with a nature differing from one another, and have each

Since many pores are

their own nature and passages. For verily there are
diverse senses in living creatures, each of which in its own

way takes in its own object within itself. For we see that

Book VI, ll. 986-1017 269

sounds pass into one place and the taste from savours into
another, and to another the scent of smells. Moreover,
one thing is seen to pierce through rocks, another through
wood, and another to pass through gold, and yet another
to make its way out from silver and glass. For through
the one vision is seen to stream, though the other heat to
travel, and one thing is seen to force its way along the
same path quicker than others. We may know that the
nature of the passages causes this to come to pass, since
it varies in many ways, as we have shown a little before
on account of the unlike nature and texture of things.
Wherefore, when all these things have been surely estab-
lished and settled for us, laid down in advance and ready
for use, for what remains, from them we shall easily give
account, and the whole cause will be laid bare, which
attracts the force ofiron. First of allit must needs be” that
there stream off this stone very many seeds or an efiluence,
which, with its blows, parts asunder all the air which has
its place between the stone and the iron. When this
space is empticd and much room in the middle becomes
void, straightway first-beginnings of the iron start forward
and fall into the void, all jcined together; it comes
to pass that the ring itself follows and advances in this

way, with its whole body. Nor is anything so closely

interlaced in its first particles, all clinging linked together,
as the nature of strong iron and its cold roughness. There-
fore it is the less strange, since it is led on by its particles,
that it is impossible for many bodies, springing together
from the iron, to pass into the void, but that the ring
itself follows ; and this it does, and follows on, until it
has now reached the very stone and clung to it with
hidden fastenings. This same thing takes place in every

We can
now turn to
the magnet.

It sends off
particles
which beat
aside the
air in front
and make
a vacuum ;
into this
the atoms
of the iron
rush, and
because
they are
very closely
linked
together,
they draw
the whole
ting with
them.

270 Book VI, Ul. 1017-1045

This may direction;! on whichever side room becomes void, whether

a Be athwart or above, the neighbouring bodies are carried at

direction. once into the void. For indeed they are set in motion

by blows from the other side, nor can they themselves of

Further, the their own accord rise upwards into the air. ‘To this there

= behind Ὡς added, that it may the more be able to come to pass,

6 rng ᾿ ᾿ ᾿ .

pushes it. this further thing as an aid, yea, the motion is helped,

Bei the because, assoon as the air in front of the ring is made rarer,

where and the place becomes more empty and void, it straight-

there sno way comes to pass that all the air which has its place
air to beat

it back. behind, drives, as it were, and pushes the ring forward.

For the air which is set all around is for ever buffeting

things; but it comes to pass that at times like this it

pushes the iron forward, because on one side there is

empty space, which receives the ring into itself. This

air, of which I am telling you, finds its way in subtly

through the countless pores of the iron right to its tiny

parts, and thrusts and drives it on, as wind drives ship

The air and sails. Again, all things must have air in their body

mee seeing that they are of rare body, and the air is placed
pushes in round and set close against all things. ‘This air then,
πε τς which is hidden away deep within the iron, is ever tossed

about with restless motion, and therefore without doubt
it buffets the ring and stirs it within; the ring, we may
be sure, is carried towards the same side to which it has
once moved headlong, struggling hard towards the empty
spot.
When brass It comes to pass, too, that the nature of iron retreats
ae from this stone at times, and is wont to flee and follow
magnet turn by turn, Further, I have seen Samothracian iron
repels iron,

because the Tings even leap up, and at the same time iron filings move

? Place ; after garées and , after superne.

Book VI, tl. 1045-1073 oy

in a frenzy inside brass bowls, when this Magnesian stone effluence
was placed beneath :“so eagerly is the iron seen to desire eS

brass has
to flee from the stone. When the brass is placed between, already

so great a disturbance is brought about because, we may ieee
be sure, when the effluence of the brass has seized before- in the iron.
hand and occupied the open passages in the iron, after-

wards comes the effluence of the stone, and finds all full

in the iron, nor has it a path by which it may stream

through as before. And so it is constrained to dash

against it and beat with its wave upon the iron texture ;

and in this way it repels it from itself, and through the

brass drives away that which without it it often sucks in.

Herein refrain from wondering that the effluence from The magnet
this stone has not the power to drive other things in the mato ae
same way. For in part they stand still by the force of things be-
their own weight, as for instance, gold; and partly, be- cause ie
cause they are of such rare body, that the effluence flies γε ὑπ
through untouched, they cannot be driven anywhere ; Οἵ too fare
among this kind is seen to be the substance of wood. The i
nature of iron then has its place between the two, and
when it has taken in certain tiny bodies of brass, then it
comes to pass that the Magnesian stones drive it on with
their stream.

And yet these powers are not so alien to other things There are
that I have only a scanty store of things of this kind, of ee
which I can tell—things fitted just for each other and with a
for naught besides. First you see that stones are stuck eee
together only by mortar. Wood is united only by bulls’ binding
glue, so that the veins of boards more often gape than eee
the bindings of the glue will loosen their hold. The momar,
juice born of the grape is willing to mingle with streams wood and

: : : : lue, wine
ot water, though heavy pitch and light olive-oil refuse. a water,

awepet

dye and
wool,

brass and
white lead.

Whenever
shapes fit
mutually,
a strong
joining
results,

8. Plague
and disease.

When the
seeds of
harmful
things
gather in
the sky,
they
pollute it.
They may
come from
outside the
world or
from the
earth.

Book VI, Ul. 1074-1105

And the purple tint of the shellfish is united only with
the body of wool, yet so that it cannot be separated at all,
no, not if you were to be at pains to restore it with
Neptune’s wave, no, nor if the whole sea should strive to
wash it out with all its waves. Again, is not there one
thing only that binds gold to gold? is it not true that
brass is joined to brass only by white lead? How many
other cases might we find! What then? You have no
need at all of long rambling roads, nor is it fitting that
I should spend so much pains on this, but ’tis best shortly
Those things,
whose textures fall so aptly one upon the other that
hollows fit solids, each in the one and the other, make the
Sometimes, too, they may be held linked

272

in a few words to include many cases.

best joining.
with one another, as it were, fastened by rings and hooks ;
as is seen to be more the case with this stone and the
iron.

Now what is the law of plagues, and from what cause
on a sudden the force of disease can arise and gather
deadly destruction for the race of men and the herds of
cattle, I willunfold. First I have shown before that there
are seeds of many things which are helpful to our life, and
on the other hand it must needs be that many fly about
which cause disease and death. And when by chance
they have happened to gather and distemper the sky, then
the air becomes full of disease. And all that force of
disease and pestilence either comes from without the
world through the sky above, as do clouds and mists,
or else often it gathers and rises up from the earth
itself, when, full of moisture, it has contracted foulness,

So traveliers smitten by unseasonable rains or suns. Do you not see,

are affected

too, that those who journey far from their home and

Book VI, ll. 1103-1134 Gps.

country are assailed by the strangeness of the climate bya strange
and the water, just because things are far different? For πων
what a difference may we suppose there is between the

climate the Britons know and that which is in Egypt,

where the axis of the world slants crippled ;2 what differ-

ence between the climate in Pontus and at Gades, and so

right on to the black races of men with their sunburnt

colour? And as we see these four climates at the four and differ-
winds and quarters of the sky thus diverse one from the saat
other, so the colour and face of the men are seen to vary cause differ-
greatly, and diseases too to attack the diverse races each eee ee
after their kind. There is the elephant disease, which in races,
arises along the streams of the Nile in mid Egypt, and in see
no other place. In Attica the feet are assailed, and the diseases,
eyes in the Achaean country. Andso each place is harm-

ful to different parts and limbs: the varying air is the

cause. Wherefore, when an atmosphere, which chances [f then a
to be noxious to us, sets itself in motion, and harmful air sane!
begins to creep forward, just as cloud and mist crawls on pee λον
little by little and distempers all, wherever it advances, Comes tous,
and brings about change, it comes to pass also, that when

at last it comes to our sky, it corrupts it and makes it like

itself, and noxious to us. And so this strange destruction

and pestilence suddenly falls upon the waters or settles pestilence
even on the crops or on other food of men or fodder of ρος ἐν
the flocks; or else this force remains poised in the air beast.
itself, and, when we draw in these mingled airs as we

breathe, it must needs be that we suck in these plagues

with them into our body. In like manner the pes-

tilence falls too often on the cattle, and sickness also

on the lazy bleating sheep. Nor does it matter whether

we pass into spots hostile to us and change the ves-

546-16 S

Such was
the plague
at Athens,
which came
from

Egypt.

Symptoms
and causes
of the
disease,

274 Book VI, Ul. 1134-1162

ture of the sky, or whether nature attacking us brings
a corrupt sky } upon us, or something which we are not
accustomed to feel, which can assail us by its first
coming.

Such a cause of plague,® such a deadly influence, once
in the country of Cecrops filled the fields with dead and
emptied the streets, draining the city of its citizens. For
it arose deep within the country of Egypt, and came,
traversing much sky and floating fields, and brooded at
last over all the people of Pandion. ‘Then troop by troop
they were given over to disease and death. First of all
they felt the head burning with heat, and both eyes red
with a glare shot over them. ‘The throat, too, blackened
inside, would sweat with blood, and the path of the voice
was blocked and choked with ulcers, and the tongue, the
mind’s spokesman, would ooze with gore, weakened with
pain, heavy in movement, rough to touch. Then, when
through the throat the force of disease had filled the
breast and had streamed on right into the pained heart of
the sick, then indeed all the fastnesses of life were loosened.
Their breath rolled out a noisome smell from the mouth,
like the stench of rotting carcasses thrown out of doors.
And straightway all the strength of the mind and the
whole body grew faint, as though now on the very thres-
hold of death. And aching anguish went ever in the
train of their unbearable suffering, and lamentation,
mingled with sobbing. And a constant retching, ever
and again, by night and day, would constrain them con-
tinually to spasms in sinews and limbs, and would utterly

1 The MS, text involves an impossible false quantity, but this must
be the sense: possibly, as Housman suggests, the order of the words is
wrong.

Book VI, UW. 1162-1193 ais}

break them down, wearing them out, full weary before.

And yet in none could you see the topmost skin on the

surface of the body burning with exceeding heat, but

rather the body offered a lukewarm touch to the hands

and at the same time all was red as though with the scar

of ulcers, as it is when the holy fire spreads through the

limbs. But the inward parts of the men were burning to

the bones, a flame was burning within the stomach as in

a furnace. There was nothing light or thin that you

could apply to the limbs of any to do him good, but ever

only wind and cold. Some would cast their limbs, burn- Attempted
ing with disease, into the icy streams, hurling their naked ™™*4es.
body into the waters. Many leapt headlong deep into

the waters of wells, reaching the water with their very

mouth agape: a parching thirst, that knew no slaking,
soaking their bodies, made a great draught no better than

a few drops. Nor was there any respite from suffering ;

their bodies lay there foredone. The healers’ art mut-

tered low in silent fear, when indeed again and again they

would turn on them their eyes burning with disease and

reft of sleep. And many more signs of death were Accom-
afforded then: the understanding of the mind dis- ga ἢ -
traught with pain and panic, the gloomy brow, the fierce of the
frenzied face, and the ears too plagued and beset with pe
noises, the breath quickened or drawn rarely and very

deep, and the wet sweat glistening dank over the neck,

the spittle thin and tiny, tainted with a tinge of yellow

and salt, scarcely brought up through the throat with
ahoarse cough. ‘Thenin the hands the sinews ceased not

to contract and the limbs to tremble, and cold to come

up little by little from the feet. Likewise, even till the

last moment, the nostrils were pinched, and the tip of

§ 2

Length of

disease.

Subsequent
fate of
those who
escaped,

Unburied
bodies
avoided
by bird
and beast.

276 Book VI, Ut. 1193-122

the nose sharp and thin, the eyes hollowed, the temples
sunk, the skin cold and hard, a grin on the set face,
the forehead tense and swollen. And not long after-
wards the limbs would lie stretched stiff in death. And
usually on the eighth day of the shining sunlight, or else
beneath his ninth torch, they would yield up their life.
And if any of them even so had avoided the doom of death,
yet afterwards wasting and death would await him with
noisome ulcers, and a black flux from the bowels, or else
often with aching head a flow of tainted blood would pour
from his choked nostrils: into this would stream all the
strength and the body of the man. Or again, when a
man had escaped this fierce outpouring of corrupt blood,
yet the disease would make its way into his sinews and
limbs, and even into the very organs of his body. And
some in heavy fear of the threshold of death would
live on, bereft of these parts by the knife, and not a few
lingered in life without hands or feet and some lost their
eyes. So firmly had the sharp fear of death got hold on
them. On some, too, forgetfulness of all things seized,
so that they could not even know themselves. And
though bodies piled on bodies lay in numbers unburied
on the ground, yet the race of birds and wild beasts
either would range far away, to escape the bitter stench,
or, when they had tasted, would fall drooping in quick-
coming death. And indeed in those days hardly would
any bird appear at all, nor would the gloomy race of wild
beasts issue from the woods. Full many would droop in
disease and die. More than all the faithful strength of
dogs, fighting hard, would lay down their lives, strewn
about every street ; for the power of disease would wrest

Book VI, tl. 1224-1252 277

the life from their limbs. Funerals deserted, unattended,
were hurried on almost in rivalry. Nor was any sure Lack of
kind of remedy afforded for all alike ; for that which had remedies.
granted to one strength to breathe in his mouth the life-
giving breezes of air, and to gaze upon the quarters of
the sky, was destruction to others, and made death ready
for them. And herein was one thing pitiful and exceed- Despair.
ing full of anguish, that as each man saw himself caught
in the toils of the plague, so that he was condemned to
death, losing courage he would lie with grieving heart ;
looking for death to come he would breathe out his spirit
straightway. For indeed, at no time would the con-
tagion of the greedy plague cease to Jay hold on one after
the other, as though they were woolly flocks or horned
herds. And this above all heaped death on death. For Fate of
all who shunned to visit their own sick, over-greedy of ‘hose who
life and fearful of death, were punished a while after- sick,
wards by slaughtering neglect with a death hard and
shameful, abandoned and reft of help. But those who and of
had stayed near at hand would die by contagion and the ee
toil, which shame would then constrain them to undergo, them.
and the appealing voice of the weary, mingled with the
voice of complaining. And so all the nobler among them
suffered this manner of death i. SABRE Se ae
and one upon others, as they vied in burying the crowd Burials,
of their dead: worn out with weeping and wailing they
would return; and the greater part would take to their
bed from grief. Nor could one man be found, whom at
this awful season neither disease touched nor death nor
mourning.

Moreover, by now the shepherd and every herdsman,

1 Some lines of connexion seem to be lost here.

The plague
in the
country.

The
countrymen
flock into
the town
and increase
the disease,

Dead in
the streets
and public
places,

and
temples,

Horrors of
burial,

278 Book VI, Ul. 1253-1282

and likewise the sturdy steersman of the curving plough,
would fall drooping, and their bodies would lie thrust
together into the recess of a hut, given over to death by
poverty and disease. On lifeless children you might often
have seen the lifeless bodies of parents, and again, children
breathing out their life upon mothers and fathers. And
in no small degree that affliction streamed from the fields
into the city, brought by the drooping crowd of country-
men coming together diseased from every quarter. They
would fill all places, all houses; and so all the more,
packed in stifling heat, death piled them up in heaps.
Many bodies, laid low by thirst and rolled forward
through the streets, lay strewn at the fountains of
water, the breath of life shut off from them by the ex-
ceeding delight of the water, and many in full view
throughout the public places and the streets you might
have seen, their limbs drooping on their half-dead body,
filthy with stench and covered with rags, dying through
the foulness of their body, only skin on bones, wellnigh
buried already in noisome ulcers and dirt. Again, death
had filled all the sacred shrines of the gods with lifeless
bodies, and all the temples of the heavenly ones remained
everywhere cumbered with carcasses ; for these places the
guardians had filled with guests. Tor indeed by now the
religion of the gods and their godhead was not counted
for much: the grief of the moment overwhelmed it all.
Nor did the old rites of burial continue in the city, with
which aforetime this people had ever been wont to be
buried ; for the whole people was disordered and in
panic, and every man sorrowing buried his dead, laid out
as best he could. And to many things the sudden

— -

Book VI, ll, 1282-1286 279

calamity and filthy poverty prompted men. For with
great clamouring they would place their own kin on the
high-piled pyres of others, and set the torches to them,
often wrangling with much bloodshed, rather than aban-
don the bodies,

NOTES

BOOK I

1 ff. The introductory invocation to Venus has caused great
trouble to the commentators, as it appears to be inconsistent
with Lucretius’s belief (e. g. II. 646) that the gods live a blessed
life apart, and have no concern with the government of the
world or the affairs of men. But, though to some extent,
no doubt, such an invocation is to be accepted as a poctical
tradition, it is much more truly explained as having for
Lucretius an esoteric meaning. Venus is to him the creative
power of nature, the life-giving force, Lucretius’s reverence
for which may fairly be regarded as his true religion. (See
Martha, Le poéme de Lucréce, pp. 61 ff.)

41. in our country’s time of trouble. The poem was published
after Lucretius’s death in §5 B.c., and its unfinished state
shows that he must have been working at it in the immediately
preceding period. During that time Caesar was fighting in
Gaul, but Lucretius is more probably thinking of the gathering
storm of civil war.

2. Afcmmuius’s noble son. C. Memmius, to whom the poem
is addressed, was an aristocratic contemporary of Lucretius.
IIc had taken some part in public life, and seen foreign service,
but was better known as a prominent and somewhat dissolute
figure in society, and a patron of letters. He was probably
a professed Epicurean, whom Lucretius wished to arouse to
a more real faith and a better understanding of Epicurus’s
doctrines.

66. a man of Greece: of course Epicurus, whom Lucretius
only once mentions by name (III. 1042). Sce Introduction,
pp. 10 ff.

73. the fiery walls of the world. Lucretius conceived of our

Book I, ll. 1-216 281

world as a sphere, of which the outer coat was a circling stream
of fiery ether (V. 457-70). The expression here is then to
be taken quite literally.

84. Even as at Aulis, &c.: for the story of the sacrifice of
Iphigeneia at Aulis in order to procure favourable winds for
_ the fleet starting against Troy, see Euripides’ play, from which
Lucretius has borrowed several details, and even translated
phrases in this passage.

the Virgin of the Cross-roads, 1.e. Artemis.

95. seized by men’s bands, ὥς. Iphigeneia was brought to
Aulis on the understanding that she was to be married to
Achilles. Lucretius, therefore, here carefully selects phrases
which would remind a Roman reader of the ceremonials of
marriage.

117. our own Ennius. C. Ennius (died 169 B.c.), the first
great genius in Latin poetry, who introduced the hexameter,
and laid the foundation of nearly all the later branches
of Roman poetry. He believed in Pythagoras’s theory of
metempsychosis, and thought that he himself was possessed
by the soul of Homer, whose appearance to him in a vision he
described in one of his Saturae.

15c. nothing 1s ever begotten of nothing. This first principle
shows that the ultimate basis of the universe is a store of
matter, to which no addition is ever made. Lucretius’s
‘proof’ has been much criticized on the ground that he argues
against ‘spontaneous’ creation by a denial of ‘sporadic’
creation. But to his mind they were really the same: if
things came into being without a ‘seed’ or cause, the effect
would be that they would appear to spring from alien sources,
man from the sea, &c. As this does not occur, we may be
sure that things are never created without a ‘seed’, i.e. are
never uncaused additions to matter. Notice that his proof
alse establishes the law of cause and effect, which was his
strongest weapon of attack on religion.

216. nor does she destroy ought into nothing. The second
principle is complementary to the first. As matter never

282 Notes

receives any addition, so it never suffers any loss: the two
together constitute the modern notion of the permanence οὗ
matter, and show its existence in the form of particles. Note
again the proof: if nature could destroy anything, the whole
universe would perish, because (as he explains more clearly in
lines 556 ff.) the process of destruction is quicker than that of
creation.

330. thereisvoidintbings. Having established the existence
of matter in the form of particles, he proceeds to show that
there must also be empty space. To Epicurus’s argument
that without it motion is impossible, he adds two others
derived from the nature of compound things.

370. which some vainly stmagine, i.e. the Stoics. When
Lucretius alludes to opponents vaguely, without mentioning
their names, he nearly always has in view his natural rivals,
the Stoics (e.g. I. 465, 1053). They held that void did not
exist, but that motion was due to the mutual interchange of
places between things—a view not unlike that whichis now held
in conjunction with the conception of ether. Lucretius replies
that such interchange of place necessarily implies empty space.

391. But if by chance any one thinks. The argument here
is rather obscure: ‘this comes to be’ is the filling up of the
interval between the two bodies with air. Lucretius imagines
a view of air as a kind of elastic fluid, which condenses, as
the bodies meet, and then expands again when they separate.
To it he objects that such condensation and expansion itself
implies an admixture of empty space: a thing can only
expand because there is more vacuum in it, or contract because
there is less.

459. Even so time extsts not by ttself ... Once more the
argument is difficult. The Stoics, against whom Lucretius is,
as usual, disputing, held that time was an existence in itself,
and even went so far as to callita ‘body’. Lucretius replies
that it is only a sensation that we get from things, an ‘accident’
of things, just as much as their colour or scent or sound, or
wealth or poverty.

Book 1, ll. 330-599 283

464. Then again, when men say... The Stoics had apparently
raised a special difficulty with regard to Epicurus’s theory of
‘accidents ’ in the case of events in the past : the Trojan War,
they said, is something of which we are conscious now, but
all the persons, of whom you say it was ‘an accident’, are
long since dead, and we are not conscious of them, much less
could we be of their ‘accidents’. Lucretius’s reply is two-
fold: he says first, in a rather frivolous spirit: ‘ Well, we can
say that it is an ‘accident ” of the place, or if you object that
that too has changed, of that part of space.’ Secondly, he
replies seriously: ‘of course it was an “accident” of the
persons, for, if they had not existed, neither could the Trojan
War and its events.’

551. Again, if nature bad ordained... an argument which is
more obscure than it looks at first sight. Let us suppose
that the rate of destruction is twice as quick as that of creation,
and that it takes, e.g. ten years for a horse to be conceived,
born, and come to maturity, starting from particles the size
of the Lucretian atom: it will then require five for him to
grow old and die, and dissolve again into the particles. If at
the end of the twentieth year, nature requires to make another
horse, the Lucretian atom would, so to speak, be there ready,
having lain dormant for five years. But if there is no limit
to destruction, during those five years the process of destruc-
tion will have been going on at an equal rate, and it will now
require not ten but twenty years to put the particles together
into a horse: and the next generation would require forty, and
80 On, creation never keeping pace with destruction. But, as
it is, we see that there are fixed periods in which things can
be created and come to maturity: there must then be a limit
to destruction; in other words, there are ‘atoms’ (d-ropor,
indivisible things). (This explanation and illustration come
from Giussani’s edition of Lucretius.)

599. since there are extreme points... Another difficult
proof of the complete solidity (and therefore indestructibility)
of the atom. Lucretius is arguing, as Epicurus had taught

«2

284 Notes

him to do, from the analogy of perceptible things. If we try,
e.g. to fix our attention on the extreme point of a needle,
we can see a point so small that, though it is perceptible itself,
it is the minimum for sight: if we tried to see half of it, it
would pass out of the range of vision altogether. The needle
itself is composed of a countless number of such tiny points.
In the same way then the atom is composed of a few minute
parts, which can only exist as parts of the atom, and could
not be separated from it; they are the minimum of material
existence, and can have no existence apart from the atom
which they compose. The atom then has extension, but not
separable parts: in other words, is perfectly solid.

638. Heraclitus of Ephesus (about s1o 8. c.) held that the
piimary substance of which the world was created was fire,
which gave rise to other things by a perpetual flux; every-
thing was either streaming upwards to form fuel for the fire,
or downwards to the moisture which lay at the other end
of the ‘path’. Lucretius takes him as typical of the class of
early philosophers who believed that the world was made of
one element, and introduces ideas which were not actually
in Heraclitus’s theory: e.g. the notion of rarefaction and
condensation really comes from Anaximenes, who believed air
to be the primary material. Lucretius’s argument holds
well enough for any such theory ; if you select one element as
the basis, then, if it changes into other things, it ceases to
exist as itself; or if it continues to exist, then other things
do not.

716. Empedocles of Agrigentum (about 440 5. c.) is selected
as the type of the philosophers who held that the world was
composed of more than one element; he himself believed
that it was made of all four, earth, air, fire, and water, all
eternal and indestructible, but capable by combination and
separation of forming the perceptible world. Lucretius again
embraces in his criticism two schools of thought, those who
held that the elements retained their nature in combination
(770 ff.), and those who held that they ‘ changed’ into other

Book 1, Ul. 638-1052 285

things (763 ff.). But his general criticism is Just: on the
one hand, Empedocles is too much of a pluralist, for by his
four, always heterogeneous, elements he destroys the funda-
-mental unity of the world; on the other, he is not enough of
a pluralist, for the four elements are not sufficient to account
for the infinite variety of phenomena.

717. that island, i.e. Sicily.

733- scarce born of buman stock. Empedocles, who prac-
tised magic, seems to have laid claim to divine powers.

830. the homocomeria of Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (about
440 B.C.), who held a theory which was an advance on that of
the earlier philosophers, whom Lucretius criticizes, and reaily
paved the way for atomism, but Lucretius has not understood
him. He held, in the first place, that things were composed
of ‘seeds’, small particles like in substance to the whole.
But, as Lucretius points out, this will not account for the
phenomena of change, which it was, in fact, Anaxagoras’s
chief aim to explain. For this purpose he said indeed that
‘ there is a portion of everything in everything’, but explained
that these ‘ portions’ were not merely extremely minute, but
‘only perceptible by reason’, 1. e. we know that they are there,
but never could see them. He came, in fact, near to the
modern conception of chemical change, and the crude criticism
of Lucretius from line 875 onwards is therefore beside the
mark.

968. Aforcover, suppose now, &c. This proof by imaginary
experiment of the infinity of the universe 15 a famous one.
Itis used in much the same form by Locke, Essay 1]. 13.

1052. Herein shrink far from believing, &c. This theory,
held again by the Stoics, that all things tend to the centre
of the world, came, as will be seen, very near the truth, and
was an approach to the modern idea of gravitation. Lucretius
could not, of course, adopt it, as it was a direct contradiction
of the fundamental Epicurean theory that the natural motion
of things-was always downwards (II. 184 ff.).

286 Notes

BOOK II

40. the spaces of the Campus, i.e. the Campus Martius, just
outside the walls of Rome, on which military reviews were
held, and sometimes an army would be encamped. Munro
notes that in 58 B.c. Caesar had his army there for three months
before starting for Gaul, and this occasion may well be in
Lucretius’s mind. Indeed, above, In lines 12 and 13, he seems
to be thinking of the rivalry of Caesar and Pompey.

83. For since they wander through the void, &c. The account
of the movement of the free atoms in the void is a little con-
fused in this and the following passages. Lucretius really
conceives of three causes of their movement: (1) the natural
fall downwards due to their weight; (2) the occasional slight
swerve sideways (216 ff.); (3) the movement due to the
collisions originally brought about by this swerve. Here,
rather illogically, he only mentions (1) and (3), as he is reserving
his account of (2) owing to its special importance.

124. traces of a concept. See note on line 744.

127. such jostlings bint, &c. A very important passage for
Lucretius’s theory of motion. All atoms are always moving
at the full atomic speed (142 ff.), even in compound bodies,
inside which, as they collide with one another, they accomplish
tiny trajectories, each moving in the direction which the last
blow gave it, untilit collides with another atom, and is started
in a new direction. ‘This internal vibration in all directions
will of course retard the motion of the whole, and we must
imagine the atoms forming tiny molecules, and then slightly
larger bodies, with ever lessening motion, until, when the
bodies are large enough for us to perceive, such as the motes
in the sunbeam, the motion 15 also sufficiently retarded to be
visible to us. All this, though not clearly stated, is implied
in these few lines.

152. Nor again do the several particles, &c. Here the idea
of internal vibration and consequent retardation comes out

Book Lf, ll. 40-532 287

very clearly; even the sun’s light is so impeded, as well as by
che opposition of the air, through which it passes.

185. no bodily thing can of tts own force, &c. This is again
an important point: upward motion is always the result of
external force. Even among the atoms it can only happen as
the result of collisions, when e. g. one atom is squeezed between
two others and thus shot up.

219. push a little from their path. The notion of the slight
swerve of the atoms and its tremendous result in the free will
of man is a supremely important point in the Epicurean
philosophy, for it combats Democritus’s belief in complete
determinism, which Epicurus regarded as a more dangerous
enemy to morality than even religion. See Introduction,
Py 17.

225. But1f perchance any one believes. This paragraph con-
tains one of Lucretius’s most acute pieces of reasoning, that
in a vacuum all things fall at the same pace.

269. so that you see a start of movement, &c. The relation
between the swerve of the atoms and man’s free-will is, of
course, to Lucretius’s mind not a mere analogy: the former
is the cause of the latter. The mind is composed of a subtle
texture of fine atoms (III. 161 ff.), and it is the swerving of
these atoms which gives rise to an act of will.

410. the barsh shuddering sound, &c. Sound, in Lucretius’s
notion, is caused, just like sight or smell, by a body of particles
given off by the object, and penetrating the ear (IV. 523 ff.).

485. For suppose the first bodies, &c. For this idea of the
inseparable ‘ least parts’ in the atom see I. 599 ff.

512. For because you see, ὥς, Here we meet a curious
principle of Epicurus, which Lucretius nowhere states, but
often acts on, of the ‘equal distribution’ (/covopia) of
things. If a certain class is rare in some parts of the world,
or even in our world altogether, it will be found in plenty in
other parts of the world or the universe: there is, on the
whole, an equal number of things of the same kind. Compare
569 ff. for a similar idea.

ese oo

288 Notes

598. the Great Mother of the gods. This was the title of the
earth-goddess, Cybele, whose worship had been brought to
Rome from Phrygia in 204 B.c. Lucretius in the next paras
graph explains the ceremonial of the cult allegorically.

29. Then comes an armed band, &c. There was always in
antiquity some confusion between the worship of Cybele in
Phrygia and that of the Mother in Crete, which was heightened
by the fact that in each place the scene of the worship was on
Mount Ida. Modern investigation seems to show that the
Phrygian worship was actually derived from the Cretan.

701. for you would see monsters, &c. Lucretius returns to this
idea of the impossibility of the formation of monsters with
parts derived from different races of animals, and supports it
with rather different arguments in V. 878 ff.

740. that the mind cannot project itself into these bodies. A
reference toa rather obscure ideain the psychology of Epicurus.
The mind being an aggregation of soul-atoms, its thoughts
are caused when these atoms are stirred by images coming
from things outside or fromits own stores (IV. 722 ff.). But the
mind has a power of spontaneously ‘ projecting itself upon’
the images (ἐπιβολὴ τῆς διανοίας), which results in attention,
observation, selection, &c., or sometimes, when it so combines
more than one image in its grasp, in the creation of a new
conception. Here Lucretius imagines his reader as doubting
whether it was possible for the mind by such an act of ‘pro-
jection’ to grasp the idea, 1. e. to ‘ visualize’, colourless atoms.
He replies by the analogy of the blind, suggesting that we
must think of the atoms as something which could be touched
but not seen. Compare lines 1047 and 1080 of this book.

744. may become a clear concept. Another technical notion
of Epicurus. The mind had ready in itself general notions or
concepts of classes of things, to which it could refer, when
any new instance of the class occurred; thus, we know, e. g-
that ‘this is a horse’, because we have the general idea of
‘horse’ to which to refer (for this reason Epicurus gave the
concepts the rather curious name of mpoArWers,‘anticipations’).

Book If, ll. 598-908 289

These general concepts were formed, in the case of perceptible
objects, by the storing up in the mind of a series of single
impressions, which formed a sort of ‘ composite photograph’.
But in the case of imperceptible things, such as the atoms, he
probably conceived of their being formed by a combination
of existing concepts by a‘ projection of the mind’. So here,
by combining the concept of an atom with that of touch with-
out sight, we get the ‘clear concept’ of a colourless atom.
Easier cases of the application of the idea of ‘ concepts’ will
ie found in 11. 124, IV. 476, V. 124, 182, 1047.

865. It must needs be, ἄς. This proof, that things
which themselves have sensation, are yet created of atoms
that have not, is of course of immense importance for the
next Book, in which Lucretius is going to prove that the soul
is mortal.

goz. Next, those who think, &c., a difficult and very tersely
expressed argument. If there are sensible atoms, they must
be like in substance to such sensible things as we know, veins,
sinews, &c. If so, they are soft, and therefore not mortal,
which is the very reverse of what Lucretius’s imaginary
opponents would wish to prove.

908. still doubtless they must either bave, &c. Again the
argument is put very briefly and obscurely. He appeals
once more to our experience. We only know two kinds of
sensation, (1) the sensation of a complete sentient being, as
when ‘I feel well’ or ‘ happy ’, (2) the sensation of a part of
such a being, as when ‘ my tooth aches’. If then the atoms,
which compose sentient beings, have themselves sensation, it
must be of one of these two kinds. But firstly, parts only
have sensation as parts of a sentient whole: my tooth only
feels as a part of me, and would not feel if it were taken out.
In this case the individual atoms, apart from the whole com-
pound, would have no sensation. Secondly, they may be
each of them complete sentient beings ; but then (a) like other
sentient beings they must be mortal (see note on 902), (0) they
could not by coming together produce one sentient being,

546.15 T

290 Notes

but only a jumble of independent sentient beings, unless (c) in
uniting they lose their own sense and combine to form the new
sense of the compound being ; in this case why attribute sense
to them as individuals ?

931. But if by chance any one shall say, ἅς. A slightly
different position to that just dealt with. It may be admitted
that the atoms are not sentient when separate, but they
become sentient in the compound. No, replies Lucretius;
by their union they form a sentient body, but the individual
atoms always remain insentient.

975. whereof the race of men has its peculiar increment,1. e.
che sensible atoms, which, according to the theory Lucretius
is opposing, man has in addition to the non-sensible atoms
which compose his body. This argument is of course not to be
taken quite seriously: Lucretius is fond of finishing a series
of serious proofs with a reductio ad absurdum. Compare III.
367, 776, and especially I. 918.

1011. what we see floating on the surface of things is the
‘secondary qualities’, and especially colour, as he has
explained at great length: what we see at tzmes coming to birth
and... passing away is similarly sensation. This paragraph
isa summing up of all he has said from line 730 onwards.

1047. the unfettered projection of our mind: see note on line
740. This is clearly a case where the mind, by its own free
effort, puts concepts together to form a new conclusion.

1077. in the universe there is nothing single: for this argu-
ment see note on line §32.

1154. For 1t was no golden rope, ὥς. A reference to the
famous passage in Homer, Jlzad, 8. 19, where Zeus challenges
the other gods to attach a golden rope to him and pull him
down from heaven to earth. The Stoics had apparently
interpreted the passageallegorically as referring to the creation
of life on earth.

Book EH, ΠΡ 1. 323 291

BOOK III

19. which neither the winds shake, &c. Again an allusion
to a famous passage in Homer, Od. VI. 42 ff., which has passed
on into English in Tennyson’s Morte d’ Arthur.

43. that the soul’s nature 1s of blood, or else of wind. The
theory that the soul was made of blood was that of Empedocles,
of wind that of Critias.

94. First I say that the mind... All through this book we
must distinguish carefully, as Lucretius does, between the
mind (animus), which is an aggregate of pure ‘soul-atoms ’
situated in the breast, and is the seat of thought and volition,
and the soul or vital principle (anima), which is made of
similar atoms, but scattered throughout the body and mixed
with the body atoms, and is the cause of sensation in the body.
Sometimes, however, when he is making statements which
apply to both, he uses one or other of the terms in an inclusive
sense.

100. which the Greeks call a harmony. Lucretius is thinking
particularly of Aristoxenus, a pupil of Aristotle, who was
a great theoretical musician, and applied his musical theory to
the explanation of the human soul.

241. some fourth nature. This idea of the mysterious fourth
nature, which is infinitely subtle, and is the ultimate cause
of sensation and thought, has often been claimed as a prac-
tical admission by Lucretius of something supra-material or
spiritualin the mind. But of course he conceives it as purely
corporeal, just like any of the other component elements.

262. with the motions of first-beginnings. See II. 127 and
the note on that passage; the idea of the internal vibrations
of the atoms there illustrated is what Lucretius has in his
mind here.

323. This nature then of the soul, &c. This notion of the very
intimate union of soul and body, so that while the body
protects the soul, the soul in return lends the body sensation

T2

292 Notes

is not very clearly expressed, but is of course of great impor-
tance for the subsequent discussion; neither soul nor body
can continue to exist without the presence and help of the
other.

367. if our eyes are as doors, &c. Another example of the
reductio ad absurdum as the conclusion of a serious argument.

371. Democritus of Abdera (about 4308.¢.), was, with
Leucippus, the earliest exponent of the atomic theory. He 18
always regarded with great respect by Lucretius, who carefully
notes this point, on which Epicurus differed from him (compare
V. 621). See Introduction; Ρ 1".

417. the minds and the light souls... This is, of course, the
main purpose of the book, to prove that the soul is mortal, and
that therefore there is no reason to fear its punishment after
death. There follows a rather bewildering series of twenty-eight
proofs, which are not well classified or arranged by Lucretius,
but we can distinguish three main lines of argument: (1)
proofs from the previously described structure of soul and
body; (2) proofs from death, disease, and cure, showing the
close parallelism between soul and body ; (3) arguments from
the absurdity of the conception of the soul existing alone
apart from body.

421. Be it yours, &c.: a warning that in this section he
means to speak comprehensively of the mind and the soul,
and that what is said of the one is applicable to the other.
See note on line 94.

430. bytmages of smokeand cloud. Areference tothe theory
of ‘images’, or ‘idols’, as the cause of vision and thought
which is expounded in Book LY.

548. And since the mind ts one part of man. The mind,
whose peculiar sensation, thought, is aroused, just like all
other sensations, by touch, is here treated as practically
another organ of sense. -~

597. the beart bas bad a shock, or the beart bas failed: these
are meant to be phrases of quite common parlance, and to
translate them we must, I think, use ‘the heart’, though

Book 7111], Ul. 367-876 293

‘Lucretius uses his ordinary words for ‘mind’ and ‘soul’.
Seeing that he placed the mind in the breast, the change is
not so far wrong.

627. Nor in any other way can we picture to ourselves, ὅς. :
notice that the test of truth is the possibility of ‘ visualization’,
as it must be for the Epicurean, to whom it was the only mode
of thought.

679. Moreover, tf when our body, ὥς. The argument of this
paragraph is not so clear as it might be; itis really a dilemma.
If an already formed soul enters our body at the moment of
birth, (a) if it keeps its independent existence, it could never
become so closely linked and connected with our body, as we
see it is; (6) (line 698) if it is dispersed among the limbs, it
docs not maintain its existence, it perishes, and the soul in
the body is a different soul to that which existed before.

741. Again, why does fiery passion, &c. An interesting
argument in support of heredity as against the notion of
the transmigration of souls.

772. Or why does tt desire, &c. In thts and the next para-
graph we notice again the reductio ad absurdum towards the
conclusion; it has already obtruded itself in lines 725 ff.

784. Again, a tree cannot exist in the sky, ὅς. A new line of
argument, that everything in nature has its fixed place, and
that of the soul is in the body. Lucretius applies the same
argument again in almost the same words in V. 128 ff.

806. Moreover, 1f ever things abide for everlasting, &c.
Another general principle, that there are certain fixed con-
ditions for immortality, none of which the soul fulfils. Again
Lucretius repeats the argument in Book V. 351 ff. to prove
that our world is not immortal.

830. Death, then, ts naught to us, ἅς. From here to the end
of the book follows a kind of triumph-song over the mortality
of the soul. ‘ We need not fear death, fer after it there is no
part of us surviving to feel anything,’ Itis really the climax
of the poem.

876. be does not, I trow, grant, &c.: perhaps a little obscure.

294 Notes

Such a man professes to grant that his soul does not survive
his death on the grounds which Lucretius has just been
discussing. But he does not in practice admit either the one
or the other, as he half-consciously assumes that some part of
him will survive to feel what happens to his body.

891. and to grow stiff with cold: this is not an alternative
mode of burial, but goes closely with what has just preceded.
After embalming, the Romans often left the corpse lying on
a rock slab in the vault, or on the bier on which it was brought.

936. as though heaped in a vessel full of boles. Lucretius is
thinking of the legend of the Danaids, to which he specially
refers in lines 1008 ff.

971. to none for freebold, to all on lease. Lucretius is here
using two technical terms of Roman law: mancipium was
a full legal process of acquiring a possession, which gave the
owner the most complete title to it, uss, the mere right of
possession by custom, or ‘usufruct’. It seems best to accept
parallel expressions in English, rather than to introduce their
exact equivalents, which would have a very prosy effect, into
the text.

1025. Ancus the good. Of course Ancus Martius, the
legendary fourth king of Rome. Lucretius takes this line
from the Annals of Ennius.

1029. δὲ bimself, who once... Xerxes.

BOOK IV

1. I traverse the distant haunts, &c. These verses are repeated
with a few slight changes, from I. 921 ff.

34. tdols: it seems best to translate Lucretius’s word
simulacra in this way, as it is itself a translation of Epicurus’s
word εἴδωλον. The famous theory of vision is clearly
explained here by Lucretius himself.

67. above all, since on the surface of things, &c.: a passage
with more meaning than is at first apparent. When in the

Book II, 1. 891-IV, 1. 256 = 295

compound body all the atoms are moving at great speed in
their tiny trajectories (see note on IJ. 527), it is obvious that
those in the inner part are well hemmed in. But those on
the surface have none outside to beat them back, and so are
much more liable to break away from the object; it is these
then that form the films, which produce vision.

193. first, because it 1s a tiny cause, &c. This is a very
esoteric piece of Epicurean physics. We saw (see note on
II. 127) that the speed of the unimpeded atom was much
greater than that of any compound of atoms, however small,
as the latter is checked by internal vibration. For the same
reason the impact of the unimpeded atom is greatest, and it
can therefore impart greater specd to any object which it hits.
The films are sent on their way by the blows of other single
atoms inside the compound, and the ‘ tiny cause’ is therefore
able to impart great speed to them.

199. Moreover, when particles of things, ἄς. Another rather
abstruse piece of theory. Particles coming from deep within
things are obstructed and jostled by the atoms, through which
they have to make their way, and therefore have their speed
diminished. But those which start from the surface, start,
80 to speak, without this initial handicap, and therefore attain
a much greater rate of motion.

241. But because we can see them only... Avery confused
statement. Lucretius seems to be combining two points that
he wished to state: (1) that these images are constantly
hitting us in all parts of our body, but we can only see them
with our eyes; (2) as the images are constantly streaming off
bodies on all sides, wherever we turn our eyes, we see them.

246. For when it ts given off, ἄς. Not a very satisfactory
account. For (a) how can our eyes measure the length of
this ‘draught’ from objects which passes through them;
(δ) even if they could, how can they know at what moment
the ‘draught’ from any particular object, which they are
going to see, begins?

256. Herein by no means must we deem, &c. An important

-_
-

296 Notes

point. We do not see the individual ‘idols’ of things, but
their constant succession gives us a ‘cinematographic’
impression of the whole object.

311. flank-curved mirrors: probably a special name for
concave horizontal mirrors.

315. 07 else because the image, &c.: a very ingenious but not
very clear explanation. The idea is that with a flat mirror
the whole surface of the image meets the mirror at once and
is returned as it is, but with the curved mirror one corner of
the image would touch it before the rest, and the result would
be that the image would be given a twist and turned round
so that it reached us again ‘ right-handed’.

322. inasmuch as nature, &c.: as we say in modern
scientific language, the angle of reflection is equal to the
angle of incidence. These two lines ought possibly to be
placed, as Giussani suggests, after line 307, where they would
be more immediately in place. Here they give a general
principle, which is the real cause of all the last four phe-
nomena.

353. And when we see from afar off, ὥς. The problem of
the square tower, which seems round at a distance, was one
of the traditional difficulties of the Epicurean school. This
explanation, however, tends to destroy our trust in the ‘ idols’
as true evidence of things, and it is doubtful whether it was
Epicurus’s own.

387. The ship, in whitch we journey, ὥς. There follows an
interesting list of ‘ optical illusions ’, in all of which Lucretius
bolds that the mistake lies not in the sense-perception, but in
the inferences made by the mind.

469. Again, 1f any one thinks, &c. This protest against
scepticism and vindication of the veracity of the senses is the
keystone of the whole Epicurean philosophy: every other
part of it really depends on this.

476. the concept of the true and the false. The conccpt, as
we have seen (see note on II. 744), must be produced by a series
of individual experiences. Ifa man has never perceived any-

Book IV, ll. 311-823 297

thing true with the senses, how can he have the concept of
truth?

483. Will reason, sprung from false sensation, ἄς. Reason
is based on the senses, for its function is to distinguish and
correlate the impressions given by the senses. If then the
senses are false, much more must reason be: it cannot act as
a criterion of the truth of sense-perceptions. The same idea
is found in a famous passage of Democritus, quoted in the
Introduction, p. 13.

493. all that goes along with colour is form in its various
aspects of surface-outline, bulk, size, &c.

524. First of all, every kind of sound, &c. Sound is in
Lucretius’s idea a corporeal emission, much like the ‘idols’
of vision, which strikes upon the ear.

615. Nor do the tongue and palate, &c. The case of taste is
easy, because it can be accounted for directly by touch, and
it is not necessary to assume the intervention of emissions.

673. Come now, I willtell, &c. Inthe case of smell Lucretius
has again to assume the effluence or emission to act as a link
between the nose and the object.

694. Firstly, because coming from deep within, &c. Compare
the argument in lines 199 ff., and the note there.

710. Nay, indeed, ravening lions, &c. This curious fact 18
vouched for by Pliny and Plutarch.

722. Come now, let me tell you, &c. The mind being an
aggregation of corporeal atoms, just like eye or ear, thought
must be produced just like sight or hearing, by the stirring of
the atoms of the mind by ‘ idols’.

977. And in these matters, &c. Another obscurely expressed
passage. The main idea is simple, if we bear in mind always
the Lucretian conception of thought as ‘ visualization’. The
mind can think of whatever it will, because there are at all
times present to it ‘idols’ of every sort, and it can turn its
attention to any one of these it likes by a ‘ projection’ (see
note on II. 740).

823. Herein you must eagerly, &c. An argument against

.πῶ τ. -- -

298 Notes

the teleological view of nature, which Lucretius of course
dislikes because it might seem to support the theological idea
that the gods made the world with a purpose. The eye, says
Lucretius, was not made inorder that we might see, but because
it has been created we do see.

860. For verily I bave shown, &c. Compare especially
1. ii2o i.

883. Then comes the will, &c.: this passage should be read
in connexion with the theory of free-will, and its origin in the
slight swerving of the atoms in II. 216 ff.

897. that the body, like a ship, 1s borne on by sails and wind.
This is almost certainly the sense of this corrupt line, but the
parallel does not work out very well. The sails should
correspond to the act of will in the body, the wind to the ex-
ternal force, the air entering the pores. But the sails are of no
use without the wind. It is possible, as has been suggested,
that the ‘two things’ are the entering air and the parts of
the body which it reaches. This would make the parallel
more satisfactory, but does not seem likely to be what Lucre-
tius meant, as the distinction would not be important enough.

916. First of all sleep comes to pass. Notice again the purely
material explanation. Sleep is the absence of sensation, which
is duetothesoul. It must be then that the soul-atoms in sleep
are either scattered about in the body, or driven out of it, or
retreat far within below the surface. Even more strictly
physical is the account in the next paragraph of how this
comes to be.

1063. tt 15s best to flee thoseimages, ὅς. Theattack on love was
part of the traditional philosophy of Epicurus, who thought
it destructive to a man’s peace of mind to be too dependent
on others, but we cannot help remembering all through this
passage the story that Lucretius himself was maddened by
a love-philtre, and ultimately driven to commit suicide.

Book LV, 1. 860-V, ἃ 281 299

BOOK V

22. of Hercules: Lucretius deals at such special length with
Hercules because he was adopted as their particular hero by
the Stoics.

117. the giants, who attempted to assail heaven by piling
Pelion on Ossa, and were punished by imprisonment beneath
the earth, Enceladus being shut beneath Etna.

155. all which I will hereafter prove to you: but he never
does. It has been thought, with much probability, that
Lucretius’s intention was to close the whole poem, after the
description of the plague of Athens, with a discussion and
picture of the nature and life of the gods, clinching the whole
argument of the poem with the proof that they could take
no part in the government of the world. He does indeed
return to the question of the origin of religion in this book (lines
1161 ff.), but that passage cannot be what he refers to here.

182. the concept of man. This is a very good instance of
the technical idea of the ‘ anticipation’ (see note on II. 744).
If the gods had not in their minds a ‘concept’ of man, resulting
from previous sense-perceptions, how could they have set
about to make a man? One is tempted to reply ‘ after their
own image’.

195. But even if I knew not, &c. Lucretius’s rather crude
contribution to the problem of the existence of evil.

235. First of all, &c.: the poet now returns, after the long
digression about the gods and the theory of the divine creation
of the world, to the point which he left at line 110, that the
world had a birth and will be destroyed.

281. Likewise that bounteous source, &c. A rather subtle
notion: that what appears to us as a continuous stream
of light from the sun, or even from torches, &c., on earth,
is really a constant succession of small particles of light, the
foremost ever perishing, and their place being taken by fresh
particles from behind.

300 Notes

320. as some tell: of course the Stoics as usual. This
passage is interesting, as it is an adaptation by Lucretius of
verses in which the tragic poet Pacuvius had expressed the
Stoic doctrine.

351. Moreover, 1f ever things abide, &c. Compare III. 806 ff.
and the note on that passage.

411. Moisture Itkewise, ὅς. The story of the flood of
Deucalion and Pyrrha was of course familiar in antiquity.
Compare e.g. Horace, Odes 1. 2. § fi.

443. From this mass, &c. This idea of an original chaos,
out of which a world was formed by the union of the like and
the separation of the unlike, was, in its main outlines, tradi-
tional among the Greek physical philosophers, but Epicurus
explained how it might be brought about without the gratui-
tous assumption of an unaccountable ‘ whirl’ or an arbitrary
‘necessity ’, such as previous thinkers had assumed.

510. 1f the great globe of the sky turns round, &c. The ideas
of Lucretius’s astronomy are often curious and complicated,

ΕἸσ. I.

4

but we must always bear in mind that he conceives the world
2s a sphere, in the centre of the interior of which is suspended

1
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al! exclanauons, not comradrcted by the senses, are so be
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302 Notes

596. For it may be that from this spot, &c.: the idea is that
the sun is an opening, or breach in the ‘ walls of the world’,
through which myriads of particles of light from outside the
world stream into it.

614. Nor 1s there any single account of the sun, ἄς. An
obscure section, because Lucretius is guilty of confusion. The
apparent path of the sun in the heavens has two notable

Ετο. 2,

features: (1) he appears to make a complete circuit of the
heavens in the year, from west to east, just as the moon does
in a month, and the planets in longer periods than the sun;
(2) this circuit is not in the same plane as the equator: where-
fore it seems that the sun goes up and down as well as round.
Of the two explanations given by Lucretius, the first (621~36)
would explain the former phenomenon, the second (637-45)
the latter, but Lucretius has unfortunately represented them
not as concurrent explanations of a complex phenomenon, but
as alternative explanations of the whole.

(1) Democritus’s theory of the relative orbits of sun, moon,
and planets may be explained by the accompanying diagram
(Fig. 2). Suppose that in a given time the stars have actually

Book V, Ul. 597-656 303

moved on the outer rim of the world from ἃ toa: the planets
moving more slowly, as they are nearer the earth and thus less
influenced by the ‘ whirl’ of the heavens, will in the same time
have moved from ὦ to δ᾽, the sun from ¢ to c', and the moon,
slower still, from ὦ to 2d’. But with reference to the stars,
which seem fixed, the planets seem to have moved from § to
b', the sun from y toc’, and the moon from ὃ to d’.

(2) But this orbit being set in a different plane to that of

Fic. Be

the equator, the effect is of the sun passing down towards the
south in the autumn until in winter he reaches the tropic, or
turning-point of Capricorn, and northwards in the spring until
in summer he reaches the tropic of Cancer. This, it is sug-
gested (637-49), was brought about by winds blowing
‘athwart his course’.

643. those stars which roll through ... i.e. the planets.

651. either when after bis long journey, &c.: this theory,
that the sun was extinguished each night, and a new sun lit
in the morning, was that of Heraclitus: the other is the
normal idea of ancient astronomy.

656. Likewise at a fixed time, &c. The two following
theories of the dawn correspond exactly to the twoimmediately
preceding theories of the sun’s light; if he completes a circle
under the earth, dawn is the advance light of his return; if

304 Notes |

a new sun is created each day, dawn is caused by the light
gathering to form the sun.

Matuta was an ancient Roman deity of the dawn.

682. etther because the same sun, &c. Another difficult
section, though its general meaning is comparatively clear.
The sun performs apparently both an annual orbit round the
heavens, with which Lucretius has already dealt (614-49),
and also a daily revolution. At most times of the year he
divides the circle of the daily revolution unequally: in the
winter he is for the greater part below the horizon, so that night

L Wirter 2.Equinax 6.Summer
Day Day Day
R 5
R 5
R
Night Nignt
Fic. 4.

is longer Fig. 4 (1); in the summer he is for the greater part
above the horizon, so that day is longer (3); but at the
equinoxes he divides his circle exactly into semi-circles, so
that day and night are equal (2). This occurs twice in
the year, at the equinoxes or ‘nodes’, the points at which the
sun’s orbit cuts the equator (Fig. 5). The exact interpretation
of lines 689-93 has been very much disputed, especially with
regard to the precise meaning of the ‘turning-points’: are
they a point in the annual orbit or in the daily revolution?
I take the whole passage to depend on what Lucretius has
already said about the annual orbit in lines 614-49: ‘the
blast of the north wind and of the south’ refers to the theory
that the sun was blown out of his natural course to the tropics:
the ‘turning-points’ are, just as they were in line 617, the
tropics. ‘The passage means then, that mid-way in the sun’s
course from north to south and south to north the sun holds

Book V, ll. 682-705 305

his ‘ turning-points’ at equal distances apart; 1.e. he is on the
equator. The effect of this, Lucretius implies but does not
state, is that day is then exactly equal to night, for when the
sun is on the equator he rises due east and sets due west—in
other words, his daily revolution is exactly along the line of

᾿

5

Fic. s. T=the Earth; PP=the Poles; NES We=the Horizon;
EQW R=the Equator; QCPrL=the Eliptic; Qr=the Kquinoxes
or Nodes.

the equator, and is therefore performed, as may be seen from
the figure, exactly half above and half below the horizon.

(A fuller description and explanation of Lucretius’s idea of
the ‘heavenly globe’ may be found in the introduction to Mr.
J. Ὁ. Duff’s edition of Book v, to which I am much indebted.)

696. Or else, because, &c.: this second explanation still rests
on the assumption of ‘ the same sun’ performing a daily journey
under the earth, whereas the third (line 701) depends on the
Heraclitean notion of a new sun being kindled every day
(compare lines 651 ff. and 660 ff.).

γος. Ibe moon may shine, &c. Similarly in this paragraph

546,15 U

306 Notes

the first three explanations regard the moon as passing below
the earth and re-appearing, the fourth (line 731 ff.) assumes
the creation of a new moon every day. Lines 729-730 are a
very emphatic expression of the principle that we must accept
all explanations equally, if they do not contradict phenomena.

727. the Babylonian teaching of the Chaldaeans, especially
the theory of Berosus.

737. Spring goes on ber way and Venus, &c. This descrip-
tion is probably based on some pantomimic representation
of the Seasons, or on a picture. Modern readers naturally
think of Botticelli’s ‘ Primavera’, and indeed it is not at all
unlikely that that picture was actually founded on this
passage, as his ‘Mars and Venus’ almost certainly was on
a passage of Politian in the Gzostra, which was based on
Lucretius’s description in Book I. 31-40.

751. Likewise also the eclipses of the sun, &c. None of these
explanations present any difficulty with the exception of the
first theory of the eclipse of the moon (762-4). This is,
of course, the correct explanation: the earth, obstructing

Fic. 6.

the rays of the sun, forms a shadow in the shape ofa cone, and
when the moon passes into it, it is eclipsed (Fig. 6). But itis,
of course, quite inconsistent with the Epicurean theory that
the sun and moon are the size we see them, i.e. both very
greatly smaller than the earth, for in that case the shadow
thrown will not take the form of a cone at all, and the eclipses
of the moon would be of much more frequent occurrence and

Book V, ll. 727-8 37 307

longer duration than they are (Fig. 7). This is the most
important of several indications that Lucretius did not really

Se
——

———— τ

Fic. 7.

understand his astronomy, and took much of it from the
ordinary astronomical hand-books, without considering
carefully how far it could be reconciled with Epicurean
principles.

808. there grew up wombs: a curiously naive device, by
which Lucretius tries to account for the transition from
vegetable to animal life. He seems to be a little conscious
of its improbability, and is careful just afterwards (813) to
supply an analogy for this apparently gratuitous act of
kindness on the part of the earth.

837. And many monsters too earth, &c. In this idea of the
early experiments of nature we get a glimmering of the
modern notions of Evolution and Natural Selection, which
become more prominent in the next paragraph. It is one of

UZ

308 Notes

Lucretius’s most remarkable anticipations of modern scientific
belief.

878. But neither were there Centaurs, &c. The impossibility
of the formation of monsters of this sort, combined of parts
belonging to different races of animals, has been dealt with
already in II. 700 ff.

925. But the race of man,&c. Lucretius’s study of primitive
man, again, has always been admired for its insight, and is all
the more remarkable when one remembers the strong preva-
lence in antiquity of the notion of a Golden Age.

1020. not to burt or be harmed. Here we have the germs of
the theory of the Social Compact as the origin of Society.

1028. But the diverse sounds of the tongue, &c. There was
always a controversy in antiquity as to whether language was
made by convention (θέσει) or grew up naturally (pice).
Lucretius, consistently with the attitude taken up all through
this book, decides for the latter view.

1047. the concept of their use. See note on II. 744.

1169. For indeed already the races of mortals, ὅς. It is a
matter of great difficulty to decide exactly how Epicurus and
Lucretius conceived the immortal nature of the gods, and the
evidence is very insufficient. But it is certain that they sup-
posed them to dwell in the ‘interspacés between the worlds’
(tntermundia), and to become known to men by a constant
succession of ‘idols’, which streamed off their bodies, pre-
serving the ‘form unchanged’, and, being too subtle to be
perceived by the senses, passed through the pores of the body
into the mind, and there stirred the soul-atoms.

1198. wzth veiled bead turning towards a stone,&c. Lucretius
is here carefully recaliing the ceremonial of Roman worship.
The Roman always veiled his head (as opposed to the Greek),
approached with the image of the god on his right hand, and
in this position made his prayer. He then turned towards
the image and prostrated himself on the ground.

1234. the glorious rods and relentless axes, the insignia of the
Roman magistrates.

Book V, 1. 878-VI, lL. γι 309

1294. the form of the bronze sickle, ἄς. Lucretius is prob-
ably thinking of its use for purposes of magic.

1302. the Lucanian kine, i.e. elephants, which were said
to have been so called because they were first seen by the
Romans in Lucania in the army of Pyrrhus.

344. dnd you could more readily maintain, &c. For this
curious argument that if this practice did not obtain on our
earth, it probably did somewhere in the universe, compare
what Lucretius says in 526 ff. about the motions of the stars.

BOOK VI

20. in part because δὲ saw that it was leaking, &c.: for this
description of the human mind compare the explanation of
the legend of the Danaids in III. 1003 ff.

31. be it by the chance or the force of nature. One of the few
places where Lucretius in so many words implies that nature
does act by chance, as well as by law. ‘That there is the
element of chance is probably due to the original swerving of
the atoms; see Introduction, p. 18.

71. ποῖ that the high majesty of the gods, ὅς. A particularly
interesting passage for the Epicurean conception of the
relation of man and the gods. The superstitious beliefs of
the old religion are an offence against the majesty of the gods,
living their placid life untroubled by the world. Yet they will
not lead to direct punishment at the hands of the gods, for that
is impossible. But they will prevent those who hold them
from approaching the gods with the proper tranquillity of
spirit, and so deriving the greatest benefit from their worship.
The passage shows clearly that the gods were to men a perfect
example of the ideal life, and that their worship should be one
of contemplation; it also explains how, when, as we are told,
Epicurus himself and his immediate followers scrupulously
attended the ceremonics of religious worship, they may have
done so without inconsistency.

165. because things always move more slowly, &c.: another

310 Notes

notable piece of Epicurean observation, that light travels
more quickly than sound.

340. Once again, because itt comes with long-lasting impulse,
ὥς. This conception of the thunderbolt gathering speed as it
goes, and the accompanying explanation, are based on the
fundamental Epicurean notions of the movement of bodies
(see note on II. 127.) In any compound body, even of so rare
a texture as the thunderbolt, there is, of course, internal
vibration, and though the whole body is moving in one direc-
tion the atoms which compose it will be moving in all direc-
tions and colliding with one another, and so retarding it.
But there is always a tendency that the sideways and up-
ward movement of the atoms resulting from blows should in
time yield to their own natural tendency to fall owing to
weight. In the case of a falling body this means that more
and more atoms are always coming to move in the direction
of the whole, and that therefore the speed of the whole body
tends continually to increase. Lucretius has not expressed
this very clearly, but considering the passage in the light
of the general theory of motion, this must be its meaning.

364. the narrow channel is not to be thought of as some-
thing which separates lands, but rather as something which
connects seas and mixes their waters (e.g. the Straits of the
Bosphorus). So here, spring and autumn join the cold of
winter with the warmth of summer.

381. the Iyrrbenian prophecies: it was generally supposed
that the Romans obtained their system of auguries and omens
from the Etruscans.

387. But if Jupiter, &c. Luerctius, in concluding this long
section on the phenomena of thunder and lightning, comes
back to his main purpose of attacking the traditional religion
and its superstitious beliefs.

424. presters, i.e. fiery whirlwinds (πίμπρημι).

542. clear fact demands, &c. It is not obvious at first sight
why this should beso. It may be that here we have another,
and rather arbitrary, application of the curious principle of

Book VI, ll. 165-937 311

equilibrium (ἰσονομέα). Compare II. 532 and the note there.
But more probably he is thinking of his description in
V. 492 ff. of the formation of the irregular surface of the upper
earth, and argues on grounds of general probability that
the same sort of process had taken place on the lower side.

660. the holy fire was the name given in antiquity to
erysipelas; compare Virgil, Georg. iti. 566.

685. For air becomes wind, when, &c. This is not such a
puerile comment asit looks at first sight, for to Lucretius ‘ air ’
and ‘ wind’ were two distinct, though kindred, substances.
(Comparetheaccount of the composition of the soul, III. 231 ff.)
Theair, then, by being ‘ set in motion’, would lose some of its
own characteristic atoms, and acquire others, which would
convert it into wind.

740. the name Avernian. Avernus in its Greck form ”Aopyos
means ‘ Birdless ’.

754. because of their vigil. The story (told by Ovid,
Metam. 11. 542-565) was that the daughters of Cecrops, against
the orders of Pallas, opened the chest containing the infant
Erichthonius. The crow, who was on the watch, flew off and
told Pallas, but she, in furious anger at what had been done,
banished him for ever from the Acropolis.

810. Scaptensula: the Latin name for the famous mines of
Σκαπτὴ Ὕλη in Thrace.

848. the shrine of Ammon: of course of Jupiter Ammon in
the Libyan desert. As Giussani remarks, the possession of
a thermometer in antiquity would have made considerable
difference to these observations.

8ρο. at Aradus: an island off the coast of Phoenicia, whose
fresh-water spring was famous. The point of the comparison
is of course simply that the seeds of fire well up through the
water, just as the fresh water does through the salt at Aradus.

937. 1n the beginning of my poem too: heis thinking primarily,
no doubt, of I. 329, &c., where he showed that ‘ there is void
in things’, but also of II. 95 ff., where he explained in what
manner this occurred.

312 Notes. Book VI, Ul. 954-1138

954. Again, where the breastplate of the sky, ὥς. This
passage has been much discussed and very variously corrected
and explained, but Giussani’s view seems much the most
probable. As a crowning instance of the porosity of things,
the poet takes the world itself: though it is surrounded with
a breastplate (compare ‘the walls of the world’, I. 73, &c.),
yet even through this there penetrate, as he has described in
lines 483 ff., storms, tempest, and pestilence.

1002. First of all 1t musi needs be, &c. Lucretius’s exposition
in this paragraph is not quite so orderly or lucid as usual,
but it all follows quite directly from his main principles.
Ordinarily things are surrounded on all sides by countless
moving atoms, which batter against them and are in part the
cause of their holding together. The effluence streaming off
from the magnet knocks away these particles and creates a
void between itself and the iron ring. The atoms on that side
of the ring are therefore impelled by the internal air and vibra-
tion, and the external air and battering particles on the other
sides, to move towards that part, where there is now no
opposition. This they proceed to do, but because the atoms
of iron are so closely interlaced, they cannot disentangle them-
selves, but of necessity drag the whole ring along with them
towards the magnet.

1107. where the axis of the world slants crippled. The
ancients conceived that the axis of the earth (and consequently
also of the world) was on a slant, rising towards Scythia and
sinking towards Egypt. Just the same idea is found 1n Virgil,
Georgic 1.240. The idea is characteristic of the atomic school,
and is found in Leucippus (4et. 12. 1, Diels, Leucippus, 27).

1138. Such a cause of plague, &c. Lucretius here describes
the famous plague of Athens in 430 B.c., and very closely
follows the account given by Thucydides ii. 47-54.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD
BY JOHN JOHNSON, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

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1924-1933

,2. 59»

4. LUCRETI CARL
DE RERUM NATURA
LIBRI SEX

WITH NOTES AND A TRANSLATION

BY

H. A. J. MUNRO

FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE

FOURTH EDITION FINALLY REVISED

VOLUME I: TEXT

LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON BELL AND CO.

1goo

nt, Weiner rr CA Ri
DE RERUM NATURA
LIBRI SEX

EDITED BY

H. A. J. MUNRO

FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGS

FOURTH EDITION

LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON BELL AND CO,
1900

First Edition, 1864. Second Edition, 1866. Third Edition, 1873.
fourth Revised Edition, 1886. Reprinted, 1893.
1900.

TO BENJAMIN HALL KENNEDY D.D.
REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN CAMBRIDGE
AND LATE HEADMASTER OF SHREWSBURY SCHOOL
THESE VOLUMES ARE DEDICATED

BY HIS FORMER PUPIL THE EDITOR

M. b

My pear Dr KENNEDY,

On the. completion of a work which has cost both
thought and labour I gladly dedieate it to you, to whom indirectly
it owes so much. Many years have passed since the days when 1
was among your earliest pupils at Shrewsbury; but the memory
of the benefits then received from your instruetions is as fresh
as ever. A succession of scholars year after year from that time
to this will bear testimony to the advantages which they have
derived from your zeal skill and varied knowledge; and over and
above all from that something higher which gave to what was
taught life and meaning and interest: denn es musz von Herzen
gehen, was auf Herzen wirken will.

The present edition claims as you will see to do something
both for the eriticism and for the explanation of the poem. After
the masterly work of Lachmann you will think perhaps that too
much space has been allotted to the former; but that portion of
the book is intended partly to give the reader in a condensed
shape the results of his labours, partly to add to and correct them
where circumstances or design rendered them incomplete. The
scandalous negligenee with which Havereamp and Wakefield exe-
cuted what they professed to undertake has made their editions
worse than useless, as the reader who trusts to them is only be-
trayed and led into error. What Lachmann performed is known
to all who take an interest in such studies: from my first intro-
duetion readers will learn what opinion I entertain of his merits;
they will also find that all whieh 1 have added to what he has
done is with one insignificant exception derived from the original
sourees to which they refer. The manuscripts whieh I have cited
were examined by myself; the editions and manuseript notes were
open before me all the time I was at work. The large amount of
eritical material thus amassed I have endeavoured to put into as

Vill
concise and compressed a form as possible; though much of this
material needs perhaps to be recorded only once and might be
greatly abridged if it has ever to appear again in a new shape.

The length of the explanatory notes calls I fancy for less ex-
cuse. This very year three centuries have elapsed since Lambinus
published the first edition of his Lucretius; and from that day to
this nothing new and systematical, nothing that displays pains
and research has been done for the elucidation of our author.
Transcendant as are the merits of that illustrious scholar, what
was suited to 1564 can hardly satisfy the wants of 1864. No
defence then is needed for the extent of this division of my
commentary: if it were done over again, more would probably
have to be added than taken away. It will not be so easy
perhaps to excuse the translation. This however is really a part
of the explanatory notes; and if it had been left undone, they
must have been enlarged in many directions. Our author too
unless I am mistaken will admit of being thus treated better than
most; and the fashion of literal translations seems to be gaining
ground in this country as well as in Germany and France.

To the advice and friendly assistance of my brother fellow
Mr King, our highest authority in that branch of art, is due the
likeness of the poet which appears on the titlepage. With K. O.
Mueller, Emil Braun and other judges he is convinced that the
original on a black agate represents our Lucretius. The style ot
art and the finely formed letters of the name point to the late
republic. Almost unknown then in other respects, in this he has
been more fortunate even than Virgil, whose so-called portraits
are all I am told late conventional and unreal.

Sincerely yours

THE EDITOR.

Trinity CoLLEGE, OctoBeR 1864.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION

ALTHOUGH in outward shape this third edition exactly resembles the
second, it will prove 1 trust in essential points to be more in advance
of the second, than the second was of the first edition. Partly for
other obvious reasons, and partly because the second impression was
larger than the first and has now been exhausted for nearly a year, the
interval given me for reflexion has been much longer; and as the
author is now so familiar to me, I have been able to bring all my
reading to bear upon the improvement of the text and the commentary.
The critical notes are I believe improved in many important points,
though their bulk of course has not been increased: compression was
needed here rather than expansion. The explanatory notes however have
been enlarged by the substance of at least fifty pages, chiefly through a
somewhat closer printing. Nor does this at all represent the real
amount of change, as many of the longer notes have been entirely
rewritten and much that was superfluous or erroneous has been cut
out. Many thousand fresh illustrations have been added.

For more precise conceptions on some points of the poet’s philo-
sophy, especially the motion of his atoms, [ have been greatly indebted
to the works of Professor Clerk Maxwell and Professor Tyndall, and to
a thorough and excellent article in the 48th volume of the North
British Review on ‘the atomic theory of Lucretius’: of Martha’s

brilliant work I have spoken elsewhere. For the general criticism

x

of my author I owe much to the well-pondered remarks of Mr N, P.
Howard, whose letter to me I have printed in the first number of the
new Journal of Philology; and, especially in the third and fourth
books, to the communications of my friend Professor J. E. B. Mayor,
to whose notes I have appended his initials.

In the 25th and 26th volumes of the Philologus there is a long
‘Jahresbericht’ by Mr Fried. Polle on the Lucretius literature after
Lachmann and Bernays; and some remarks of his occur in Jahn’s
Jahrbuecher. He hardly touches on the interpretation or philosophy
of the poet nor have I been able to adopt any of his own conjectures
which are not very numerous. The most valuable hint I have got
from him is on v 312, though my own correction is very different
from his. In several volumes of the same Philologus appear very
prolix notes on the earlier books by Mr Susemihl and Mr Brieger.
The former confines himself chiefly to rearranging paragraphs and to
proposing numerous transpositions of verses, in neither I think with
much success, Many of his new arrangements of paragraphs are I
assert demonstrably wrong; and his violent transpositions would lead
to the wildest confusion. Once however I have obeyed him in not
making a new paragraph of Iv 168—175: it was an accident that
this was not done before, as my attention was absorbed in refuting
Lachmann’s errors there. Mr Brieger, who is the more combative
of the two, indulges mainly in conjectural alterations of the text.
Once or twice Τ have referred to Mr Holtze’s ‘Syntaxis Lucretianae
lineamenta.’

On the whole my criticism is now I believe more conservative than
it was. Again and again I have found that, seduced by the learning of
Lachmann, I have followed him in changes which really corrupt the
author. This must hold then in many other cases as well. If the text of
Virgil rested, like that of Lucretius, on a single manuscript, how much

there is in him we should refuse to accept as Latin! This ‘must give

ΣΙ
us pause.” Yet I have not sinned I think in defending the indefensible.
It is probable however that, if I should ever issue another edition, I
should leave as manifestly corrupt some passages which defy anything
like certain or even very specious correction.

My lamented friend Professor Conington published a lecture on the
style of Lucretius and Catullus which has been reprinted among his
Miscellaneous works. This lecture, written in a tone of the kindest
courtesy, is for the most part a criticism of a single paragraph in the
introduction to my explanatory notes; and, so far as Catullus is
concerned, almost of a single sentence. This paragraph I have now
omitted: justice could be done neither to him nor to myself within
the limits that could be permitted here. If I should ‘ever venture

on any reply, some other place and opportunity must be found for it.

TRINITY CoLLEGE, APRIL 1873.

PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

THE present edition is divided into three volumes, the first con-
taining the text and critical notes, the second the commentary and
general index, the third the translation.

The text is practically the same as in the last edition: in one
place only (1 442) a new reading is printed, and that was only omitted
before through accident as was explained at the end of the index.
There are a few additions, not more than half-a-dozen, to the critical
notes ; these have been inserted in square brackets. The translation
too has undergone no change.

In the commentary there are few alterations but considerable
additions amounting in all to more than twenty pages. These supple-
mentary notes and illustrations have been taken from an interleaved
copy of the last edition which was found among Mr Munro’s books after
his death in the spring of last year. Also on p. 333 of the commentary
will be found some extracts from letters addressed by him to Professor
Palmer of Trinity College, Dublin, discussing the reading of v 1010;
Professor Palmer was kind enough to send me these letters. As
the extracts deal with the criticism rather than the explanation of the
passage, they should have been inserted in the first volume; but by
an accident they were delayed until after that volume was printed.
Nothing has been inserted from any other source whatever. Here
too all that is new has been inclosed in square brackets. In the new
examples the references have been verified. To the index large
additions have been made by myself.

It remains to express my thanks to Dr Forbes, the relative and
executor of Mr Munro, for the kindly feeling which led him to entrust
me with the preparation of this edition, and also for the generous
consideration he has shown throughout,

J. ἢ. DUFF.

Trinity CoLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
Fes. 18, 1836.

LUCRETIUS.

NOTES I

ON THE FORMATION OF THE TEXT

Ir Lucretius had come down to us with a text as uninjured as that of
Virgil and a few other ancient writers, he could scarcely have been
reckoned among the most difficult Latin poets. Certainly he would
have been more easy to explain than Virgil for instance or Horace; for
he tells what he has to tell simply and directly, and among his poetical
merits is not included that of leaving his reacler to guess which of many
possible meanings was the one he intended to convey. Fortune however
has not dealt so kindly with him. Not that the great mass of his poem
is not in a sound and satisfactory state: in this respect he is better off
than many others; but owing to the way in which it has been handed
down, his text has suffered in some portions irreparable loss. It is now
universally admitted that every existing copy of the poem has come
from one original, which has itself long disappeared.

Of existing manuscripts a fuller account will presently be given:
let it suftice for the moment to say that the two which Lachmann has
mainly followed and which every future editor must follow, are now in
the library of Leyden. One is a folio written in the ninth century, the
other a quarto certainly not later than the tenth. Large fragments of
one, if not of two others, of the same age as the quarto and very closely
resembling it are also still preserved, partly in Copenhagen, partly in
Vienna. These manuscripts and at least one more must have lain for
centuries in the monasteries of France or Germany, where they found at
different periods several correctors, more or less competent. It is to be
presumed then that they had some readers, though few if any traces of
them are to be met with in the voluminous literature of the middle ages.
In my previous editions I said that my friend Professor Mayor had
given me a reference to Honorius of Autun in the bibliotheca maxima
patrum xx p. 1001, who is there made to quote 11 888 in this way, Hx
insensilibus me credas sensile gigni, the context proving that he meant
to say ne, not me; and asked whether this writer who flourished in the

-

7 ν]. 1

2 INTRODUCTION

first half of the twelfth century had taken the line from the poem itself;
or had borrowed it from Priscian inst. Iv 27 who cites it with nasce
instead of gigni, the editor of the bibliotheca having thought fit tacitly
to substitute gignt from Lucretius. The latter is proved to be the fact
by Mr Julius Jessen in the philologus, vol. 30 pp. 236— 238: he quotes
what follows from Barthius’ very learned note on Stat. silv. 117 76:
‘nec vero cadentibus aut collapsis iam rebus Romanis auctoritatem suam
amisit Lucretius noster, ut videre potes apud Magnentium Rhabanum
pracfatione Laudum Daedalarum Crucis, Gulielmum Hirsaugiensem in
Institutionibus Philosophicis et Astrologicis, Honorium Augustodunen-
sem in Historia Mundi, Ven. Bedam Libro de Metris’. Referring to
the only printed edition of this work of William of Hirschau, who lived
from 1026 to 1091, he shews that Honorius copied from him the passage
in question, and that William cites it thus: ‘Ex insensili credas sensile
nasci’, getting it clearly then from Priscian. Hrabanus Maurus and
Beda seem just as little to have known Lucretius at first hand. {Hermes
vol. 8 p. 332, it is said that in Brit. Mus. ms. 377 (13th century) of
Danie] de Merlai’s Philosophia, in p. 90 a, Lucretius is quoted.]

In Italy he was even more completely unknown. A catalogue which
Muratori antig. 111 p. 820 assigns to the tenth century, proves that the
famous library of Bobbio contained at that time librum Lucretii 1; but
before the fifteenth no Italian poet or writer shews any knowledge of
him whatever. In the year 1414 the celebrated Poggio Bracciolini went
as apostolic secretary to the council of Constance and remained on this
side the Alps in different countries, Switzerland Germany France and
England, until 1420, with one short interval passed in Milan and
Mantua. During these years he procured from various monasteries
many most important Latin works hitherto totally unknown in Italy:
see Mehus’ preface to his life of Ambrosins Traversarius p. xxxiii foll.
Among these was a manuscript of Lucretius, obtained apparently from
some German monastery either by him or his companion Bartholomew
of Montepulciano, about 1417 as his letters seem to indicate, and trans-
mitted the same year to his intimate friend the Florentine Nicolé Nic-
coli, a most zealous scholar and patron of the revived classical studies.
This manuscript, which Poggio wrongly supposed to be only a part of the
poem, has itself disappeared, but was the parent of every copy written
during the 15th century, that is to say of every one now extant with the
exception of those specified above: it must have very closely resembled
the Leyden folio. ‘Et te, Lucreti, longo post tempore tandem Civibus
et patriae reddit habere suae’ says Landinus in his poem in praise of
Poggio. Niccoli having such a treasure in his hands was in no hurry to
part with it. We find Poggio writing to him in December 1429 to
remind him that he had kept his Lucretius twelve years. A few days
later it is ‘you have had Lucretius now for fourteen years; I want to read

TO NOTES I 3

him, but cannot get him; do you wish to keep him another ten years?’
He had already tried in vain what coaxing could do: he promises him
at one time to send the book back in fifteen days, at another time in one
month, if he will only let him have it for so long; but feels sure his
book will come to him at the Greek calends. Much as Niccoli loved
Poggio, he loved still more to have the sole possession of a newly dis-
covered Latin poet, and I doubt whether Poggio saw his Lucretius at all
events before his return from Rome to Florence in 1434. Niccoli died
in 1437 and left behind him a manuscript written by his own hand and
now in the Laurentian library, the truest representative of Poggio’s lost
original, as is abundantly proved by the critical notes of the present
edition. Between this date and that of the earlhest printed editions a
knowledge of the poem was diffused through Italy by many incorrect
copies. Eight of these, including Niccoli’s, are preserved in the Lauren-
tian library, all of which I have examined, two with care, as being of no
small importance for the text; six are in the Vatican, all seen by meas
long ago as the autumn of 1849. Of the copies in England 1 have had
in my hands at least seven; one of these belonging to our Cambridge
library has been open before me the whole time I was writing my criti-
cal notes. Those manuscripts which have been of any importance in
forming the text will be more fully spoken of, after the printed editions
have been discussed.

The editio princeps, of which only three copies are known, was
printed about 1473 by Ferandus of Brescia. It is the only one of the
early editions which I do not possess ; I have had to trust therefore to
the very unskilful collation of Gerard at the end of the Glasgow edition
of Wakefield. As it was printed from a manuscript a good deal cor-
rected, but yet inferior to such amended copies as the Cambridge ms. for
instance or that which I call Flor. 31, it is of little importance in the
history of the text: of far less than the two next editions, since they by
accident came to be the foundation of the vulgate. The former of these
was published by Paulus Fridenperger at Verona in 1486 ‘die vigesimo
octavo septembris calen. octobris’. It was printed from a ms. closely re-
sembling the one written by Niccoli, as may be seen by the most cursory
inspection of my critical notes, It is therefore very rude and inaccurate,
but being less interpolated than the editio princeps or the majority of
existing mss. it represents the archetype more faithfully than these do,
though there is hardly a line without some monstrous blunder. The
next edition was published in Venice ‘per theodorum de ragazonibus de
asula dictum bresanum’ 4 september 1495. From some elegiac verses at
the end one C. Lycinius would appear to be its editor, if editor he can
be called; for it exactly reproduces for the most part the Verona edition
even in the minutest points of its perverse punctuation. There are how-
ever throughout the poem not a few differences in the two editions, some

1—2

4 INTRODUCTION

of little, others of greater importance ; for example Iv 125—190 are
wanting in the Verona, but not in the Venice. The reason why I
dwell on this fact will appear presently.

In December 1500 Aldus published his first edition of our poem, the
first systematic endeavour to make it intelligible throughout. The editor
was Hieronymus Avancius of Verona, who dates his dedication ‘ Kalen-
dis Martii. m.1pD’, old style I presume, and really therefore 1500: an
interval of twenty-two months between the two dates would not be easy
to understand. Avancius is known by other works also, especially the
Aldine edition of Catullus. A slight inspection will shew that he took
either the Verona or the Venice edition, upon which to form his text; a
more careful examination will prove that it must have been the latter,
My critical notes will furnish many other instances; let me here only
mention that in 111 994 he and Ven. have torpedine for cuppedine, while
Ver. reads turpidine ; 1011 he takes from Ven. its remarkable reading
egenus, which Lachmann adopts and wrongly assigns to Marullus: Ver.
follows the Leyden and all other known mss. in reading egestas; 1015 he
and Ven. have the absurd reading numela for luella, where Ver. has the
equally unmeaning Jiela. Ven. therefore is the ‘ante impressus’ spoken
of by Aldus. Avancius’ preface shews that for his day he was a good
and well-read Latin scholar, and had studied Priscian Nonius and Ma-
crobius for the illustration of his author. Aldus in his prefatory letter
to Albertus Pius confirms this, and says that he knew Lucretius by
heart, ‘ut digitos unguesque suos’, Avancius in his preface asserts
much the same; and the few critical remarks he there inserts shew that
this was true at least to a certain extent. At the same time he admits
with a seeming candour that owing to the immense difficulty of the
work he has left much for others to do. Much indeed he has left un-
done; and it would have been a herculean task for one man fully to cor-
rect the desperately corrupt Venice edition, especially in those days
when there were but few extraneous aids and the art of systematic criti-
cism was still in its infancy, two generations having yet to elapse, before
it reached its full growth in the hands of the illustrious school of French
critics. What he has done however is very great and entitles him to
high praise, if it is indeed his own. But this shall be considered pre-
sently. The next edition is that of the well-known scholar Ioannes Bap-
tista Pius, published 1511 ‘kal. Maii’ in his native Bologna. Lucretius’
text is embedded in an enormous commentary which displays amid much
cumbrous learning no slight acquaintance with the Latin poets, several
of which he edited before and after his Lucretius. He thus describes
what he has done: ‘contulimus non sine aerumnis vigillisque diutinis
codicem veneti Hermolai: et Pomponi romani: codicemque non omnino
malum: qui servatur Mantuae in bibhotheca quadam suburbana: qui
fuit viri non indocti gentis clarissimae Strotiorum. non defuit Philippi

TO NOTES I 5

Beroaldi praeceptoris quondam mei: nunc collegae: impressus quidem:
sed tamen perpense examinatus. Codri quoque grammatici Bononiensis ;
cuius copia mihi per Bartholomeum Blanchinum virum eloquii excultis-
simi facta est: Marullique poetae industria mira castigatum non defuit
exemplar Severo Monaco Placentino graece latineque perdocto musarum
athleta non gravatim offerente’. He makes no mention at all of the man
to whom he was most indebted, Avancius: for his text is a reprint of the
first Aldine, with however not a few changes of words or phrases, often
for the better, often for the worse, either inserted in the text or pro-
posed in the notes, and derived it may be presumed in many cases from
one or other of the sources just mentioned. But strange to say when he
makes a change in the text, the lemma of his note nearly always con-
tains not this reading, but that of Avancius as if he had meant it to
stand: thus 1 9 he rightly reads diffuso lwmine ; but his lemma has dif-
Juso numine with Avancius, which the latter however corrects at the
end of his Catullus: and he adds ‘sunt qui legunt dwmine’. 15 for
capta he wrongly inserts in the text gwodque; but his lemma has capta,
and his note rightly explains the construction and makes no mention of
quodque. 34 his text properly has /evctt, his lemma Lefficté after
Avancius; 30 his text wrongly gives suspirans, the lemma suspiciens ;
and so throughout the poem. This very singular circumstance I explain
in this way: he was living at Rome when his edition was printed and
seems to have sent the text and commentary separately ; for the book-
seller prints at the end a long page of errors with this notice prefixed,
‘Hieronymus Platonicus Bononiensis bibliopola ad lectorem. contuli
Pii exemplar cum edito Lucretio: labeculasque pauculas notavi cet.’
Pius’ edition was reprinted by Ascensius in 1514 with not a few
changes in the text, some of them taken from the notes.

The next edition must be ever memorable in the history of Lucre-
tius, that published by Philip Giunta ‘anno salutis. M.p.x1I. mense
martio’. Whether this means 1513 new style I cannot tell; but I
know that he dates a Gellius and a Romualdi vita as published in
January 1513, ‘Leone pont. max. christianam R.P. moderante’ and
‘Leonis X anno primo’. Now Leo X only became pope in March of
that year; so that here he must be speaking of 1514; and in Florence
at all events this mode of dating seems to have been in common use.
The editor was Petrus Candidus who, great and important as the cor-
rections are which he has introduced, has yet used a copy of the first
Aldine upon which to make them, though he has never mentioned the
name of Avancius. It seems to have been the practice of those times
to take at least whatever was printed without acknowledgment : thus
Giunta regularly made booty of Aldus, Aldus of Giunta in turn.
What is said in the present case is grounded on a close inspection of
the two volumes. Candidus, where he does not designedly leave him,

6 INTRODUCTION

follows Avancius in the minutest points of spelling and punctuation.
The latter for instance says in his preface that he writes ‘veteres
imitatus repertumst, itemst, necessest’ and the like: Candidus in his
preface that ‘in tam culto, tam nitido, tam undecunque castigato poeta’
he will not admit archaisms like volgum, volnera; or nullust, haudqua-
quamst and the like. And so in his text while rejecting Avancius’
patefactast, volnere, etc., he keeps his frugiferenteis, rapaceis and a
thousand such forms which have no authority in their favour, while
those which he discards have much. Lachmann always so hard upon
Avancius says ‘huius ineptissimam scribendi rationem Ejichstadius
studiose imitatus est’, but has not a word of blame for Candidus.

But whence has the latter got his many and brilliant corrections 4
for few or none appear to come from himself. He says in his address
to Thomas Sotherinus that what he did was to collate all the vetusta
exemplaria that were in Florence and to expunge what was condemned
by the obeli of Pontanus and Marullus, ‘praestantissimorum aetate
nostra vatum’. He refers of course to John Iovianus Pontanus and his
friend and pupil Michael Marullus, after Politian two of the first
scholars and Latin poets of the most flourishing period of Florentine
learning, the latter half of the fifteenth century: ‘ Marullo ed il Pontan’
have the honour to be mentioned together by Ariosto in the Orlando
xxxvil ὃ, But Candidus goes on afterwards to speak only of Marullus
‘cuius in hoc opere censuram potissimum secuti sumus’; and in a note
at the end he says that in changing the order of verses here and in most
other places he has followed the arrangement of Marullus. To Marullus
therefore everything which is peculiar to the Juntine has usually been
assigned, whether in the way of praise, or of blame as by Victorius
and by Joseph Scaliger who inherited among many other of his father’s
antipathies his dislike to Marullus. But Lachmann has gone much
farther than this, and has given to him not only by oversight, as will be
seen in notes 1, much that belongs to older authorities ; but everything
that first appeared in Avancius’ edition as well, calling the latter ‘fur
improbus’ and other opprobrious names. That he got much assistance
from the labours of Marullus is certain; but by ascribing to the latter
everything that is in the Juntine, in some respects more, in others less
credit is given to him than he deserves. As I can throw some light on
this interesting question, I will examine it at some length here and in
various parts of notes 1.

The scholar, poet and soldier, Michael Tarchaniota Marullus Con-
stantinopolitanus, as he calls himself in the editions of his poems
printed during his life, appears from this title and his epitaph in San
Domenico of Ancona, where he and so many of his ancestors are buried,
as well as from the epithet Bizantius given to him by his friend Petrus
Crinitus, to have been born in Constantinople. As he can hardly

TO NOTES I 7

have passed middle life when he perished in the river Cecina near Vol-
terra April the 10th 1500, he must have been a mere child when on
the capture of his native city he was brought to Italy, probably to
Ancona. He received his training however in Florence, and he found
a Maecenas in Lorenzo de’ Medici. Though he never printed anything
on Lucretius, his manuscript emendations appear to have been well
known during his life, and a copy of the poet to have been found on him
at his death: ‘ex miseranda illa in mediis Cecinae undis Latinarum
musarum lactura cladeque insigni unus est Luerctius receptus’ says Can-
didus in his preface ; and his friend Petrus Crinitus in his de honesta
disciplina xv 4, published in 1504, but mostly written it would seem
before Marullus’ death, after well refuting an alteration of his which
shall presently be referred to, adds ‘quae ab elus quoque sectatoribus
recepta sunt pro verissimis’. This intense love of Lucretius he seems
only to have conceived in the latter years of his life. Candidus, whose
preface full of feeling shews that he greatly loved Marullus and deeply
deplored his untimely end, strives to make the most of what he did: he
says ‘Lucretianae adeo veneris per omnem aetatem studiosus fuit, ut
cet.’ But this must be an exaggeration: the first edition of his poems,
published without a date, but not later than 1490, containing only two
books of epigrams, shews so far as 1 can see no trace of any acquaintance
with Lucretius. Catullus is chiefly imitated even in the elegiacs, and
next to him Tibullus and Horace. Six pages from the beginning there
is a poor poem of eight lines ‘de poetis Latnis’ [sic], in which he says
that Tibullus Maro Terence Horace Catullus, each in his kind, are
the only good Latin poets: Hos sv quis inter caeteros ponet vates,
Oneret quam honoret verius. The Roman editions of 1490 and 1493
Thave not access to; but in December 1497, two years and a few months
before his death, he published at Florence a much enlarged edition. A
third and fourth book of epigrams are added: in these too I find no
trace of Lucretius. Then follow four books of hymni naturales. In
these, especially such as are written in heroics, the strain is ‘of a higher
mood’, and we meet with frequent imitations of Lucretius, even in the
lyrics, as Opibusque late pollens tuts which recalls [psa suis pollens opi-
bus. But in these heroics it is to be noticed that the rhythm is Virgi-
lian, not in any respect Lucretian even where he closely follows the
latter’s language, as in the hymn to earth: Ante repentino caeli quam
territus haustu Vagiat aetheriam in lucem novus editus infuns. Cum
provectus humi nudus tacet, indigus, exsors Auailia, infirnusque pedum
infirmusque palati. Then imitating at once and contradicting Lucretius’
ut aecumst, Cui tantum in vita restet cet. he goes on Atque uno non
tantum infelix, quod sua damna Non capit et quantunr superat per-
ferre laborum. This the last poem published in his lifetime is full from
beginning to end of Lucretian phraseology. In this edition too he

ὃ INTRODUCTION

inserts two new verses in the poem ‘de poetis Latinis’ spoken of above,
Vatura magni versibus Lucretit Lepore nwusaco illitis, the best in the
poem and recalling musaeo contingens cuncta lepore. Crinitus 1.1, ΧΧΤΗ
7 quotes this poem and mentions a conversation he had with Marullus
in which ‘factum est iudicium nuper a nostro Marullo de poetis Latinis
egregie perfectum et prudenter’, and Ovid and other poets are blamed ;
and then it is added ‘itaque legendi quidem sunt omnes inquit [Marul-
lus]; sed hi maxime probandi pro suo quisque genere Tibullus Horatius
Catullus et in comoedia Terentius. Vergilium vero et Lucretium edis-
cendos asserebat’. Let what has just been said be at once applied to a
striking interpolation. After 1 15 the Juntine first inserted the v.
Illecebrisque tuis omnis natura aninvantum, which long kept its place in
the common editions. Lachmann of course attributes it to Marullus, as
do most editors. Lambinus says of it ‘neque eum Naugerius neque
Pontanus habuerunt. Marullus unus vir doctus ex auctoritate veteris
cuiusdam codicis, quemadmodum mihi religiose asseveravit Donatus
Tanottus, nobis eum restituit. amicus quidam meus ingenio et doctrina
praestantissimus putat esse ab ipso Marullo factum cet.’ What his
authority is for that which he says of Pontanus I do not know, but Nau-
gerius editor of the Aldine of 1515 properly omits the line, though he
in general minutely copies the Juntine. Now this line is written by the
hand of Angelo Politian in the margin of a manuscript which belonged
to him and forms xxxv 29 of the Laurentian library. Politian died in
September 1494, when Marullus could hardly yet have done much for
Lucretius ; and besides this as he had been long the deadly enemy of
Politian, it is not hkely the latter would have inserted in his manuscript
one of his verses. I infer therefore that it is Politian’s own; and as
Candidus says in his preface that he collated all the ‘ vetusta exemplaria’
in Florence, he could not have neglected this manuscript which was
then in the famous conventual library of San Marco. Iconclude therefore
that Candidus’ taking it from the margin of Politian’s ms. is the right
explanation of Ianottus’ assertion that Marullus got it from an ancient
codex. It is quite possible indeed that Marullus copied it himself from
this ms. which passed to San Marco immediately after Politian’s decease,
and thus robbed him of his verse after death, as he is said to have
robbed him of his bride during life. Naugerius has in his first page
another variation from the Juntine, but that a perverse one: in 17 he
reads Adventuque tuo and joins it with what follows. This corruption
I believe to proceed from Marullus; for his hymn to the sun contains a
passage evidently imitated from Lucretius: Cum primum tepidi sub
tempora verna favoni Aura suum terris genitalem exuscitat auctum :
Adventuque dei gemmantia prata colorat: At pecudum genus omne viget,
genus omne virorum Perculsi teneras anni dulcedine mentes. I can
shew in other cases that Marullus corrupted Lucretius, where he has not

TO NOTES 1 9

been followed by Avancius or Candidus: vi 650—652 are quite correctly
given by Avancius, and in his learned preface he says with reference
to 652 Nee tota pars cet. ‘totws prima brevi, quia quoti redditivus est’.
Crinitus 1.1. xv 4 quotes 650 651 rightly, and adds ‘qua in re gramma-
ticorum nobis authoritas patrocinatur, quando et centesimus et millesi-
mus probe dicitur: partem multesimam inquit Nonius nove positum est
a Lucretio pro minima, ne quis forte paulo ineautius atque audacius
a veteribus decedat. quae a me vel ob eam rationem sunt adnotata,
quoniam Marullus Bizantius aetate nostra, vir alioqui diligens, paulo
improbius cdelere haec et alia pro ingenio subdere tentavit ; quae ab cius
quoque sectatoribus recepta sunt pro verissimis’. Candidus gives these
two verses rightly and says in note at end of Junt. ‘citatur Nonio locus’ :
he has got this clearly from Crinitus, who in the saine chapter correctly
quotes and illustrates 1 640 Quamde gravis cet. which the Italian mss.
and editions had corrupted: this too Candidus took from him: for Marul-
lus appears to have read Quam gravior Graios inter as does Pius in his
notes, and Gryphius of Lyons. Again v1 332 Avancius rightly gives
per rare viarum, Candidus perversely after Marullus per operta.: see his
note. But fifty instances like the last might be quoted. Candidus has
also missed some of the best of Marullus’ conjectures: see for instance
notes 1 to 11013 where I have got from the margin of one of the Floren-
tine mss. perhaps the most brilliant example of his critical acumen.
Then again unless I greatly err I have shewn in my notes that Gifanius
in preparing his edition had before him a copy of the Venice ed. of 1495,
lent to him by the zealous scholar Sambucus, as he testifies both in his
preface to Sambucus and in his address to the reader. In the former he
says ‘exemplum Lucretii ad nos dedisti, non Ulum quidem calamo exa-
ratum, sed ita vetustum et idoneum, ut vicem optimi manuscripti fuerit,
siquidem in eo vidi omnium paene mendorum origines, quae magnam
partem a Michaele Marullo, cuius immutationes in eo adscriptae erant
omnes, primum parta, mox admiserunt Florentini cet.’: in the address
he speaks of the ‘Sambuci liber quem ipsius Marulli manu adnotatum
magno pretio vir ille praestantissimus paravit’, Why then Lachmann
p. 6 should write ‘neque enim facile Gifanio credere possum Marulli
ipsius manu annotatum fuisse illud exemplar impressum quod se ab
Iohanne Sambuco utendum accepisse scribit’ I cannot comprehend.
Gifanius was a dishonest plagiary, but at the same time a most astute
man. Why should he tell a gratuitous falsehood which Sambucus would
at once detect? He was writing only two generations after Marullus’
death ; and even if Sambucus gave his money for what was not the
handwriting of Marullus, it was at least a genuine copy of his notes,
But notes 1 furnish abundant proof of what I say: see for instance those
to 1 806 11 16 v 44 and especially 111 994. It appears then that Avan-
clus got from Marullus much which the Juntine does not record, and on

IO INTRODUCTION

the other hand, that Candidus took from Avancius without acknowledg-
ment much that Lachmann and others assign to Marullus. Candidus,
as I have said above, formed his text on a copy of the first Aldine: in
doing this he must have had before him another edition with the ms.
notes of Marullus, perhaps the very one which he tells us was found on
him at his death. If now all that is common to the first Aldine and the
Juntine comes from Marullus, as Lachmann maintains, surely Candidus
must have been struck with this coincidence and would have recorded
it against Avancius the editor of the great rival publisher. Yet Avan-
cius did borrow largely, very largely from Marullus, especially in the case
of interpolated verses made by the latter. How is this to be explained ?
Evidently even before his death Marullus’ labours on Lucretius were
known; and probably there were more copies than one of these, the one
not always agreeing with the other. On this point compare notes 1 to
1 551—627, where Candidus makes some perverse transpositions of
verses, on the authority of Marullus he says in his note at the end; but
the learned annotator of one of the Laurentian mss. states that some put
551—564 after 576, and adds ‘verum Marullo parum referre videtur
quomodo legatur’. This annotator and Avancius Pius Candidus
Gifanius can hardly all have had the same copy: perhaps all were
different. Avancius then may have had his notes in the very copy of
Ven. on which he formed his text; and may have looked on them as
public property which he might make use of without acknowledgment
according to the practice of the time; for neither Pius nor Candidus
acknowledges in his turn what he got from Avancius; nor does
Naugerius the editor of Ald. 2 say a syllable of Candidus whose edition
he copied with few variations.

But Lachmann to 11 98 cites in proof of his charge that Avancius
was a dishonest plagiary three interpolated verses which doubtless were
composed by Marullus and are corruptly given in Ald. 1. In notes
1 to m1 98 1 have attempted to shew from Gifanius that Marullus
perhaps wrote putarit, and that Avancius intended to read the same:
Avancius was probably as good a Latin scholar as Marullus, if less
versed in Lucretius. In the line inserted after 1v 102 multae for multas
may be an error of the printer or an oversight of Avancius. In that
inserted after Iv 532 there can be little doubt that he purposely wrote
suis, Imagining that orts was a plural. The correcting of texts was then
in its infancy, and Avancius had so grievous a task before him in making
sense out of the monstrously corrupted Venice edition, that much must
in fairness be excused: we cannot tell what were the exact relations
between him and Aldus and his printers. At the end of his Catullus
published two years later he has taken occasion to give four pages
of Lucretian criticism, in which he has proposed many excellent altera-
tions of his former text, though I do not find that any editor before me

TO NOTES I I]

has noticed these which are very important for his reputation : see notes
1 to 11 422 and other passages, The inference then I draw from all this
is that both Avancius and Marullus did much for Lucretius, Marullus
doubtless more than Avancius; that much which is pecuhar to the
Juntine is not from Marullus, and much of what Marullus did is
not in the Juntine. Between them they vastly improved a grievously
corrupt text; and though they introduced many perversities, we ought
in simple justice to take into consideration only what is good. In my
notes for obvious reasons, when Ald. 1 and Junt. agree in a reading, I
mention both ; when a reading is peculiar to Ald. 1, I assign it to
Avancius by name; when it first appears in Junt., I still say Junt.,
though it is always to be inferred that the best readings are most
likely due to Marullus. By assigning to him all alike one would often
be doing him less, sometimes more than justice.

{In my second edition however I was able to throw fresh light on the
history and criticism of Lucretius’ text by the undoubted corrections of
Pontanus and Marullus, still existing among the books and manuscripts
of Peter Victorius which have formed for centuries so valuable a portion
of the Munich library. They were examined by me and copied out in
the summer of 1865, my attention having been directed to them by a
Goettingen program of Prof. Sauppe. The learned writer informs us
that he had examined the Munich ms. of Lucretius and found it cor-
rected throughout by some Italian scholar, Where Candidus the editor
of the Juntine mentions in his note a reading of Marullus, this reading
invariably appeared among these corrections. From this and other
indications he concluded, and the conclusion seemed most reasonable,
that these were the very corrections of Marullus which Candidus had
used for his edition. He makes the probable suggestion that the long
connexion of Victorius with the Giuntas would readily explain his
possession of a manuscript which had belonged to that firm.

At Munich through the courtesy of the librarian 1 had the full use of
the following important documents: 1, the manuscript just mentioned:
2. a copy of the Venice edition of 1495 with corrections by Pontanus in
the handwriting of Victorius who describes them in the first page as
‘emendationes ex Pontani codice testantis ipsum ingenio eas expromp-
sisse’: 3. another copy of the same edition likewise corrected through-
out by the hand of Victorius who says at the end ‘contuli cum duobus
codicibus, altero Ioviani Pontani, altero vero Marulli poetae Bizantii,
impressis quidem, sed ab ipsis non incuriose, ut patet, emendatis, quos
commodum accepi ab Andrea Cambano patritio Florentino M.p.xx.
Idibus Martiis. Petrus Victorius’, What the printed edition was
from which he copied these emendations of Marullus I do not know:
very likely it was this Venice edition itself which must have had a large
circulation and was the very edition containing Marullus’ notes which

12 INTRODUCTION

Gifanius made use of, as has been already told. Victorius says of grando
in v 1192 ‘glando in Pont. libro’: now since not only the Venice
edition, but the Verona and first Aldine have grando, and also the Bres-
cian as J Jearn from Earl Spencer’s librarian, Pontanus must have used
some printed edition now unknown. The pains which so eminent a
scholar as Victorius has taken in copying out twice the emendations of
Pontanus and once those of Marullus would prove the high estimation in
which those two learned men must have been held when he was a young
man of twenty. As he has also filled a copy of the Juntine with long
parallel passages from the Greek, he must himself at one time have
contemplated an elaborate edition of the poet and has to be added to
the long list of scholars with whom this remained an unaccomplished
design.

We have then an undoubted copy of what Pontanus himself asserted
to be his own original emendations; and as they are accurately repeated
by Victorius in his second copy, if we subtract these we have in what
remains the undoubted correctious of Marullus. Now the latter with
only a few variations, easily to be accounted for as being earlier thoughts
or in other ways, all reappear among the alterations of the Munich ms.
which are however much more numerous. When we consider all this,
and remember that wherever Candidus in his notes mentions the name
of Marullus, the reading which he assigns to him is found here; that he
tells us in his preface his text is grounded mainly on the revisions of
Pontanus and Marullus, the latter more especially ; that, as the present
edition will demonstrate, the numerous readings which first appear in the
Juntine, good bad and indifferent, where not taken from what we now
know to be those of Pontanus, nearly always agree with the corrections
of this manuscript ; and finally that Candidus not unfrequently gives a
new reading peculiar to this of all manuscripts known to me, as in his
note to v 826 where he mentions pariendo as a variation, we may fairly
conclude that Candidus in preparing his text had the use of this corrected
manuscript, and that the corrector was Marullus. It would be natural
too to conclude that this is his own copy amended by his own hand; and
for the most part I do not doubt that this is so. However they cannot
all have been written at the same time, as the ink differs in different
places ; and as so many of the emendations agree with those of Pontanus,
it seems not improbable that the ms. was in his possession before it came
into the hands of Marullus. As the Italian handwritings of that age re-
semble each other so much, at least to our eyes, the writing of the pupil
may not have differed much from that of the master. However that
may be, we must conclude that the corrections common to both belong
to Pontanus, as he was the elder and we saw above that he claims them
for his own, and the scholar would naturally borrow from the master.
The emendations too of Pontanus, valuable as many of them are, have

TO NOTES I 13

the appearance of being earlier and more rudimentary than those of the
other: he not unfrequently too sees that something is wanting and says
‘fragmentum’, where the latter supplies a whole verse with more or less
success. The scholar therefore completed what the master commenced ;
and the emendation of Lucretius links their names together not less
honourably than does the verse we quoted from Ariosto. Upon the whole
this fresh information has greatly raised my estimate of both, especially
of Marullus. His industry is at least as conspicuous as his sagacity: he
has evidently carefully collated manuscripts and editions and gathered
materials from all accessible sources. Throughout the poem the many
verses omitted in the Munich manuscript are supplied with unfailing
diligence. He evidently was acquainted with several of the existing
Florentine manuscripts ; among others that of Niccoli I believe, as well
as that of his enemy Politian, and Flor. 31 whose readings Lachmann
so strangely assigns to the notary Antonius Marii. Upon the whole he
must be placed as an amender of Lucretius immediately after Lambinus
and Lachmann, if not indeed in the same front rank, when we consider
the circumstances of his age and the imperfection of his materials; and
Pontanus perhaps may rank after him. Lambinus, as well as Avancius
and Naugerius editor of the second Aldine, must have had access to
some copy of Pontanus’ corrections.

What I said of Marullus in my first edition with much more imper-
fect materials from which to draw conclusions, I find now confirmed in
essential points. There were in circulation different copies of Marullus’
emendations ; Gifanius had access to one of these: see notes 1 to 1 274
Iv 1005, as well as 11 16 125 465 m1 994 v 201 1151 vi 25: what I in-
ferred from his own poems is borne out by 11 719 and 749 and some
other passages: the assertion of Crinitus quoted above that Marullus had
corrupted vi 651 652 is fully confirmed here: Marullus for the correct
multesima most unskilfully proposes malta extuma; and for tota reads
sit: the latter Candidus adopts. In other cases his more mature judg-
ment as seen in the Munich manuscript doubtless differed from his earlier
notions. A man who studied Lucretius so long and earnestly cannot
fail to have often changed his mind on further reflexion and with new
sources of information. Candidus does not by any means follow Ponta-
nus or Marullus in his orthography: that is formed as I proved in my
first edition mainly on Avancius. In many cases they might have taught
him better; to avoid for instance such embellishments as his ammneis,
virenters. He rightly however avoids such barbarisms as the hymbres
and sylva of Marullus. From succus littus arctus and the like, which
the latter carefully introduces, we may infer that he and Pontanus had
some share in bringing such corruptions into common use. The careful
collation which I have given in this edition of the emendations of
Pontanus and Marullus will prove their importance, and shew how rash

14 INTRODUCTION

and unfounded Lachmann’s procedure 15 in assigning everything that is
new in the Juntine to Marullus: even in the many instances where he
and I are in agreement, it must be remembered that he speaks without
authority, while I possess the testimony of Marullus himself. ]

The Juntine closes the first great epoch of improvement in the text
of Lucretius: the second Aldine edited by the well-known scholar An-
drew Naugerius and dated ‘mense ianuario M.D.Xv.’ is for the most part
a mere reprint of it without however one word of acknowledgment ac-
cording to the usage of the time. Yet the changes are not few, mostly
for the better, not always: two instances are given above from the first
page, the one a gross corruption, the other a right rejection of an inter-
polation. For the next fifty years Ald. 2 appears to have been the model
edition. Gryphius of Lyons published several texts, three of which
T have before me: they generally follow Naugerius, but not always,
often recurring to Avancius. Those of 1534 and 1540 have many mar-
ginal readings, most of them taken from Avancius or the notes of Pius,
a few from sources not known to me: see notes 1 to 1 977 officiatque.
Yet even these two editions do not always agree with each other.

Little advance however was made on the Juntine before Dionysius
Lambinus. He dates his address to Charles 1X 1 November 1563 and
afterwards speaks of his first edition as published in that year; though
the title-page of my copy has 1564. Lambinus was among the most
illustrious of the great Latin scholars who studied and taught at Paris
in the sixteenth century. His knowledge of Cicero and the older Latin
writers as well as the Augustan poets has never been surpassed and
rarely equalled. Whoever doubts that the nicest critical and gramma-
tical questions can be expressed in Ciceronian Latin without effort or
affectation, let him study the commentaries of Lambinus. Scaliger says
of him ‘Latine et Romane loquebatur optimeque scribebat’: his ease
and readiness are astonishing. He made use he tells us of five mss. :
four of these appear to have been Italian mss. of the fifteenth century :
the fifth, of which he used a collation by Turnebus, and which he calls
the Bertinian, was the same as the Leyden quarto. Jn his preface and
throughout the work he acknowledges his obligations to Turnebus and
Auratus. His Lucretius is perhaps the greatest of his works: there was
more to be done here, and therefore he has done more. He had more-
over a peculiar aclmiration for this author, of whom in the preface to his
third edition he says ‘omnium poetarum Latinorum qui hodie exstant et
qui ad nostram aetatem pervenerunt elegantissimus et purissimus, idem-
que gravissimus atque ornatissimus Lucretius est’. If his boast that he
has restored the text in 800 places goes beyond the truth, though I am
not sure that it does, yet the superiority of his over all preceding texts
can scarcely be exaggerated ; for the quickness of his intellect united
with his exquisite knowledge of the language gave him great power in

TO NOTES I £5

the field of conjecture, and for nearly three centuries his remained the
standard text. Lachmann says he did much less than Marullus. But
so far as there is truth in this, it is merely saying that the one lived
before the other: nine tenths of what Marullus effected, Lambinus could
have done currente calamo; but I doubt whether Marullus could have
accomplished one tenth of what Lambinus succeeded in doing. Lach-
mann accuses him of strange levity and rashness. But it must be re-
membered that in a short life he got through an amazing amount of
work in conformity with the wants of his age. He only gave two years
and a half to his brilliant edition of the whole of Cicero: and probably
did not spend many more months on his Lucretius than Lachmann spent
years. Nor was it possible in that age even for a Lambinus to appre-
hend the true relation of the mss. of Lucretius to one another. His
copious explanatory and illustrative commentary however calls for un-
qualified eulogy, and has remained down to the present day the great
original storehouse, from which all have borrowed who have done
anything of value for the elucidation of their author. Scaliger says
‘Lambinus avoit fort peu de livres’: if so he made good use of them,
as his reading is as vast as it is accurate, and its results are given in a
style of unsurpassed clearness and beauty. His notes observe the mean
between too much and too little: he himself calls them brief, while his
thankless countrymen, thinking however more perhaps of his Horace
than his Lucretius, have made lambin and lambiner classical terms to
express what is diffuse and tedious. A second and much smaller edition
with only a few pages of notes, but with many variations from the first,
was published in 1565,

Searcely could this first edition have issued from the press, when the
well-known scholar and jurisconsult Obertus Gifanius of Buren began
with systematical and unprincipled cunning to pillage it and convert it
to his own purposes. His Lucretius was printed by Plantin of Antwerp
in 1566 as stated at the end, though of two copies before me the titke-
page of one has on it 1566, the other 1565, which is the date of his own
address to Sambucus, and of the two privilegia at the end; for the
March 1564 of the first must be old style, as it is later than the Febru-
ary 1565 of the second. He brought nothing new to his task, except
the ms. notes of Marullus in the old Venice ed. fully spoken of above ;
for the emendations and readings of Antonius Goldingamus homo
Anglus, which he speaks of in his preface, and the veteres libri and the
hike which occur throughout his book are mere blinds to conceal his
thefts from Lambinus. The way in which he contrives at once to bestow
empty praise on this scholar and yet to extenuate his merits and put him
as a commentator of Lucretius on the same level with other learned
men, Turnebus for instance, is a marvel of astuteness. In the preface to
his third ed. Lambinus states the truth with great terseness: ‘omnia

16 INTRODUCTION

fere quae in eo Lueretio recta sunt, mea sunt ; quae tamen iste aut si-
lentio practermittit aut maligne laudat aut 5101 impudenter arrogat’,
Yet so great was the skill with which all this was done that he deceived
many and was thought to be a rival worthy of Lambinus. Contrary to
what many believe, the age loved brief notes; and his were brief, the
other’s copious. Even the great critic of that generation Joseph Scali-
ger, who well knew the character of the man and accused him of gross
deceit towards himself, says ‘ Gifanius estoit docte, son Lucréce est trés-
bon’. Lambinus however knew the truth, and his wrath was as signal
as the provocation. In 1570 he brought out a third edition greatly im-
proved and enlarged; much of the additional matter however consists in
invectives against the aggressor. In a long preface of great power and
beauty of style he states his wrongs. There and throughout his commen-
tary the whole Latin language, rich in that department, is ransacked for
terms of scorn and contumely. The same charges are repeated in a hun-
dred different shapes with curious copiousness and variety of expression.
Gifanius with consistent cunning attempted no public reply to all this.
Many years afterwards, when Lambinus had long been dead, a new edi-
tion of the other’s book was brought out at Leyden in 1595, in which
many additions are made to the brief notes, but not a word is said of the
charges brought against him by Lambinus. He was rewarded for his
reticence, and for a century or more opinion was divided as to whether
he or Lambinus did more for Lucretius. In private he corresponded
with the cankered and unhappy Muretus: the two exchanged futile
charges of dishonesty against the dead critic, who was far too genuine
a scholar to be capable of being a plagiary. Lachmann so stern with
Avancius has nothing to say of this much more flagitious case: ‘qui quo
iure’ he observes ‘aut Lambinum aut alios compilasse dictus esset non
quaesivi’, Gifanius had no business whatever to edit a poet: he was
without poetical taste and grossly ignorant of metre.

For a century after Lambinus nothing was done for Lucretius: the
common editions followed either Lambinus or Gifanius. In 1658 the
singular labours of Gassendi were given to the world. Deeply versed in
the works of the fathers and the philosophy of all ages down to the latest
discoveries of Descartes he devoted himself with the zeal of a disciple to
the dogmas of Epicurus. The two first of his huge folios are given to
this philosophy, and a large portion of them to the exposition of Lucre-
tius. Much that is curious may be gathered from them, and I have
perused them with attention; but to say the truth I have not found
much to my purpose in them. The author was utterly devoid of the
critical faculty, and all that is of value in him on this head is borrowed
from Lambinus; as well as the most useful of his illustrations: his cor-
rections of the text are almost without exception worthless. In the 17th
century several distinguished scholars, Salmasius J. F. Gronovius Nic.

TO NOTES I 17

Heinsius Isaac Vossius, turned their attention to Lucretius; but their
labours were only desultory. Of the ms. notes by the two last which
are in my possession [ will speak afterwards. In 1662 Tanaquillus
Faber or Tanneguy Lefebvre published at Saumur a text of Lucretius
followed by emendationes and notulae, He was a clever but vain man,
who seemed to think such work rather beneath him; he takes care how-
ever to inform his readers that he spent but little time or pains on it,
and had only Lambinus and Gifanius before him, though he owed nothing
to either. The truth is that without Lambinus he could not have ad-
vanced a step: clever man that he is, he affords a good proof how much
Latin scholarship had deteriorated in France during the century between
him anc Sambinus. Of Pareus, Nardius, Fayus nothing need be said.

Had Bentley in 1689 or 1690 succeeded in his efforts to obtain for
the Bodleian Isaac Vossius’ famous library, he might have anticipated
what Lachmann did by a century and a half. «As he was at that very
time working hard at Lucretius, if he had once got into his hands the
two mss. now at Leyden, he would at a glance have seen their import-
ance and would scarcely have failed to complete the edition which he
was then meditating. The great knowledge of Epicurus’ system which
he displayed two years later in his Boyle lectures and his zeal for the
recently published Principia of Newton would have aided him in ex-
pounding the tenets of the poet. This however was not to be; but his
marginal notes published in the Glasgow edition of Wakefield prove
what he could have done, if he had gone on with his design. I cannot
doubt that Lucretius would have suited him better than Horace, and
offered a fairer field for the exercise of his critical divination.

In 1695 there came from the Oxford press a Lucretius edited not by
Bentley, but by Thomas Creech Fellow of All Souls, a man of sound
sense and good taste, but to judge from his book of somewhat arrogant
and supercilious temper. The text is nearly always a reproduction of
one or other of the eclitions of Lambinus: such criticism indeed he seems
in his preface to look upon as unworthy of him. His notes are in most
cases mere abridgements of those of Lambinus or copied from Faber,
and his illustrations are usually borrowed from the former. AJ] this he
does as if it were a matter of course, not thinking it necessary either to
avow or conceal his obligations. His interpretatio is his own: how far
it is of assistance to a student must depend upon what he seeks for in
it. His Lucretius however owing to the clearness and brevity of the
notes has continued to be the popular one from that time to the present.

The worthy London bookseller Jacob Tonson published in 1712 a
finely printed text with various readings at the end collected from many
quarters with a great deal of trouble, some of value, most quite worth-
less. This I chiefly mention on account of what follows. In 1725
Sigebert Havercamp Professor at Leyden gave to the world his variorum

M. 2

18 INTRODUCTION

edition in two large volumes. Though his reputation has never been
great, my readers will hardly perhaps be prepared for what I am going
to say. As Professor in Leyden he had the full use of the two Vossian
mss. there, the main foundation of a genuine text: how did he use this
advantage, which in profession he makes so much of? The chief feature
of his edition is a vast and cumbrous apparatus of various readings,
derived from about thirty-one sources professedly distinct. Of these
thirty-one twenty-two are simply the various readings of the London
edition just mentioned which Havercamp has taken and tumbled into
his own without changing the notation. Most of these are of the most
futile nature, taken from worthless editions which reprint or ignorantly
depart from those of Giunta, Aldus, Lambinus or Gifanius, such as that
of Pareus, Gryphius, Fayus, Nardius and the French translator the
Baron de Coutures: the more worthless the authority, the more fully it
seems to be given. There are also some collations of the mss. of Vossius
and that in the Bodleian which it did the London bookseller credit to
get together. The nine remaining authorities are these: a certain Basil
edition of 1531, its marginal readings, a collation of the Verona edition
of 1486, also jottings in its margin from three unknown mss., a second
collation of the Bodleian, and lastly the two all-important Leyden mss.
The two last are the only authorities he has collated himself. How has
he performed this task ? he has not noted one reading in three ; the most
important variations he usually omits ; and the readings he gives are as
often wrong as right. That which he has borrowed from others and
thrown in a lump into his edition is for the most part as worthless as
the scribblings of a schoolboy. So incredibly careless is he, that the
Vossian collations which he borrows from Tonson are or should be those
of his Leyden mss.: see note 1 to v 471 for a glaring instance of a false
reading which he slavishly copies from Tonson and ascribes to his
Leyden quarto. Nay more the Bm of the London edition and his own
X are one and the same Bodleian ms. so that we have this ludi-
crous result, that the same ms. is cited twice over as two independent
authorities. His various readings are therefore not only cumbrously
inane, but are a snare and delusion, and have led astray those who
like Wakefield have trusted to them. Thus in his hands the two un-
rivalled Leyden mss. have been worse than useless. What he does him-
self is always worse done than what he borrows from others, poor as
that generally is: he has collated none of the old editions except the
Verona, and that was done for him, and better done than he would have
done it for himself. Nor are his explanatory notes much better: he has
heaped together in a crude mass those of the chief editors ; but except in
the case of Virgil and Horace and one or two others of the best known
poets, indexes to which are in everybody’s hands, he has not even sup-
plied the references to Lambinus’ learned notes who from the circum-

TO NOTES I 19

stances of his age could not himself furnish them ; nay in one case he
has given Lambinus’ own words as those of Cicero. In his two bulky
volumes there is not one week’s genuine work beyond what scissors and
paste could do: seldom has performance fallen so far short of profession
and opportunity.

There is nothing to detain us between Havercamp and Wakefield
who in 1796 and 1797 gave his three volumes to the world, rivalling
the other’s in magnitude. Yet the work, such as it is, is his own, and
is not a mere slothful compilation from others. Gilbert Wakefield pos-
sessed one quality which a critic can ill dispense with, that of despising
any amount of authority which did not rest on some real foundation,
and refusing to admit that, because a reading had appeared in edition
after edition for centuries, it might by that alone claim recognition. He
therefore set about a new revision which was to be based on manuscript
authority alone; but neither his knowledge nor his industry nor his
ability nor his taste sufficed for such a work. He professed to collate
five English mss., among them our Cambridge one, and most of the old
editions. This task he executed with incredible carelessness. As he had
the full use of the Cambridge ms., one might have expected that his
collation of it would be done with some care; but it is quite untrust-
worthy. From this as well as the evidence of his own notes and the
nature of the case I infer that his other collations are not more to
be depended upon. Had this labour been faithfully performed, it would
still have been of little use, as he had no notion of the true relation
of these late mss. to one another. He looked on each as an inde-
pendent authority and thought he could not do wreng, if the words he
put in his text were found in one or other of them. Then he had to
take from Havercamp the readings of the Leyden mss., and therefore
could gain no true insight into their character. As he had no know-
ledge of the language or philosophy of his author, he undertook to
explain whatever words he put into his text in long turgid notes of
unmeaning verbiage. His work was got through with a strange precipi-
tancy : when engaged on the first part, he had never read the other parts
of the poem ; when he came to them, he had forgotten what went before.
Morbidly vain and utterly unconscious of the immeasureable distance
between Lambinus and himself, he assails the most brilliant and certain
emendations of the unrivalled scholar in a hideous jargon and with a
vehemence of abuse that would be too great even for his own errors.
Thus by some fatality or other, by its falling into the hands of a Gifanius
Havercamp Wakefield instead of those of a Salmasius Gronovius Hein-
sius Bentley, the criticism of Lucretius remained for centuries where it
had been left by Lambinus, nay even retrograded. And yet Wakefield
did display occasional flashes of native genius, and our notes will shew
that not a few certain corrections are due to him; but from the first to

2— 2

20 INTRODUCTION

the last of his 1200 quarto pages there is not a single explanation of the
words or philosophy of his author for which a schoolboy would thank
him : so incurably inaccurate and illogical was his mind. Yet owing to
the boldness with which he asserted his pretensions he was thought even
by scholars to have done something great for his author: he received
complimentary letters from Heyne and Jacobs, ‘hominibus modestis
et ab omni iudicii subtilitate abhorrentibus’; and more than thirty years
afterwards Forbiger in preparing his compilation for the use of the
general public took him for his supreme authority. Even later than that
so great a scholar as Ph. Wagner often appeals to him in his notes to
Virgil. But though long in coming the avenger was to be.

Already in 1832 Madvig in a short academical program, afterwards
republished among his opuscula, exposed the futility of Wakefield’s
criticism and gave some intimations of the right course to pursue. Sti-
mulated by his example more than one scholar followed up the attack.
The most important contribution of this kind was made by Jacob
Bernays in an article printed in the Rhenish Museum of 1847. This
able paper would have produced a greater effect than it did, if it had
not been so soon superseded by Lachmann’s more complete and systema-
tical work. This illustrious scholar great in so many departments of
philology, sacred, classical and Teutonic, seems to have looked upon
Latin poetry as his peculiar province. Lucretius his greatest work was
the main occupation of the last five years of his life, from the autumn of
1845 to November 1850. Fortunately he had the full use for many
months of the two Leyden mss. His native sagacity, guided and sharp-
ened by long and varied experience, saw at a glance their relations to
each other and to the original from which they were derived, and made
clear the arbitrary way in which the common texts had been constructed.
His zeal warming as he advanced, one truth after another revealed itself
to him, so that at length he obtained by successive steps a clear insight
into the condition in which the poem left the hands of its author in the
most essential points. Like many other great scholars he seems to have
kept few or no common-place books, Resolved to master his subject he
perused the grammarians and poets and nearly the whole of the older
writers in order to illustrate Lucretius through them and them by
Lucretius, and the Latin language by all. He had an almost unequalled ᾿
power of grasping a subject in its widest extent and filling up the
minutest details. One mark of a great original critic, which eminently
belongs to Lachmann, is this: even when wrong, he puts into your
hands the best weapons for refuting himself, and by going astray makes
the right path easier for others to find. Another test is this, when his
influence extends far beyond his immediate author. Now hardly any
work of merit has appeared in Germany since Lachmann’s Lucretius in
any branch of Latin literature without bearing on every page the impress

TO NOTES I 21

of his example. When he is better known in England, the same result
will follow here. Though his Latin style is eminently clear lively and
appropriate, yet from his aim never to throw away words, as well as
from a mental peculiarity of his, that he only cared to be understood by
those whom he thought worthy to understand him, he is often obscure
and oracular on a first reading. Had his commentary been twice the
length it is, it would have been easier to master. But when once fully
apprehended his words are not soon forgotten. His love for merit of all
kinds incites in him a zeal to do justice to all the old scholars who have
done anything for his author; while his scorn and hatred of boastful
ignorance and ignoble sloth compel him to denounce those whom he con-
victs of these offences. In one instance, that of Forbiger, this sternness
passes into ferocity: most of his errors that scholar could hardly avoid
in the circumstances in which he was placed.

Hermann warns us, when we disagree with Lachmann, to think
twice lest we, not he, be in fault. His defects however must not be
passed over. While the most essential part of his work, the collation
of the two Leyden mss., has been performed with admirable skill and
industry, he has not been so happy in the use of secondary evidence, that
of the Italian mss. and the older editions, Much he has taken on trust
on insufficient evidence, and much that he had before him he has not
always accurately used. Some proofs of this have been given, more will
be seen below. But a still more serious defect must be told: he meant
his book to be a critical revision of the text, and left to others the task
of explaining and illustrating the meaning. So far good: but as the
text of an author in the condition of that of Lucretius cannot be always
rightly constructed without a sufficient knowledge of his system and
its literature, he has not unfrequently strangely blundered and grossly
corrupted the poet’s words: for examples of this see 1 599—634 11 522
—529 1010 foll. v 513—516. His consummate knowledge of the Latin
language as well as of the manner of Lucretius in particular enables him
often to amend his author with great success. As he wishes too to pro-
luce, where it is possible, an intelligible text, many of his corrections he
must himself have looked upon as only provisional. Yet his greatest
admirers must concede that he has not Madvig’s ‘curiosa felicitas’ in
emendation. He has however achieved a work which will be a land-
mark for scholars as long as the Latin language continues to be studied,
a work, perfidiae quod post nulla arquet aetas.

Jacob Bernays in 1852 edited a text of Lucretius for the Teubner
series. There can be little doubt that carried away by the strength of
his admiration for Lachmann he has followed him too faithfully ; yet he
not unfrequently differs from him. Where he recalls the old reading he
is generally right; where he deserts him for a conjecture of his own, he
is often very successful. Had he prepared a more elaborate edition, as

22 INTRODUCTION

he appears to have once had thoughts of doing, there is no doubt that
Lucretius would have owed him much. The impulse given by Lachmann
to the study of our poet has called forth numerous papers either inserted
in the German philological reviews or published by themselves. Some
are of more, some of less importance: my notes will shew where I have
been indebted to them. One English publication of eminent merit, as
it criticises not the text of the poem, but its matter and poetical
beauties, shall be mentioned elsewhere.

To return now to the manuscripts whose history was sketched above.
Though I examined the two at Leyden for some days so long ago as
the autumn of 1849, what will now be said of them is borrowed from
Lachmann who had them in his hands for six months and during that
time applied the whole force of his practised and penetrating intellect to
unravelling all their difficulties and obscurities. Both, as already men-
tioned, belonged to the magnificent collection of Isaac Vossius. The
older and better of the two is of the ninth century written in a clear and
beautiful hand: I callit A. It has been corrected by two scribes at the
time that the ms. was written, as Lachmann tells us. One of these is of
great importance: in most essential points he agrees minutely with the
ms. of Niccoli, the oldest of the Italian mss.; and doubtless therefore
gives the reading of the archetype. It will be seen in notes 1 how often
I make the united testimony of A and Niccoli to outweigh all the rest.
The other Leyden ms. which I call B is of nearly equal importance: it
is of quarto size closely written in double columns, apparently in the
tenth century. Itis probable that it and the ms, next to be mentioned
were copied from some copy of the archetype, not like A from the arche-
type itself. Four portions of the poem are omitted in their place, but
come together at the end in this order, 11 757—806 v 928—979 1 734
—785 11 253—304. Lachmann has demonstrated that these sections
formed each an entire leaf of the lost archetype: 16 29 39 115 are the
numbers of these leaves. It is manifest then that after A was copied,
these leaves of the archetype had fallen out of their places and been put
together without order at the end, before B, or the original of B, was
copied from it. More will be said on this point presently. B has had
several correctors, but all of the 15th century; one a very brilhant critic
for his age, to whom are due many of the finest emendations in the poem,
as will be seen in notes 1. This ms. was once in the great monastery of
St Bertin near St Omer. Turnebus collated it in Paris and his colla-
tion as we saw was used with much effect by Lambinus: it afterwards
came into the possession of Gerard John Vossius, Isaac’s father. A
large fragment of another ms. closely resembling B in everything double
columns and all, except that it 15 said to be a small folio, not quarto in
shape, is now at Copenhagen: it contains book 1 and 11 down to 456,
omitting however the same sections as B, viz. 1 734—785 and 11 253—

TO NOTES I 52

304, and doubtless for the same reasons, because copied from the same
ms. from which B was taken. It usually goes by the name of the
Gottorpian fragment from the place where it once was. I have three
collations of it, one published by Henrichsen in 1846, another in the
handwriting of Nic, Heinsius, another in that of Isaac Vossius. For-
merly it had a very high reputation: in truth it much resembles, but is
more carelessly written than B, and is seldom of much use, except once
or twice to confirm A against B, Strangely enough there are in the
Vienna library fragments of a precisely similar ms. containing large por-
tions of the later books, viz. 11 642 to 111 621 inclusive, omitting how-
ever in the proper place 11 757—-806 exactly as B does; then vi 743 to
the end; then follow, precisely as in B, the four omitted portions given
above, proving this to be copied from the ms, from which B was taken.
Naturally enough these Vienna fragments were assumed to belong to one
and the same ms. as the Gottorpian ; but Dr Ed. Goebel, from whom I
have borrowed this description of them, seems to prove in the Rhenish
Mus. n. 5. ΧΙ p. 449 foll. that the two portions now bound together are
of different sizes and belonged to different mss. However that may be,
the former part seems to be the same ms. as the Gottorpian, and the
other if not the same, is precisely the same in internal character; and in
either case is of the same, that is of very little value. Probably there-
fore a more accurate collation would hardly repay the labour.

ΑἹ] other mss. known to exist were, as has been already said, copied
mediately or immediately from Poggio’s lost ms. which must have re-
sembled A almost as closely as the Gottorpian resembles B. The most
important are among the eight preserved at Florence in the Laurentian
library, numbered 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 of desk xxxv. 30 was written
by Nicold Niccoli himself, who had Poggio’s ms. so long in his possession:
this we are told in the learned Mehus’ preface to his life of Traversarius
p. t. As he studied so many of Niccoli’s manuscript letters, he must
have known his writing better than anybody else. There are many cor-
rections in a much later hand, but Niccoli himself seems on the whole to
have copied Poggio’s ms. faithfully, and not to have made many changes.
His ms. therefore, as will be seen in notes 1, is of great value in deciding
between A and B. 1015 unfortunate that Lachmann could make no use
of it: I collated it with some care in the summer of 1851: the old
Verona and Venice editions have a text closely resembling Niccoli’s.
31 is next in importance to 30, but of a widely different character, hav-
ing a text much more corrected than Niccoli’s or even Ver. and Ven. It
is clearly written and in excellent preservation, and much resembles in
general character the manuscript in our public library which I had open
before me all the time I was composing notes 1, and which is as well
preserved and as distinctly written as the other. It excels the Cam-
bridge on the whole, though the latter has many good corrections not in

24 INTRODUCTION

the other. These two therefore I have used as good examples of cor-
rected codices. From whom come the many excellent emendations con-
tained in these mss. is quite unknown. Lachmann used a not very
complete collation of Flor. 31, and to it he attributes the corrections
which it has for the most part in common with the Cambridge and
doubtless some other mss. Having been told too by H. Keil from whom .
he got the collation that it was written by Antonius Marii filus, he fills
his commentary from one end to the other with the name of this worthy
Florentine notary. I can only say that I compared it with ten or more
voluminous mss. written in magnificent style and signed by this man
between 1420 and 1451 all closely resembling each other; and neither
in general appearance nor in the form of particular letters nor in their
abbreviations have they any resemblance to the ms. of Lucretius. This
scribe’s name therefore I have excluded from my notes. Of the other
Laurentian mss. 29 is to be noticed for the marginal annotations of
Angelo Politian spoken of above and often referred to in notes 1 : 1t twice
over has this note ‘liber conventus Sancti Marci de Florentia ordinis
Praedicatorum habitus a publicis sectoribus pro libris quos sibi ab eodem
conventu commodatos Angelus Politianus amisit seu qui in morte Angeli
Politiani amissi sunt’. 382 has some learned marginal remarks on the
first book from which I have derived some facts about Marullus. The
six mss. of the Vatican I collated as long ago as the autumn of 1849, but
not with much care or skill; yet it will be seen from notes 1 that they
have been of considerable service to me: their marks are as follows, 3275
and 3276 Vatic. 640 Urbin. 1136 and 1954 Othobon. and 1706 Regin.,
at the bottom of the first page of which are the words ‘ Nicolai Heinsii’.

As further helps I have had Gifanius’ ed. of 1595 with ms. notes by
Nic. Heinsius which I bought from H. G. Bohn many years ago: it will
be seen that I have derived from it some valuable emendations not in
Heinsius’ adversaria nor elsewhere so far as I know. Τὺ has also a com-
plete collation of A all through, of B in the first four books, and of the
Gottorpian fragment. It contains too a complete collation of the codex
Modii, which Heinsius denotes by s: he says of it ‘variantes lectiones
excerptae sunt ex libello edito Paris. an. 1565 quem Fr. Modius cum ms,
suo contulit, ut ipse testatur fine lib. I inquiens: Collatws cum ms. meo
26 Junit 1579 Coloniae’: it was lent to Heinsius by Liraeus; Liraeus
had it from Gruter, Gruter from Nansius, Nansius from Modius himself.
Heinsius says ‘codex Modii non est idem cum B Vossiano, nam pag. 8
[1 227] ubi ex Modiano notatum ad lumina, Vossianus in’. Heinsius
speaks I presume of the smal] 2nd ed. of Lambinus, as the one which
Modius used: it has like others an dwmina: if then Modius’ codex is B,
either he or Heinsius has made a gross mistake. IJ have noticed several
other instances, where s is made to differ from B; but in these cases
Lambinus’ 2nd ed. has the reading which Heinsius gives to s, so that

TO NOTES I 25

Heinsius may have here been misled by Modius’ negligence. It would
seem certainly that s and B are the same: if they are two, then their
agreement is very extraordinary, much closer than that between B and
the Gottorpian fragment.

I also possess a copy of Faber’s Lucretius with a poor collation of A
-and B and the Gottorp. as well as many other notes and illustrations in
the writing of Isaac Vossius. Havercamp had a copy of the sanie notes,
but has employed them with his usual carelessness. Notes 1 will shew
what important use I have made of them: they have enabled me to strip
him of several of the most showy feathers with which he had decked
himself either from negligence or worse. Spengel, Christ, Goebel and
some others have in various journals and publications made much ado
about a codex Victorianus as they call it, once belonging to P. Victorius,
now in the Munich library, as if it were a rival, or nearly so, of A and
B. From the readings cited I see clearly that it is a common Italian
fifteenth century ms. neither better nor worse than twenty others, much
resembling the Verona and Venice editions and of no importance what-
ever. {As the reader has been already told, I examined this manuscript
myself at Munich during the summer of 1865 and can confidently affirm
that what I said of it is the truth. It is much interpolated: its correc-
tions are not so valuable as those of Flor. 31 or [ think of our Cambridge
manuscript. 1 have recorded some of its readings in my critical notes
under the term ‘Mon.’, and have occasionally spoken of it as the codex
Victorii. Strange that learned men should have taken so much trouble
about its own readings and said not a word of the much more important
emenclations of Marullus which it contains. This is not the case with
Prof. Sauppe in the program spoken of above; but I cannot help citing
from its first page a few lines which I read with no slight surprise:
‘unum addo, quod ab aliis nondum quod sciam animadversum coniectu-
ram de victoriani codlicis origine propositam valde confirmet. Post |. 3
enim v. 360 versus novem scripti sunt, quos delendos esse homo quidam
doctissimus in margine monuit, qui versus 403—411 per errorem hic il-
latos esse viclisset. ratione autem subducta inter v. 360 et £03 versus bis
vicenos senos interpositos esse invenimus, ut facile intelligamus in singu-
lis archetypi paginis versus vicenos senos scriptos fuisse elusque inter
scribendum cum unum vellet scriptorem victoriani cluo folia vertisse. in
archetypo vero oblongi Οὐ. Lachmannus ostendit p. 3. 49. 233. aliis locis
eandem versuum rationem fuisse’. Probably before this time the learned
writer will have discovered that his arithmetic is at fault and that he
has counted forty-two as fifty-two; and that his theory is thus entirely
upset. But it is not for such a trifle as that, that I have quoted his
words. Does he really mean to assert that this Munich is not like every
other fifteenth century ms. a descendant of the one brought into Italy by
Poggio? that the long lost archetype was preserved by some mysterious

26 INTRODUCTION

intervention for the special use of the copyist of this codex? Again I
would ask whether he looks upon the laborious and sagacious caleula-
tions, by which Lachmann demonstrated the number of pages in the lost
archetype and the number of verses in each page, as a mere plaything
thus to be trifled with; and not rather as a key to unlock many secrets
of criticism and not to be understood even without some slight effort of
mind. I beg to tell him that the number of lines in the archetype bhe-
tween 111 360 and 403 was not either 52 or 42, but 44; that is to say
42 verses of the poem+two headings: and that 111 360 did not com-
mence, nor ΠΙ 402 terminate a leaf; but that 111 360 was the fifth line
of page 108 of the archetype, and 111 402 was the fourth line from the
bottom of page 109, Further study too will perhaps make him regret
that he has put the unfortunate paragraphs between 1 503 and 634 toa
fresh torture, and permit him to see that in no part of the poem is the
argument or text in a sounder state.—But even while revising the 2nd
ed. for the press I found in a recent program by Th. Bergk, with the
name of Ed. Heine on the title-page, a fresh attempt to magnify this
much vexed Victorian codex: i p. XIV it is said that it ‘solus iusto ordine
exhibet hbro 1v locum antiquitus archetypi schedae paginis inversis per-
turbatum: nam post v. 298 dique ea continuo sequuntur v. 323 Servet.
...d47 Ac resilire, tum v. 299 Splendida...322 Quae sita sunt, denique
v. 348 Quod contra. hoc igitur insigne est virtutis documentum, atque
possit aliquis inde colligere hibrum Poggianum ex archetypo descriptum
esse, antequam illae paginae inversae sunt’ etc. Is it not strange that
so definite an assertion should be printed, when in truth this manuscript
has the verses in just the same inverted order, in which they are given
by the Leyden and all other known mss.? Nay more the corrector
(Marullus without doubt) arranges the disordered lines, whether after
Politian or not, exactly as Candidus does in the Juntine, who beyond
any question adopted his arrangement from this manuscript. And yet
the main purpose of the program spoken of is to prove Marullus not to
be the corrector of this Victorian codex, and to prove it from this very
passage!] It will be seen that by the materials which I have collected
and just described I have in many important cases got nearer than has
been done before to the readings of Poggio’s ms. which was a worthy
rival of the Leyden two.

But Lachmann’s long experience and disciplined acuteness have en-
abled him to go beyond existing mss. and to tell us much of the lost
archetype, as I call it after him, of all existing mss. Notes 1 will shew
that many difficulties are cleared up by this knowledge. This archetype
then, though it 15 not certain that even A was immediately taken from
it, was written in thin capitals, like the mecicean of Virgil; the words
were not separated, but in the middle of verses points were put at the
end of clauses. Ancient mss. as a rule keep with singular care to the

TO NOTES I 37

same number of lines in a page: ours had 26 lines in a page, excepting
only those which concluded a book. But remember there was a heading
or title at the beginning of each section; and each of these headings oc-
eupied a line. Lachmann brings many proofs of this being the number.
When this ms. was copied, it was clearly much torn and mutilated. It
was stated above that four portions, omitted in their place by B, come
together at the end, and that these each formed a leaf of the archetype
which had fallen out of its proper place. Each of these alone or with its
headings consists of 52 lines. Then turn to note 1 on iv 299—347
(323—347 299—322) where this inversion is explained in the same way,
by the accident that is of a loose leaf being turned the wrong way: see
also note 1 to 1 1068—1075 and 1094—1101, where the mutilation is
accounted for in the same manner. Thus we obtain six certain Jand-
marks in different parts of the poem. The archetype therefore consisted
of 300 pages, or admitting, as seems to be an undoubted fact, that a
whole leaf is lost between vi 839 and 840, of 302; of which the first was
not written upon, as well as one for some reason or other somewhere
between 1 785, which ends one of the loose leaves at the end of B, and
1068 which, as shewn in note 1, begins a fresh leaf. Page 190 which
followed the end of Iv was left blank. I may also note that pp. 137 and
191 contained an index of the headings of iv and v respectively, while
the headings of vi are crowded into the lower part of p. 249, the upper
part of which contained the last 13 lines of the text of v: see Lach. p.
398: although the different titles come in their places in these books too,
as well as in the first three which have no such index prefixed. Having
made for myself a list of these pages after the rules stated in various
places by Lachmann, I have found it of great use; as the ends of lines
throughout the poem towards the bottom of the several right-hand pages
had been specially exposed to mutilation in the damaged archetype.
Verses also omitted in their proper places were apt in this as in other
mss. to be put afterwards at the bottom of pages. Besides the injuries
which it had received from accident or ill usage, our archetype must
have been carelessly enough written, though A and B prove that it re-
tained many valuable vestiges of great antiquity, especially in the spell-
ing of words, and though there may have been few stages between it
and the age of the author. There is one point, the nature of the hiatus
after 1v 126, as to which it is not easy to accept Lachmann’s theory.
That there is a hiatus there, is indisputable and the special questions
connected with it are fully discussed in note 1 to that passage. As the
accidental loss of a whole leaf would not suit his system of pages, he
boldly declares that twenty-five verses and one heading have perished,
that is one single page of our archetype. Now it is easy enough, as we
have seen, to explain the accidental loss of a leaf, by which every subse-
quent copy must necessarily want the contents of that leaf: it 15 easy

28 INTRODUCTION

enough to conceive any one ms., A or B or Poggio’s, passing over by
mistake one whole page. But it is in the highest degree unlikely that
different copies, A B and Poggio’s, neither of which as Lachmann admits
was copied from the other, should all pass over a single page of their ori-
ginal; or that this single page should be wholly illegible, while that
which preceded and the reverse page of the same leaf should be entirely
uninjured. It seems to me therefore much more natural to assume that
our archetype or one of its predecessors acciclentally omitted an uncertain
number of verses; or rather that a whole leaf of the archetype had been
lost, as after v1 839. Lachmann’s system of pagination would then be
set right in this way: only books 1v and v have an index capitum pre-
fixed filling one page; for that of vias I have said is crammed into the
lower part of the last page of v: before this index in v Lachmann has
shewn that the archetype had one blank page. Assume now that one
page was similarly left blank before the index of Iv and all will be right:
the pages of the archetype would then be raised to 804. The andex capi-
tum prefixed to v1 1 accidentally omitted to notice in former editions, as
it had no bearing on the question of pages. The assumption here made
which is commended by Mr Polle, but blamed by Mr Susemihl in philo-
log. xxIx p. 427 foll., I still think probable. The latter asks what con-
ceivable reason there could have been for the two blank pages before v,
except to begin the new book with a new leaf, as was done with all the
rest. Why, 1 which had no index prefixed began on the second page of
a leaf; so did 111, which had no such index; so did v1 whose index is
crowded together in the manner spoken of. Other mss. such as the me-
dicean of Virgil, seem to have no preference for beginning a book on a
new leaf. Why the two pages were left for the index between Iv and v
I do not know, any more than why a page was left vacant somewhere be-
tween 1 785 and 1068: it had something to do perhaps with calculations
about the parchment required. I was going to say more, but forbear to
enlarge on so fruitless a topic.

But we are able to advance even beyond the archetype: in many
parts of the poem there are manifest undoubted interpolations, which
must have been inserted by some reader who wished at one time to con-
firm what is said, at another to convict it of inconsistency and the like.
Generally, not always, these passages are repetitions of genuine passages ;
sometimes they consist of several, sometimes of a single verse: 1 44—
49 and 11 806—818 are good and incontrovertible examples. But
enough is said of these throughout our notes. Lachmann however still
unsatisfied has not paused even here, but has gone up to the very times
of the poet. No careful reader will refuse to admit that he has proved
not a few passages, some of them among the finest in the poem, to have
been subsequent additions made by the author, which he did not live to
embody properly with the rest of his work. Lachmann has gone too far;

TO NOTES I 29

and unless I err, I have shewn that not a few sections thus marked
by him are properly connected with what precedes and follows. Yet it
is certain that his theory applies to πὶ 165—183, and more than one long
paragraph of Iv v and νι. It has been shewn sufficiently in the notes to
these passages that the most important of them have a close connexion
in matter and manner with each other. Like Lachmann, I have marked
them off by []. All through the poem many single verses and passages
of some length are designedly repeated by the poet, some of them again
and again. It is probable that he would have removed many of them,
if he had lived to revise his work: the exordium of rv for instance could
hardly have been left.

Some readers may be surprised at the number of verses which have
been transposed in the poem; but they should remember that every
ancient writing which depends finally on one ms, is in a similar plight.
When a scribe omitted by accident a verse, in order not to spoil the look
of his book, he wrote it at once after the next verse, if he immediately
discovered his error; if not, he omitted it altogether, or added it in
some other place, often at the bottom of a page; he would then affix an
a, 6 to mark the right order; the next scribe would not notice or would
purposely omit these and so on: see Bent]. to Hor. ars 46. Every one
of these errors has been committed again and again by the copyists of
our poem. Most of these transpositions are certain and were made long
ago by Lambinus Marullus Avancius and others; many were first made
by Lachmann. Some of these I have not followed: not a few I have
first ventured on myself. But connected with this question I must draw
attention to one point which seems of importance. You would expect as
a rule single verses to be thus transposed; and this is the case in Lucre-
tius’ mss. as in those of other writers: sometimes too one or more verses
are repeated after the misplaced verse, which ought to follow it in its
proper place, as if to shew the reader whither it ought to be transferred:
comp. Iv 991 1.6. 999 of the mss. followed in them by 1000—1003,
which are only the vss. which follow it in its right place repeated after
it in its wrong place: see also v 570 (573) and what comes after. But
besides such usual instances of transposition there are throughout the
poem many small groups of verses, forming generally sentences complete
in themselves, which have got quite out of their right place: comp. 1 984
—987 (998—1001), 11 652—657 (655—659 680) and Iv 1227 1228
(1225 1226), three passages first transposed by me; also 11 1139—1142,
1168—1170, 111 686—690, tv 50—52, v 174 175, 1127 1128. Now
that a scribe should so often transpose several consecutive verses always
forming an entire and independent sentence by mere casual carelessness,
is to me in the highest degree improbable. Again most of these passages
read to me like possible additions not necessary to the context, though
they improve it. I believe them then to be marginal additions by the

30 INTRODUCTION

poet, inserted on the same principle as the longer sections discussed
above: these too the first editor, faithfully preserving everything in his
copy, but not caring always to find the right place for what the author
left ambiguous, has inserted out of their order. Add to these v 437—
442 which the context could dispense with: these vss. are found out of
place in Macrobius as in our mss, This increases the probability that
they were out of their proper order from the first, two apparently inde-
pendent authorities Macrobius and our archetype quoting them in the
same way. Perhaps these single vss. might be added to the list, rv 202,
205, vi 957, 1225, 1237, 1270 as they might all be dispensed with.
Look too at 1v 129—142, so strangely disordered in the mss.: 133—135
may be all marginal additions by the author afterwards wrongly placed
by the editor. The ms. arrangement of 1v 299—348 has been already
accounted for. If all these passages are subtracted, there will then be
left a not very unusual number of single verses transposed by the ordi-
nary negligence of copyists. The numbers occasionally given on the left
hand of the page denote of course the order of the lines in mss. which Lach-
mann follows in his edition: where spurious vss. of the mss. are omitted
from the text, he still allows them to count. For obvious reasons [I
have followed him in this, as he will be the future standard of compari-
son, and there is great advantage in a uniform numbering of the verses.

Since many special questions of orthography are noticed as they
occur in the notes, I should have thought it unnecessary to say more in
this place than that in essential points I follow Lachmann, if it were not
for the apparent unwillingness of scholars in this country to accept even
the smallest change in what they look upon as the usual or conventional
rules of spelling. The notion of any uniform conventional spelling is
quite a chimera: I never find two English editors following any uniform
system ; nay the same editor will often differ in different parts of the
same book. But whence comes this ‘conventional’ system, so far as it
does exist? from the meritorious and considering their position most
successful endeavours of the Italian scholars in the fifteenth century to
get rid of the frightful mass of barbarisms which the four or five pre-
ceding centuries had accumulated. They sought indeed to introduce
rigorous uniformity in cases where variety was the rule of the ancients ;
and though these cases embraced only a few general heads, they yet
comprised a great multiplicity of particular instances, because involving
the terminations of cases, the assimilation of prepositions in compound
verbs and the like. But where there was only one right course, they
generally chose it; yet from the utter confusion into which the use of the
aspirate had fallen, their own language having entirely lost it in sound,
but at this time retained it in spelling ; from the almost complete iden-
tity both in sound and writing of ὁ and ¢ before 7, and the like, they
never could tell whether /umor or umor, humerus or wmerus, spatium or

TO NOTES I 21

spacium, species or speties was correct ; and consequently as a rule chose
the wrong. Their general principles however were not accepted by the
most thoughtful scholars in any age, so far at least as concerned the text
of ancient authors, unless it be during a part of the present century ;
neither by an Avancius in the 15th nor by a Lambinus or Scaliger in
the 16th nor by a Gronovius in the 17th nor by a Bentley in the 18th.
Yet this system gradually established itself, because it came to be used
by scholars in their own writings, some of the barbarisms being gradu-
ally eliminated ; new ones however being introduced, such as coelum
coena moereo sylva caetera for caelum cena maerco silva cetera in order to
derive them preposterously from Greek words: Marullus, as we said
above, writes sylva and hymbres.

Many attempts were made in various directions to change this state
of things: the best and most systematic was that of Ph. Wagner in his
orthographia Vergiliana published in 1841. With admirable industry
he amassed all the evidence afforded by the medicean and, so far as it
was accessible to him, of the other ancient mss. of Virgil. As these, like
other old mss. are as a rule very tenacious of the true spelling in those
cases where there is only one right method, he performed this part of his
work with eminent success, and still remains one of the best authorities
on the subject. In those other cases however referred to above, in which
variety is the rule of the ancients and which include a great multitude
of particular instances, he has chosen to abandon the safe ground of
evidence and experience and has made Virgil write what he decided on
a priori principles he must have written. This seems to me the reason
why his system was not more generally followed. Still less satisfactory
was Madvig’s spelling in his de finibus published in 1839 : it was utterly
unlike that of the mss. and yet in many points it was not what Cicero
used ; in still more you could not be sure whether it was what he used
or not. Here too Lachmann bringing into play his extraordinary ‘power
of asking the right question,’ and joining with it a minute knowledge of
the whole evidence upon the subject, saw at once what could be obtained
and what could not, and shaped his course accordingly. The Leyden
mss. of Lucretius, imperfect in many respects, are on the whole admira-
ble in their orthography, at least equal to any of the mss. of Virgil, con-
firming them in what is true and confirmed by them in turn: in some
nice points, such as the frequent retention of the enclitic s¢, they far
surpass them. With their aid he was able to confirm those improve-
ments in spelling which Wagner had so well established in opposition to
the system in common use. But in regard to the other class of words in
which the usage of the ancients varied in different ages or even in the
same age, he did not dogmatically determine what his author wrote and
thus close the door to all future change; but knowing that certainty was
not here attainable, he carefully sifted the evidence offered by his mss.

12 INTRODUCTION

and made the best approximation he could to what his author might have
written, always taking the most ancient form for which his authorities
supplied any testimony direct or indirect. Thus the question was not
foreclosed ; nor were we left to vague generalities, but a firm historical
groundwork was gained upon which future improvements might be built,
if better evidence hereafter oftered itself. Lachmann then in this, as in
so many other departments of philology, seems at once to have produced
conviction in the minds of the majority of the most thoughtful scholars,
in Germany I mean; for in our own country most seem to scout the
question as unworthy of serious attention: a great mistake; for Latin
orthography is a most interesting and valuable study to those who care
to examine it, and touches in a thousand points the history grammar and
pronunciation of the language. Let me give two examples of the effect
at once produced by Lachmann. Otto Jahn in 1843 published his
elaborate edition of Persius in which he adopted throughout the spelling
then in common use, though he had so many excellent mss. to guide him
to a better course: in 185], the year after Lachmann’s work came out,
he published the text of his Juvenal and followed in it most minutely
the principles of Lachmann ; and fortunately he had a most excellent
authority in the codex Pithoeanus ; so that the spelling is probably not
very far removed from the author’s own. In the years just preceding
Lachmann Halm published several orations of Cicero with elaborate
critical Latin notes: and yet, though his spelling was somewhat better
than that of Jahn’s Persius, it is still essentially ‘conventional’ and arbi-
trary: in the years following Lachmann he published a series of school
editions of Cicero’s orations with brief Gerinan notes, and now in these
the spelling was wholly modelled on the system pursued by Lachmann.
The same system too he has carried out in those volumes of the elaborate
edition of Cicero edited by him and Baiter, which came out after Lach-
mann’s Lucretius. Stimulated by the examples of Madvig Ritschl and
Lachmann the rising generation of German scholars has pursued the
critical study of Latin with eminent success ; and nearly all of them fol-
low in orthography the guidance of Lachmann. This system then may
fairly I think be now regarded as the true ‘conventional’ system ; for
surely the Lachmanns and Ritschls of the nineteenth century have a
better right to dictate to us in the present day what shall be accepted as
‘conventional’ than the Poggios and Vallas of the fifteenth. Since my
first edition came out, Madvig has published the last books of his text of
Livy, of which there exists but a single and very ancient ms.: these he
has edited in a form differing from that of the other books, and has now
given his very weighty authority in favour of adhering to the spelling of
the oldest mss., with some reservations which I do not understand. And
now too m his new edition of the de finibus he has entirely abandoned
the orthography of the other.

TO NOTES 1 ae;

In following Lachinann then I am sure that I have authority on my
side; I believe that T have reason as well. In those cases indeed to
which I have already referred, where the universal testimony of inscrip-
tions and of mss. beyond a certain age proves that there is only one right
way and about which the best scholars are all now agreed, there cannot
be any doubt what course should be taken: we must write guerella
loquella luella sollers sollennis sollicito Iuppiter littera quattuor stuppa
lammina; on the other hand milia conecto conexus coniti conixus conireo
conubium belua baca sucus litus and the like; condicio solacium, setius
artus (adj.) autwmnus suboles: in many of them an important principle
is involved: obeying the almost unanimous testimony of our own and
other good mss. we cannot but give wmerus wmnor and the like: also
hiemps. Ihave heard it asked what then is the genitive of hiemps: to
which the best reply perhaps would be what is the perfect of swmo or
supine of emo. The Latins wrote hiemps, as they wrote emptum sumpsi
sumptum and a hundred such forms, because they disliked m and s or ¢
to come together without the intervention of a p sound; and our mss, all
attest this: tempto likewise is the only true form, which the Italians in
the 15th century rejected for ¢tento. Then mss. and inscriptions prove
that d took an before it, tandem quendam eundem and the like, with
the exception of cirecwmdo in which the mss. both of Lucr. and Virgil
always retain the m: and generally, though not invariably, m on the
other hand remained before ῳ : guemquam tamgquam and so on; though
the new corpus inscrip. Lat. has I find nwnguams and so has Augustus
in his res gestae, but quotiescumque. Then always quicque quicquam
quicquid (indef.), but generally quidquid (relative), though quicquid is
found in the lex Rubria and once in our AB: always peremo interemo
neglego intellego etc. Above all we must scout such barbarisms as coelwin
moestus sylva caetera nequicguam. In these points Wagner is as good a
guide as Lachmann ; but in regard to the cases in which ancient usage
varied shall we follow the former who deserts the mss. for preconceived
general rules, or Lachmann who here also is content to obey the best
evidence he can get? I have unhesitatingly come over to the views of
the latter: ‘hypotheses non fingo’ should be the rule in this as in other
matters. As said above, all these uncertain spellings fall under a very
few general heads. One of these is the assimilation or non-assimilation
of prepositions : anpero represents the etymology, ampero the pronuncia-
tion of the word. From the most ancient period of which we have any
record, centuries before Cicero or Lucretius, a compromise was made be-
tween these opposing interests: words in common use soon began to
change the consonant, those in less common use retained it longer. In
the first volume of the corpus inscrip. Lat., the most recent of which
are as old as the age of Lucretius, most of them much older, cmpe-
rator occurs 26 times, and is always spelt with m, proving that in a

M. Ss:

34 INTRODUCTION

word, which must daily have been in everybody’s mouth, etymology in
remote times yielded as was natural to sound: tmperiwm again occurs
three, inperium six times, being doubtless in somewhat less common use.
Now in Lucretius imperium impero or imperito occurs six times, and
the mss. always spell with m, and so Lucretius spelt I have no doubt:
indeed many of these common words the silver age I believe more
frequently wrote with n, than did that of Cicero. Then Virgil uses 7m-
pertum 40 times ; and Ribbeck’s capital mss. have m in every instance,
except M which twice has zmp., though one of these two cases is at least
doubtful: for Aen. νι 381 Fogginius prints imperiis. Yet in defiance
of all this evidence Wagner gives us inperiwm, surely without reason on
any view of the case; for the foundation on which we must build is thus
withdrawn from under our feet. To take another common instance,
comimuto occurs 9 times In the corpus inscrip. and always with m; 12 times
in Lucretius and always with m. Other words are more uncertain: we
find in the mss. impius and enpius, immortalis and inmortalis, conligere
and colligere, compleo and conpleo ; and so with other prepositions, ab, ob,
sub, ad: all tending to prove that usage was in most words uncertain.
Again we have exsto, and exto, exsolvo, exulto eapnro expecto cet., s being
generally omitted ; and this agrees with Quintilian 1 7 4 who implies
that it was a learned affectation of some to write exspecto in order to dis-
tinguish ex and specto from ex and pecto; it agrees too with all other
good evidence: the mss. of Virgil furnish precisely the same testimony
as those of Lucretius; yet Wagner in all such cases writes evs: surely
we should keep ex where the mss. keep it, ews where they have exs: and
so with supter or subter, suptilis or subtilis, ab- or ap-, ob- or op-, sub- or
sup , suec- or susc-, and the like: appareo occurs ten times in Luer. and
is always spelt thus by our mss. : so apparo, appello (both 1 and 3 con).);
but adpetitur and always adpono, adporto or atporto, in which words the
separate force of the preposition continued to be felt: in exact conform-
ity with this the first volume of the corp. inscr. has twenty times appareo
and also apparitor, proving that in the earliest times the prepos. had
been assimilated in this common technical word : thus too in the 21 in-
stances of appareo in Virgil all Ribbeck’s mss. always have app. except
M once, Aen. x1 605, misled by the usage of its age: comp. the sugges-
tive remark of Servius to Aen. 1 616 ‘applicat: secundum praesentem
usum per d prima syllaba scribitur: secundum antiquam orthographiam
...per p’: yet in defiance of all this Wagner makes Virgil always write
adpareo and the like. We find haud and haut, and sometimes alvut ali-
quat quicquit and the like, sound and etymology carrying on an undecided
battle in the mss. of Lucretius, as in inscriptions and elsewhere: adque
is sometimes but rarely found, sound having here as might be expected
gained the victory: Wagner cannot be right in always forcing adqwe on
Virgil. Lucretius seems to have recognised only sed: he once has elabsa,

TO NOTES I ab

and once praescribta: see notes 2 to v1 92: in such forms sound must
have at an early period prevailed ; and ὁ d g gave way to p tc before 8
and ¢: lapsus for labsus is the same principle as rex (recs), rexi (recs?)
written sometimes recat, rectum from rego: to judge from the best mss,
labsus and the like became again much more common in the silver age.
Mommsen has recently published an admirable copy and exposition of
the res gestae of Augustus from the Ancyra monument. Augustus was
somewhat of a purist in spelling and cashiered an oflicer for using in a
dispatch the vulgarism isse (not 2ae) instead of tpse. His system quite
bears out what has just been said: he always writes imperiwm and inipe-
rator; he has ammortalis, but inmissus ; impensa, while the heading of
the work, not written by him, but perhaps by Tiberius, has inpersa :
generally conlega and conlegiwm, but once collegiwm and collaticius ; exilt-
um, but exstenguere ; on the other hand sexsizens as well as sexiens, prov-
ing that « and «xs were identical: he writes appellaverwnt ; but adque
the only time he uses the word.

Another question involving a multitude of details is the use of -7s or
-es in the accus. plur. of participles and adjectives and substantives
whose gen. plur. ends in 7wm, as well as of some other classes, doloris or
dolores, matoris or maiores: here too Wagner involves hiniself in inex-
tricable perplexities by his eclectic system, when his mss. were admirable
guides, had he chosen to follow them. The mss. of Lucretius are no less
admirable and probably represent very fairly the author’s own usage:
they offer -zs five times out of six; and -es is somewhat more common in
substantives in very general use, as zgnes vires aures. Inscriptions quite
bear out our mss. ; and the sole relic of Latin yet disinterred from Her-
culaneum contains this v, Utraque sollenmis iterum revocaverat orbes.
Pertz recently printed in the Berlin transactions the few remaining
leaves of a ms. of Virgil, which he assigns to the age of Augustus and
which may really be of the second or third century: we there find the
ace. plur. of adjectives and participles ending 18 times in -2s, 3 times in
-es pares felices amantes; of substantives we find sonoris, but 4 times
vires, and artes messes crates classes aves, quite confirming the testimony
of our A and B. Varro de ling. Lat. vi11 66 writes item quod in patrico
casu hoc genus dispariliter dicatur civitatum parentum et civitatium pa-
rentium: im accusandi hos montes fontes e¢ hos montis fontis; and in
Lucr. 11 587 we find potestates, v 1239 potestatis: then ib. 67 he says
quid potest sinulius esse quam gens mens dens? guom horum casus patri-
cus et accusativus in multrtudine sint disparilis; nam a primo fit gen-
tium e¢ gentis, wtrobique ut sit1; ab secundo mentium et mentes, wt in
priore solo siti; ab tertio dentum e¢ dentes, wt in nertro siti; well our
mss. six times have the acc. gentis, never gentes; dentes four times,
never dentis ; mentes five times, once only, 11 620, mentis. As for the
nomin. plur. of such words, Varro]. 1. 66 says sine reprekensione vulgo αἰτὶ

9---

36 INTRODUCTION

dicunt in singulari hac ovi et avi, alii hac ove et ave, in multitudinis hae
puppis restis e¢ hae puppes restes: the fragment of Virgil just cited has
the nomin. plur. putris and messis, though we saw it had messes in the
accus.: in accordance then with these high authorities the mss. of Lucr.
not unfrequently retain this nomin. in -ἴ8, which it would be monstrous
to extirpate: I have always therefore kept it. In precise conformity
with Lucr. Augustus has in the accus. agentis and labentes, finis and
fines, consules and once consulis: ouce too the nomin. plwris. On the
other hand he always uses the accus. gentes, departing in this word from
the rule of Varro and Lucr. We see from the corpus inser. that -ezs -ἴ8
-es were all in use: it is probable that Lucr. occasionally employed the
termination -eis, intermediate in sound between -es and -s; but, if so,
his manuscripts have left few or no traces, and it would be most perverse
to follow Avancius Wakefield and others in thrusting it into his verses
in season and out of season: v 1280 B has mortaleis, perhaps from
Lucr.: Augustus more than once has this -ezs in the abl. plur., gwadri-
geis, emeriters ; and the inscription in his honour still existing on the
arch of Rimini erected in 727, midway therefore in time between his
res gestae and Luer., has celeberrimets, vieis, redditeis. A and B have
however not a few indications expressed or implied of the ending -ez: see
note 2 to 111 97 oculet: these have of course been carefully preserved.
On another question, comprehending a multitude of particular in-
stances, I have followed Lachmann and our mss. which here too are on
the whole excellent guides: I speak of the vowel or consonant wu followed
by another Ὁ. The old Latins appear to have been unable to pronounce
uw; and therefore the ancient o long kept its place after w; or for gue
or g was used: quom gum or cum, never quum; linquont linqunt or lin-
cunt; sequontur, sequntur or secuntur; equos (nom.) equs or ecus; volgus
divos divom aevom and soon. They appear to have begun soonest to
tolerate ww in terminations, when both were vowels, swus tuws and the
like. Now the mss. of Lucretius have retained in very many instances
divom volnus volgo vivont cet. ; equos (nom.) and ecus, ecum, aecum; re-
linguont relingunt or relincunt oftener than relinguunt, so sequontur
secuntur secutus locuntur locutus; but with Lachmann I retain the ww,
when the mss. offer it, in order not to get lost on a sea of conjectural
uncertainty like Wagner and some others, who not only desert mss. but
in many cases intrude a spelling older than the age of their author: thus
Augustus has rivus rivum annuum (not once -uo or -vo); why not then
Virgil, or at least Varius and Tucca? The mss. of Lucretius are also
very pertinacious in retaining the genuine old forms rezczt eictt or erécit
cet. and never offering revicit eiicit and the like: Grai Grais, not Grati
Gravis. But further details on the most interesting points of the ancient
orthography will be found in various parts of my notes. Again in those
many cases where the sound was intermediate between w and 7 and the

TO NOTES I 37

spelling therefore uncertain, such as the penult of superlatives and cer-
tain other adjectives, and words like lubet or libet, dissipat or dissupat,
quadriupes or quadripes and many others, I have of course submitted to
the guidance of our mss. which only once for instance have w in the su-
perl. and once manufesta, and twice offer arbita, not arbuta. Augustus,
having learnt it probably in boyhood from the all-accomplished dictator,
for whose apprehension nothing was either too little or too great and
who, Gellius tells us, first introduced the ὁ for win superlatives, invaria-
bly writes frequentissimus septimus vicensimus, as well as finitimus ma-
nibiae: comp. what Suetonius says of his use of sims for swmws, pro-
bably from a wish to be consistent. He would scarcely have thanked
Varius and Tucea for bringing him the Aeneid embellished with Wag-
ner’s maxumus, septumus and the like, introduced so often in spite of his
mss. [Both forms are found in the same sentence lex colon. Genetivae
c. 66 (Ephem. Epigraph. vol. πὶ p. 93) optima lege optumo ture.)
I have likewise followed AB in the adoption of e or o in vertere or
vortere and the like: 6 is naturally the more common, yet vort? vorsum
divorsi vortitur convortere vortex are all found: also in reading reddunda
gignundis dicundum cernundi faciundum agundis cet. or the more usual
agendum quaerendum cet. Do I then claim in all these doubtful cases
to reproduce the spelling of Lucretius or his first editor? Certainly not;
but still in most of them Lucretius and his contemporaries undoubtedly
allowed themselves much latitude; and I have not intentionally permit-
ted anything to remain which might not have been found in one or other
ms. before the death of Virgil. By adhering tenaciously to the mss.
where not demonstrably wrong one gains a firm resting place from which
to make further advances, if better evidence offer itself. However that
may be, I cannot bring myself to accept the arbitrary and eclectic system
of a Wagner, much less the hideous barbarisms of a Wakefield ; nor on
the other hand, after feasting on the generous cereals of a Lachmann and
a Ritschl, can I stomach the ‘conventional’ husks and acorns of the
Italians of the 15th century. At the same time it will be seen that my
spelling differs less from this system, than does that of Wagner in his
standard text of 1841, or even his subsequent modification of that text
for common use which Prof. Conington has adopted in his Virgil.

Most of the abbreviations and marks used in the notes are suffi-
ciently explained above: A and B denote the two Leyden mss., Gott.
the Gottorpian fragment, Nicc. the Florentine ms. written by Nicold
Niccoli, Flor. 29, 31, 32 the mss. of the Laurentian library forming
nos. 29, 31, 32 of desk xxxv; Camb. our Cambridge ms.; Vat. or Vatic.
the Vatican mss.; and Urbin. Othob. or Reg. with the number attached
identify more nearly the mss. contained in those several departments of
the library: one Vat. 2 Vat. 3 Vat. mean one, two or three of the
Vatican mss. where it was not worth while specifying them. In this

38 INTRODUCTION TO NOTES I

new edition Mon. denotes the codex of Victorius in the Munich library.
Brix. Ver. Ven. Ald. 1 Junt. Ald. 2 are the editions fully described
above, where it is explained when and why the names Avancius, Candidus,
Marullus, Naugerius are or are not used instead of that of one or other
of these editions. The ms. notes of Heinsius and Vossius, which are
often cited, indicate the notes by those scholars which are in my private
possession and have been described above. Lamb. Wak. Lach. Bern.
Bent]. need no explanation after what has been said; and in this
edition Pont. and Mar. designate Pontanus and Marullus, whose read-
ings I have got from the sources mentioned. The dots... imply that
one verse, * that more than one or an uncertain number are lost;
such interpolations as it has been deemed advisable to retain in
the text, are printed in small capitals; the letters syllables and words
which are omitted in the mss. but can be restored with more or less
certainty, are given in Italics. In quoting Ennius the last edition,
that of Vahlen, has been used; for the fragments of the Roman scenic
writers, except Ennius, that of Ribbeck: in citing Cicero the smaller
sections are referred to as far the most convenient for reference: for
Terence the several recent editions ; for Plautus Ritsch] and Fleckeisen
in the plays they have published; in the others the old variorum ed.
has been employed: in Pliny the sections of recent editions are cited, as
the older divisions are intolerably awkward. Notes 1 have been made
as short as is consistent with perspicuity: unless the contrary is
expressly stated or implied, the word or words which appear first in
the note are those of our text; thus ‘genitabilis. genitalis etc.’ signifies
that yenitabilis is the right reading and is found in A and B and the
other chief authorities, but genitalis is mentioned for the reasons given.
Again ‘281 quam Lach. for quem. quod Junt.’ means that Lachmann
first gave the correct reading quam instead of quem which 15 the read-
ing of A and B and other mss. as well as editions before the Juntine
of 1512 which prints qwod, the reading generally followed by the old
editors. Of course if any one before Lachmann had read quam, he,
not Lachmann, would have been cited for it. ‘ Ed.’ means the present
editor. Let it always be remembered that the corrupt reading, cited
in a note, is that which appears in A and B, unless the contrary is
expressly stated.

The passages which were first added to the second edition have
been enclosed within [ 7 in cases where ambiguity or awkwardness
might be occasioned, if no distinction were made between the old and
the new matter; but not otherwise.

T. LUCRETI CARI

DE RERUM NATURA

LIBER PRIMUS

Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas,
alma Venus, caeli subter labentia signa
quae mare navigerum, quae terras frugiferentis
concelebras, per te quoniam genus omne animantum
concipitur visitque exortum lumina solis: 5
te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli
adventumque tuum, tibi suavis daedala tellus
summittit flores, tibi rident aequora ponti
placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum.
nam simul ac species patefactast verna diel IO
et reserata viget genitabilis aura favonl,
aerlae primum volucres te, diva, tuumque
significant initum perculsae corda tua vi

15 inde ferae pecudes persultant pabula laeta

14 et rapidos tranant amnis: ita capta lepore 15

11 genitabilis. genitalis has no authority, but it does not appear to be ‘ typo-

graphi Veronensis peccatum’, as I found it in Vat. 1136 Othobon. 14 15:
Niccoli followed by all the Flor. mss. Camb. etc. has these verses in the right
order. 14 Wak. proposes fere which is indeed rather the ms. reading.

After 15 the v. Illecebrisque tuis omnis natura animantum is inserted in the
Juntine and in most subsequent editions, not however by Naugerius in Aldine 2,
as Lachmann incorrectly states. It has been generally assigned to Marullus, but
as I found it in the margin of Flor. xxxv 29, for reasons given above p. 8 I attribute
it to Angelo Politian. Victorius however inserts it among what profess to be solely
Pontanus’ conjectures; though he has not written it in the same style, nor appa-
rently at the same time, as the rest: it is possible then that Pontanus or he may
have got it from Politian’s ms. Marullus in marg. Mon. for capta proposes

40 1

te sequitur cupide quo quamque inducere pergis.

denique per maria ac montis fluviosque rapacis
frondiferasque domos avium camposque virentis

omnibus incutiens blandum per pectora amorem

efficis ut cupide generatim saecla propagent. 20
quae quoniam rerum naturam sola gubernas

nec sine te quicquam dias in luminis oras

exoritur neque fit laetum neque amabile quicquam,

te sociam studeo scribendis versibus esse

quos ego de rerum natura pangere conor 25
Memmiadae nostro, quem tu, dea, tempore in omni
omnibus ornatum voluisti excellere rebus.

quo magis aeternum da dictis, diva, leporem.

effice ut interca fera moenera militia

per maria ac terras omnis sopita quiescant, 30
nam tu sola potes tranquilla pace iuvare

mortalis, quoniam belli fera moenera Mavors

armipotens regit, in gremium qul saepe tuum se

reicit aeterno devictus vulnere amoris,

atque ita suspiciens tereti cervice reposta 35
pascit amore avidos inhians in te, dea, visus,

eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore.

hunc tu, diva, tuo recubantem corpore sancto

circumfusa super, suavis ex ore loquellas

funde petens placidam Romanis, incluta, pacem. 40
nam neque nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquo

quodque: this Victorius in his copy of Marullus’ corrections first wrote down,
and afterwards erased, because I presume the line of the Juntine rendered it
unnecessary: a strong indication that he got this v. from Junt. a copy of which
now in the Munich library he has filled with elaborate notes of his own: his
spelling too of amneis in his second copy of Ven. shews he took it from Junt.;
as Pontanus and Marullus recognise only -es or -is. Again Lambinus who evi-
dently had access to ms. notes of Pontanus as stated above, says distinctly in a
passage already quoted in p. 8 ‘neque eum Naugerius neque Pontanus habue-
runt’: what he there says of Marullus is mere report. Nicc. and the Italians
having changed in 16 quamque into cunque had rendered the sentence unintel-
ligible without some addition. 16 pergis Nicc. A corr. etc. for tergis.

27 ornatum A corr. Priscian etc. for oralatum. 32 fera moenera Lamb.
for feram onera. moenia scholiast of Statius. 33 regit Nicc. scholiast of
Statius for regium. 34 Reicit B Gottorp. Reficit A Nice. Camb. Pontanus
etc. devictus. devinctus Pont. Lamb. and scholiast of Statius. 35 Nice. rightly

i! 41

possumus aequo animo nec ‘Memmi clara propago
talibus in rebus communi desse saluti.
*

quod superest, vacuas auris animumque sagacem 50
semotum a curis adhibe veram ad rationem,
ne mea dona tibi studio disposta fideli,
intellecta prius quam sint, contempta relinquas.
nam tibi de summa caeli ratione deumque
disserere inciplam et rerum primordia pandam, 55
unde omnis natura creet res auctet alatque,
quove eadem rursum natura perempta resolvat,
quae nos materiem et genitalia corpora rebus
reddunda in ratione vocare et semina rerum
appellare suémus et haec eadem usurpare 60
corpora prima, quod ex illis sunt omma primis.

Humana ante oculos foede cum vita 1aceret
in terris oppressa gravi sub religione
quae caput a caeli regionibus ostendebat
horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans, 65
primum Graius homo mortalis tollere contra
est oculos ausus primusque obsistere contra,

gives tereti for teriti. 43 desse A corr. Nicc. for id esse. 4449 =11 646—651.
Is. Vossius in his ms. notes in my possession well observes that some one has
inserted them here ‘ut ostenderet Lucret. sibi adversari qui, cum Deos mortalia
non curare affirmat [sic], Veuerem tamen invocet’. Pont. Mar. Junt. omit them.
Avancius in the text of Ald. 1 places them after 61 and has been followed by
most editors before Lach.; but in his preface he well observes ‘unum affirmare
ausim Omnis enim cum quinque sequentibus ex prologo, cum abundent, demendos
esse: hos aptius legas, cum de magna matre agit’. 50 Quod superest, vacuas
auris animumque sagacem: so Bernays in Rhein. Mus, ἢ. f. v p. 559 from the
interpr. Verg. in Maii class, auct. t. vit p. 262. Quod superest ut vacuas auris AB.
Nice. followed by all the Flor. Camb. Mon. and most mss, and all the old editions
omitted wt and added mihi, Jemmius, et te. Lamb. Memmiada. At the end of
Junt. is proposed vacuas mihi quaeso Memmius aures Semotus curis: Pont. gives
Quod superest quaeso vacuas mihi Memmius auris. Tach. has rightly seen that
our reading implies the loss of one or more verses in which the poet passed from
Venus to Memmius: he suggests animumque, age, Memmi, which would complete
the sentence in a way: so would corque, inclute Memmi, or the like. 66 tollere.
tendere Lamb, ed. 3 Lach. from Nonius ‘teste nostris antiquiore’, But where
our mss. give, as here, a faultless reading, it seems uncritical to prefer that of such
a careless writer as Nonius: older and better authorities than he is continually
misquote: Seneca in 57 has quoque for quove, Gellius in 304 aut for et, 306
Nonius candenti for dispansae in, 11 13 Lactantius stultas for miseras, 1001 ful-

42 I

quem neque fama deum nec fulmina nec minitanti
murmure compressit caelum, sed eo magis acrem
inritat animi virtutem, effrmgere ut arta 70
naturae primus portarum claustra cupiret.
ergo vivida vis animi pervicit, et extra
processit longe flammantia moenia mundi
atque omne immensum peragravit mente animoque,
unde refert nobis victor quid possit oriri, 75
quid nequeat, finita potestas denique cuique
quanam sit ratione atque alte terminus haerens.
quare religio pedibus subiecta vicissim
opteritur, nos exaequat victoria caelo.
Illud in his rebus vereor, ne forte rearis δο
inpia te rationis inire elementa viamque
indugredi sceleris. quod contra saepius illa
religio peperit scelerosa atque impia facta.
Aulide quo pacto Triviai virginis aram
Iphianassai turparunt sanguine foede 85
ductores Danaum delecti, prima virorum.
cul simul infula virgineos circumdata comptus
ex utraque pari malarum parte profusast,
et maestum simul ante aras adstare parentem
sensit et hunc propter ferrum celare ministros gO
aspectuque suo lacrimas effundere civis,
muta metu terram genibus summissa petebat.
nec miserae prodesse in tali tempore quibat
quod patrio princeps donarat nomine regem ;
nam sublata virum manibus tremibundaque ad aras 95
deductast, non ut sollemni more sacrorum
perfecto posset claro comitari Hymenaeo,
sed casta inceste nubendi tempore in 1050
hostia concideret mactatu maesta parentis,

gentia for rellatum. 68 fama. fana Bentl. and Lach. who says ‘ fama non
omnis necessario magna est’: fana may be right: see v 75; but fama deum
seems to me more emphatic and the dewm to be equivalent to an epithet.

10 effringere Priscian and also I find Flor. 29 Vat. 1136 Othob. Mon. p. m. for

confringere, rightly no doubt. virtutem animi confringere Nice. 71 cuptret
Prise. A corr. for cuperet. 74 omne A corr. Flor. 28 and 32 for omnem.
77 quanam A corr. for quantum. 83 atque. ac B and Goit. 84 Triviai

Prise. for Triviat. 85 Iphianassai A corr. Avane. for Iphianassa. Iphianasseo

I 43

exitus ut classi felix faustusque darctur. 100
tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.
Tutemet a nobis 1am quovis tempore vatum
terriloquis victus dictis clesciscere quaeres.
quippe etenim quam multa tibi 1am fingere possunt
somnia quae vitae rationes vertere possint 105
fortunasque tuas omnis turbare timore !
et merito; nam si certam finem esse viderent
aerumnarum homines, aliqua ratione valerent
religionibus atque minis obsistcre vatum.
nunc ratio nulla est restandi, nulla facultas, [10
aeternas quoniam poenas in morte timendumst.
ignoratur enim quae sit natura animai,
nata sit an contra nascentibus Insinuetur,
et simul intereat nobiscum morte dirempta
an tenebras Orci visat vastasque lacunas 115
an pecudes alias divinitus insinuet se,
Ennius ut noster cecinit qui primus amoeno
detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam,
per gentis Italas hominum quae clara clueret ;
etsi praeterea tamen esse Acherusia templa 120
Ennius aeternis exponit versibus edens,
quo neque permaneant animae neque corpora nostra,
sed quaedam simulacra modis pallentia miris;
unde sibi exortam semper florentis Homer
commemorat speciem lacrimas effundere saisas 125
coepisse et rerum naturam expandere dictis.
quapropter bene cum superis de rebus habenda
nobis est ratio, solis lunaeque meatus
qua fiant ratione, et qua vi quaeque gerantur
in terris, tum cum primis ratione sagaci 130
unde anima atque animi constet natura videndum ;
et quae res nobis, vigilantibus obvia, mentes

Nice. all Flor. Camb. all Vat. etc. 104 possunt Mar. Junt. for possum. As
A and the Italians have iam, B and Gott. me, I once thought the right
reading might be a me fingere possum: see Cambridge Journal of philology 1 p. 42
and ΤΟΥ. mm 271. 111 timendumst Orelli eclog. in notes, Lach. for timen-
dum. 121 edens. eidem Lach. without cause. 122 permaneant. per-
manent Ang. Politian in marg. of Flor. 29, Ver. Ven. Ald. 1 Junt. etc. followed
by all before Lach. perveniant Mar. 126 Coepisse et B corr. Flor. 31 for

44 I

»

terrificet morbo adfectis, somnoque sepultis,

cernere uti videamur eos audireque coram,

morte obita quorum tellus amplectitur ossa. 135

nec me animi fallit Graiorum obscura reperta

difficile inlustrare Latinis versibus esse,

multa novis verbis praesertim cum sit agendum

propter egestatem linguae et rerum novitatem ;

sed tua me virtus tamen et sperata voluptas 140

suavis amicitlae quemvis sufferre laborem

suadet et inducit noctes vigilare serenas

quaerentem dictis quibus et quo carmine demum

clara tuae possim praepandere lumina inenti,

res quibus occultas penitus convisere possis. 145
Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest

non radi solis neque lucida tela diei

discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque.

principium cuius hince nobis exordia sumet,

nullam rem e nilo gigmi divinitus umquam. 150

quippe ita formido mortalis continet omnis,

quod multa in terris fier1 caeloque tuentur

quorum operum causas nulla ratione videre

possunt ac fier! divino numine rentur. —

156 quas ob res ubi viderimus nil posse creaYi 155
de milo, tum quod sequimur iam rectius inde
perspiciemus, et unde queat res quaeque creari

155 et quo quaeque modo fiant opera sine divom.

159 Nam si de nilo fierent, ex omnibu’ rebus
omne genus nasci posset, nil semine egeret. 160
e mare primum homines, e terra posset oriri
squamigerum genus et volucres erumpere caelo;
armenta atque aliae pecudes, genus omne ferarum,
incerto partu culta ac deserta tenerent.

Coepisset. 130 tum Flor. 25 and 31 Camb. p. m. Mar. for tune. 141 quemvis
sufferre Flor. 32 in margin, Heinsius in ms. notes, and Faber for quemvis efferre.
[So perhaps Cic. epist. vir 1 2 we should read sermones suppressit: expressit M.]
Dion. Cat. distich. m1 6 has quemvis sufferre laborem, perhaps taken from this. 15
—158 Mar. Junt. and margin of Camb. have these vs. in right order, and et for wt in
157. Avancius et, and at end of his edition of Catull. 1502 has rightorder. et Pont.also.

161—164 are rightly thus punctuated by Lach. I find however from his
proof sheets that until the final revision he had with Wak. put a stop after

I 45

nee fructus idem arboribus constare solerent, 165
sed mutarentur, ferre omnes omnia possent.

quippe, ubi non essent genitalia corpora cuique,

qui posset mater rebus consistere certa ?

at nune seminibus quia certis quaeque creantur,

inde enascitur atque oras in luminis exit, 170
materies ubi inest culusque et corpora prima;

atque hac re nequeunt ex omnibus omnia gigni,

quod certis in rebus inest seereta facultas.

praeterea cur vere rosam, frumenta calore,

vites autumno fundi suadente videmus, Vs
51 non, certa suo quia tempore semina rerum

cum confluxerunt, patefit quodcumque creatur,

dum tempestates adsunt et vivida tellus

tuto res teneras effert in luminis oras ?

quod si de nilo fierent, subito exorerentur 180
incerto spatio atque alienis partibus anni,

quippe ubi nulla forent primordia quae genitali

concilio possent arcerl tempore iniquo.

nec porro augendis rebus spatio foret usus

seminis ad coitum, si e nilo crescere possent ; 185
nam fierent 1uvenes subito ex infantibu’ parvis

e terraque exorta repente arbusta salirent.

quorum nil fieri manifestum est, omnia quando

paulatim crescunt, ut par est, : ;
: : ; : : . semine certo
crescentesque genus servant; ut noscere possis 190

quicque sua de materia grandescere alique.

hue accedit uti sine certis imbribus anni

laetificos nequeat fetus submittere tellus

nec porro secreta cibo natura animantum

propagare genus possit vitamque tueri,; 195

volucres and armenta, and none after caelo. Lamb. puts a colon after pecudes and

alters tenerent to teneret. 168 certa A corr. Nice. for derta. 176 quia
Flor. 31 Camb. superscr. for qui. 175 Vites. Uvas Pont. 177 creatur
A corr. Nicc. for orcatu. 185 st e nilo. e nihilo si Junt. Lamb. etc. not

Mar.: so 291 cum flumen. jflumen cum Lamb. ; τι 36 si in plebeia. si plebeia in
Mon. Junt. and Lamb.: in all cases against mss. and the usage of Lucretius.

189 the homoeoteieuton has probably caused a v. of this kind to drop out: tempore
certo, Res quoniam crescunt omnes de s.c. Lach. awkwardly ut par est semine certo

46 I

ut potius multis communia corpora rebus
multa putes esse, ut verbis elementa videmus,
quam sine principiis ullam rem existere posse,
denique cur homines tantos natura parare
non potuit, pedibus qui pontum per vada possent 200
transire et magnos manibus divellere montis
multaque vivendo vitalia vincere saecla,
si non, materies quia rebus reddita certast
gignundis e qua constat quid possit oriri ?
nil igitur fier1 de milo posse fatendumst, 205
semine quando opus est rebus quo quaeque creatae
aeris in teneras possint proferrier auras.
postremo quoniam incultis praestare videmus
culta loca et manibus melioris reddere fetus,
esse videlicet in terris primordia rerum 210
quae nos fecundas vertentes vomere glebas
terraique solum subigentes cimus ad ortus.
quod si nulla forent, nostro sine quaeque labore
sponte sua multo ΠΟΙῚ meliora videres.
Hue accedit uti quicque in sua corpora rursum 215
dissoluat natura neque ad nilum interemat res.
nam siquid mortale e cunctis partibus esset,
ex oculis res quaeque repente erepta periret.
nulla vi foret usus enim quae partibus elus
discidium parere et nexus exsolvere posset. 220
quod nunc, aeterno quia constant semine quaeque,
donee vis obit quae res diverberet ictu
aut intus penetret per inania dissoluatque,
nullius exitlum patitur natura vider.
praeterea quaecumque vetustate amovet aetas, 225
51 penitus peremit consumens materiem omnem,
unde animale genus generatim in lumina vitae
redducit Venus, aut redductum daedala tellus
unde alit atque auget generatim pabula praebens?
unde mare ingenuei fontes externaque longe 230

Crescere, resque genus. Crescendo Mar. Junt. Lamb. ete. 207 possint
Pont. Ald. 1 Junt. for possent: a change which will often have to be made: mss.
are more apt to put possent for possint than vice versa, 215 quicque Lamb,
for quicquid. 217 ὁ added by Nice, 230 I follow the mss.: mare,

Ι 47

flumina suppeditant ? unde aether sidera pascit ?

omnia enim debet, mortali corpore quae sunt,

infinita aetas consumpse anteacta diesque.

quod si in eo spatio atque anteacta aetate fuere

6 quibus haec rerum consistit summa refecta, 235

inmortali sunt natura praedita certe,

haut igitur possunt ad nilum quacque reverti.

denique res omnis eadem vis causaque volgo

conficeret, nisi materies acterna teneret,

inter se nexu minus aut magis indupedita; 240

tactus enim leti satis esset causa profecto,

quippe, ubi nulla forent aeterno corpore, quorum

contextum vis deberet dissolvere quaeque.

at nunc, inter se quia nexus principiorum

dissimiles constant aetcrnaque materies est, 245

incolumi remanent res corpore, dum satis acris

vis obeat pro textura cuiusque reperta.

haud igitur redit ad nilum res ulla, sed omnes

discidio redeunt in corpora material.

postremo pereunt imbres, ubi eos pater aether 250

in gremlum matris terrai praecipitavit ;

at nitidae surgunt fruges ramique virescunt

arboribus, crescunt ipsae fetuque gravantur ;

hine alitur porro nostrum genus atque ferarum,

hinc laetas urbes pueris florere videmus 255

frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique silvas ;

hinc fessae pecudes pingui per pabula laeta

corpora deponunt et candens lacteus umor

uberibus manat distentis; hinc nova proles

artubus infirmis teneras lasciva per herbas 260
ες ludit lacte mero mentes perculsa novellas.

haud igitur penitus pereunt quaecumque videntur,

quando alid ex alio reficit natura nec ullam

rem gigni patitur nisi morte adinta aliena.

ingenueit Lach. and Ed. in ed. 1. externaque. extentaque Lach. longe. large
Bern. and Ed. in ed. 1. 240 nexu Mon. Junt. for nexus. Lamb. ed. 1 and 2
nexas (nexus ed. 1 is a misprint) and indupedite ; ed. 3 nexus...endopedita.

257 pingut Iun. Philargyrius to Virg. geor. 111 124 for pinguis, as Heyne there
notices. 263 alio Nice. for allo. 264 adiuta A corr. Nicc. for adluta.

48 Ι

Nunc age, res quoniam docui non posse creari 265
de nilo neque item genitas ad nil revocari,
nequa forte tamen coeptes diffidere dictis,
quod nequeunt oculis rerum primordia cerni,
accipe praeterea quae corpora tute necessest
confiteare esse in rebus nec posse vider. 270
principio venti vis verberat incita portus
ingentisque ruit navis et nubila differt,
interdum rapido percurrens turbine campos
arboribus magnis sternit montisque supremos
silvifragis vexat flabris: ita perfurit acri 275
cum fremitu saevitque minaci murmure ventus.
sunt igitur venti nimirum corpora caeca
quae mare, quae terras, quae denique nubila caeli
verrunt ac subito vexantia turbine raptant,
nec ratione fluunt alia stragemque propagant 280
et cum mollis aquae fertur natura repente
flumine abundanti, quam largis imbribus auget
montibus ex altis magnus decursus aquai
fragmina coniciens silvarum arbustaque tota,
nec validi possunt pontes venientis aquai 285
vim subitam tolerare: ita magno turbidus imbri
molibus incurrit validis cum viribus amnis:
dat sonitu magno stragem volvitque sub undis
grandia saxa: ruit qua quicquid fluctibus obstat.
sic igitur debent venti quoque flamina ferri, 290
quae veluti validum cum flumen procubuere
quamlibet in partem, trudunt res ante ruuntque
impetibus crebris, interdum vertice torto
corripiunt rapideque rotanti turbine portant.
quare etiam atque etiam sunt venti corpora caeca, 205

271 portus all Vat. Flor. 29 and 31 Flor. 30 corr. Camb. for cortus. pontum
Mar. Politian in marg. of Flor. 29, Junt. and apparently Nicc. cautes Lach. which
is very weak, 274 ‘saevit, Marul.’ says Gifanius: and so Mar. corrects in
Mon.; but Junt. has rightly sternit. 276 ventus Lach. for pontus. 282
quam Lach. for quem. quod Flor. 30 corr. Pont. Mar. Junt. 286 turbidus
A corr. Nice. for turbibus. 289 quicquid Ed. for guidquid: no further change
is required: see notes 2: ruttque ita quidquid Lach. ruitque aqua q. Ed. formerly.

294 rapide Lach. for rapidi which Wak. absurdly retains. rapidoque -rotantia
Lamb. ed. 1 and 2 rapidoque rotanti ed. 3.

I 49

quandoquidem factis et moribus aemula magnis

amnibus inveniuntur, aperto corpore qui sunt.

tum porro varios rerum sentimus odores

nec tamen ad naris venientis cernimus umquam,

nec calidos aestus tuimur nec frigora quimus 300

usurpare oculis nec voces cernere suemuSs ;

quae tamen omnia corporea constare necessest

natura, quoniam sensus inpellere possunt.

tangere enim et tangi, nisi corpus, nulla potest res.

denique fluctifrago suspensae in litore vestes 305

uvescunt, eaedem dispansae in sole serescunt.

at ueque quo pacto persederit umor aqual

visumst nec rursum quo pacto fugerit aestu.

in parvas igitur partis dispergitur wmor

quas oculi nulla possunt ratione videre. 310

quin etiam multis solis redeuntibus annis

anulus in digito subter tenuatur habendo,

stilicidi casus lapidem cavat, uncus aratri

ferreus occulte decrescit vomer in arvis,

strataque iam volgi pedibus detrita viarum 315

saxea conspicimus; tum portas propter aena

signa manus dextras ostendunt adtennari

saepe salutantum tactu praeterque meantum.

haec igitur minw, cum sint detrita, videmus.

sed quae corpora decedant in tempore quoque, 320

invida praeclusit speciem natura videndi.

postremo quaecumque dies naturaque rebus

paulatim tribuit, moderatim crescere cogens,

nulla potest oculoruin acies contenta tueri ;

nec porro quaecumque aevo macieque senescunt, 325

nec, Mare quae inpendent, vesco sale saxa peresa

quid quoque amittant in tempore cernere possis.

corporibus caecis igitur natura gerit res.

Nec tamen undique corporea stipata tenentur
omnia natura; namque est in rebus inane. 330
304 et. aut Gellius v 15: but all mss. and Seneca Tertull. Nonius have et.
313: Isidor. Orig. xx 14 1 ‘Vomer ..de quo Lucretius Uneus aratri Ferreus

occulto decrescit vomer in arvis Sumitque per detrimenta fulgorem’ (not ‘ nitorem’).

Τ is odd if the last words are Isidore’s own: is a line of this kind lost, Sumitque
ipse suum per detrimenta nitorem? 321 speciem. spatium Lach.: but see

M. 4,

50 I

quod tibi cognosse in multis erit utile rebus

nec sinet errantem dubitare et quaerere semper

de summa rerum et nostris diffidere dictis.

QUAPROPTER LOCUS EST INTACTUS INANE VACANSQUE

quod si non esset, nulla ratione moveri 25
res possent; namque officium quod corporis exstat,
officere atque obstare, id in omni tempore adesset
omnibus; haud igitur quicquam procedere posset,
principium quoniam cedendi nulla daret res.

at nunc per maria ac terras sublimaque caelt 340
multa modis multis varia ratione moveri
cernimus ante oculos, quae, si non esset inane,
non tam sollicito motu privata carerent

quam genita omnino nulla ratione fuissent,
undique materies quoniam stipata quiesset.
praeterea quamvis solidae res esse putentur,
hine tamen esse licet raro cum corpore cernas.
in saxis ac speluncis permanat aquarum
liquidus umor et uberibus flent omnia guttis.
dissipat in corpus sese cibus omne animantum. 350
erescunt arbusta et fetus in tempore fundunt,

quod cibus in totas usque ab radicibus imis

per truncos ac per ramos diffuuditur omnis.

inter saepta meant voces et clausa domorum

transvolitant, rigidum permanat frigus ad ossa, 355
quod nisi inania sint, qua possint corpora quaeque

Oo
SOS
Cat

notes 2: ‘lege videndo’ Bentl. 334 Bentl. says ‘dele vers.’; and Lach.
shews that sense and grammar prove him to be right. Spengel in the Muenchn.
Gel, Anz. and others do not mend the matter by placing it after 345.

347 licet Nicc. for liceret. 349 flent Nice. fient AB: 386 fiat. flat AB:
372 alunt AB: 449 civent AB: 580 civeant AB: this confusion of J and 7 is
perpetual. In the small Roman capital, of the Medicean of Virgil for instance,
in which some ancestor of our mss. must have been written, these letters are
often undistinguishable, 356 possint Ed. for possent: by changing the punc-
tuation of 357 I have made the sentence quite plain. Madvig emend. Livianae
p. 302 n. ‘possem possim, posset possit perpetuo errore permutantur’, and p. 550
‘mossent, scribendum possint. non aberratur fere, ut saepe dixi, nisi ubi una
littera formae distant; esset pro sit scriptum non reperias’. See 207; and below
593 597 and 645, in all which places I have written possint for possent. Whether
with Pont. Junt. Lamb. Lach. ete. you punctuate Quod τ. i. sint, q. possent c. q.
Transire ἢ. τι. f. 7. v., or With Gif. Creech Wak. etc. Quod, n. i. 8. g. p. c. g. Trans-
ire, h.u. f. r. v., in either case you get hardly grammar or sense: in 357 B and

I 51

transire ? haud ulla fier ratione videres.
denique cur alias alus praestare videmus
pondere res rebus milo maiore figura ?
nam si tantundemst in Janae glomere quantum 360
corporis in plumbo est, tantundem penderc par est,
corporis officiumst quoniam premere omnia deorsum,
contra autem natura manet sine pondere inanis.
ergo quod magnumst aeque leviusque videtur,
nimirum plus esse 5101 declarat inanis ; 365
at contra gravius plus in se corporis esse
dedicat et multo vacui minus intus habere.
est igitur nimirum id quod ratione sagaci
quaerimus, admixtum rebus, quod inane vocamus.

ΠῚ in his rebus ne te deducere vero 370
possit, quod quidam fingunt, praecurrere cogor.
cedere squamigeris latices nitentibus aint
et liquidas aperire vias, quia post loca pisces
linquant, quo possint cedentes confluere undae ;
sic alias quoque res inter se posse moverl a6
et mutare locum, quamvis sint omnia plena.
scilicet id falsa totum ratione receptumst.
nam quo squamigeri poterunt procedere tandem,
ni spatium dederint latices? concedere porro
quo poterunt undae, cum pisces ire nequibunt ? 380
aut igitur motu privandumst corpora quaeque
aut esse admixtum dicundumst rebus inane
unde initum primum capiat res quaeque movendi.
postremo duo de concursu corpora lata
si cita dissiliant, nempe aer omne necessest, 38
inter corpora quod fiat, possidat inane.
is porro quamvis circum celerantibus auris
confluat, haud poterit tamen uno tempore totum
compleri spatium; nam primum quemque necessest
oceupet 1116 locum, deinde omnia possideantur. 390

(yt

Gott. for fieri have valerent which appears to come from ULLA twice written and
FIEREI: yet Bernays in 356 reads qua corpora quaeque valerent for qua possent
ς. 4. 366 At Flor. 30 corr. (cod. Nicc.) and Flor. 31 for aut. 367 vacui
minus Pont, Junt. Lamb. etc. for vacuim minus B. and Gott. vacuum Wak. Lach.
ete. retain with A, the Ital. and Camb. mss. 384 concursu Gott. p.m. Flor.
30 corr. 31, Pont. Mar. Junt. for concurso. 389 quemque. quenque Pont.

4. 9

52 I

quod si forte aliquis, cum corpora dissiluere,
tum putat id fier quia se condenseat aer,
errat; nam vacuum tum fit quod non fuit ante
et repletur item vacuum quod constitit ante,
nec tali ratione potest denserier aer, 395
nec, si lam posset, sine Inani posset, opinor,
ipse in se trahere et partis conducere in unum.
Quapropter, quamvis causando multa moreris,
esse 1n rebus inane tamen fateare necessest.
multaque praeterea {Π01 possum commemorando 400
argumenta fidem dictis conradere nostris,
verum animo satis haec vestigia parva sagacl
sunt per quae possis cognoscere cetera tute.
namque canes ut montivagae persaepe feral
naribus inveniunt intectas fronde quietes, 405
cum semel institerunt vestigia certa viai,
sic alid ex alio per te tute ipse videre
talibus in rebus poteris caecasque latebras
insinuare omnis et verum protrahere inde.
quod si pigraris paulumve recesseris ab re, 410
hoc tibi de plano possum promittere, Memmi:
usque adeo largos haustus e fontibu’ magnis
lingua meo suavis diti de pectore fundet,
ut verear ne tarda prius per membra senectus
serpat et in nobis vitai claustra resolvat, 415
quam tibi de quavis una re versibus omnis
argumentorum sit copla missa per auris.
Sed nunc ut repetam coeptum pertexere dictis,
omnis ut est igitur per se natura duabus
constitit in rebus; nam corpora sunt et inane, 420
haec in quo sita sunt et qua diversa moventur,
corpus enim per se communis dedicat esse
sensus ; cul nisi prima fides fundata valebit,
haut erit occultis de rebus quo referentes

Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. for quisque. 391 Creech supposes some vss. to be lost after
this v. 395 denserier A corr. Flor. 31 for condenserier. 404 ferai Nice.
Flor. 31 Camb. etc. for ferare. ferarum A corr. 411 de plano Flor. 31 Mar.
Junt. for deptano. 412 magnis A corr, Nicc. all the Ital. Camb. ete. for
magnes of A p.m. ammnes B and Gott. and also same A corr.; whence Bentl. and
Bern. read largis haustos e. f. amnis, making 3 changes. magneis Heins. in ms,

I 53

confirmare animi quicquam ratione queamus. 425
tum porro locus ac spatium, quod mane vocamus,
si nullum foret, haut usquam sita corpora possent
esse neque omnino quoquam diversa meare ;
id quod iam supera tibi paulo ostendimus ante.
praeterea nil est quod possis dicere ab omni 430
corpore seiunctum secretumque esse ab inani,
quod quasi tertia sit numero natura reperta.
nam quodecumque erit, esse aliquid debebit id ipsum;
435 οἷ] si tactus erit quamvis levis exiguusque,
434 augmine vel grandi vel parvo denique, dum sit, 435
corporis augebit numerum summamque sequetur.
sin intactile ent, nulla de parte quod ullam
rem prohibere queat per se transire meantem,
scilicet hoc id erit, vacuum quod inane vocamus.
praeterea per se quodcumque erit, aut faciet quid 440
aut alus fungi debebit agentibus ipsum
aut erit, ut possunt in eo res esse gerique.
at facere et fungi sine corpore nulla potest res
nec praebere locum porro nisi inane vacansque.
ergo praeter inane et corpora tertia per se 445
nulla potest rerum in numero natura relinqul,
nec quae sub sensus cadat ullo tempore nostros
nec ratione animi quam quisquam possit apisci.

Nam quaecumque cluent, aut his coniuncta duabus
rebus ea invenies aut horum eventa videbis. 450
coniunctum est id quod nusquam sine permitial
discidio potis est sciungi seque gregari,
pondus uti saxist, calor ignis, liquor aquai.

TACTUS CORPORIBUS CUNCTIS INTACTUS INANI

notes. 428 quoquam. quaquam Ven. Ald. 1 Lamb. etc.: but see notes 2.

435 434 rightly transposed by Lach.: centuries before him Flor. 32 in margin had
this note, ‘videtur proponere tantum de corpore, dicendo Augmine vel etc.; non
enim conveniunt illa nisi corpori. cum tamen de inani quoque intellexisse appareat,
ex illo Sin intactile erit etc. advertendum diligentius’. Then at bottom ‘si legatur
Nam quodcumque...Cui si tactus...Augmine vel...Corporis...patebit sermo’. 442
possunt. possint Flor. 31 Camb. etc. I now retain the ms. reading: see notes 2 to this
y.and 1190litaut debent. 451 nusquam. nunquam Ver. Ven. and eds. before Lach.
wrongly: comp. Aen. v 852 clavumque...Nusquam amittebat, and Conington there.
permitiali AB rightly: see notes 2, perniciali vulg. and Lach. 453 saxist Lach.
sazi est Wak. for sazis. | 454 Lach. has proved to be spurious, as a nomin. intactus

54 I

servitium contra paupertas divitiaeque, 455
libertas bellum concordia, cetera quorum
adventu manet incolumis natura abituque,
haec soliti sumus, ut par est, eventa vocare.
tempus item per se non est, sed rebus ab ipsis
consequitur sensus, transactum quid sit in acevo, 460
tum quae res instet, quid porro deinde sequatur.
nec per se quemquam tempus sentire fatendumst
semotum ab rerum motu placidaque quicte.
denique Tyndaridem raptam belloque subactas
Troilugenas gentis cum dicunt esse, videndumst 465
ne forte haec per se cogant nos esse fateri,
quando ea saecla hominum, quorum haec eventa fuerunt,
inrevocabilis abstulerit 1am praeterita aetas ;
namque aliut Teucris, aliut regionibus ipsis
eventum dici poterit quodcumque erit actum. 470
denique materies si rerum nulla fuisset
nec locus ac spatinm, res in quo quaeque geruntur,
numquam Tyndaridis formae conflatus amore
ignis, Alexandri Phrygio sub pectore gliscens,
clara accendisset saevi certamina belli, 475
nec clam durateus Tronanis Pergama partu
inflammasset equos nocturno Grallugenarum ;
perspicere ut possis res gestas funditus omnis
non ita uti corpus per se constare neque esse,
nec ratione cluere eadem qua constet mane, 480
sed magis ut merito possis eventa vocare
corporis atque loci, res in quo quaeque gerantur.

Corpora sunt porro partim primordia rerum,

cannot exist, and the datives are not consistent with the genitives of 453: Lamb,
reads sazis, calor, ignibu’, liquor aqguai: but Lucr. never uses a dat. in ai. 455
divitiae A corr. Nicc. for diviae. 458 eventa the same for evento. 465 Troiiu-
genas, 476 Trotianis, 477 Graiiugenarum Lach. with A (477 Graliug. A): see Quintil.
1 4 11 ‘sciat etiam Ciceroni placuisse, aiio Maiiamque geminata i scribere’; and
Priscian inst. vir 19, who rightly says that in the oldest writings you find eiius
Pompeiius Vulteiius Gaiius and the like: often so in extant inscriptions: see too
Ribbeck prol. Verg. p. 138, Studemund Rhein. mus. xx1 Ὁ. 588, and Corssen 1
p. 18. 467 fuerunt Gott. rightly for fuerit of AB. fuere Nicc. Flor. 31 Camb,
etc. 469 Teucris Ed. for terris. per sest Lach. saeclis Bern. rebus Lamb.
terris and legtonibus Wak. 480 cluere B corr. Flor. 30 corr. Camb. for luere.

1 55

partim concilio quae constant principiorum.
sed quae sunt rerum primordia, nulla potest vis 485
stinguere; nam solido vincunt ea corpore demum.
etsi difficile esse videtur credere quicquam
in rebus solido reperir: corpore posse.
transit enim fulmen caeli per saepta domorum,
clamor ut ac voces; ferrum candescit in igm 490
dissihuntque fero ferventia saxa vapore ;
tum labefactatus rigor aur solvitur aestu ;
tum glacies aeris flamma devicta liquescit ;
permanat calor argentum penetraleque frigus,
quando utrumque manu retinentes pocula rite 495
sensimus infuso lympharum rore superne.
usque adeo in rebus solidi nil esse videtur.
sed quia vera tamen ratio naturaque rerum
cogit, ades, paucis dum versibus expediamus
esse ea quae solido atque aeterno corpore constent, 500
semina quae rerum primordiaque esse docemns,
unde omnis rernm nunc constet summa creata.
Principio quoniam duplex natura duarum
dissimilis rerum longe constare repertast,
corporis atque loci, res in quo quaeque geruntur, 505
esse utramque sibi per se puramque necessest.
nam quacumque vacat spatiuin, quod inane vocamus,
corpus ea non est; qua porro cumque tenet se
corpus, ea vacuum nequaquam constat mane.
sunt igitur solida ac sine inani corpora prima. 510
practerea quoniam genitis in rebus inanest,
materiem circum solidam constare necessest,
nec res ulla potest vera ratione probari
corpore inane suo celare atque intus habere,
si non, quocl cohibet, solidum constare relinquas. 515
id porro nil esse potest nisi materiai

constet A Nice. constat B Gott. 484 quae B corr. Camb. corr. for qua. 486
Stinguere AB. Stringere A corr. Nice. and all later mss. and eds. before Lach.: but
Flor. 30 has Stinguere in marg. 489 fulmen A corr. B corr. Nicc. corr. for

jilumen. Lach. strangely reads caelum, p. 8. domorum Cl, it, as if the air, like a
stone wall, were a good instance of a very solid thing: all mss. have caeli and ut.
ac Avance. first for ad. 491 ferventia Mar. Junt. and Lamb. ed. 1 for fer-
venti. 492 tum Brix. Ver. Ven. for cum. 500 constent B corr. for con-

56 i

concilium, quod inane queat rerum cohibere,

materies igitur, solido quae corpore constat,

esse aeterna potest, cum cetera dissoluantur,

tum porro si nil esset quod inane vocaret, 520
omne foret solidum ; nisi contra corpora certa

essent quae loca complerent quaecumque tenerent,

omne quod est, spatium vacuum constaret inane.

alternis igitur nimirum corpus inani

distinctumst, quoniam nec plenum naviter extat 525
nec porro vacuum. sunt ergo corpora certa

quae spatium pleno possint distinguere inane.

haec neque dissolui plagis extrinsecus icta

possunt nec porro penitus penetrata retexi

nec ratione queunt alia temptata labare ; 5 30
id quod iam supra tibi paulo ostendimus ante.

nam neque conlidi sine inani pusse videtur

quicquam nec frangi nec findi in bina secando

nec capere umorem neque item manabile frigus

nec penctralem ignem, quibus omnia conficiuntur. 535
et quo quaeque magis cohibet res tus inane,

tam magis his rebus penitus temptata labascit.

ergo si solida ac sine inani corpora prima

sunt ita uti docui, sint haec aeterna necessest.

praeterea nisl materies aeterna fuisset, 540
antehac ad milum penitus res quaeque redissent

de niloque renata forent quaecumque videmus.

at quoniam supra docui nil posse creari

de nilo neque quod genitum est ad nil revocari,

esse inmortali primordia corpore debent, 545
dissolui quo quaeque supremo tempore possint,

materies ut subpeditet rebus reparandis.

stet. 504 rerum longe. ‘leg. longe rerum’ Bentl. 517 inane queat
rerum seems quite right. inane in rebu’ queat Lach. tectum Mar. Ald. 1 Junt.
Lamb. ed. 1 and 2, verum Bern. for rerum. 520 esset A corr. Avance. for est.
siquidem nil est Nicc. vocaret is the old form: see notes 2. vacaret Lach. 525
Distinctumst, quoniam Lamb. most rightly for Distinctum quoniam which Lach.
retains beginning the apodosis with sunt ergo in 526. Ald. 1 and Junt. seem to
take distinctum for distinctum est and to understand the passage rightly. 527
pleno Mar. Ald. 1 and Junt. for poena, and inane for inant. 533 findi Flor.
31 Mon. Ver. Ven. for fundi. 542 que renata Lamb. for quaeranta.

! 57
sunt igitur solida primordia simplicitate
hee ratione queunt alia servata per aevom
ex infinito lain tempore res reparare. 550
Denique si nullam finem natura parasset
frangendis rebus, lam corpora material
usgue redacta forent acevo frangente priore,
ut nil ex illis a certo tempore posset
conceptuim summum aetatis pervadere ad auctum. 555
nam quidvis citius dissolvi posse videmus
quam rursus ΤΌΠΟΙ ; quapropter longa die1
infinita aetas anteacti temporis omnis
quod fregisset adhue disturbans dissoluensque,
numquam relicuo repararl tempore posset. 560
at nune nimirum frangendi reddita finis
certa manect, quoniam refici rem quamque zdemus
et finita simul generatim tempora rebus
stare, quibus possint aevi contingere florem.
hue acecedit uti, solidissima materiai 505
corpora cum constant, possit tamen, omnia, reddi,

551—627: Junt. puts 577—583 after 627, and 551—564 after 583. At the end
of his edition Candidus says ‘Marulli nos hoe loco ordinem, atque item alibi in
plerisque, ubi immutatum quid offenderis, secutos esse’; and so Marullus himself
in the cod. Victor.: but he appears from Flor. 30 to have got the suggestion from
Niccoli himself. The learned annotator of Flor. 32 says in the margin to 550
that some put 551—564 after 576, and adds ‘verum Marullo parum referre videtur
quomodo legatur’, shewing again that there were different traditions about Marullus,
Lamb. places only 577—583 after 627. All these transpositions are utterly wrong,
though Candidus says of Marullus ‘quem profecto, si ad amussim rem quanque
examinabis, neutiquam (sic opinor) repudiaveris’. Sauppe, Christ and others
likewise transpose in various ways these much-tortured vss.: the misapprehension
of 599—63+4 is at the bottom of such causeless changes. 593 forent B corr.
Nice. for fovent. 555 ad auctum Ed. These words came at the end of page 23
of the archetype from which all mss. are derived, aud therefore were at the outside
margin and, as has happened in so many cases, were torn away by some accident.
Some one then filled up the verse with finis which occurs three times at the end of
a line in the next thirty verses. Lach. keeps fints and for stmmum reads summa
which he thus awkwardly explains, ‘summa, hoc est universo vivendi actu, aetatis
pervadere fines, per omne vitae spatium vadere’. summum...florem Mar. Junt. Lamb.
ed. 1 and 2, Creech ete. which Lach. proves could only mean ‘pass through’ not
‘arrive at the flower’. summum...finem Flor. 30 corr. Ver. Ven. Lamb. ed. 3, Wak.
etc. This is doubly wrong, as finis in Lucretius is always feminine. 562
quamque videmus B corr. Nice. for quamque demus. 566 possit Ed. for possint,
a corruption which constant and omnia almost inevitably caused. [{Sauppe I am

58 I

mollia quae fiunt, aer aqua terra vapores,
quo pacto fiant et qua vi quaeque gerantur,
admixtum quoniam semel est in rebus inane.
at contra si mollia sint primordia rerum, 570
unde queant validi silices ferrumque creari
non poterit ratio reddi; nam funditus omnis
principio fundamenti natura carebit.
sunt igitur solida pollentia simplicitate
quorum condenso magis omnia conciliatu 575
artari possunt validasque ostendere viris.
Porro si nullast frangendis reddita finis
corporibus, tamen ex aeterno tempore quaeque
nune etiam superare necessest corpora rebus,
quae nondum clueant ullo temptata periclo. 580
at quoniam fragili natura praedita constant,
discrepat aeternum tempus potuisse manere
innumerabilibus plagis vexata per aevom.
denique iam quoniam generatim reddita finis
crescendi rebus constat vitamque tenend1, 585
et quid quaeque queant per focdera naturai,
quid porro nequeant, sancitum quandoquidem extat,
nec commutatur quicquam, quin omnia constant
usque adeo, variae volucres ut in ordine cunctae
ostendant maculas generalis corpore inesse, 590
inmutabill materiae quoque corpus habere
debent nimirum. nam si primordia rerum
commutari aliqua possint ratione revicta,
Incertum quoque iam constet quid possit oriri,
quid nequeat, finita potestas denique cuique 595
quanam sit ratione atque alte terminus haerens,

glad to see has fallen on the same conj. independently of me, as ne makes no
mention even of my ed. of 1860.] Lach. puts 568 after 585, where it is wholly
out of place; Bentl. ejects it; Mar. and Junt. read fiunt and geruntur; and fiant
in 567. Lamb. Creech etc. cumque gerantur: all corrupting the text and making
Lucretius assert the absurd truism that all things which do become soft can become
soft. 578 quaeque. quaedam Lamb, and Lach. 585 crescendi Ver. Ven.
for crescendis. 588 commutatur B corr. Nice. for comitatur. constant. constent
Lach. 591 inmutabil’ Lach. first for inmutabiles. inmutabile Flor. 31 Flor. 30
corr. vulgo absurdly. 593 and 597 possint Ed. for possent; which constet in
594 proves to be necessary: see 356 and note there: here too possint easily becomes
possent, though constet does not pass into constaret so readily.

I 59

nec totiens possint generatim saecla referre
naturam mores victum motusque parentum.

Tum porro quoniam est extremum quodque cacumen

*

corporis illius quod nostri cernere sensus 600
lam nequeunt: id nimirum sine partibus extat
et minima constat natura nec fuit umquam
per se secretum neque posthac esse valebit,
alterius quoniamst Ipsum pars, primaque et una
inde aliae atque aliae similes ex ordine partes 605
agmine condenso naturam corporis explent,
quae quoniam per se nequeunt constare, necessest
haerere unde queant nulla ratione revelli.
sunt igitur solida primordia simplicitate
quae minimis stipata cohaerent partibus arte, 610
non ex illarum conventu conciliata,
sed magis aeterna pollentia simplicitate,
unde neque avelli quicquam neque deminui iam
concedit natura reservans semina rebus.
praeterea nisi ent minimum, parvissima quaeque O15
corpora constabunt ex partibus infinitis,
quippe ubi dimidiae partis pars semper habebit
dimidiam partem nec res praefimet ulla.
ergo rerum inter summam minimamque quid escit ?
nil erit ut distet; nam quamvis funditus omnis 620
summa sit infinita, tamen, parvissima quae sunt,
ex infinitis constabunt partibus aeque.
quod quoniam ratio reclamat vera negatque

599—-634: this passage which is difficult, but not corrupt, has been sadly
mutilated by all editors from Lambinus to Lachmann and Bernays, who all in
different ways force on Lucretius a succession of absurd and self-contradictory
assertions, There seems after 599 to be a hiatus such as this Corporibus, quod
iam nobis minimum esse videtur, Debet item ratione pari minimum esse cacumen
Corporis cet.: besides this illarum for illorum in 611 is the sole change I have
made, two or three slight and obvious errors of AB having been corrected in the
later mss. or older editions: 599 for quoniam Lach. quianam, Bern. quod tam: 600
for illius Lach. and Bern. ullius. Lamb. quoniam ext. quoiusque c. Cor. est aliquod:
611 Lach. ullorum after Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. οἷο. 628 and 631 Lamb. followed
by all subsequent editors perversely reads ni for si, multis for nullis. 608 nulla
Flor. 31 Ver. Ven. etc. for εἶα. ut nequeant ulla B corr. which may be right.

613 iam Flor. 31 Ver. Ven. etc. for tam. 626 constent Ald. Junt. for con-

60 i

credere posse animum, victus fateare necessest
esse ea quae nullis 1am praedita partibus extent 625
et minima constent natura. quae quoniam sunt,
illa quoque esse tibi solida atque aeterna fatendum.
denique si minimas in partis cuncta resolvi
cogere consuesset rerum natura creatrix,
iam nil ex illis eadem reparare valeret 630
propterea quia, quae nullis sunt partibus aucta,
non possunt ea quae debet genitalis habere
materies, varios conexus pondera plagas
concursus motus, per quae res quaeque geruntur.
Quapropter qui materiem rerum esse putarunt 635
lgnem atque ex igni summam consistere solo,
magno opere a vera lapsi ratione videntur.
Heraclitus init quorum dux proelia primus,
clarus ob obscuram linguam magis inter inanis
quamde gravis inter Graios qui vera requirunt. 640
omnia enim stolidi magis admirantur amantque,
inversis quae sub verbis latitantia cernunt,
veraque constituunt quae belle tangere possunt
auris et lepido quae sunt fucata sonore.
Nam cur -tam varlae res possint esse requiro, 645
eX uno si sunt igni puroque creatae ;
nil prodesset enim calidum denserier ignem
nec rarefierl, si partes 1515 eandem
naturam quam totus habet super ignis haberent,
acrior ardor enim conductis partibus esset, 650
languidior porro disiectis disque supatis:
amphus hoc fieri nil est quod posse rearis
talibus in causis, nedum variantia rerum
tanta queat densis rarisyue ex ignibus esse.
id quoque, si faciant admixtum rebus inane, 655
denseri poterunt ignes rarique relinqul.
sed quia multa sibi cernunt contraria nasci

stant. 634 quae res Mar. Junt. for quas res. 639 ob added by Festus.

645 cur possint esse requiro,...si sunt Ed. for cur possent? requiro etc.: comp.
above 356 593 and 597. 646 uno B corr. Turnebus Lamb. ed. 3, Lach. for
uro. vero A corr. Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. Vat. Lamb. ed. 1 and 2, Creech. 649
haberent Nice. for haberet A, habere B Gott. 651 disiectis disque A corr. Flor.
30 corr. for disiectisque. 657 nasci Ed. for muse A, mu B Gott. This word

I OI

et fugitant in rebus inane relinquere purum,

ardua dum metuunt, amittunt vera viai,

nec rursum cernunt exempto rebus inanl 660
omnia denseri fierique ex omnibus unum

corpus, nil ab se quod possit mittere raptim;

acstifer ignis uti lumen iacit atque vaporem,

ut videas non ὁ stipatis partibus esse.

quod si forte alia credunt ratione potesse 665
lenis in coctu stingul mutareque corpus,

scilicet ex nulla facere id si parte reparcent,

oceidet ad nilum nimirum funditus ardor

omnis et e nilo fient quaecumque creantur.

nam quodcumque suis mutatum finibus exit, 670
continuo hoc mors est illus quod δι ante.

proinde aliquit superare necesse est incolume ollis,

ne tibi res redeant ad mlum funditus omnes

de niloque renata vigescat copia rerum.

nune igitur quoniam certissima corpora quaedam 675
sunt quae conservant naturam semper candem,

quorum abitu aut aditu mutatoque ordine mutant
naturam res et convertunt corpora sese,

seire hcet non esse haec ignea corpora rerum.

nil referret enim quaedam decedere abire, 680
atque alia adtribui, mutarique ordine quaedam,

si tamen ardoris naturam cuncta tenerent ;

was the last in p. 27 of the archetype and therefore on the outside margin, and as in
many other cases had become partly illegible. mussant Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Lamb.
ed. 2 and 3, etc. without sense. multi Mar. Junt. Lamb. ed. 1, ete. inesse Flor.
30 corr. Ver. Ven. Ald. 1 Candidus at end of Junt. Memmi Heins. in ms.
notes. ‘amusoe i.e. ἄμουσοι᾽ Is. Voss. in ms. notes. adesse Lach. amussim Bern.
‘illud Lucretio Bernaysius restituens cedet hodie nisi fallor H. Munroni nasci
emendanti’ Ritschl opusc. 11 p. 272. 659 vera viai A corr. for ver aula.

660 inani Flor. 30 corr. Mar. Junt. for inane. 662 raptim Pont. Avance, for
raptis, ‘quidam raptim agnoscunt. Marullus natum’ Candidus at end of Junt.
and so Flor. 30 corr. and Mar. in cod. Vict. 665 alia Lach, rightly for mia.
ulla Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. ete. wna Nicc. etc. 666 coetu stingui Pont. Turneb.
Lamb. ed. 2 and 3, etc. for coetus stingui. mutare Mar. Junt. for musare. Ver.
Ven. Mar. Ald. 1 Lamb, ed. 1 have absurdly in coetus stringi massareque corpus;

and Flor. 31 Camb. mussare. 668 funditus B corr. for funditur. ardor A corr.
Nice. for arbor. 674 vigescat Heins. in notes and Lach. for vivescat: comp.
757. virescat Nicc. vulg. 680 decedere Lamb. Lach. ete. for descendere.

discedere A corr. Mar. Junt. eto. 681 alia Mar, Lamb. most rightly for alio

62 i

ignis enim foret omnimodis quodcumque crearent.
verum, ut opinor, itast: sunt quaedam corpora quorum
concursus motus ordo positura figurae 685
efficiunt ignis, mutatoque ordine mutant
naturam neque sunt igni simulata neque ulli
praeterea rei quae corpora mittere possit
sensibus et nostros adiectu tangere tactus.
Dicere porro ignem res omnis esse neque ullam 690
rem veram in numero rerum constare nisi ignem,
quod facit hic idem, perdelirum esse videtur.
ham contra sensus ab sensibus ipse repugnat
et labefactat eos unde omnia credita pendent,
unde hic cognitus est 1051 quem nominat ignem ; 695
credit enim sensus 1gnem cognoscere vere,
cetera non credit, quae nilo clara minus sunt.
quod mihi cum vanum tum delirum esse videtur ;
quo referemus enim? quid nobis certius ipsis
sensibus esse potest, qui vera ac falsa notemus ? 700
praeterea quare quisquam magis omnia tollat
et velit ardoris naturam Jinquere solam,
quam neget esse ignis, guidvis tamen esse relinquat ?
aequa videtur enim dementia dicere utrumque.
Quapropter qui materiem rerum esse putarunt 705
ignem atque ex igni summam consistere posse,
et 41 principium gignundis aera rebus
constituere, aut umorem quicumque putarunt
fingere res ipsum per se, terramve creare
omnia et In rerum naturas vertier omnis, 710
magno opere a vero longe derrasse videntur.
adde etiam qui conduplicant primordia rerum
aera lungentes igni terramque liquori,
et qui quattuor ex rebus posse omnia rentur
ex 1gni terra atque anima procrescere et imbri. 719
quorum Acragantinus cum primis Empedocles est,

which Lach. retains. Candidus at end of Junt. ‘alio pro alii positum. sunt qui
alia legunt’, i.e. Mar. 683 crearent Lamb. first for crearet. 690 ignem B corr.
for ig. nem. 703 quidvis Lach. summam Nice. and all before Lach. AB Gott.
omit the word, which must be uncertain. 708 putarunt Nice. B corr. for
putantur B, A corr., putant A p.m. 710 vertier B corr. Nice. for verti.

711 longe derrasse Vat. 3275, and unless I err 1136 Othob., for longi derrasse of

" 63

insula quem triquetris terrarum gessit in oris,
quam fluitans circum magnis anfractibus aequor
Ionium glaucis aspargit virus ab undis,
angustoque fretu rapidum mare dividit undis 720
Italiae terrarum oras a finibus eius.
hic est vasta Charybdis et hic Aetnaca minantur
murmura flammarum rursum se colligere iras,
faucibus eruptos iterum vis ut vomat ignis
ad caclumque ferat flammai fulgura rursum. 725
quae cum magna modis multis miranda videtur
gentibus humanis regio visendaque fertur,
rebus opima bonis, multa munita virum vi,
uil tamen hoc habuisse viro pracclarius in se
nec sanctum magis et mirum carumque videtur. 730
carmina quin etiam divini pectoris eius
vociferantur et exponunt praeclara reperta,
ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus.
Hic tamen et supra quos diximus inferiores
partibus egregie multis multoque minores, 735
quamquam multa bene ac divinitus invenientes
ex adyto tamquam cordis responsa dedere
sanctius et multo certa ratione magis quam
Pythia quae tripodi a Phoebi lauroque profatur,
principlis tamen in rerum fecere ruinas 740
et graviter magni magno cecidere ibi casu ;
primum quod motus exempto rebus inani
constituunt, et res mollis rarasque relinquont,
aera solem ignem terras animalia frugis,

B Gott. A corr. longi errasse A p.m. longeyue errasse Nice. ete. 720 undis.
undans Lach. almae Bern., without cause. Priscian 1 35 confirms undis. 721
Italiae Niece. for Haeliae. Haeoliae A corr. Aeoliae Heins. in ms. notes and
Ts, Vossius who says in ms. notes ‘mss. habent Haeoliae vel Aeoliae. Puto olim
sic dictam eam partem Italiae quam inhabitavit Jocastes Aeoli filius qui ad fretum
Siculum habitabat: vid: Diodorum hb. 5. (ch. 8] G. V.’. Thus Preiger and Lach-
mann’s doubt is solved. Havere. and Wak. also adopt this reading of Gerard
father of Is. Vossius. 724 vis ut vomat Lamb. ed. 3 for vis ut omniat. ut vis
evomat ed. 1 and 2 after Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. ete. 725 Heins. in ms. notes
‘leg. sursum’, to avoid the repetition of rursum. 737 adyto Nice. for
adito. 739 profatur A corr. Nicc. for prosatur. 741 casu A corr. Nicc. for causa.

744 frugis AB Flor. 31 ete. not Nicc.: so 1v 577 and 992 vocis AB. fruges Lach.
and 1. L voces: he says ‘{membranas] quamvis consentientes imitari ausus non

64 I

nec tamen admiscent in eorum corpus inane; 745

deinde quod omnino finem non esse secandis

corporibus faciunt neque pausam stare fragori

nec prorsum in rebus minimum consistere quicguam ;

cum videamus id extremum cuiusque cacumen

esse quod ad sensus nostros minimum esse videtur, 750

conicere ut possis ex hoc, quae cernere non quis

extremum quod habent, minimum consistere in alas.

hue accedit item, quoniam primordia rerum

mollia constituunt, quae nos nativa videmus

esse οὔ mortali cum corpore funditus, utqui

debeat ad nilum iam rerum summa reverti

de niloque renata vigescere copia rerum ;

quorum utrumque quid a vero iam distet habebis.

deinde inimica modis multis sunt atque veneno

ipsa 5101 inter se; quare aut congressa peribunt 760

aut ita diffugient ut tempestate coacta

fulmina difttugere atque imbris ventosque videmus.
Denique quattuor ex rebus si cuncta creantur

atque in eas rursum res omnia dissoluuntur,

539]
cn
tm

qui magis illa queunt rerum primordia dici 765
quam contra res illorum retroque putari ?

alternis gignuntur enim mutantque colorem

et totam inter se naturam tempore ab omni,

sin ita forte putas ignis terraeque coire 770

suin hoc loco, ubi habent frugis, neque in tv 577 991 1000, ubi vocis; quamquam
apud Nonium p. 149 16 e Varrone scriptum est pacis, et Manilii exemplaria in
111 446 habent lucis’. But Varro de ling. Lat. rx 76 observes ‘frugi rectus est
natura frux, at secundum consuetudinem dicimus ut haec avis, haec ovis, sic haec
frugis’. I have no doubt then that the accus. plur. frugis and vocis come from
Lucr. as well as religionis and the like; and that an abl. frugi was possible.

Augustus in the monum, Ancyr. ΠῚ 2 has consulis acc. plur. 147 faciunt
Flor. 31 Camb. for jfucient. 718 quicquam Mar. Ald. 1 and Junt. for qui.
quire Flor. 31 Camb. Vat, 1136 Othob. which may be right. 752 in illis I have

added ; and these must I think be the actual words of the poet: see Camb. Journ.
of phil. 1 p. 29. prorsum Lach. who quite misunderstands the argument. rebus

Nice. and all before Lach. 755 utqui of mss. is quite right: see notes 2.
Lach. reads 753 utei for item, and here funditus usque. ἠδ habebis A corr.
Nice. etc, for habes. habebas Lamb. vulg. wrongly. 759 veneno Wak. Lach.

for vene. venena Flor. 31 Camb. vulgo: this 1. ended p. 31 of the lost archetype;
and therefore these four mutilated endings of verses were on the outer mar-
gin. 767 Alternis A corr, for Aternis. 769 =762, repeated without mean-

i 65

corpus et aerias auras roremque liquoris,
nil in concilio naturam ut mutet eorum,
nulla tibi ex ills poterit res esse creata,
non animans, non exanimo cum corpore, ut arbos:
quippe suam quicque in coetu variantis acervi 775
naturam ostendet mixtusque videbitur aer
cum terra simul atque ardor cum rore manere.
at primordia gignundis in rebus oportet
naturam clandestinam caecamque adhibere,
emineat nequid quod contra pugnet et obstet 750
quominus esse queat proprie quodeumque creatur.
Quin etiam repetunt a caelo atque ignibus eius
et primum faciunt ignem se vertere mm auras
acris, hinc imbrem gignmi terramque creari
ex imbri retroque a terra cuncta reverti, 785
umorem primum, post aera, deinde calorem,
nec cessare haee inter se mutare, meare
a caelo ad terram, de terra ad sidera mundi.
quod facere haud ullc debent primordia pacto ;
immutabile enim quiddam superare necessest, 790
ne res ad nilum redigantur funditus omnes.
nam quodeumque suis mutatum finibus exit,
continuo hoe mors est illius quod fuit ante.
quapropter quoniam quae paulo diximus ante
in commutatum veniunt, constare necessest 795
ex aliis ea, quae nequeant convertier usquam,
ne tibi res redeant ad nilum funditus omnes.
quin potius tali natura praedita quaedam
corpora constituas, ignem si forte crearint,
posse eadem demptis paucis paucisque tributis, 800

ing. 772 ut B corr. Flor. 31 Camb. for et. 774 animans Pant. Mar.
Junt. for animas. 775 quicque in coetu Mar. Junt. for quisque in coetum.

776 ostendet Flor. 31 Avance. for ostendit. 777 atq. ardor cum rore Lamb.
acutely for et quodam cune rore. 778 rebus oportet. rebu’ necessest Lach.
Bern, without any necessity: if Ennius Accius Seneca Catullus, Virgil in his
eclogues, Propertius Ovid and others can use the word, it is not too prosaic for
Luer. 780 Emineat Naugerius first for demineat. 781 creatur A corr. for
creatas. 784 785 hinc imbrem, ex imbri, a terra Mar. Ald. 1 and Junt. for
hinc ignem, ex igni, in terram: the change is peremptorily required: Catullus 62 7
imbres mss. for ignes. 789 pacto Mon. Ald, 1 Junt. for facto. 806 wt

ΔΙ. 5

66 I

ordine mutato et motu, facere aeris auras,
sic alias aliis rebus mutarier omnis ?

‘At manifesta palam res indicat’ inquis ‘in auras
aeris e terra res omnis crescere alique ;
et nisi tempestas indulget tempore fausto 805
imbribus, ut tabe nimborum arbusta vacillent,
solque sua pro parte fovet tribuitque calorem,
crescere non possint fruges arbusta animantis’,
scilicet et nisi nos cibus aridus et tener umor
adiuvet, amisso 1am corpore vita quoque omnis 810
omnibus e nervis atque ossibus exsoluatur ;
adiutamur enim dubio procul atque alimur nos
certis ab rebus, certis aliae atque aliae res.
nimirum quia multa modis communia multis
multarum rerum in rebus primordia mixta 815
sunt, ideo varils variae res rebus aluntur.
atque eadem magni refert primordia saepe
cum quibus et quali positura contineantur
et quos inter se dent motus accipiantque ;
namque eadem caelum mare terras flumina solem 820
constituunt, eadem fruges arbusta aninantis,
verum aliis allogue modo commixta moventur.
quin etiam passim nostris in versibus ipsis
multa elementa vides multis communia verbis,
cum tamen inter se versus ac verba necessest $25
confiteare et re et sonitu distare sonanti.
tantum elementa queunt permutato ordine solo;
at rerum quae sunt primordia, plura adhibere
possunt unde queant variae res quaeque crear.

Nunc et Anaxagorae scrutemur homoeomerian 830

Prise. for et οὗ mss.: this change of a letter, as Bern. has seen, gives imbribus
to the preceding sentence and completely restores the fine passage, which Lach.
deplorably disfigures by transposing 806 and 807 and changing arbusta into am-
busta, as if rain forsooth could like ‘frost perform the effect of fire’. Lamb. and
Gif. ed. 1 et...vacillant, the vulgate. Gif. ed. 2 keeps et...vacillent of mss, and
says ‘q.v. Marull. et vulg. focillant, q. v. vacillant, male’. Now Ald. 1 has et
tabes... focillant. Ver. Ven. read et tale... facillent, whence comes focillant.
Marullus in cod. Victor. makes no change. 814 multa modis Lamb. for
multimodis, 824 verbis Flor. 31 Camb. Vat. Pont. Mar. etc. for bellis: see
Lach, 830 et. μὲ Lach.: in five other places he changes et, and in two

I 67

quam Grai memorant nec nostra dicere lingua

coneedit nobis patril sermonis egestas,

sed tamen ipsam rem facilest exponere verbis.

principio, rerum quom dicit homoeomerian,

ossa, videlicet e pauxillis atque minutis $35
ossibus hic et de pauxillis atque minutis

visceribus viscus gigni sanguenque creari

sanguinis inter se multis coeuntibu’ guttis

ex aurique putat micis consistere posse

aurum et de terris terram concrescere parvis, 840
ignibus ex ignis, umorem umoribus esse,

cetera consimili fingit ratione putatque.

nec tamen esse ulla parte idem in rebus inane

concedit neque corporibus finem esse secandis.

quare in utraque mihi pariter ratione videtur 845
errare atque illi, supra quos diximus ante.

adde quod inbecilla nimis primordia fingit ;

si primordia sunt, simili quae praedita constant

natura atque ipsae res sunt aequeque laborant

et pereunt neque ab exitio res ulla refrenat. 850
nam quid in oppressu valido durabit eorum,

ut mortem effugiat, ἰοῦ] sub dentibus ipsis ?

ignis an umor an aura? quid horum? sanguen an ossa ?

gives a far-fetched interpretation, because he says Lucr. could not use et for
etiam. 834 quom Lach. for quam. Lamb. reads Principium rerum quam
and joins it with what precedes: he is followed by all before Lach. and may be
right, ‘quid quod ita ne dixit quidem usquam Lucretius, sed rerum principia
1 740 1047 11 789’ says Lach. Yes, because his primordia are plural; but 1 707
he writes Et qui principium gignundis aera rebus Constituere of those who have
one first-beginning of things. 835 ὁ Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for de.

839 840 aurique...aurum: as he immediately enumerates the three other ele-
ments, Bentl. proposes auraequc...auram. ‘quid hic aurum? oculos credo inter-
pretum praestrinxit...Simplic. tamen [in Arist. phys. fol. 6 Ὁ] de Anaxag. πάντα
τὰ ὁμοιομερῇ οἷον τὸ ὕδωρ ἢ πῦρ ἢ χρυσόν etc.’ This and other passages seem to
defend the text: see notes 2: yet comp. 82. 841 ignis, umorem. ignem,
umoren, ex Lamb. and the plur, is awkward. 843 ulla parte idem Nice. vulgo
for wlla idem parte. wlla idem ex parte Lach. because Lucr. he says only omits the
preposition when a genitive is added; but in rebus seems equivalent to one: comp.
Juven. v1 457 Adque alia parte in trutina suspendit Homerum. 846 illi supra quos
marg. Flor. 32 Ald. 1 Junt. for illis utra quod A, quo B Gott. illis juzta quod Camb.
Vat. 1954 Othob. viris iuxta quos Flor. 31 illis tuzta Ang. Politian in marg. Flor. 29.

847 inbecilla Flor. 31 Camb. for inbecilia. 852 effugiat B corr. Flor. 31

5—2

68 I

nil, ut opinor, ubi ex aequo res funditus omnis

tam mortalis erit quam quae manifesta videmus 85
ex oculis nostris aliqua vi victa perire.

at neque reccidere ad nilum res posse neque autem
crescere de nilo testor res ante probatas.

praeterea quoniam cibus auget corpus alitque,

scire licet nobis venas et sanguen et ossa S60

tm

Φ . Φ » e . Φ .

sive cibos omnis commixto corpore dicent
esse et habere in se nervorum corpora parva
ossaque et omnino venas partisque cruoris,
Ποῦ uti cibus omnis, et aridus et liquor ipse,
ex alienigenis rebus constare putetur, 865
ossibus et nervis sanieque et sanguine mixto. |
praeterea quaecumque e terra corpora crescunt
si sunt in terris, terram constare necessest
ex alienigenis, quae terris exorluntur.
transfer item, totidem verbis utare licebit. 870
in henis si flamma latet fumusque cinisque,
ex alienigenis consistant ligna necessest.
praeterea tellus quae corpora cumque alit, auget
*
ex alienigenis, quae lignis Ais oriuntur.

Pont. Mar. for effciat. 853 sanguen an ossa marg. Flor. 32 Pont. Lamb.
for sanguis an os. sanguis was unknown to Lucer.: 1v 1050 sanguis unde; v1 1203
sanguis expletis: see Lach. and add Sen. Med. 776 and Val. Flacc. mr 234
sanguis. Flor. 31 does not as Lach. says read sanguis an, an 98. sanguen os
aurum Lach,, an awkward and improbable correction. 860: the verse lost
here Lamb. thus supplies, Et nervos alienigenis ex partibus esse; which must be
very like what Lucr. wrote. 861 Sive Flor. 31 Camb. for Sine. corpore
Nice. for core. 862 Esse et Nice. for Esset. 866 sanieque. venisque
Avance, Lamb. Lach. wrongly: see notes 2: Avancius formed his text by cor-
recting Ven. and it and Ver. have sanisque; hence venis. mixto Lach. after
Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. which have misto. mixtim Politian in marg. Flor. 29,
which may be right. 873 here there is I believe a hiatus of two or more
verses, which I formerly supplied thus, Ea alienigenis quae tellure exoriuntur.
Sic itidem quae ligna emittunt corpora, aluntur Ex cet.: comp. especially 859—866
and notes 2. In 874 I have added his after lignis. I hardly understand
Lach. who reads quae alienigenis oriuntur: see also Luc. Mueller de re metrica
p. 284, who seems to prove that a monosyll. diphthong is never elided before
a short vowel. Mar. Junt. followed by Gif. Creech omit both 873 and 874,
Lamb. followed by Wak. only 873; which seems absurd: he reads in 874 lignis

if 69

Linquitur hic quaedam latitandi copia tenvis, 875
id quod Anaxagoras sibi sumit, ut omnibus omnis
res putet inmixtas rebus latitare, sed illud
apparere unum cuius sint plurima mixta
et magis in promptu primaque in fronte locata.
quod tamen a vera longe ratione repulsumst. 880
conveniebat enim fruges quoque saepe, minaci
robore cum saxi franguntur, mittere signum
sanguinis aut aliquid, nostro quae corpore aluntur.
885 consimili ratione herbis quoque saepe decebat,
884 cum lapidi in lapidem terimus, manare cruorem: 885
et latices dulcis guttas similique sapore
mittere, lanigerae quali sunt ubere lactis,
scilicet et glebis terrarum saepe friatis
herbarum genera et fruges frondesque videri
dispertita inter terram latitare minute, S90
postremo in lignis cinerem fumumque videri,
cum praefracta forent, igmisque latere minutos.
quorum nil fieri quoniam manifesta docet res,
scire licet non esse in rebus res ita mixtas,
verum semina multimodis inmixta latere 895
multarum rerum in rebus communia debent.
‘At saepe in magnis fit montibus’ inquis ‘ut altis
arboribus vicina cacumina summa terantur
inter se, validis facere id cogentibus austris,
donec flammai fulserunt flore coorto’. QOo
scilicet et non est lignis tamen insitus ignis,
verum semina sunt ardoris multa, terendo
quae cum confluxere, creant incendia silvis.

exoriuntur with Flor. 31 Camb. etc. 882 cum sazi Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. etc.
for cum in sazi. 884 885 rightly transposed by N. P. Howard: see notes 2
for explanation of the whole passage in which much needless change has been
made: 884 in om. Mar. Junt. etc. ‘recte, ut puto, etsi cur addita sit [praep.
inj non intellego’ Lach. terimus Nicc. for tenemus. 885 herbis. herbas
Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Lach. vulgo. 886 latices. laticis Flor. 31 Camb. vulg.
Lach. wrongly. 887 quali B, qualis A, quales A corr. Nice. Flor, 31
Camb, ubere. ubera Lamb.: the exact reading is uncertain. 890 inter
terram Lach. first for in terram: older editors have blundered strangely.

893 res added by Nicc. B corr. etc. 900 flammai Pont. Junt. for
jlammae: a simple correction, yet overlooked by many of the later editors:
even Nauger. has here deserted Junt. and reads fulserunt flammae fulgore

70 I

quod si facta foret silvis abscondita flamma,

non possent ullum tempus celarier ignes, 905

conficerent volgo silvas, arbusta cremarent.

iamne vides igitur, paulo quod diximus ante,

permagni referre eadem primordia saepe

cum quibus et quali positura contineantur

et quos inter se dent motus accipiantque, ΟΙΟ

atque eadem paulo inter se mutata creare

ignes et lignum? quo pacto verba quoque ipsa

inter se paulo mutatis sunt elementis,

cum ligna atque ignes distincta voce notemus.

denique iam quaecumque in rebus cernis apertis Q15

si fierl non posse putas, quin material

corpora consimili natura praedita fingas,

hac ratione tibi pereunt primordia rerum :

fiet uti risu tremulo concussa cachinnent

et lacrimis salsis umectent ora genasque. 920
Nunc age quod superest cognosce et clarius audi.

nec me animi fallit quam sint obscura; sed acri

percussit thyrso laudis spes magna meum cor

et simul incussit suavem mi in pectus amorem

musarum, quo nunc instinctus mente vigenti 925

avia Pieridum peragro loca nulhus ante

trita solo. iuvat integros accedere fontis

atque haurire, iuvatque novos decerpere flores

insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam

unde prius nulli velarmt tempora musae ; 930

primum quod magnis doceo de rebus et artis

religionum animum nodis exsolvere pergo,

deinde quod obscura de re tam lucida pango

carmina, musaeo contingens cuncta lepore.

id quoque enim non ab nulla ratione videtur ; 935

sed veluti pueris absinthia taetra medentes

cum dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum

after Nicc. ete. 909 contineantur Nauger. for contingantur, after Pont.
apparently; for Victorius in his 2nd copy of Ven. seems to imply that
continuantur of the first was his own error, 912 et B corr. Wak. for e. 918
Hac Nicc. B corr. for Haec. 919 uti risu tremulo Nicc. for utiris ut aemulo.
932 animum. animos Lamb. Creech after Lactantius inst.116. Pius says ‘mo-

I σι

contingunt mellis dulci flavoque liquore,
ut puerorum actas inprovida ludificetur
labrorum tenus, interea perpotet amarum 940
absinthi laticem deceptaque non capiatur,
sed potius tali pacto recreata valescat,
sic ego nunc, quoniam haec ratio plerumque videtur
tristior esse quibus non est tractata, retroque
volgus abhorret ab hac, volui tibi suaviloquenti 945
carmine Pierio rationem exponere nostram
et quasi musaeo dulci contingere melle,
si tibi forte animum tali ratione tenere
versibus in nostris possem, dum perspicis omnem
naturam rerum qua constet compta figura. 950
Sed quoniam docui solidissima materiai
corpora perpetuo volitare invicta per aevom,
nunc age, summai quaedam sit finis eorum
necne sit, evolvamus; item quod inane repertumst
seu locus ac spatium, res in quo quacque gerantur, 955
pervideamus utrum finitum funditus omne
constet an immensum pateat vasteque profundum.
Omne quod est igitur nulla regione viarum
finitumst; namque extremum debebat habere.
extremum porro nullius posse videtur G60
esse, nisi ultra sit quod finiat; ut videatur
quo non longins haec sensus natura sequatur.
nune extra summam quoniam nil esse fatendum,
non habet extremum, caret ergo fine modoque.
nec refert quibus adsistas regionibus elus ; 965
usque adeo, quem quisque locum possedit, in omnis
tantundem partis infinitum omne relinquit.
praeterea si iam finitum constituatur
omne quod est spatium, siquis procurrat ad oras
ultimus extremas iaciatque volatile telum, 970
id validis utrum contortum viribus ire

dulatius animos leges’. Butiv 7 animum Lamb. animos Creech. 942 pacto
Heins. in ms. notes and Lach. rightly for facto. 954 Necne sit Pont. Lamb. for
nec sit. 957 vasteque Nicc. corrupted into adusque; his followers adusque into
vel adusque ; or, as Mar. marg. Flor. 32 Ald. Junt., patefiat ad usque. 966 omnis
Nice. for omnus, 971 Id validis Lamb. first for Invalidis. Flor. 32 and Mar.

73 J

quo fuerit missum mavis longeque volare,
an prohibere aliquid censes obstareque posse ?
alterutrum fatearis enim sumasque necessest.
quorum utrumque tibi effugium praecludit et omne 975
cogit ut exempta concedas fine patere.
nam sive est aliquit quod probeat officiatque
quominw quo missum est veniat finique locet se,
sive foras fertur, non est a fine profectum.
hoc pacto sequar atque, oras ubicumque locaris 980
extremas, quaeram quid telo denique fiat.
fiet uti nusquam possit consistere finis
effugiumque fugae prolatet copia semper.
998 postremo ante oculos res rem finire videtur ;
aer dissaepit collis atque aera montes, 985
terra mare et contra mare terras terminat omnis;
omne quidem vero nil est quod finiat extra.
984 Praeterea spatium summai totius omne
undique si inclusum certis consisteret oris
finitumque foret, 1am copia material 990
undique ponderibus solidis confluxet ad imum
nec res ulla geri sub caeli tegmine posset
nec foret omnino caelum neque lumina solis.
990 quippe ubi materies omnis cumulata iaceret
ex Infinito iam tempore subsidendo. 995
at nunc nimirum requies data principlorum
corporibus nullast, quia nil est funditus imum
quo quasi confluere et sedes ubi ponere possint.
995 semper in adsiduo motu res quaeque geruntur
partibus e cunctis infernaque suppeditantur 1000

in margin explain invalidis as valde validis. 977 oficiat Lamb. rightly and
before him Gryphius of Lyons 1534 and 1540 for efficiat, after the constant
usage of Lucr.: so Livy 1v 31 5 Madvig after Faber reads offecit (mss. effecit)
quominus. Lach. keeps eficiat. [But for efficiat see lex col. Genetivae 11 4 7 neve

quis facito, quo minus ita aqua ducatur. ] 981 fiat Nice. for fiet. 984—987
(998—1001) I have elsewhere proved should come in this place. 989 inclusum
Nice. for inclusus. 991 confluxet Flor. 31 first for conflucxit. 997 nullast
Politian in marg. Flor. 29 Ver. Ven. Heins. in ms. notes for nullas.

998 possint Ald. 1 Junt. for possit. 1000 e supplied by Mon. and Lach. is
better than in of Mar. and older editors. inferna is quite right: see Camb.

Journ. of phil. 1 p. 38. Lach. wrongly follows Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. etc. in read-
ing aeternaque and adds ‘rei convenienter, quamvis secus videatur Wakefieldo et

1 73

ex infinito cita corpora material.
1002 est igitur natura loci spatiumque profundi,
quod neque clara suo percurrere fulmina cursu
perpetuo possint aevi labentia tractu
nec prorsum facere ut restet minus ire meando: 1005
usque adeo passim patet igens. copia rebus
finibus exemptis in cunctas undique partis.
Ipsa modum porro sibi rerum summa parare
ne possit, natura tenet, quae corpus mani
et quod inane autem est finiri corpore cogit, ΙΟΙΟ
ut sic alternis infinita omnia reddat,
aut etiam alterutrum, nisi terminet alterum, eorum
simplice natura pateat tamen inmoderatum.
%
nec mare nec tellus neque caeli lucida templa
nec mortale genus nec divum corpora sancta 1O15
exiguum possent horai sistere tempus ;
nam dispulsa suo de coetu materiai
copia ferretur magnum per inane soluta,
sive adeo potius numquam concreta creasset
ullam rem, quoniam cogi disiecta nequisset. 1020
nam certe neque consilo primordia rerum
ordine se suo quaeque sagaci mente locarunt

Forbigero, qui quotiens philosophantur delirant’: an insult quite out of place here.
1008 should commence a new paragraph. 1009 inant Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for inane.
1013 Madvig opuse. pr. p. 313 rightly supposes some verses lost here; and long
before him Marullus did the same, as I find from the margin of Flor. 32: ‘credit
Marullus deesse hic aliqua carmina,; quae continerent transitum ab infinitate inanis
ad infinitatem corporum ; in his enim Nec mare nec tellus...procul dubio agit de infi-
nitate corporum, cum supra [953] de utroque infinito se dicturum promiserit’: so
that Flor. 32 gives here the more mature, at least the better judgment of Marullus;
since the cod. Victor. has the same perverse corrections which Junt. has. ach.
places the mark of hiatus after 1012, giving a most involved explanation of the
passage: his arrangement moreover is scarcely grammatical, as pateat is thus
answered in the apodosis by imperfects and pluperfects. Indeed the lacuna does
not appear to me so great as it did either to Madvig or Lach.: the poet has not only
shewn already that the omne quod est, but also 988 (984)—1007, that the omne quod
est spatium is infinite: he now, 1008 foll., shews that matter is infinite. I
formerly proposed roughly to supply what is wanting thus, Sed spatium supra docui
sine fine patere. Si finita igitur summa esset materiai, Nec mare cet. 1023 the last
four words are rightly supplied by Mar. and Juut. from v 421: the mss. here repeat
the last three of 1022. Avancius blunders sadly, doubtless from not understanding

74 1

nec quos quaeque darent motus pepigere profecto,
sed quia multa modis multis mutata per omne
ex infinito vexantur percita plagis, 1025
omne genus motus et coetus experiundo
tandem deveniunt in talis disposituras,
qualibus haec rerum consistit summa creata,
et multos etiam magnos servata per annos
ut semel in motus coniectast convenientis, 1030
efficit ut largis avidum mare fluminis undis
mtegrent amnes et solis terra vapore
fota novet fetus summissaque gens animantum
floreat et vivant labentes aetheris ignes ;
quod nullo facerent pacto nisi materiai 1035
ex infinito suboriri copia posset,
unde amissa solent reparare in tempore quaeque.
nam veluti privata cibo natura animantum
diftuit amittens corpus, sic omnia debent
dissolui simul ac defecit suppeditare 1040
materies aliqua ratione aversa vial.
nec plagae possunt extrinsecus undique summam
conservare omnem quaecumque est conciliata.
cudere enim crebro possunt partemque morari,
dum veniant aliae ac suppleri summa queatur. 1045
interdum resilire tamen coguntur et una
principlis rerum spatium tempusque fugai
largiri, ut possint a coetu libera ferri.
quare etiam atque etiam suboriri multa necessest,
et tamen ut plagae quoque possint suppetere ipsae, 1050
infinita opus est vis undique materia.
Illud in his rebus longe fuge credere, Memmi,
in medium summae, quod dicunt, omnia niti,
atque ideo mundi naturam stare sine ullis
ictibus externis neque quoquam posse resolvi 1055

what he is taking from others. 1028 rerum Faber and Bentl. from v 194 most
rightly for rebus. 1033 summissaque Pont. Mar. Junt. for summaque. 1034
Floreat Flor. 31 Camb. etc. for floreant. 1040 Dissolui Nice. B corr. for Disso-
luit. 1041 viai B corr. vulgo for via. viagque Lach.: but ratione viaque surely
means ‘by method and system’: see Cic. de fin. 1 29 ut ratione et via procedat
oratio. 1047 Principiis Mar. Junt.for principium. 1061 Et simili. Lach. reads

1 75
summa atque ima, quod in medium sint omnia nixa:
ipsum si quicquam posse in se sistere credis:
et quae pondera sunt sub terris omnia sursum
nitier in terraque retro requiescere posta,
ut per aquas quae nunc rerum simulacra videmus. 1060
et simili ratione animalia suppa vagari
contendunt neque posse e terris in loca caeli
reccidere inferlora magis quam corpora nostra
sponte sua possint in caeli templa volare ;

illi cum videant solem, nos sidera noctis 1065
cernere, ct alternis nobiscum tempora caeli

dividere et noctes parilis agitare diebus,

sed vanus stolidis haec

amplexi quod habent perv

nam medium nil esse potest 1070
infinita. neque omnino, si 1am mediwm svt

possit 101 quicquam consistere

quam quavis alia longe ratione

omnis enim locus ac spatium quod inane vocamus

per medium per non medium concedere debet 1075
aeque ponderibus, motus quacumque feruntur.

nec quisquam locus est, quo corpora cum venerunt,
ponderis amissa vi possint stare im inani;

Adsimili and joins with it the preceding verse, putting a full stop at posta. I
think him quite wrong: the simile is exactly the same as 1v 418, where also Lach.
makes unnecessary changes. 1068—1075: these 8 mutilated verses came at
the beginning of p. 45 of the archetype; and the ends were therefore at the outer
margin. B and Gott. omit them altogether, but append a cross and vi. Nice.
gives them imperfect asin A. The later mss. Ald. 1, Junt. after Mar., Lamb. com-
plete them in various ways. I formerly suggested in 1068 error falsa probavit or
error somnia finzit: 1069 perversa rem ratione: 1070 quando omnia constant, or with
Lach. wbi summa profundist: 1072 eam magis ob rem: 1073 repelli. 1073 Lach.
reads alio for alia, and proposes meare at end, and malle putari in 1072: he declines
to prophesy in 1068 and 1069. 1071 Mar. Junt. most truly neque omnino 81
iam medium sit for denique omnino st iam. 1074 the end is supplied by Mar.
Ald. 1 and Junt. 1075 debet Wak., oportet older corr. 1076 Aeque Junt.
for aequis which Wak, absurdly defends. 1078 in added by Mar. Ald. 1 Junt.

1082 concilio Mar. Junt. for concilium, the m coming from medit. concilium...vectae
Lach. which seems less poetical. vinctae Bentl. 1085 1086 are transposed by Mar.
and Junt. followed by all before Lach.: but Ussing, Tidsskr. for Philol. vi, has
rightly seen that a v. is lost before 1085, which comparing v1 495 I would thus
supply Et quae de supero in terram mittuntur ut imbres.

76 I

nec quod inane autem est ulli subsistere debet,
quin, sua quod natura petit, concedere pergat. . 1080
haud igitur possunt tali ratione tener
res in concilio medii cuppedine victae.
Praeterea quoniam non omnia corpora fingunt
in medium niti, sed terrarum, atque liquoris
et quasi terreno quae corpore contineantur, 1085
umorem ponti magnasque e montibus undas,
at contra tenuis exponunt aeris auras
et calidos simul a medio differrier ignis,
atque ideo totum circum tremere aethera signis
et solis flammam per caeli caerula pasci, 1090
quod calor a medio fugiens se 101 conligat omnis,
nec prorsum arboribus summos frondescere ramos
posse, nisi a terris paulatim cuique cibatum

; : : 1095
: : ; I10O
1091 se ἰδὲ Wak. for sibi, 1094—1101: A has faithfully left a blank space

for these eight lost verses: they came at the beginning of p. 46 of the lost arche-
type; the eight mutilated lines above having headed the page on the other side of the
leaf; Lach. therefore most justly concludes that this part of the leaf in the original
of our mss. was by some accident torn away. Both the old ms, collations of A and
B which I possess mention this lacuna: Heinsius says ‘in A octo versuum hiatus
erat relictus’: the less careful Vossius, though the manuscript was his own, merely
says ‘vide ms. in quo hiatus post haec verba’, Think now of Havercamp, a Pro-
fessor in the University where A and B then were, never noting this fact, but
inserting the miserable makeshift verse of Mar. and Junt. Terra det: at supra circum
tegere omnia caelum; stealing the critical note of the London bookseller’s edition,
and stating that this spurious verse was not in B, from which every reader must
infer it wasin A. I formerly made the following verses to shew the general sense
of those which are lost: Diffundat truncum ac ramos natura per omnis, Scilicet
incerto diversi errore vagantes Argumenta sibi prorsum pugnantia fingunt. Quae
tamen omnia sunt falsa ratione recepta. Nam quoniam docut spatium sine fine
modoque Inmensumque patere in cunctas undique partis, Sic parili ratione necessest

suppeditetur Infinita etiam vis undique materiai, Ne cet. Pontanus saw that the
passage was a fragment.

I 77

ne volucri ritu flammarum moenia mundi
diffugiant subito magnum per inane soluta
et ne cetera consimili ratione sequantur
neve ruant caeli penetralia templa superne 1105
terraque se pedibus raptim subducat et omnis
inter permixtas rerum caclique ruinas
corpora solventes abeat per inane profundum,
temporis ut puncto nil extet reliquiarum
desertum praeter spatium et primordia caeca. IIIO
nam quacumque prius de parti corpora desse
constitues, haec rebus erit pars ianua leti,
hac se turba foras dabit omnis materiai.
Haec sei pernosces, parva perductus opella
namque alid ex alio clarescet nec tibi caeca L115
nox iter eripiet quin ultima naturai
pervideas: ita res accendent lumina rebus.

1105 penetralia Nice. for tonetralia; rightly followed by all the old eds. before
Lamb. who reads tonitralia: v1 865 sonitus all mss. for penitus: neither tone-
tralia nor tonitralia is Latin. 1108 abeat Ed. after Mar. Junt. for abeant
wrongly adapted to the adjacent plural: comp. vr 286: omnis agrees with terra:
comp. vi 605 sqq.: Lach. in 1106 reads omnia, as also 1 719 without authority.
1114 sez Ed. after Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. etc. for sic: a verse is here lost which
I feel sure was of this kind, Cetera iam poteris per te tute ipse videre, with which
the preceding words parva perductus opella must be joined: Lucr. says it is hard to
master his principles, but when that is thoroughly done, then led on with little
trouble you may learn the rest yourself: comp. especially 400—417, and see Camb.
Journ. of phil. τ p. 374. Lach. for sic reads scio and perdoctus for perductus, and
then gets no satisfactory sense: Mar. and Junt. read non for nec in 1115: Lamb.
perjunctus for perdoctus: Bern. sis, and perdoctus after Lach.

T. LUCRETI CARI

DE RERUM NATURA

LIBER SECUNDUS

Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis.

e terra magnum alterius spectare laborem ;

non quia vexarl quemquamst iucunda voluptas,

sed quibus ipse malis careas quia cernere suave est.
6 suave etiam belli certamina magna tuer 5
5 per campos instructa tua sine parte pericli.

sed nil dulcius est, bene quam munita tenere

edita doctrina sapientum templa serena,

despicere unde queas alos passimque videre

errare atque viam palantis quacrere vitae, IO

certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,

noctes atque dies niti praestante labore

ad summas emergere opes rerumque potiri.

o miseras hominum mentes, o pectora caeca !

qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque periclis 15

degitur hoc aevi quodcumquest! nonne videre

nil aliud 5101 naturam latrare, nisi utqui

corpore seiunctus dolor absit, mente fruatur

5 and 6 rightly transposed by Avancius. 12 praestante plabore AB. prae-
stantes prae labore Nice. p. m. 16 nonne videre AB Gott. which Gif.,
followed tacitly by Lamb. ed. 3, has most properly retained. videre est was the
common reading, which Lach. shews Lucr. could not have written, ‘ videtis
Marull.’ says Gif.: and in cod. Victor. Marullus p. τὰ. videtis; 5. m. videre est,
as Junt.: videtis Ald. 1, and this is mentioned as a var. lec. at end of Junt.: so
also Lamb. ed. 1, but videre est ed. 2. 17—19 mss. are quite right: see
notes 2: 17 utqui. ut cut Avance. Lach, wt quoi Gif. 18 mente. menti’

Vil 79

iucundo sensu cura semota metuque ?

ergo corpoream ad naturam pauca videmus 20
esse opus omnino, quae dement cumque dolorem.

dclicias quoque uti multas substernere possint

gratius interdum, neque natura ipsa requirit,

si non aurea sunt iuvenum simulacra per acdes

lampadas igmiferas manibus retinentia dextris, 2:
lumina nocturnis epulis ut suppeditentur,

nec domus argento fulget auroque renidet

nec citharae reboant laqueata aurataque tecta,

cum tamen inter se prostrati in graminec molli

propter aquae rivum sub ramis arboris altae 30
non magnis opibus iucunde corpora curant,

praesertim cum tempestas adridet et anni

tempora conspergunt viridantis floribus herbas.

nec calidae citius decedunt corpore febres,

textilibus si in picturis ostroque rubenti τς
lacteris, quam si in plebeia veste cubandum est.
quapropter quoniam nil nostro in corpore gazae

proficiunt neque nobilitas nec gloria regmi,

quod superest, animo quoque nil prodesse putandum;

si non forte tuas legiones per loca campi 40
fervere cum videas belli simulacra cientis,

Lach. without cause. 19 semota. semotu’ Lamb. in notes, Gif. Bentl.
Lach. for semota. 21 22 23 see notes 2 for the explanation of this pas-
sage which I have corrected by a better punctuation. 27 fulget auroque.

fulgenti Lach. But comp. v 1049 sciret animoque, where Lachmann’s scirent
perverts the meaning. fulgens, renidens Macrob. sat. v1 2 Pont. Avance. Junt.

ete. fulgens rentdet Mar. P. Crinitus de hon. disc. xvir 6. 28 citharae.
citharam Macrob. sat. v1 2, cithara id. τι 4. aurataque. ornataque Lach.
arquataque Bern. tecta Lach, for templa, and Macrob. sat. v1 4, but v1 2 tempe,

which comes perhaps from the preceding passage of Virgil: yet the templa of the
mss. of Lucr. may have a technical meaning. [But for tecta and templa confused
see O. Hirschfeld untersuch. p. 149, and p. 187 ἢ. 4.] 36 Iacteris. Iactaris
Lamb. ed. 2 and 3. 41 Fervere Flor. 30 corr. Flor. 31 Camb. for Fruere A,
Eruere B. 40—46: this passage I think I have arranged much better than
Lach. or Bern.: 42 et ecum vi (etectivi) Ed. for epicuri: comp. tariter of mss. for
pariter in 43: 43 Ornatasq. armis statuas pariterque Ed. for Ornatas armis itastuas
(ttasiuas B Gott.) tariterque: then Fervere cum videas classem lateque vagari, which
is not found in our mss. but is quoted by Nonius p. 503 from Lucretius lib. n,
is clearly in its right place after 46, not 43, where Lach. and others have put it:
I have also put a stop after pavide in 45. For statuas corrupted into itastuas

80 IT

subsidiis magnis et ecum vi constabilitas,
ornatasgue armis statuas pariterque animatas,
his tibi tum rebus timefactae religiones
effugiunt animo pavide; mortisque timores 45
tum vacuum pectus lincunt curaque solutum,
fervere cum videas classem lateque vagari.
quod si ridicula haec ludibriaque esse videmus,
re veraque metus hominum curaeque sequaces
nec metuunt sonitus armorum nec fera tela
audacterque inter reges rerumque potentis 50
versantur neque fulgorem reverentur ab auro
nec clarum vestis splendorem purpureai,
quid dubitas quin omni’ sit haec rationi’ potestas ?
omnis cum in tenebris praesertim vita laboret.
nam veluti pueri trepidant atque omnia caecis 55
in tenebris metuunt, sic nos in luce timemus
interdum, milo quae sunt metuenda magis quam
quae pueri in tenebris pavitant finguntque futura.
hune igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest
non radii solis neque lucida tela 616] 60
discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque.
Nunc age, quo motu genitalia material
corpora res varias gignant genitasque resolvant

comp. Lach. to 1v 283, and istatuam for statuam in Orelli inscript. 1120.
Because Lucr. v 1227 has Induperatorem classis super aequora verrit Cun
validis pariter legionibus atque elephantis, Lach. says ‘apparet haec ita legenda
esse, Subsidiis magnisque elcphantis constabilitas, Ornatas armis, validas, pa-
riterque animatas’, The apparet is anything but clear to me. Bern. reads
hastatis for epicuri, pariter for itastuas. See Lach. on the way these two verses
are written in AB; Nice. omits them: later mss. Flor. 31 Camb. etc. treat
them as a heading: the old eds. to Ald. 1 and Pius inclusive have them vari-
ously corrupted. Junt. first omits them in text with this note at end, ‘ Subsidiis
magnis Epicuri constabilitas. Marullus carmen hoc expungit. Nam illud, ornatas
armis statuas, stanteisque animatas, procul dubio subditicium est’: and in cod.
Victor. Marullus does expunge them. All subsequent eds. before Lach. omitted
them, except Gif. who mixes up a portion of them with a part of the line from
Nonius in this fashion, Fervere cum videas; classem lateque vagari, Ornatamque
arnis belli simulacra cientem. Lamb. ed. 3 first gives the 1. from Nonius in
full. 46 pectus Lamb. for tempus: a necessary change. Aen. 1 46 tempore
Probus for pectore. 52 purpureai Nice. for purpura. 53 Mar. Ald. 1 Junt.
Lamb. ommne sit hoc rationis egestas, perversely. 54 laboret Nicc. B corr. for
raboret, 56 sic, a3 in 111 88 v1 36. ita Senec. epist. 110, shewing what little

II SI

et qua vi facere id cogantur quaeque sit ollis
reddita mobilitas magnum per inane meandi, 65
expediam: tu te dictis praebere memento.
nam certe non inter se stipata cohaeret
materies, quoniam minul rem quamque videmus
et quasi longinquo fluere omnia cernimus acevo
ex oculisque vetustatem subducere nostris, 70
cum tamen incolumis videatur summa manere
propterea quia, quae decedunt corpora cuique,
unde abeunt minuunt, quo venere augmine donant,
illa senescere at haec contra florescere cogunt,
nec remorantur ibi. sic rerum summa novatur ἘΠῚ
semper, et inter se mortales mutua vivunt.
augescunt aliac gentes, aliae minuuntur,
inque brevi spatio mutantur saecla animantum
et quasi cursores vital lampada tracunt.
Si cessare putas rerum primordia posse SO
cessandoque novos rerum progignere motus,
avius a vera longe ratione vagaris.
nam quoniam per inane vagantur, cuncta necessest
aut gravitate sua ferrt primordia rerum
aut ictu forte alterius. nam cum cita saepe 85
obvia conflixere, fit ut diversa repente
dissiliant ; neque enim mirum, durissima quae sint
ponderibus solidis neque quicquam a tergo ibus obstet.
et quo iactarl magis omnia material
corpora pervideas, reminiscere totius imum 90
nil esse in summa, neque habere ubi corpora prima
consistant, quoniam spatium sine fine modoquest
inmensumque patere in cunctas undique partis
pluribus ostendi et certa ratione probatumst.
quod quoniam constat, nimirum nulla quies est 95

reliance can be placed on such citations: comp. n. to 1 66. 68 quamque
videmus Nice. B corr. for quamquidenus. 73 augmine B corr. Nice, corr. for
agnuine. 84 ferri Nice. B corr. for terri. 85 nam cum (quom) cita Wak.
for nam cita. cita superne Nice. concita saepe Flor. 31 Camb. 86 conflixere
Lamb. in notes for conflexere. confluxere Nicc. etc. cum flixere Lamb. wt Avance.
for uti. ita wti Flor. 31 Camb. etc. 88 tergo ibus Is. Vossius in ms. notes
(not Preiger) most rightly for tergibus. 95 nulla Nice. for multa. invita Is.

M. 6

82 ΤΙ

reddita corporibus primis per inane profundum,

sed magis adsiduo varioque exercita motu

partim intervallis magnis confulta resultant,

pars etiam brevibus spatiis vexantur ab ictu,

et quaecumque magis condenso conciliatu 100
exiguis iIntervallis convecta resultant,

indupedita suis perplexis ipsa figuris,

haec validas saxi radices et fera ferri

corpora constituunt et cetera de genere horum

paucula quae porro magnum per inane vagantur. TO5
cetera dissiliunt longe longeque recursant

in magnis intervallis: haec aera rarum

sufficiunt nobis et splendida lumina solis.

multaque praeterea magnum per inane vagantur,

conciliis rerum quae sunt reiecta nec usquam I1O
consociare etiam motus potuere recepta.

culus, uti memoro, rei simulacrum et imago

ante oculos semper nobis versatur et instat.

contemplator enim, cum solis lumina cumque

inserti fundunt radii per opaca domorum : II5
multa minuta modis multis per inane videbis

corpora misceri radiorum lumine in ipso

et velut aeterno certamine proelia pugnas

edere turmatim certantia nec dare pausam,

conciliis et discidiis exercita crebris ; 120
conicere ut possis ex hoc, primordia rerum

quale sit in magno lactarl semper inani.

dumtaxat rerum magnarum parva potest res

exemplare dare et vestigia notitiai.

hoc etiam magis haec animum te advertere par est 125
corpora quae in solis radiis turbare videntur,

quod tales turbae motus quogque materiai

Vossius in ms, notes. 98 confulta mss. and so Pont. Avanc. Pius Nauge-
rius. consulta Ver. Ven. Gif. conflicta 2 Vat. Mar. Junt. Lamb. ed. 1 and 2,
Wak. Creech. contusa Lamb, ed. 3. conpulsa Heins. in ms. notes.

99 brevibus Nicc. for brevius. 112 memoro ret Vat. 1706 Reg. (‘ olim Nicolai
Heinsii’) Pont. Avanc. vulg. for memoror rei. 118 proelia pugnas : so τν 1009.
proelia pugnasque Camb. Nicc. corr. Mar. Junt. wrongly. 125 magis haec.
‘Marull. contra v. 1. seripserat, huc’ Gif.: both Ald. 1 and Junt. have mage ad

II 83

significant elandestinos caecosque subesse.
multa videbis enim plagis ibi percita caecis
commutare viam retroque repulsa reverti 130
nunc hue nune illuc in cunctas undique partis.
scilicet hic a principiis est omnibus error.
prima moventur enim per se primordia rerum ;
inde ea quae parvo sunt corpora coneiliatu
et quasi proxima sunt ad viris principiorum, 135
ictibus illorum caecis inpulsa cientur,
ipsaque proporro paulo maiora lacessunt.
510. a principiis ascendit motus et exit
paulatim nostros ad sensus, ut moveantur
illa quoque, in solis quae lumine cernere quimus 140
nec quibus id faciant plagis apparet aperte.
Nune quae mobilitas sit reddita materiai
corporibus, paucis licet hinc cognoscere, Memmi.
primum aurora novo cum spargit lumine terras
et variae volucres nemora avia pervolitantes 145
aera per tenerum liquidis loca vocibus opplent,
quam subito soleat sol ortus tempore tali
convestire sua perfundens omnia luce,
omnibus in promptu manifestumque esse videmus.
at vapor 15 quem sol mittit lumenque serenum 150
non per inane meat vacuum; quo tardius ire
cogitur, aerias quasi dum diverberet undas.
nec singillatim corpuscula quaeque vaporis
sed complexa meant inter se conque globata;
quapropter simul inter se retrahuntur et extra 155
officiuntur, uti cogantur tardius ire.
at quae sunt solida primordia simplicitate,
cum per inane meant vacuum nec res remoratur

hoc; but over haee in cod. Victor. was once written a word carefully erased, as some
mark under haec has been, quite confirming Gif.: see above p. 9. 134 con-
ciliatu Niece. for conciliata. 137 Ipsaque proporro Turneb. advers. v 27 Lach.
for Ipsaque porro. Ipsaque quae Camb. vulg. Ictaque quae Flor. 31. 152 quasi
dum diverberet. quod sol diverberat Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. vulg. Lamb. ed. 1.
quasi tum diverberet Lamb. ed. 2, auasi dum diverberat ed. 3, as Pont. before,
‘pessime’ says Lach.: ‘nam dum intellegendum est donec’. But in my opinion,
though the subj. is quite right, Lamb. well defends the indic, which is also
tenable, 155 se retrahuntur Priscian for se trahuntur. 158 remoratur

6—2

84 1

ulla foris atque ipsa, suis e partibus una,
unum In quem coepere locuin conixa feruntur, 160
debent nimirum praecellere mobilitate
et multo citius ferri quam lumina solis
multiplexque loci spatium transcnrrere eodem
tempore quo solis pervolgant fulgura caelum.
x

[nec persectari primordia singula quaeque 165
ut wdeant qua quicque geratur cum ratione.

At quidam contra haec, ignari materia,
naturam non posse deum sine numine credunt
tanto opere humanis rationibus admoderate
tempora mutare annorum frugesque creare, 170
et iam cetera, mortalis quae suadet adire
ipsaque deducit dux vitae dia voluptas
et res per Veneris blanditur saecla propagent,
ne genus occidat humanum. quorum omnia causa
constituisse deos cum fingunt, omnibu’ rebus
magno opere a vera lapsi ratione videntur.
nam quamvis rerum ignorem primordia quae sint,
hoc tamen ex ipsis caeli rationibus ausim
confirmare aliisque ex rebus reddere multis,
nequaquam nobis divinitus csse creatam 180
naturam mundi: tanta stat praedita culpa.
quae tibi pusterius, Memmi, faciemus aperta.

μ᾿
SJ
rn

Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for remoravit. 159 ipsa, suis e partibus una, Unum
Kid. for ipsa suis 6 partibus unum Unum: the contrast with 153—156 shews this
to be necessary: comp. also 1 599 etc.: the repetition of unum wnwm has here no
force whatever. 160 conixa. conexa mss. connixa Ver. Ven. followed by
Nauger. and vulgo: it should be conixa.

165—183 Lach. has most justly marked off from the context, as interrupting
the argument, though indisputably written by Lucretius: some verses too have
clearly been lost before 165: as Pontanus has seen, who says ‘ fragmentum?’:
Marullus supplied the unmeaning Nam negue consilio debent tardata morari,
which became the vulgate. Bern. puts 167 before 165, and in 166 reads persectati,
and supposes no lacuna. 166 Ut videant Nicc. for Ut deant. 168 numine
credunt Ed. for numine reddi, and Pont. I now find: the e of numine has absorbed
the c, and redunt in mss. much resembles reddi. rentur Mar. Junt. vulgo ‘ prorsus
egregie’ says Lach, Wak. absurdly defends reddi. 169 has been much tam-
pered with in the vulg. eds. without any reason. 181 tanta stat praedita
Lach., as in the repetition v 199, for quamquam predita. quae tanta est praedita

II 85

nunc id quod superest de motibus expediemus. |

Nunc locus est, ut opinor, in his illud quoque rebus
confirmare tibi, nullam rem posse sua Vi 185
corpoream sursum ferri sursumque meare ;
ne tibi dent in eo flammarum corpora fraudem.
sursus enim versus gignuntur et augmina sumunt
et sursum nitidae fruges arbustaque crescunt,
pondera, quantum in se est, cum deorsum cuncta ferantur.
nec cum subsiliunt ignes ad tecta domorum 19!
et celeri flamma degustant tigna trabesque,
sponte sua facere id sine vi subigente putandum est.
quod genus e nostro quom missus corpore sanguis
emicat exultans alte spargitque cruorem. 195
nonne vides etiam quanta vi tigna trabesque
respuat umor aquae? nam quo magis ursimus alte
derecta et magna vi multi pressimus aegre,
tam cupide sursum revomit magis atque remittit,
plus ut parte foras emergant exilantque. 200
nec tamen haec, quantum est in se, dubitamus, opinor,
quin vacuum per inane deorsum cuncta ferantur.
sic igitur debent flammae quoque posse per auras
aerils expressae sursum succedere, quamquam
pondera, quantum in sest, deorsum deducere pugnent, 205
nocturnasque faces caeli sublime volantis
nonne vides longos flammarum ducere tractus
in quascumque dedit partis natura meatum ?
non cadere in terram stellas et sidera cernis ?
sol etiam caeli de vertice dissipat omnis 210

Pont. Junt. vulgo, which may be right. Wak. adopts the interpolation of Nice.
quamquan haec sint praedita, and gives a ludicrous explanation of it. 187 frau-
dem. frudem B: see νι 187. 193 subigente Lamb. Creech Lach. for subiecta.
subeunte Bern. which is hardly so near the ms. reading: see Madvig emend. Liv.
Ῥ. 3510. 194 Quod genus e nostro. Quod genus est Lach. justly blamed by
Madvig Lat. gram. ed. 3 p. 1x for the way in which he deals with quod genus here
and in other places. quom Nice. com A Lach. cum B. 197 ursimus. wrginus
A corr. Nice. Camb. alte Flor. 31 for altu. 198 Derecta. Deiecta
Lach. 199 revomit Pont. Nauger. for removet. 203 debent flammae
quoque Ald, 1 Junt. for q. ἃ. fl. 205 in se est deorsum deducere Mar,
Ald. 1 Junt. for inest deorsum ducere. in se est Flor. 31 Camb. quantum
est in se deorsum ducere one Vat. Pont. Lach. 209 cadere
in terram Nicc. for caderem in terra. 210 caeli Bern. better than summo

86 II

ardorem in partis et lumine conserit arva;
in terras igitur quoque solis vergitur ardor.
transversosque volare per imbris fulmina cernis:
nune hine nunc illine abrupti nubibus ignes
concursant ; cadit in terras vis flammea volgo. 215
Illud in his quoque te rebus cognoscere avemus,
corpora cum deorsum rectum per inane feruntur
ponderibus propris, se incerto tempore ferme
incertisque locis spatio depellere paulum,
tantum quod momen mutatum dicere possis. 220
quod nisi dechnare solerent, omnia deorsum,
imbris uti guttae, caderent per inane profundun,
nec foret offensus natus nec plaga creata
principus: ita nil umquam natura creasset.
Quod si forte aliquis credit graviora potesse 225
corpora, quo citius rectum per inane feruntur,
incidere ex supero levionbus atque ita plagas
gignere quae possint genitalis reddere motus,
avius a vera longe ratione recedit.
nam per aquas quaecumque cadunt atque aera rarum, 230
haec pro ponderibus casus cclerare necessest
propterea quia corpus aquae naturaque tenvis
aeris haut possunt aeque rem quamque morari,
sed citius cedunt gravioribus exsuperata ;
at contra nulli de nulla parte neque ullo 235
tempore inane potest vacuum subsistere rei,
quin, sua quod natura petit, concedere pergat ;
omnia quapropter debent per mane quietum
aeque ponderibus non aequis concita ferri.
haud igitur poterunt levioribus incidere umquam 240
ex supero graviora neque ictus gignere per se

or aetherio of older editors: cacli I had myself restored from Cie. Arat. 297
summo caeli de vertice tranans. 214 abrupti. abruptis Maer. sat. vi 1 27.
218 se added by Ed. ferme Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. for firme. 219 mss.
are quite right: see notes 2: loci spatiis decellere Lach. whom I before followed.
220 momen. minimum two Vat. and old eds. before Junt. 226 feruntur.
ferantur Vict. 227 plagas B corr. and Lamb. for plag. plagis Nice. followed
by all before Lamb. 229 dAvius Nicc. for Aulus. 233 Aeris haud Nicc.
for Haeraut A, Haeraud B Gott. 234 exsuperata Mar, Junt. for exsuperate.
exsuperatae Nice. perhaps rightly. 240 poterunt Flor, 31 Camb. for potue-

II 87

qui varient motus per quos natura gerat res.

quare etiam atque etiam paulum inclinare necessest

corpora; nec plus quam minimum, ne fingere motus

obliquos videamur et id res vera refutet. 245

namque hoe in promptu manifestumque esse videmus,

pondera, quantum in sest, non posse obliqua meare,

ex supero cum praecipitant, quod cernere possis ;

sed nil omnino recta regione viai

declinare quis est qui possit cernere sese ? 250
Denique si semper motus conectitur omnis

et vetere exoritur semper novus ordine certo

nec declinando faciunt primordia motus

principlum quoddam quod fati foedera rumpat,

ex infinito ne causam causa sequatur,

hbera per terras unde haec animantibus exstat

unde est haec, inquam, fatis avolsa potestas

per quam progredimur quo ducit quemque voluntas,

declinamus item motus nec tempore certo

nec regione loci certa, sed ubi ipsa tulit mens ? 260

nam dubio procul his rebus sua cuique voluntas

principium dat et hinc motus per membra rigantur.

nonne vides etiam patefactis tempore puncto

carceribus non posse tamen prorumpere equorum

ty
cyt
Lo a |

vim cupidam tam de subito quam mens avet ipsa? 265

omnis enim totum per corpus material

copia conquiri debet, concita per artus

omnis ut studium mentis conixa sequatur ;
runt, 241 se is found in all mss, 247 se before est added by Flor. 31
Camb. etc. 249 recta added by Nicc. whom all before Lach. rightly followed :
it was absorbed by the similar letters in regione. mulla regione Lach. 250 De-

clinare quis est qui possit cernere sese: this reading of all mss. and editions I now
keep: the constr. is not harsher than others in Lucr.: see notes 2, de se Ed. in
small ed. for 5686. sensus Bern. praestet Lach. for possit. 251 motus Flor. 31
Camb. for motu. 252 semper added after exoritur by Nicc. Flor. 31 Camb. all
editors before Lach. exacto added by Lach. before exoritur: obviously not right,
as the new motion does not first begin when the other ceases: the reason of the
omission was the semper of 251. novus atque ex ordine Pont. 257 potestas
Lach. for voluptas: a certain correction: comp. 286: Lamb. in vain transposes
voluptas and voluntas of 258: Flor. 31 Camb. have voluptas in both places, but
it can be right in neither. 264 equorum Brix. for quorum, not Nicc. Flor. 31
Camb. or Ver. Ven. 267 conquiri A corr. Gott. Nice. vulg. for conciri of

88 II

ut videas initum motus a corde creari
ex animique voluntate id procedere primum, 270
inde dari porro per totum corpus et artus.
nec similest ut cum impulsi procedimus ictu
viribus alterlus magnis magnoque coactu ;
nam tum materiem totius corporis omnem
perspicuumst nobis invitis ire rapique, 275
donec eam refrenavit per membra voluntas.
lamne vides igitur, quamquam vis extera multos
pellat et invitos cogat procedere saepe
praecipitesque rapi, tamen esse in pectore nostro
quiddam quod contra pugnare obstareque possit ? 280
cuius ad arbitrium quoque copia material
cogitur interdum flecti per membra per artus
et proiecta refrenatur retroque residit.
quare in seminibus quoque idem fateare necessest,
esse aliam praeter plagas et pondera causam 285
motibus, unde haec est nobis innata potestas,
de nilo quoniam fieri nil posse videmus.
pondus enim prohibet ne plagis omnia fiant
externa quasi vi; sed ne mens ipsa necessuin
intestinum habeat cunctis in rebus agendis 290
et devicta quasi hoc cogatur ferre patique,
id facit exiguum clinamen principlorum
nec regione loci certa nec tempore certo.
Nec stipata magis fuit umquam material
copia nec porro maioribus intervallis ; 205
nam neque adaugescit quicquam neque deperit inde.
quapropter quo nunc in motu principiorum

Ap.m.B which Lach, keeps: both must have been in the archetype. 268
coniza Gif. for conexa, as in 100, conexa is absurd, though in nearly all eds.
before Lach. Lamb. says some mss. have connixa: but that I doubt. 275
perspicuum nobisst AB for perspicuumst nobis: see Lach. for the strange frequency
with which st is thus transposed in AB. 277 extera. extima Pont. Mar.
vulgo wrongly ; prob. from the extrema of Nicc. 278 279 Pellat...rapi Avance,
rightly for Pallat...rapit. Pellit...cogit...rapit Junt. and vulg. before Wak.
Fallat A corr. Nicc. Flor. 31 Camb. all Vat. Pellat...cogat Mar. Fallit, cogit,
rapit Pont. 281 copia Flor. 31 Camb. forcona. 283 residit Flor. 31 for residia.

291 quasi Nice. for φμαεῖ. hoc add. by Ed. id Lach. 294 fuit umquam Junt.
not Mar. for fultum quam. Cic. ad Att. x111 40 1 for the corrupt hic autem ut fultum

Il 89

corpora sunt, in eodem ante acta aetate fucre
et post haec semper simili ratione ferentur,
et quae consuerint gigni gignentur eadem 300
condicione et ernnt et crescent vique valebunt,
quantum cuique datum est per foedera naturai.
nec rerum summam commutare ulla potest vis ;
nam neque, quo possit genus ullum material
effugere ex omni, quicquam est extra, neque In omne 305
unde coorta queat nova vis inrumpere et omnem
naturam rerum mutare et vertere motus.
Illud in his rebus non est mirabile, quare,
omnia cum rerum primordia sint in motu,
summa tamen summa videatur stare quicte, 310
praeterquam siquid proprio dat corpore motus.
omnis enim longe nostris ab sensibus infra
primorum natura lacet: quapropter, ubi ipsa
cerncre lam nequeas, motus quoque surpere debent;
praesertim cum, quae possimus cernere, celent 315
saepe tamen motus spatio diducta locorum.
ham saepe in colli tondentes pabula laeta
lanigerae reptant pecudes quo quamque vocantes
invitant herbae gemmantes rore recenti,
et satiati agni Iudunt blandeque coruscant ; 320
omnia quae nobis longe confusa videntur
et velut in viridi candor consistere colli.
praeterea magnae legiones cum loca cursu
camporum complent belli simulacra cientes,
fulgor ibi ad caelum se tollit totaque circum 325
aere renidescit tellus supterque virum vi
excitur pedibus sonitus clamoreque montes

est read hic autem, ut futt tum, est. 801 vique valebunt. inque valebunt Pont.
Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. ‘vix latine’ says Lach. 305 extra added by Ed. after
quicquam est, in which it was absorbed: the sentence requires this: comp. v 361
and 1 963, and Camb, Journ. of phil. 1 p. 375. Lach. adds seorsuwm at end of verse.
neque rursus in omre Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. 313 ipsa Gif. for ipsum. 314
surpere Pont. Junt. for asurpere. 322 vel ut in Lach. rightly for veluté in of all
mss. and eds.: mss. seem to have a tendeucy to this blunder: 780 wti in for ut in;
above v. 86 fit uti for fit ut; Virg. Aen. 1v 402 veluti ingentem M ac, velut P yb
rightly ; vi 708 veluti in FGM, velut in P etc. ap. Ribbeck: wti is never found before
a vowel: see also 536 and Lach. there. 325 ibi Mar. Ald, 1 Junt. for udi.

90 II

icti reiectant voces ad sidera mundi
et circumvolitant equites mediosque repente
tramittunt valido quatientes 1mpete campos. 330
et tamen est quidam locus altis montibus unde
stare videntur et in campis consistere fulgor.
Nunc age iam deinceps cunctarum exordia rerum
qualia sint et quam longe distantia formis
pereipe, multigenis quam sint variata figuris; 335
non quo multa parum simuili sint praedita forma,
sed quia non volgo paria omnibus omnia constant.
nec mirum; nam cum sit eorum copia tanta
ut neque finis, uti docui, neque summa sit ulla,
debent nimirum non omnibus omnia prorsum 340
esse pari filo similique adfecta figura.
praeter eat genus humanum mutaeque natantes
squamigerum pecudes et laeta armenta feraeque
et variae volucres, laetantia quae loca aquarum
concelebrant circum ripas fontisque lacusque, 345
et quae pervolgant nemora avia pervolitantes ;
quorum unum quidvis generatim sumere perge,
invenies tamen inter se differre figuris.
nec ratione alia proles cognoscere matrem
nec mater posset prolem; quod posse videmus 350
nec minus atque homines inter se nota cluere.
nam saepe ante deum vitulus delubra decora
turicremas propter mactatus concidit aras
sanguinis expirans calidum de pectore flumen ;
at mater viridis saltus orbata peragrans 355
noscit humi pedibus vestigia pressa bisulcis,
omnia convisens oculis loca si queat usquam

330 tramittunt A, transmittunt B. 331 wnde added by Nicc. 337 con-
stant Nicc. Flor. 31 Camb. vulg. Lamb. for constat: 694 constant B Nice. (?), Camb.
vulg.: 724 constent AB vulg.: in all three places constent Lach.; but I believe the
indic. to be right, and the subj. to have come from the adjacent verbs: see notes
2. 342 Practer eat Kd. for Praetere. Praeterea Nonius p. 158. Praestat rem
Ed. formerly. Parturiunt Lach. which I don’t understand. Praeterea and 347
Horum for Quorum Junt. vulgo: not Mar. 343 armenta Bentl. and Tonson’s
edition for arbusta. 347 quidvis Lach. for quodvis, as τν 126. 356 Noscit
Lach, for Nonquit A Flor. 31 Camb. etc. Non quid Nice. Oingrit B, Oinquid Gott.
Linquit B corr. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulgo, without sense. Novit Brieger: but Lucr.

II ΟΙ

conspiccre amissum fetum, completque querellis

frondiferum nemus absistens et crebra revisit

ad stabulum desiderio perfixa iuvenci, 360

nec tencrae salices atque herbae rore vigentes

fluminaque illa queunt summis labentia ripis

oblectare animum subitamque avertere curam,

nec vitulorum aliae species per pabula laeta

derivare queunt animum curaque levare: 365

usque adeo quiddam proprium notumque requirit.

praeterea tener tremulis cum vocibus haedi

cornigeras norunt matres agnique petulei

balantum pecudes: ita, quod natura reposcit,

ad sua quisque fere decurrunt ubera lactis. 170

postremo quodvis frumentum non tamen omne

quique suo genere inter se simile esse videbis,

quin intercurrat quaedam distantia formis.

concharumque genus parili ratione videmus

pingere tellurs gremium, qua mollibus undis 375

litoris incurvi bibulam pavit aequor harenam.

quare etiam atque etiam simil: ratione necessest,

natura quoniam constant neque facta manu sunt

unius ad certam formam primordia rerum,

dissimili inter se quaedam volitare figura. 380
Perfacile est tali ratione exsolvere nobis

quare fulmineus multo penetralior ignis

quam noster fuat e taedis terrestribus ortus ;

dicere enim possis caelestem fulminis ignem

suptilem magis e parvis constare figuris 385

rather uses nosco. 359 absistens Ed. for adsittens. adsidueis Lach. which is
very weak, adsistens B corr. Nice. vulg. 361 vigentes. virentes Macrob. sat.
VI 2. 362 illa AB Gott. ulla Macrob. 1.1. ‘B corr.’ says Lach. A corr. as I and
Heins. have noted, Camb. vulgo. 363 subitam I now keep: see notes 2. sump-
tam Ed. in lst ed. solitam Lach.; but the care here is quite insolita. 365
curaque. curamque A corr. Nice. 369 Bulantum A Gott. Nice. ete. Balatum B
Flor. 31 Camb. ete. 371 non tamen omne. non ita, Memmi Bruno (Harburg
1872, p. 3): acutely; but see notes 2, 372 quique Lach. for quidque.

376 pavit. lavit Nonius Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. in text, but in notes he prefers
pavit. 381 est tali Lach. for est animi. est parili Bern. not so well: the ¢ of
tali was absorbed in est. est iam animi Lamb.; but animi is out of place.

383 fuat Faber and Bentl. for jluat: Livy xxv 12 6 mss. have fluat for fuat. 387

92 Π

atque ideo transire foramina quae nequit ignis
noster hic e lignis ortus taedaque creatus.
praeterea lumen per cornum transit, at umber
respuitur. quare? nisi luminis illa minora
corpora sunt quam de quibus est liquor almus aquarum.
et quamvis subito per colum vina videmus 301
perfluere; at contra tardum cunctatur olivom,
aut quia nimirum manioribus’ est elementis
aut magis hamatis inter se perque plicatis,
atque ideo fit uti non tam diducta repente 395
inter se possint primordia singula quaeque
singula per culusque foramina permanare. |
Hue accedit uti mellis lactisque liquores
iucundo sensu linguae tractentur in ore;
at contra taetra absinthi natura ferique 400 |
centauri foedo pertorquent ora sapore ;
ut facile agnoscas e levibus atque rutundis
esse ea quae sensus lucunde tangere possunt,
at contra quae amara atque aspera cumque videntur,
haec magis hamatis inter se nexa teneri 405
proptereaque solere vias rescindere nostris
sensibus introituque suo perrumpere corpus.
Omnia postremo bona sensibus et mala tactu
dissimili inter se pugnant perfecta figura ;
ne tu forte putes serrae stridentis acerbum 410
horrorem constare elementis levibus aeque
ac musaea mele, per chordas organici quae
mobilibus digitis expergefacta figurant ;
neu simili penetrare putes primordia forma
in nares hominum, cum taetra cadavera torrent, 415
et cum scena croco Cilici perfusa recens est
araque Panchaeos exhalat propter odores ;
neve bonos rerum simili constare colores
semine constituas, oculos qui pascere possunt,
et qui conpungunt aciem lacrimareque cogunt 420

ortus. ortu Lach.: comp. τί 909 fit ortus, and 1141. 390 almus B corr. Brix,
Pont. amnis Mar. for alimus. 397 cutusque. coli usque Bruno (Harburg 1872).

401 ‘oratio lenius decurret, si scribemus pertorqueat. sed potest ferri pertorquent’
Lach. 403 iucunde tangere Nicc. for tucundet tacere. 413 JJobilibus Poli-

i 93

aut foeda specie dirz turpesque videntur.
omnis enim, sensus quae mulcet cumque, figura
haut sine principiali aliquo levore creatast ;
at contra quaecumque molesta atque aspera constat,
non aliquo sine materiae squalore repertast. 425
sunt etiam quae iam nec levia iure putantur
esse neque omnino flexis mucronibus unca,
sed magis angellis paulum: prostantibus, wtquz
titillare magis sensus quam laedere possint ;
faecula iam quo de genere est inulaeque sapores. 430
denique iam calidos ignis gelidamque pruinam
dissimili dentata modo conpungere scnsus
corporis, indicio nobis est tactus uterque.
tactus enim, tactus, pro divum numina sancta,
corporis cst sensus, vel cum res extera sese 435
insinuat, vel cum laedit quae in corpore natast
aut luvat egrediens genitalis per Veneris res,
aut ex offensu cum turbant corpore in ipso
semina confunduntqgue inter se concita sensum;
ut si forte manu quamvis iam corporis ipse 440
tute tibi partem ferias atque experiare.
quapropter longe formas distare necessest
principils, varios quae possint edere sensus.
Denique quae nobis durata ac spissa videntur,
haec magis hamatis inter sese esse necessest 445
et quasi ramosis alte compacta tener.

tian marg. Flor. 29 and Nauger. for nobilibus. 421 diri turpesque Lach. for di
turpesque. fedi turpesque, qui olidi t., tetri t., turpes olidique have all been read.
caeli turpesque Nice. and oldest eds. 422 figura Lach. after Schneidewin Phil.
ΠῚ p. 538 for videntur which has come from 421 aud supplanted the feminine sub-
stantive. quae mulcet causu tuvatque Junt. guae mulcet cunque iuvatque Avance.
without sense; but at end of his ed. of Catullus he bids us read quae mulcet causa
iuvatque. mulctat causa tuvatque Mar. apparently ; but the words are much erased.

423 levore Avane. for leviore. 427 unca. uncaquemss. 428 utqui added by Kd.
and N. P. Howard. et quae Flor. 31 Camb. vulgo. quaeque Lach. unde Bern. quique,
i.e. angelli, Ed. formerly: the que at end of 427 comes from the lost utqui. Then
429 possint A Nice. Flor. 31 Camb., and (as I learn from Lach. p. 298) cod. Sangal-
lens. schol. in Juvenalem; rightly, as the subj. is necessary. possunt B Gott. vulg.
Lach. 430 tnulaeque Lamb. first for inviaeque. vinique Nice. 437 egre-
diens Flor. 31 Camb. etc. for grediens. 438 aut: Lach. seems to me wrong in
changing this to atque. 439 que added by Mar. Junt. vulgo. 451 e Lach.

94 i

in quo iam genere in primis adamantina saxa

priina acie constant ictus contemnere sueta

et validi silices ac duri robora ferri

aeraque quae claustris restantia vociferantur. 450
illa quidem debent e levibus atque rutundis

esse magis, fluvido quae corpore liquida constant ;

NAMQUE PAPAVERIS HAUSTUS ITEMST FACILIS QUOD AQUARUM

nec retinentur enim inter se glomeramina quaeque

et procursus item proclive volubilis exstat. 455
omnia postremo quae puncto tempore cernis

diffugere, ut fumum nebulas flammasque, necessest,

si minus omnibu’ sunt e levibus atque rutundis,

at non esse tamen perplexis indupedita,

pungere uti possint corpus penetrareque vesea 460
nec tamen haerere inter se; quodcumque videmus

sensibu’ sedatum, facile ut cognoscere possis

non e perplexis sed acutis esse elementis.

sed quod amara vides eadem quae fluvida constant,

sudor uti maris est, minime mirabile habeto ; 465
nam quod fluvidus est, e levibus atque rutundis

est, et squalida multa creant admixta doloris :
corpora; nec tamen haec retineri hamata necessumst ;

for ex, as our mss. elsewhere have e before J. 452 corpore A corr. for corpora.
453 Lamb. justly ejects: it is quite out of place: does it refer to poppy seeds, or
poppy juice? in the former case it is untrue, in the latter unmeaning: Lach. retains
it, and for quod reads quasi after M. Haupt. 455 procursus Mar.? Junt. for
perculsus, 456—463: a passage variously emended: the changes J have made
are slight and I think not improbable. 458 omnibu’ Lamb, after Muretus for
omnia: comp. Iv 82 where I read Moenibw’ for Moenia. omnino sint levibus Pont.
Junt. 460 vesca Ed, for saxa: with penetrareque saxa of mss. for penetraregq.
vesca comp, VI 541 swmmersosca of mss. for summersag. saxa; and vi 22.) sasca mss.
for saxa. lara Kid. formerly. sese Lach. 462 sedatum of mss. I now keep:
sic latum Ed. formerly: Lach. reads 461 venenumst for videmus, and 462 sed rarum
for sedatum, making two chauges. Ventis esse datum Bern. strangely for Sensibus
sedatum, Sentibus esse datum Faber conjectures: but he thinks with Lamb. that
461—463 are spurious. 461 quodcumque. quod quisque Mar. Junt. vulg.,
wrongly joining this clause with the preceding. 465 habeto Ed. for debet.
habebis Lach.: but he thinks debet may be right and a verse be lost, and this Bern.
assumes. est minime mirabile habendum 3 Vat. Mon. Ald. 1 Junt. ‘ Marullus’ says
Gif. cuiquam Gif. ‘Ita v.1.’ i.e. Ver. Ven. he having the latter before him with Ma-
rullus’ ms. emendations; among which Marullus had inserted the reading of his
ms. Mon.: Brix. omits the word. 466 fluvidus est. fluvidum est Ver. Ven.

II 95

scilicet esse globosa tamen, cum squalida constent,
provolvi simul ut possiut et laedere sensus. 470
et quo mixta putes magis aspera levibus esse
principiis, unde est Neptuni corpus acerbum,
est ratio secernendi; scorsumque videndi
wumor dulcis, ubi per terras crebrius idem
percolatur, ut in foveam fluat ac mansucscat ; 475
linquit enim supera taetri primordia viri,
aspera quom magis in terris hacrescere possint.

Quod quoniam docui, pergam conectere rem quae
ex hoc apta fidem ducat, primordia rerum
finita variare figurarum ratione. 480
quod si non ita sit, rursum iam semina quaedam
esso infinito debebunt corporis auctu.
namque in eodem, una culusvis in brevitate
corporis inter se multum variare figurae
non possunt: fac enim minimis e partibus esse 485
corpora prima tribus, vel paulo pluribus auge ;
nempe ubi eas partis unius corporis omnis,
summa atque ima locans, transinutans dextera laevis,
omnimodis expertus eris, quam quisque det ordo
formal speciem totius corporis elus, 490
quod superest, si forte voles variare figuras,
addendum partis alias erit, inde sequetur,

followed by all eds. before Lach. though the metre is thereby violated. 467
Est e levibus atque rutundi admizxta doloris Corpora mss.: some of these words
it is plain have come from 466 and supplanted the words of Lucr. Est, et levibw
sunt aliunde etc. Lach.: but he adds ‘quamquam sic quoque mirationem faciunt
ila doloris Corpora, quae sunt pungentia sensus et laedentia’: quite true: Bern.
reads Est et squalida sunt illis etc., and squalida indeed seems necessary: I have
therefore written Est, et squalida multa creant admixta doloris Corpora: doloris
being of course the accus. plur. 468 necessumst Lach. for necessu. 469
constent old eds. for constet. 471 Et quo Pont. Mar. Junt. for Et quod.
471—4177: by a better punctuation and by doubling one letter I have rectified
this passage; 473 I have placed a stop after secernendi, and removed that which
all former editors have put after videndi, and 477 have written quom magis
for quo magis. Lach. puts 476 before 474 and then leaves a most involved
sentence. 474 dulcis. dulcit Gif. not Lamb.: Lamb. keeps dulcis ed. 1
and 2: he conjectures acerbus and reads diulcet ed. 3. 477 possint. possunt
Mar. Junt. Lamb. vulgo. 483 in eodem, una Ed. for in eadem una. eadem unius
Lach. 488 transmutans B corr. for transmutas. 497 semina A corr. for

96 II

adsimili ratione alias ut postulet ordo,

si tu forte voles etiam variare figuras.

ergo formarum novitatem corporis angmen 495
subsequitur. quare non est ut credere possis

esse infinitis distantia semina formis,

ne quaedam cogas inmani maximitate

esse, supra quod iam docui non posse probari.

1am tibi barbaricae vestes Meliboeaque fulgens 500
purpura Thessalico concharum tacta colore

aurea pavonum ridenti imbuta lepore

saecla, novo rerum superata colore lacerent

et contemptus odor smyrnae mellisque sapores,

et cycnea mele Phoebeaque daedala chordis 505
carmina consimili ratione oppressa silerent ;

namque alns alinud praestantius exoreretur.

cedere item retro possent in deteriores

omnia sic partis, ut diximus in melioris;

namque alus aliud retro quoque taetrius esset 510
nanbus aunbus atque oculis orisque sapori.

quae quoniam non sunt, sed rebus reddita certa

finis utrimque tenet summam, fateare necessest

materiem quoque fimitis differre figuris.

denique ab igmbus ad gelidas iter usque pruinas 515
finitumst retroque pari ratione remensumst ;

omnis enim calor ac frigus medique tepores

interutrasque iacent explentes ordine summam.

ergo fimita distant ratione creata,

femina. 499 probari Ald. 1 Junt. for probare. esse probare Mar. 501: I
believe a verse is here lost of this nature ct quos ostendunt in solis luce colores. tacta
Lach. after Oudendorp Lucan x 491 for tecta. tincta Junt. vulg. 502 ridenti
Fr. Medices for rident and 503 novo for nova. Aurea, p. ridenti tmitata ete.
Lach.: Lamb. and vulg. edd. et at end of 501. 503 Saecla. Pepla P. Bur-
mann Wak. 504 Et contemptus odor Flor. 31 Camb. Brix. Ven. Mar. vulg.
for Et contemptus udor. Et contemptus suodor Nicc. Ver.: hence I infer the ms.

of Poggio had sudor. 512 sed added by Lach. 514 finitis Politian (?),
Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for injinitis. 515 iter usque Lach. for hiemisque.
perhaps hienwuwm usque. 517 Omnis of mss. is right. Hatima Ed. formerly.
Ambit Lach. Finis Mar. Junt. Finit Lamb. vulgo. 518 Interutrasque: see
notes 2. Inter utrasque mss. Interutraque Lach. here and in five other places, v
472 476 νι 362 1062, and 1m 306 where I read Inter utrosque, and v 839 for inter

II 97

ancipif? quoniam mucroni utrimque notantur, 520
hinc flammis illine rigidis infesta pruinis.
Quod quoniam docui, pergam concctere rem quae
ex hoc apta fidem ducat, primordia rerum,
inter se simili quae sunt perfecta figura,
infinita cluere. etenim distantia cum sit E
formarum finita, necesse est quae similes sint
esse infinitas aut summam material
finitam constare, id quod non esse probavi
versibus ostendens corpuscula materiai
ex infinito summam rerum usque tenere, 530
undique protelo plagarum continuato.
nam quod rara vides magis esse animalia quaedam
fecundamque minus naturam cernis in illis,
at regione locoque alio terrisque remotis
multa licet genere esse in eo numerumque repleri; 5.35
sicut quadripedum cum primis esse videmus
in genere anguimanus elephantos, India quorum
milibus e multis vallo munitur eburno,
ut penitus nequeat penetrari: tanta ferarum
vis est, quarum nos perpauca exempla videmus. 540
sed tamen id quoque uti concedam, quamlubet esto
unica res quaedam nativo corpore sola,

lo

5

utras. 521 infesta Lach. for infessa, and so Lamb. in notes, insessa in text
after Mar. Junt. infensa Flor. 31 Vat. 1954 Othob. old eds.

522—568: this passage I have fully discussed in Camb. Journ. of phil. rv p. 143
etc. where I have shewn that Lach. is quite wrong in enclosing 522—528 in brackets,
and beginning a new paragraph at 529, and there reading Protinus for Versibus : he
gives us the alternative, which Bern. has adopted, of assuming one or more verses
to have been lost before Versibus ; and indeed all before him from Mar, Ald. 1 and
Junt. downwards have inserted this line, Quod quoniam docui, nunc suariloquis
age paucis. Victorius in his copy of Marullus’ notes has not this line; but, for
Versibus, Nune vero, Marullus’ first thought, answering to Lachmann’s Protinus.
No stop is to be put at the end of 528, and 529 ostendens is to be read for osten-
dam; and then all difficulty vanishes. 533 minus Lamb. most rightly for
magis which Wak. absurdly tries to explain. 535 genere Mar.? Junt. for
genera. 536 Sicut Bentl. for Sicuti: rm 816 mss. have the same error. Lach-
mann’s note shews the strange tendency of mss. to read sicuti for sicut, as above
veluti for velut: in the passage he quotes from Plautus mil. 727, it now appears
from Ritsch] that the Ambrosian palimpsest has rightly sicut: Cic. Arat. 131 on the
other hand Orelli reads Sicuti cum ceptant: Cic. de senect. 14, though the latest
editors read the verse of Ennius Sic ut fortis equus, 5 of their 6 mss. have Sicuti.

41 lubet B corr. Flor. 31 Camb. for tubet. 543 nulla added by Lach. non

M. 7

98

sit in orbi B corr.
rightly.
comp. 541.

I

cui similis toto terrarum nulla sit orbi;
infinita tamen nisi erit vis materiai
unde ea progigni possit concepta, creari

non poterit, neque, quod superest, procrescere alique.
quippe etenim sumam hoc quoque uti finita per omne

corpora iactari unius genitalia rei,

unde ubi qua vi et quo pacto congressa coibunt

materiae tanto in pelago turbaque aliena ?

non, ut opinor, habent rationem conciliand) ;

sed quasi naufragus magnis multisque coortis

disiectare solet magnum mare transtra guberna

antemnas proram malos tonsasque natantis,

per terrarum omnis oras fluitantia aplustra

ut videantur et indicium mortalibus edant,

infidi maris insidias virisque dolumque

ut vitare velint, neve ullo tempore credant,

subdola cum ridet placidi pellacia pont,

sic tibi si finita semel primordia quaedam

constitues, aevom debebunt sparsa per omnem

disiectare aestus diversi material,

numquam in concilium ut possint compulsa coire

nec remorari 1n concilio nec crescere adaucta ;

quorum utrumque palam fier] manifesta docet res,

et res progigni et genitas procrescere posse.

esse lgitur genere in quovis primordia rerum

infinita palam est unde omnia suppeditantur.
Nec superare queunt motus itaque exitiales

perpetuo neque in aeternum sepelire salutem,

nec porro rerum genitales auctificique

motus perpetuo possunt servare creata.

sic aequo geritur certamine principiorum

ex infinito contractum tempore bellum:

nunc hic nunc illic superant vitalia rerum

545

550

555

560

565

570

5375

non sit in orbe Nicc. Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. vulgo: perhaps
547 sumam hoc quoque uti Ed. for the meaningless sumant oculi:
si manticuler Lach. strangely. Wak. tells us that Bentl. obelised the

words; and it is strange that all editors before Wak., even Junt. and Lamb., left

them unnoticed; Wak. conj. sumant ollei.
carinas Nice.

Camb. 560 si finita B corr. Ver. Ven. Mar. for si infinita.

553 guberna Lamb. for caverna.
555 aplustra Politian Mar. Junt. for plaustra A, plaustra B Nice.

II 99

et superantur item. miscetur finere vagor
quem puceri tollunt visentis luminis oras ;
nec nox ulla diem neque noctem aurora secutast
quae non audierit mixtos vagitibus aegris
ploratus mortis comites et funeris atri. 580
Ilud in his obsignatum quoque rebus habere
convenit ct memori mandatum mente tenere,
nil esse, in promptu quorum natura videtur,
quod genere ex uno consistat principiorum,
nec quicquam quod non permixto semine constet. 585
et quodcumqne magis vis multas possidet in se
atque potestates, ita plurima principiorum
In sese genera ac varias docet esse figuras.
principio tellus habet in se corpora prima
unde mare inmensum volventes frigora fontes 590
adsidue renovent, habet ignes unde oriantur.
nam multis succensa locis ardent sola terrae,
eximiis vero furit ignibus impetus Aetnae.
tum porro nitidas fruges arbustaque lacta
gentibus humanis habet unde extollere possit, 595
unde etiam fluvios frondes et pabula laeta
montivago generi possit praebere ferarum.
quare magna deum mater materque ferarum
et nostri genetrix haec dicta est corporis una.
Hanc veteres Graium docti cecinere poetae 600
sedibus in curru biiugos agitare leones,
aeris in spatio magnam pendere docentes
tellurem neque posse in terra sistere terram.
adiunxere feras, quia quamvis effera proles
officiis debet molliri victa parentum. 605

586 quod cumque Lach. for quaecumque: previous editors have gone much
astray. 593 (and 607) Eximiis Avanc. for Ex imis. ‘Sic v. 1. 0....Marull. ex
Virg. lib. 5, ex imis, contra v. 1.’: the ‘veteres libri omnes’ are only the Ven.
in which were Marullus’ ms. notes: Ven. has Haimis which Gif. probably read
Eximiis: Marullus perhaps referred to Aen. 111 577 fundoque exaestuat imo, and
divided the word: he makes no change in cod. Victor. 601: Lach.
with reason supposes a verse to be lost here, which he thus supplies, Magnifice
divam ex ipsis penetralibu’ vectam Sedibus. Lamb. reads Sublimem for Sedi-
bus. 605 molliri Nicc. Flor. 31 Camb. for moliri. 613 orbem Pont. Junt.

7—2

100 TE

muralique caput summum cinxere corona,

eximiis munita locis quia sustinet urbes;

quo nunc insigni per magnas praedita terras

horrifice fertur divinae matris imago.

hance variae gentes antiquo more sacrorum 610
Tdaeam vocitant matrem Phrygiasque catervas

dant comites, quia primum ex illis fimbus edunt

per terrarum orbem fruges coepisse crear.

gallos attribuunt, qua, numen qui violarint

matris et ingrati genitoribus inventi sint, 615
significare volunt indignos esse putanclos,

vivam progeniem qui in oras Juminis edant.

tympana tenta tonant palmis et cymbala circum

concava, raucisonoque minantur cornua cantu,

et Phrygio stimulat numero cava tibia mentis, 620
telaque praeportant violent: signa furoris,

ingratos animos atque impia pectora volgi

conterrere metu quae possint numini’ divae.

ergo cum primum magnas invecta per urbis

munificat tacita mortalis muta salute, 625
aere atque argento sternunt iter omne viarum

largifica stipe ditantes ninguntque rosarum

floribus umbrantes matrem comitumque catervas.

hic armata manus, Curetas nomine Grai

quos memorant Phrygios, inter se forte quod arnus 630
ludunt in numerumque exultant sanguinolenti

terrificas capitum quatientes numine cristas,

for orbes. 615 Matris Flor. 31 Camb. for Matri. sint Lamb. first for sunt:
Lach. says nothing ; but Ed. as well as Heins. ms. notes and Goebel Rh. Mus.
n. f. xv p. 414 found inventi sunt in AB. sint inventi Lach.: I prefer the rhythm
of the ms. order. 623 metu...numini’? dirae Lach. at the suggestion of an
‘amicus quidam’ of Haverc. for metu...numine divae. 626 iter omne viarum
Turnebus Gif. Lamb. ed, 2 and 3, vulg. for ite omnia virum: a certain correction.
ite omnia mirum Nice. some Vat. and old eds. iter, omnia circum Flor. 31 Camb.
some Vat. Pont. Mar. Junt. Lamb. ed. 1. 630 quod armis a certain correction
of Lach. : the sentence requiring the conjunction quod or quia, the sense armis.
catervas of mss. is a mere blunder of the scribe who has taken it from 628: a form
of error common in our mss.: comp. 422 1555 v1 15 ete. catenas of B is again a
mere miswriting of cateruas, though it has deceived many. choreas Pont.

631 sanguinolenti Bentl. for sanguine fleti. sanguine freti Nicc. and old eds.
sanguine laeti Pont. Junt. Lamb. 632 numine. momine Lach. whom I followed

II ΙΟΙ

Dictaeos referunt Curetas qui Lovis illum
vagitum in Creta quondam occultasse feruntur,
cum puerl cireum puerum pernice chorea 635
armatei in numerum pulsarent aeribus aera,
ne Saturnus eum malis mandaret adeptus
aeternumque daret matri sub pectore volnus,
propterea magnam armati matrem comitantur, 640
aut quia significant divam praedicere ut armis
ac virtute velint patriam defendere terram
praesidioque parent decorique parentibus esse.
quae bene et eximie quamvis disposta ferantur,
longe sunt tamen a vera ratione repulsa. 645
omnis enim per se divom natura necessest
inmortali aevo summa cum pace fruatur
semota ab nostris rebus seiunctaque longe;
nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis,
ipsa suis pollens opibus, nil indiga nostri, 650
nec bene promeritis capitur neque tangitur ira.
655 hic siquis mare Neptunum Cereremque vocare
constituit fruges et Bacchi nomine abuti
mavolt quam laticis proprium proferre vocamen,
concedamus ut hic terrarum dictitet orbem 655
esse deum matrem, dum vera re tamen 1086
680 religione animum turpi contingere parcat.
652 terra quidem vero caret omni tempore sensu,
et quia multarum potitur primordia rerum,
multa modis multis effert in lumina solis. 660
660 Saepe itaque ex uno tondentes gramina campo
lanigerae pecudes et equorum duellica proles
buceriaeque greges eodem sub tegmine caeli

in my small ed.: but see Ph. Wagner in Philologus supplement 1 p. 400, Conington
to Aen. τὶ 123 and Lachmann’s own note: comp. also rv 179. 636 Armat et
in numerum pernice chorea: omitted by Pont. and Lamb. as manifestly made up out
of 635 and 637. 653 Constituit Lach. for Constituet, as mavolt follows.
657 (680): this verse, which was the last of p. 73 of the archetype, has been trans-
ferred hither by Lach.: the scribe omitted it in its place and then wrote it at the
bottom of the page. Pontanus acutely sees that both the vss. as given in mss.
are fragmentary. parcat Lach. for parato. parco Flor. 31 Camb. ete.

658—660 (652—654) I have transferred hither: the itaque of 661 manifestly
refers to them; so that if they are to keep their place, then (what comes to much the

102 Jk

ex unoque sitim sedantes flumine aqua

dissimili vivont specie retinentque parentum 665
665 naturam et mores generatim quaeque imitantur.

tanta est in quovis genere herbae material

dissimilis ratio, tanta est in flumine quoque.

hine porro quamvis animantem ex omnibus unam

ossa cruor venae calor umor viscera nervi 670
670 constituunt; quae sunt porro distantia longe,

dissimili perfecta figura principiorum.

tum porro quaecumque igni flammata cremantur,

si nil praeterea, tamen haec in corpore condunt

unde ignem iacere et lumen summittere possint 675
675 scintillasque agere ac late differre favillam.

cetera consimill mentis ratione peragrans

invenies igitur multarum semina rerum

corpore celare et varias cohibere figuras.

denique multa vides quibus et color et sapor una 680
681 reddita sunt cum odore: in primis pleraque dona

haec igitur varius debent constare figuris ;

nidor enim penetrat qua fucus non it in artus,

fucus item sorsum, so7swn sapor insinuatur

sensibus; ut noscas primis differre figuris. 685

dissimiles igitur formae glomeramen in unum

conveniunt et res permixto semine constant.

same thing) 652—657 must be enclosed in brackets as a subsequent marginal
addition of the poct’s: see above, p. 29. 664 sedantes Nice. B corr. for se-
dentes. Brieger puts this v. before 662. 665 retinentque parentum Flor. 31
Vat. 1136 Othob. 1954 Othob. s.m. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for retinente parente.

669 quamvis...unam Lamb. for quamvis...una. quemvts...und Nice. queniwis...
unum Mar. Junt. 674 condunt Ed. for traduntur. celant Lach. cludunt
Bern. 675 ignem Nice. for tgne. ignes B corr. 681 a v. is lost here such as
Quis accensa solent fumare altaria divom: see notes 2: not a letter of the mss. is
to be changed, in privis pluraque dona Lach. In consequence of 657 (680) having
been misplaced the older editors have made strange confusion here. 683 684 fu-
cus,..F’ucus Lach. most properly for sucus...Sucus: ‘nam fucus color est’.

684 sorsum AB only once. ‘seorsum et rerum [Faber’s text]. et rerum om. mss.
vv. repetendum ut puto τὸ sorsum G.V.’ ms. notes of Is. Vossius. Havere. and
through him Lach. misrepresent him; ‘G.V.’ is of course his father Gerard, whose
reading therefore is the same as Lachmann’s. 685 primis of mss. I now
keep: see notes 2: privis Lach. after Vossius, Preiger, Haverc. who says ‘egregie
et hoe loco privis habet Marginalis noster’: my ms. notes of Vossius are without

IT 103

quin etiam passim nostris in versibus ipsis
multa elementa vides multis communia verbis,
cum tamen inter se versus ac verba necesse est 690
confiteare alia ex alts constare elementis ;
non quo multa parum communis littera currat
aut nulla inter se duo sint ex omnibus isdem,
sed quia non volgo paria omnibus omnia constant.
sic aliis in rebus item communia multa 695
multarum rerum cum sint primordia, verum
dissimili tamen inter se consistere summa
possunt ; ut merito ex alus constare feratur
humanum genus et fruges arbustaque lacta.
Nec tamen omnimodis conecti posse putandum est 700
omnia; nam volgo fier1 portenta videres,
semiferas hominum species existcre et altos
interdum ramos egigni corpore vivo,
multaque conecti terrestria membra marinis,
tum flammam taetro spirantis ore Chimaeras 705
pascere naturam per terras omuiparentis.
quorum nil fieri manifestum est, omnia quando
seminibus certis certa genetrice creata
conservare genus crescentia posse videmus.
scilicet id certa fieri ratione necessust. 710
nam sua cuique cibis ex omnibus intus im artus
corpora discedunt conexaque convenientis
efiiciunt motus; at contra aliena videmus
reicere in terras naturam, multaque caecis
corporibus fugiunt e corpore percita plagis, 71:
quae neque conecti quoquam potuere neque intus
vitalis motus consentire atque imitari.
sed ne forte putes animalia sola teneri

it. 693 isdem Lamb. for idem: ‘quod est sane simplicissimum, sed videtur
abhorrere ab usu Lucretii’ says Lach. who reads awkwardly nulli for nulla, and
idem. But here and v 349 Lucr. unquestionably used isdem, as did his contem-
poraries. 694 constant Ed. with B Nice. (?), Camb. Mon. Lamb. vulg.
constent Lach. with A corr.: see 337. 696 for rerum ‘f. verum G.Y.’ in Isaac’s
ms. notes: and before him Pont.; and so Lach.: yet longe of Flor. 31 Camb.
Mar. may be right, as the scribe might well write primordia rerum mechanically
from the mere fact of these words so often coming together. 716 intus
Lach. for inte. inter B corr. Camb. intra Nicc.: consentire is here transitive.

104 1

legibus hisce, ea res ratio disterminat omnis.
nam veluti tota natura dissimiles sunt 720
inter se genitae res quaeque, ita quamque necessest
dissimili constare figura principiorum ;
non quo multa parum simili sint praedita forma,
sed quia non volgo paria omnibus omnia constant.
semina cum porro distent, differre necessust 725
intervalla vias conexus pondera plagas
concursus motus, quae non animalia solum
corpora seiungunt, sed terras ac mare totum
secernunt caelumque a terris omne retentant.
Nunc age dicta meo dulci quaesita labore 730
percipe, ne forte haec albis ex alba rearis
principiis esse, ante oculos quae candida cernis,
aut ea quae nigrant nigro de semine nata;
nive alium quemvis quae sunt inbuta colorem,
propterea gerere hunc credas, quod material 735
corpora consimili sint eius tincta colore.
nullus enim color est omnino material
corporibus, neque par rebus neque denique dispar.
in quae corpora si nullus tibi forte videtur
posse animi iniectus fieri, procul avius erras. 740
nam cum caecigeni, solis qui lumina numquam
dispexere, tamen cognoscant corpora tactu,
ex ineunte aevo nullo coniuncta colore,
scire licet nostrae quoque menti corpora posse
vorti in notitiam nullo circumlita fuco. 745

in se Bern. which I don’t understand. inde Brieger. 719 Legibus his quaedam
ratio disterminat omnis mss. omnia Lach. after Junt. as in 1 1106 without autho-
rity: omnia I doubt not comes from Marullus, as he uses it in the same way in his
hymn to earth at the end of a passage partly quoted p. 7 in which Lucr. is closely
imitated: see also reading of Junt. in 749; [the cod. Victor. proves my inference
to be correct here and 749: Marullus cites Virgil’s guin protinus omnia Perlegerent
oculis]. hisce eadem r. d. omne Bern.: but omne is hardly thus used; therefore I
read hisce ea res r. d. omnis: quaedam has no meaning. 721 ita quanque
Junt. for ita cumque. 724 constant Ed. constent AB vulg. Lach.: see 337
and 694. 734 colorem Nicc. vulg. for colore: Lamb. and Lach. deny that imbuta
colorem is Latin; but see notes 2. Lach. reads Nive alium quemvis quo sunt
inbuta colore, cet.; but the nominative quae is absolutely required here. induta
Lamb, for inbuta. 741 lumiua Flor. 31 Camb. etc. for numina, 742 Dis-
pexere Nice. corr. Avance. for Despexere. Aspexere Junt. Lamb. 743 Bent).

Π 105

denique nos ipsi caecis quaecumque tenebris
tangimus, haud ullo sentimus tincta colore.
quod quoniam vinco fieri, nunc esse docebo
omnis enim color omnino mutatur in omnis;
quod facere haud ullo debent primordia pacto; 750
immutabile enim quiddam superare necessest,
ne res ad nilum redigantur funditus omnes.
nam quodcumque suis mutatum fimibus exit,
continuo hoc mors est illius quod fuit ante.
proinde colore cave contingas semina rerum, 755
ne tibi res redeant ad nilum funditus omnes.
Practerea si nulla coloris principus est
reddita natura et varius sunt praedita formis,
e quibus omne genus gignunt variantque colores
propterea, magni quod refert semina quaeque 760
cum quibus et quali positura contineantur
et quos inter se dent motus accipiantque,
perfacile extemplo rationem reddere possis
cur ea quae nigro fucrint paulo ante colore,
marmoreo fierl possint candore repente ; 765
ut mare, cum magni commorunt aequora venti,
vertitur in canos candenti marmore fluctus;
dicere enim possis, nigrum quod saepe videmus,
materies ubi permixta est illius et ordo
principiis mutatus et addita demptaque quaedam, 770
continuo id fieri ut candens videatur et album.
quod si caeruleis constarent aequora ponti
seminibus, nullo possent albescere pacto ;
nam quocumque modo perturbes caerula quae sint,

numquam in marmoreum possunt migrare colorem. AES

sin alio atque alio sunt semina tincta colore

quae maris efficilunt unum purumque nitorem,

ut saepe ex alus formis variisque figuris
and Lach. place after 748: but see notes 2. 748 a v. is lost here. 749 in omnis
Flor. 31 Camb. Nauger. for et omnis. in omnia Junt. after Marullus: see note to
719, 759 omne genus Lach. for omnigenus. omnigenos A corr. Nice. Flor. 31
Camb. vulg. 760 Propterea Nicc. corr. Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. Junt. Lamb. ed. 1

for Praeterea which Wak. and, strange to say, Lamb, ed. 2 and 8 retain.
763 extemplo Brix. Lamb. for exemplo. 765 possint Lamb. for possunt.

106 II

efficitur quiddam quadratum unaque figura,
conveniebat, ut in quadrato cernimus esse 780
dissimiles formas, ita cernere in aequore ponti
aut alio in quovis uno puroque nitore
dissimiles longe inter se variosque colores.
praeterea nil officiunt obstantque figurae
dissimiles quo quadratum minus omne sit extra; 785
at varll rerum inpediunt prohibentque colores
quominus esse uno possit res tota nitore.

Tum porro quae ducit et inlicit ut tribuamus
principlis rerum nonnumquam causa colores,
occidit, ex albis quomiam non alba creantur, 790
nec quae nigra cluent de nigris sed variis ex.
quippe etenim multo proclivius exorientur
candida de nullo quam nigro nata colore
aut alio quovis qui contra pugnet et obstet.

Praeterea quoniam nequeunt sine luce colores 795
esse neque in lucem existunt primordia rerum,
scire licet quam sint nullo velata colore.
qualis enim caecis poterit color esse tenebris ?
lumine quin ipso mutatur propterea quod
recta aut obliqua percussus luce refulget ; 800
pluma columbarum quo pacto in sole videtur,
quae sita cervices circum collumque coronat ;
namque ahas fit uti claro sit rubra pyropo,
interdum quodam sensu fit uti videatur
inter curalium viridis miscere zmaragdos. S05
caudaque pavonis, larga cum luce repleta est,
consimili1 mutat ratione obversa colores ;

779 unaque figura Nice. for unaque figuras. unaque figura est Flor. 31 Camb.
Mar. Junt. unaeque figurae Lamb. after Muretus; ‘contra consuetudinem Lucretii’

says Lach. 780 ut in Lach. for uti in: see 322. 781 in aequore Ver.
Ven. Politian (?) Mar. Junt. for in aequora. 783 colores Nice. for calores.
785 extra seems quite appropriate: Lach. reads ex his. 788 ductt et inlicit

ut tribuamus Lamb. and Turneb. for ducit et inlicitu tribuamus (et om. A Nice.).
ducit in licttum ut tribuamus Camb. ut illicitum hoc tribuamus Mar. Junt.

790 creantur Nice. for creatur. 791 Nec quae Flor. 31 Camb. for Neque.
variis ex Wak. for variis ea. variata Pont. variantur Mar. Junt. variant se
ΑἸα, 1. 800 refulget. refulgit Lach. 802 cervices. cervicemst Brieger.

803 rubra Flor, 31 Camb. Mon. Ver. Ven. for rubro. 805 curalium Wak.
for caeruleum. ‘fo. beryllum’ Bentl. 806 larga cum luce Nice. B corr. for

II 107

qui quoniam quodam gignuntur luminis ictu,
scire licet, sine eo fieri non posse putandum est.
et quoniam plagae quoddam genus excipit in se S10
pupula, cum sentire colorem dicitur album,
atque aliud porro, nigrum cum et cetera sentit,
nec refert ea quae tangas quo forte colore
praedita sint, verum quali magis apta figura,
scire licet nil principiis opus esse colores, S15
sed variis formis variantes edere tactus.
Praeterea quoniam non certis certa figuris
est natura coloris et omnia principiorum
formamenta queunt mm quovis esse nitore,
cur ea quae constant ex illis non pariter sunt 820
omne genus perfusa coloribus in genere omni ?
conveniebat enim corvos quoque saepe volautis
ex albis album pinnis iactare colorem,
et nigros fierl nigro de semine cycnos
aut alio quovis uno varioque colore. 825
Quin etiam quanto in partes res quaeque minutas
distrahitur magis, hoc magis est ut cernere possis
evanescere paulatim stinguique colorem ;
ut fit ubi in parvas partis discerpitur austrum :
purpura poeniceusque color clarissimu’ multo, 830
filatim cum distractum est, dispergitur omnis ;
noscere ut hinc possis prius omnem efflare colorem
particulas quam discedant ad semina rerum.
Postremo quoniam non omnia corpora vocem
mittere concedis neque odorem, propterea fit 835
ut non omnibus adtribuas sonitus et odores.
sic oculis quoniam non omnia cernere quimus,
scire licet quaedam tam constare orba colore
quam sine odore ullo quaedam sonituque remota,

largo cum luce which may be right. 809 Scire licet. Scilicet id Lamb. est
om. Nice. 814 sint Ald. 1 Junt. not Mar. for sunt. 815 opus esse colores
Lamb. after Nonius for colore of mss.: see Lach. 821 Omne genus Lach. for
Omnigenus, as 759. Omnigenis Nicc. vulg. 829 austrum. ostrum Wak. conj.
for aurum: but the right punctuation I owe to Goebel quaest. Lucr. crit. p. 14,
though Ven. Ald. 1 and Junt. have a full stop after aurum. aurea Purpura and
831 distracta for distractum Lach. without judgment. aurum which previous
editors retain has no sense. wsu Bern. for aurum. 831 dispergitur Lach.

108 II

nec minus haec animum cognoscere posse sagacem $40
quam quae sunt alls rebus privata notare.

Sed ne forte putes solo spoliata colore
corpora prima manere, etiam secreta teporis
sunt ac fmgoris omnino calidique vaporis,
et sonitu sterila et suco ieiuna feruntur, 845
nec iaciunt ullum proprium de corpore odorem.
sicut amaracini blandum stactaeque liquorem
et nardi florem, nectar qui naribus halat,
cum facere instituas, cum primis quaerere par est,
quoad licet ac possis reperire, inolentis olivi 850
naturam, nullam quae mittat naribus auram,
quam minime ut possit mixtos in corpore odores
concoctosque suo contractans perdere viro,
propter eandem rem debent primordia rerum
non adhibere suum gignundis rebus odorem 855
nec sonitum, quoniam nil ab se mittere possunt,
nec simili ratione saporem denique quemquam
nec frigus neque item calidum tepidumque vaporem,
cetera; quae cum ita sunt tamen ut mortalia constent,
molli lenta, fragosa putm, cava corpore raro, 860
omnia sint a principis seiuncta necessest,
inmortalia si volumus subiungere rebus
fundamenta quibus nitatur summa salutis;
ne tibi res redeant ad nilum funditus omnes.

Nunc ea quae sentire videmus cumque necessest 865
ex Insensilibus tamen omnia confiteare
principtis constare. neque id manufesta refutant
nec contra pugnant, In promptu cognita quae sunt,
sed magis ipsa manu ducunt et credere cogunt
ex insensilibus, quod dico, animalia gigni. 870
quippe videre licet vivos existere vermes
stercore de taetro, putorem cum sibi nacta est

for disperditur. 841 notare Lach. for notaque. 845 teiuna Flor. 31
Camb. etc. for et una. 846 proprium. proprio Lach. with Junt. not Mar.;
but compare 855. 2zillo Pont. 850 possts. potis es Lamb. Lach.: see
notes 2. 853 contractans Lach., and some mss. of Priscian v1 91 for con-

tractas. contractos vulg. servare (superare Forbig.) et perdere Nonius p. 188.
854 Propter eandem rem Lach. most truly for Propter eandem. Propterea tan-
dem Flor. 81 Camb. Mar., Propterea demum Lamb., absurdly. 860 Molli

il 109g

intempestivis ex imbribus umida tellus;

praeterea cunctas itidem res vertere sese.

vertunt se fluvu frondes et pabula laeta 875

in pecudes, vertunt pecudes in corpora nostra

naturam, et nostro de corpore saepe ferarum

augescunt vires et corpora pennipotentum.

ergo omnes natura cibos in corpora viva

vertit et hine sensus animantum procreat omnes, 880

non alia longe ratione adque arida ligna

explicat in flammas ect in ignis omnia versat.

lane vides igitur magni primordia rerum

referre in quali smt ordine quaeque locata

et commixta quibus dent motus accipiantque ? 885
Tum porro quid id est, animum quod percutit, ipsum

quod movet et varlos sensus expromere cogit,

ex insensilibus ne credas sensile gigni ?

nimirum lapides et ligna et terra quod una

mixta tamen nequeunt vitalem reddere sensum. 890

illud in his igitur rebus meminisse decebit,

non ex omnibus omnino, quaecumque creant res,

sensile et extemplo me gigmi dicere sensus,

sed magni referre ea primum quantula constent,

sensile quae faciunt, et qua sint praedita forma, 895

motibus ordinibus posituris denique quae sint.

quarum nil rerum in lignis glaebisque videmus ;

et tamen haec, cum sunt quasi putrefacta per imbres,

vermiculos pariunt, quia corpora material

antiquis ex ordinibus permota nova re 9gOO

conciliantur ita ut debent animalia gigni.

deinde ex sensilibus qui sensile posse creari

constituunt, porro ex 8115 sentire suéti

Lamb. after Turnebus for Mollia. 875 fluvii frondes Lamb. for fluvii in
frondes. 882 in ignis Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar. ete. for ignis. 888
gigni. mnasci Priscian 1v 27: see above p. 1. 891 rebus Avance. for fedus.
jfoedus Wak. absurdly. 893 Sensile Nicc. for Sensilia. et extemplo Nauger.
and a late corrector of the cod. Victor. who more than once agrees with, probably
follows Naugerius, for etemplo. 903 ἃ v. is lost here such as [psi sensilibus,
mortalia semina reddunt (or habebunt): Christ I now find suggests a v. has dropped
out. I do not alter a letter of the mss.: Lach. in 902 reads ea for ex, seminibus
for sensilibus, and 903 suétis with Lamb., and 904 iam for cum. tum Lamb.

[10 ΠῚ

. e Φ . . . ° e

mollia cum faciunt. nam sensus iungitur omnis

visceribus nervis venis, quae cuique videmus 905

mollia mortali consistere corpore creta.

sed tamen esto iam posse haec aeterna manere:

nempe tamen debent aut sensum partis habere

aut simili totis animalibus esse putari.

at nequeant per se partes sentire necesse est ; ΟΙΟ

namque alio sensus membrorum respicit omuis,

nec manus a nobis potis est secreta neque ulla

corporis omnino sensum pars sola tenere.

linquitur ut totis animantibus adsimulentur.
923 sic itidem quae sentimus sentire necessest, O15
915 vitali ut possint consentire undique sensu.

qui poterunt igitur rerum primordia dici

et leti vitare vias, animalia cum sint,

adque animalia siné mortalibus una eademque ?

quod tamen ut possint, at coetu concilioque 920
920 nil facient praeter volgum turbamque animantum,

scilicet ut nequeant homines armenta feraeque

inter sese ullam rem gignere conveniundo.
924 quod si forte suum dimittunt corpore sensum

atque alium capiunt, quid opus fuit adtribui id quod 925

detrahitur ? tum praeterea, quo fugimus ante,

quatenus in pullos animalis vertier ova

cernimus alituum vermisque effervere, terram

intempestivos quom putor cepit ob imbris,

scire licet gignl posse ex non sensibu’ sensus, 930

Quod si forte aliquis dicet dumtaxat oriri

905 cuique Ed. for cumque. cuncta Lach. 909 simili Lach. for similis.

910 At Mar. Junt. for Aut. 911 alio Lach. for alios, respicit for respuit.
Nam ratio Bern. for Namque alios, retaining respuét. 915 (923) I follow
Bern. in placing this verse here, rather than Lach. who makes it follow 916 (915),

919 animalia sint Lach. for animalibus: comp. 458 and τν 81: sint was added
by Mar. and Junt. 920 at coetu Mon. Lach. for ab eoretu. ab coetu Junt.
concretu Politian in marg. Flor. 29. 922 nequeant. nequeunt Gif. Bentl.
Lach.: but the potential is in place. 926 quo fugimus Wak. for quod fugimus
which Lach. in vain defends: the poet refers to 870 sqq., not to 886. quod vicimus
Ed. in small ed. 928 effervere, terram Intempestivos quom (cum) putor cepit
Mar. for offervere t. Intempestivus quam p. cepit A, coepit B. effervere Nice.

II III

posse ἃ non sensu sensum mutabilitate,
aut aliquo tamquam partu quod proditus extet,
huic satis illud crit planum faccre atque probare
non fieri partum nisi concilio ante coacto 935
nec quicquam commutari sine conciliatu.
principio nequeunt ullius corporis esse
sensus ante ipsam genitam naturam animantis,
nimirum quia materies disiecta tenetur
aere fluminibus terris terraque creatis, 940
nec congressa modo vitalis convenienti
contulit inter se motus, quibus omnituentes
accensi sensus animante in quaque cientur.
Praeterea quamvis animantem grandior ictus,
quam patitur natura, repente adfligit et omnis 945
corporis atque animi pergit confundere sensus.
dissoluuntur enim positurae principiorum
et penitus motus vitales inpediuntur,
donec materies, omnis concussa per artus,
vitalis animae nodos a corpore solvit 950
dispersamque foras per caulas eiecit omnis.
nam quid praeterea facere ictum posse reamur
oblatum, nisi discutere ac dissolvere quaeque ?
fit quoque uti soleant minus oblato acriter ictu
reliqiii motus vitalis vincere saepe, 955
vincere, et ingentis plagae sedare tumultus
inque suos quicquid rursus revocare meatus

coepit Junt. putror Lamb. 932 Posse a non sensu Wak. for Posse ea non
sensu, rather better than Posse ex of Lamb. Lach. etc. e Pont. sensum mutabili-
tate Lamb. ed. 3 in note for sensus mut. Lach. keeps sensus. 933 quod prodi-
tus extet Ed. for quod proditum extra. quod protinus extent Lach. quod proditur
extra Pont. Bern.; but the oratio obliqua requires the subjunctive. 936 sine
conciliatu. nisi conciliatum Goebel. 938 ipsam Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar.
Ald. 1 Junt. for lesam. 940 terraque creatis. Wak. has properly retained this
reading of all mss. jflammaque creatis Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. before Wak. aethra-
que creatis Lach.: but I do not know what aethra creata are, unless they be the
same as terra creata, the various products of the earth. 941 convententi
Lamb. for convenientes which Lach. retains: the termination of 942 has caused
the mistake. 943 animante in quaque cientur Hugo Purmann in Jahn’s
Jahrb. f. Philol. 67 p. 673 for animantem quamque tuentur. animantum concute-
rentur Lach. 942 Bern. reads omnicientes and 943 keeps the ms, reading:
tuentur is quite foreign to the sense of the passage; else Lucr. would not avoid
using omnituentes and tuentur together. 951 caulas B corr. Flor. 31 for

112 II

et quasi iam leti dominantem in corpore motum
discutere ac paene amissos accendere sensus.
nam qua re potius leti iam limine ab ipso 960
ad vitam possit conlecta mente reverti,
quam quo decursum prope iam sict ire et abire ?
Praeterea quoniam dolor est ubi materiai
corpora v1 quadam per viscera viva per artus
sollicitata suis trepidant in sedibus intus, 965
ingue locum quando remigrant, fit blanda voluptas,
scire licet nullo primordia posse dolore
temptari nullamque voluptatem capere ex se;
quandoquidem non sunt ex ullis principiorum
corporibus, quorum motus novitate laborent 970
aut aliquem fructum capiant dulcedinis almae,
haut igitur debent esse ullo pracdita sensu.
Denique uti possint sentire animala quaeque,
principlis si 1am est sensus tribuendus eorum,
quid, genus humanum propritim de quibu’ factumst? 975
scilicet et risu tremulo concussa cachinnant
et lacrimis spargunt rorantibus ora genasque
multaque de rerum mixtura dicere callent
et sibi proporro quae sint primordia quaerunt ;
quandoquidem totis mortalibus adsimulata 980

cavias. etecit. eicit Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. 954 oblato old eds. for oblata.
961 conlecta Lamb. first for coniecta which Wak. absurdly retains. possit Lach.
for possint: as the verb cannot refer to sensus or anything but quamvis animantem
in 944. 963 Praeterea. propterea Lach. perversely: see notes 2: a new para-
graph begins here, 975 de quibw’ factumst Lamb, for de quibus auctumst,
and 986 non ex ridentibu’ factus for non ex ridentibus auctus. Nonius p. 511 has
de quibus actus. Lamb. ed. 3 adds most truly ‘Primum Latine dici non potest
auctus de re aut ex re aliqua, sed auctus re aliqua [speaking of course of the atoms
of which a thing is made: v 322 quodcumque alias ex se res auget alitque, and
the like have nothing to do with the question]. nam auctus casum septimum sine
praepositione postulat. deinde aliud est auctus re aliqua, aliud factus de re aut
ex re aliqua. hoe qui nescit, fateatur se hospitem esse in lingua Latina’: this he
doubtless intended for Gifanius. Wak. more fearless than the angels keeps of
course auctum and thus comments, ‘editores aptum [most factum] ausi scilicet,
libris omnibus religionem invocantibus contra profanos emendatores, dictionem
Lucretio lubentissime frequentatam contextu emovere, et fetus proprios per au-
daciam odiosissimam atque perditissimam infercire. ws ἀργαλέον πρᾶγμ᾽ ἐστίν,
ὦ Zed καὶ Geol’. Truly delira haec furiosaque cernimus esse Et ridere potest non
ex ridentibu’ factus. 976 AB have here cacinnant: and so perhaps Lucr.

IT tiie

ipsa quoque ex aliis debent constare elementis,

inde alia ex aliis, nusquam consistere ut ausis:

quippe sequar, quodcumque loqui ridereque dices

et sapere, ex aliis eadem haec facientibus ut sit.

quod si delira haec furiosaque cernimus esse 985

et ridere potest non ex ridentibu’ factus

et sapere et doctis rationem reddere dictis

non ex seminibus sapicntibus atque disertis,

qui minus esse queant ea quae sentire videmus

seminibus permixta carentibus undique sensu ? 990
Denique caeclesti sumus omnes semine oriundi;

omnibus ille idem pater est, unde alma liquentis

umoris guttas mater cum terra recepit,

feta parit nitidas fruges arbustaque lacta

et genus humanum, parit omnia saecla ferarum, 995

pabula cum praebet quibus omnes corpora pascunt

et duleem ducunt vitam prolemque propagant ;

quapropter merito maternum nomen adepta est.

cedit item retro, de terra quod fuit ante,

in terras, et quod missumst ex actheris oris, 1000

id rursum caeli rellatum templa receptant.

nec sic interemit mors res ut material

corpora conficiat, sed coetum dissupat ollis,

inde aliis aliud coniungit; et effit ut omnes

res ita convertant formas mutentque colores 1005

et capiant sensus et puncto tempore reddant;

ut noscas referre eadem primordia rerum

cum quibus et quali positura contineantur

et quos inter se dent motus accipiantque,

neve putes aeterna penes residere potesse 1010

wrote; but elsewhere they insert the h. 982 alia Ver. Ven. for ali.

985 delira Flor. 31 Camb. Brix. Mar. for det ira. 998 adepta B cory. Flor.
31 Camb. for adempta. 1000 missumst Lactantius, missum est Camb. etc. for
Missus. 1001 reilatum. fulgentia Lactant. inst. vir 12. 1002 mors res,
ut Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. for mors ut res. 1004 coniungit; et efit ut Ed. for
coniungit et efficit. coniungitur et fit Lach. who has a full stop at ollis. Mar. Ald.1
Junt. vulg. have ut for tta in 1005: as no editor before Wak. would tolerate the
omission of wt. 1007 eadem Avance. for earum. 1010—1012 Lach. and
Bern. with all previous editors have quite misunderstood this passage in which not
a letter is to be changed: they take quod to be the conjunction; it is really the

M. S

114 II

corpora prima quod in summis fluitare videmus
rebus et interdum nasci subitoque perire.
quin etiam refert nostris in versibus 1psis
cum quibus et quali sint ordine quaeque locata.
si non omnia sunt, at multo maxima pars est 1017
consimilis; verum positura discrepitant res,
sic ipsis in rebus item lam materiai
concursus motus ordo positura figurae ΙΟΖῚ
cum permutantur, mutari res quoque debent.
Nune animum nobis adhibe veram ad rationem.
nam tibi vementer nova res molitur ad auris
accedere et nova se species ostendere rerum. 1025
sed neque tam facilis res ulla est quin ea primum
difficilis magis ad credendum constet, itemque
nil adeo magnum neque tam mirabile quicquam,
quod non paulatim minuant mirarier omnes,
suspicito caeli clarum purumque colorem, 1030

relative: Lach. for summis unskilfully reads cunctis, and supposes 1013 to com-
mence ἃ new paragraph wholly unconnected with what precedes: he encloses in
Ι ] 1013—1104. The truth is 1013—1022 are closely united with what precedes
if rightly understood. Mar. Junt. Lamb. ed. 1, vulg. have parum for penes in 1010.
Lamb. ed. 3 has a long note shewing that his conception of the passage is no less
confused than Lachmann’s: the small word quod has given rise to these strange
misapprehensions. 1015 1016=1 820 821 with the exception of Significant for
Constituunt: 1020=726 and v 438: Lach. has rightly seen that they are here
quite out of place: in the first book they are properly said of the atoms, but
here they interrupt the sense: 1020 the interpolator has transferred hither without
taking the trouble of changing vias and plagas to viae and plagae, which was
first done by Pont. and Mar. 1017 sunt Lach, for sint: he compares 458,

1023 adhibe veram B corr. Ver. Ven. Mar. for adhibueram, 1024 vementer
Avanc. and Lach. rightly for vehementes : so vemens which occurs several times: in
fact those were the only forms known to Luer. and all writers of the best ages: see
Lach. 1025 Accédere all mss. and old eds.: this old form I have retained here
and v 609 where A has Accedere, Nice. Accendere: see Vahlen’s Varron, sat. Menipp.
p. 95, and his Ennian. trag. rel. 114 and 281, where the best mss. of Ennius and —
Varro retain the same form accédo: it appears from Ribbeck that the mss. of Virgil
preserve in many similar words e for i, but his judgment in adopting them seems
often at fault: ap. Ribbeck trag. Lat. p. rx Fleckeisen gives examples from Plautus;
Livy xxr 10 12 mss, have accedere: 111 239 I retain recépit of mss. peremo interemo
neglego intellego were the only forms admitted in the best ages, as the concurrent
testimony of all good mss. proves. 1029 minuant mirarier. mittant mirarier
Lach. which I adopted in the small ed. 1030 Suspicito Bern. for Principio.
Percipito Lach. which can hardly be right: indeed Principio is so appropriate that
I incline to think a verse is lost, such as this Cuius, uti memoro, permulta exempla

II Wels

quaeque in se cohibet, palantia sidera passim,
lunamque et solis pracclara luce nitorem ;
omnia quae nunc si primum mortalibus essent,
ex inproviso si nunc obiecta repente,
quid magis his rebus poterat mirabile 6110] 1035
aut minus ante quod auderent fore credere gentes ?
nil, ut opinor: ita haec species miranda fuisset.
quam tibi iam nemo, fessus satiate videndi,
suspicere in caeli dignatur lucida templa!
desine quapropter novitate exterritus ipsa 1040
expuere ex animo rationem, sed magis acri
iudicio perpende et, si tibi vera videntur,
dede manus, aut, si falsum est, accingere contra,
quaerit enim rationem animus, cum summa. loci sit
infinita foris haec extra moenia mundi, 1045
quid sit 101 porro quo prospicere usque velit mens
atque animi iactus liber quo pervolet ipse.
Principio nobis in cunctas undique partis
et latere ex utroque supre supterque per omne
nulla est finis; uti docui, res ipsaque per se 1050
vociferatur, et elucet natura profundi.
nullo iam pacto veri simile esse putandumst,
undique cum vorsum spatium vacet infinitum
seminaque imnumero numero summaque profunda
multimodis volitent aeterno percita motu, 1055
hune unum terrarum orbem caelumque creatum,
nil agere illa foris tot corpora materia;
cum praesertim hic sit natura factus, ut ipsa
sponte sua forte offensando semina rerum,
multimodis temere incassum frustraque coacta, 1060

videmus: Principio, ‘chief of all’. Lamb. has Principio quod non m. m. ο. Paula-

tim, caeli cet. on no authority, though he appeals to ‘veteres libri’. 1031
cohibet Lach. for cohibent: he justly wonders no one before him saw this. quemque
...cohibent previous editors, 1033 essent. extent Orelli Lach. adsint Pont.

Junt, Lamb. etc.: the imperfect seems necessary; I therefore in 1034 read si nunc
for si sint: the si was written twice; hence the error. essent...Lx inproviso visu
subtecta Bern. 1047 iactus ἄτομον. Bentl. for tactus. iniectus Mar. Junt.
which gives the right sense. libero quo pervolet ipse B, volet ἃ. liber quo pervolet
ire Lamb. 1049 supra supterque Lach. rightly for superque. superque infraque
Politian in marg. Flor. 29, infraque superque Mar. subterque Pont. infra supraque
Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. vulg. 1058 ut Ed. for et: Lach. inserts ut before semina in

8—2

116 I]

tandem colarunt ea quae coniecta repente
magnarum rerum fierent exordia semper,
terral maris et caeli generisque animantum.
quare etiam atque etiam talis fateare necesse est
esse alios alibi congressus materiai, 1065
qualis hic est, avido complexu quem tenet aether.
Praeterea cum materies est multa parata,
cum locus est praesto nec res nec causa moratur
ulla, geri debent nimirum et confieri res.
nunc et seminibus si tanta est copia quantam 1070
enumerare aetas animantum non queat omnis,
visque eadem et natura manet quae semina rerum
conicere in loca quaegue queat simili ratione
atque huc sunt coniecta, necesse est confiteare
esse alios 8115. terrarum in partibus orbis 1075
et varias hominum gentis et saecla ferarum.
Hue accedit ut in summa res nulla sit una,
unica quae gignatur et unica solaque crescat,
quin aliquoiu’ siet saecli permultaque eodem
sint genere. in primis animalibus, inclute Memmi, 1080
invenies sic montivagum genus esse ferarum,
sic hominum genitam prolem, sic denique mutas
squamigerum pecudes et corpora cuncta volantum.
quapropter caelum simili ratione fatendumst
terramque et solem lunam mare, cetera quae sunt, 1085

1059. 1061 colarunt Nice. 3 Vat. Mon. Junt. rightly: see notes 2. colerunt
AB. cooluerint Lamb. coluerunt Lach. coierunt B corr. Flor, 31 Camb. one
Vat. coniecta of all mss. seems to me quite right: comp. 1108. convecta Lach.

which appears to be the right reading in the nearly identical passage v 429
where the mss. have conventa. Lach. objects to coniecta ‘quasi Lucretius hic
aliter quam in quinto dicere potuerit’: but there he has also conveniant, here
colarunt, there saepe, here semper; for Lach. vainly alters saepe to semper: he also
says of coniecta ‘sententiam non explet nisi addita loci significatione, ut paulo post
Conicere in loca quaeque’ cet.: but 1 284 Fragmina coniciens silvarum arbustaque

tota, we find it used absolutely. 1062 exordia Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for ex ordine,
as in the 5th book. 1070 et. ex Lach. but et is clearly right: ex makes the
construction most awkward: then 1072 Visque eadem et natura Mar. Ald. 1 Junt.
for Vis eadem natura. Quis eadem natura Lach. 1073 quaeque queat simili
Flor. 31 Camb. for guaeque atsimili. 1079 aliquoiw’ siet Gronov. for aliquoiuis
siet B, alioquoiuis A: the older editors have gone widely astray. 1080 inclute
Memmi Gronov. for indice mente. 1081 Invenies Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for

Invenisse. 1082 genitam Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for geminam. 1089 quod his

II 117

non esse unica, sed numero magis innumerali ;
quandoquidem vitae depactus terminus alte
tam manet haec et tam nativo corpore constant,
quam genus omne quod hic generatimst rebus abundans.
Quae bene cognita si teneas, natura videtur 1090
libera continuo dominis privata superbis
ipsa sua per se sponte omnia dis agere expers.
ham pro sancta deum tranquilla pectora pace
quae placidum degunt aevom vitamque serenam,
quis regere immensi summam, quis habere profundi 1095
indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas,
quis pariter caelos omnis convertere et omnis
ignibus aetheriis terras suffire feracis,
omnibus inve locis esse omni tempore praesto,
nubibus ut tenebras faciat caclique serena 1100
concutiat sonitu, tum fulmina mittat et aedis
saepe suas disturbet et ὧν deserta recedens
saeviat exercens telum quod saepe nocentes
praeterit exanimatque indignos inque merentes ?
Multaque post mundi tempus genitale diemque 1105
primigenum maris et terrae solisque coortum
addita corpora sunt extrinsecus, addita circum
semina quae magnum iaculando contulit omne;
unde mare et terrae possent augescere et unde
appareret spatium caeli domus altaque tecta 110
tolleret a terris procul et consurgeret aer.
nam sua cuique locis ex omnibus omnia plagis
corpora distribuuntur et ad sua saecla recedunt.
umor ad umorem, terreno corpore terra
crescit et 1gnem ignes procudunt aetheraque aether, 1115
donique ad extremam crescendi perfica finem

generatim rebus abundans mss, est Lach. for his. hic...abundat Bern. hic gene-
ratimst rebus abundans Ed. 1094 mss. giving vitam for vitam have caused Mar.
Junt. Wak. etc. to err strangely: simple as it is, Avance. first saw the truth. vitam
Pont. before him. 1102 in added by Lactant. inst. πὶ 17, Flor. 31 Ver. Ven.
Mar. etc. 1110 Appareret Nicc. Camb. for appariret. Politian in marg. Flor.
29 says ‘in vetusto Appareret’: was this the ms. of Poggio? in 716 to infra he has
in marg. ‘P inter’, with dots added: is P Poggio? AB there have inte. 1115
aether added by Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. aéraque aér Lach.: but see notes 2.

1116 extremam...jinem Lach. rightly for extremum...finem, as this is the only place

118 II

omnia perduxit rerum natura creatrix ;
ut fit ubi nilo iam plus est quod datur intra
vitalis venas quam quod fluit adque recedit.
omnibus hic aetas debet consistere rebus, 1126
hic natura suis refrenat viribus auctum.
nam quaecumque vides hilaro grandescere adauctu
paulatimque gradus aetatis scandere adultae,
plura sibi adsumunt quam de se corpora mittunt,
dum facile in venas cibus omnis inditur et dum 1125
non ita sunt late dispessa ut multa remittant
et plus dispendi faciant quam vescitur aetas.
nam certe fluere adque recedere corpora rebus
multa manus dandum est; sed plura accedere debent,
donec alescendi summum tetigere cacumen. 1130
inde minutatim vires et robur adultum
frangit et in partem peiorem lquitur aetas.
quippe etenim quanto est res amplior, augmine adempto,
et quo latior est, in cunctas undique partis
plura modo dispargit et ab se corpora mittit, 1135
nec facile in venas cibus omnis diditur 6]
nec satis est, proquam largos exaestuat aestus,
unde queat tantum suboriri ac subpeditare.
1146 omnia debet enim cibus integrare novando
et fulcire cibus, cobus omnia sustentare, 140
nequiquam, quoniam nec venae perpetiuntur
quod satis est neque quantum opus est natura munistrat.
1139 iure igitur pereunt, cum rarefacta fluendo

where the mss. make finis masc. perfica AB Nonius. perfice A corr. Nice.
1120 hic Ed. for his, as in 1089. his rebus here has no more sense than
there. 1122 hilar...adauctu AB. hilari Avance. hilaro more rightly Lamb.
1124 corpora Nice. B corr. for cora. 1126 dispessa Ed. for dispersa: comp.
111 988 dispessis membris: dispersa has here no sense: a full-grown man is more
dispessus, but not more dispersus than a child: dispessa is the same as the res
amplior et latior of 1133. 1129 debent Flor. 31 Camb. for debet. 1131
robur. vrobor AB, perhaps rightly; but Quintilian says that ‘summi auctores’
write robur, ebur. 1135 ab se Lach. for a se, Lucr. as a rule using ab before 5 :
but I have my doubts here: see Lach. to v1 925: Luer. may have varied his usage.
1136 diditur Mar. Ald. Junt. for deditur. 1138 queat Mar. Junt. for queant.
1139—1142 (1146—1149): Goebel quaest. Luer. crit. p. 33 has first seen that
these verses are to come after 1138: the thing admits of no question ; though it has
escaped all the editors and Lach. 1140 cibus added by Is. Vossius in ms.

II 119

sunt et cum externis succumbunt omnia plagis,
quandoquidem grandi cibus aevo denique defit 1145
nec tuditantia rem cessant extrinsecus ullam
corpora conficere et plagis infesta domare.
sic igitur magni quoque circum moenia mundi
1145 cxpugnata dabunt labem putrisque ruinas.
iamque adeo fracta est aetas effetaque tellus 1150
vix animalia parva creat quae cuncta creavit
saecla deditque ferarum ingentia corpora partu.
haud, ut opinor, enim mortala saecla superne
aurea de caelo demisit funis in arva
nec mare nec fluctus plangentis saxa crearunt, 1155
sed genuit tellus eadem quae nunc alit ex se.
praeterea nitidas fruges vinetaque laeta
sponte sua primum mortalibus ipsa creavit,
ipsa dedit dulcis fetus et pabula laeta;
quae nunc vix nostro grandescunt aucta labore, 1160
conterimusque boves et viris agricolarum,
conficimus ferrum vix arvis suppeditati :
usque adeo parcunt fetus augentque labore.
lamque caput quassans grandis suspirat arator
crebrins, incassum manuum cecidisse labores, I165
et cum tempora temporibus praesentia confert
praeteritis, laudat fortunas saepe parentis
1170 et crepat, anticum genus ut pietate repletum
perfacile angustis tolerarit finibus aevom,
cum minor esset agri multo modus ante viritim. 1170
1168 tristis item vetulae vitis sator atque υἱθίαθ

notes : Faber omits the verse: Voss. inserts ‘et fulcire cibus, cibus omnia susten-
tare’; and adds in marg. ‘sic Ms, v.’ 1149 que added by Nice.

1150 fracta B corr. for facta. aetas. Heins. proposes in ms. notes aetate.
effeta Nice. for effecta. 1153 opinor enim mortalia Mar. Junt. for opinore
immortalia. 1165 manuwm Is. Voss. in ms. notes for magnum. 1166 Mon.
and Junt. read Et cum temporibus praesentia tempora, and so Politian in marg.
Flor. 29: it is to be noticed that here too Naugerius, as in 1 15 and 16, does not
follow Junt. but recurs to the true order of the words. 1168—1170 (1170—
1172) Theod. Bergk in Jahn’s Jahrb. vol. 67 p. 319 has rightly transferred to this
place. 1171 mss. have at the end fatigat, taken from 1172 by a common
blunder, for which Heins. in ms. notes reads vietae, comparing 111 385 viétam: he
suggests too viétae for vetulae, after Hor. epod. x11 7, and senectae for fatigat, used

120 II

temporis incusat momen caelumque fatigat
1173 nec tenet omnia paulatim tabescere et ire
ad capulum spatio aetatis defessa vetusto.

asin mt 772. 1172 momen Pius in notes for nomen. caelum Wak. for saeclum.
Pius, having of course fatigat in 1171, suggests ingeniously saeclumqne fatiscens.
Nice. all Flor. Vat. Camb. old eds. omit this verse: I don’t know whence Avance.
got it: Pius of course had it from him. 1174 ‘Ad scopulum. sic oblongus:
quadratus Ad copulum, sed s littera ab ipso librario addita. de his Havercampus
falsa refert: sed idem verissime et praeter morem suum ingeniose scribit ire Ad
capulum’ Lach.: Wak. also says of it, ‘quae est Havercampi ingeniosissima ac
dignissima pretii quantivis emendatio’: but alas it is not Havercamp’s, as may be
seen from his own crit. note: it is due to Is. Vossius, who says in ms. notes ‘ms. ut
hic, al. ms. *copulum’ and again ‘copulum v. lege capulum i.e. sepulturam’: the
two mss. are AB, then in his own library: Nice, reads scopulum with A.

T. LUCRETI CARI

DE RERUM NATURA

LIBER TERTIUS

E tenebris tantis tam clarum extollere tumen

qi primus potuisti inlustrans commoda, vitae,

te sequor, o Graiae gentis decus, inque tuis nunc
ficta pedum pono pressis vestigia signis,

non ita certandi cupidus quam propter amorem
quod te imitari aveo; quid enim contendat hirundo
eyenis, aut quidnam tremulis facere artubus haedi
consimile in cursu possint et fortis equi vis ?

tu, pater, es rerum inventor, tu patria nobis
suppeditas praecepta, tuisque ex, inclute, chartis, 19
floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant,

omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta,

aurea, perpetua semper dignissima vita.

nam simul ac ratio tua coepit vociferari

naturam rerum, divina mente coorta, 15
diffugiunt animi terrores, moenia mundi

discedunt, totum video per inane geri res.

apparet divum numen sedesque quietae

quas neque concutiunt venti nec nubila nimbis

aspergunt neque nix acri concreta pruina 20
cana cadens violat semperque inubilus aether

αι

1 E Mon. Brix. Ver. Ven. for O of A Vien. frag. om. B Nice. A Flor. 81
Camb. 11 libant Avanc. Nauger. Gif. Lach. for limant. ‘an magis libant’
Mar. 15 coorta Orelli Lach. for coortam. 21 semperque Nice. corr.
Flor. 31 Camb. Vat. 1136 and 1954 Othob. Pont. Mar. Junt. Lamb. Lach. for
semper. semper sine nubibus Ald. 1, because Ver., and Ven. on which Ald. 1 is

[75 ΠῚ

integit, et large diffuso lumine mdent.

omnia suppeditat porro natura neque ulla

res animi pacem delibat tempore in ullo.

at contra nusquam apparent Acherusia templa 25

nec tellus obstat quin omnia dispiciantur,

sub pedibus quaecumque infra per mane geruntur.

his 101] me rebus quaedam divina voluptas

pereipit adque horror, quod sic natura tua vi

tam manifesta patens ex omni parte retecta est. 30
Et quoniam docui, cunctarum exordia rerum

qualia smt et quam varus distantia formis

sponte sua volitent aeterno percita motu

quove modo possint res ex his quacque creari,

hasce secundum res animi natura videtur

Les)
tn

atque animae claranda meis 1am versibus esse
et metus ille foras praeceps Acheruntis agendus,
funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo
omnia suffundens mortis nigrore neque ullam
esse voluptatem lquidam puramque relinquit. 40
nam quod saepe homines morbos magis esse timendos
infamemque ferunt vitam quam Tartara leti
et se scire animae naturam sangulnis esse
46 aut etiam venti, si fert ita forte voluntas,
44 nec prosum quicquam nostrae rationis egere, 45
hine licet advertas animum magis omnia laudis
47 lactarl causa quam quod res ipsa probetur.
extorres idem patria longeque fugati
conspectu ex hominum, foedati crimine turpi,
omnibus aerumnis adfecti denique vivunt, 50
et quocumque tamen miseri venere parentant
et nigras mactant pecudes et manibu’ divis
inferias mittunt multoque in rebus acerbis
acrius advertunt animos ad religionem.
quo magis in dubiis hominem spectare periclis 55
convenit adversisyue in rebus noscere qui sit;
nam verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo

founded, have in nubibus with 3 Vat. 22 rident Lach. for ridet. 28 ibi
Pont. Gronov. Wak. for ubi. tibi Mar. Junt. 29 sic natura Avance. for
signatura. 33 aeterno Bentl. for alterno. 44 (46) first placed here by

7Π| a |

ta
Go

elcluntur ef eripitur persona, manct res.

denique avarities et honorum caeca cupido

quae miseros homines cogunt transcendere fines 60
luris et mterdum socios scelerum atque ministros

noctes atque dies niti praestante labore

ad summas emergere opes, hace vulnera vitae

non minimam partem mortis formidine aluntur.

turpis enim ferme contemptus et acris egestas 65
semota ab cdulei vita stabilique videntur

et quasi 1am leti portas cunctarier ante;

unde homines dum se falso terrore coacti

effugisse volunt longe longeque remosse,

sanguine civili rem conflant divitiasque 70
conduplicant avidi, caedem caede accumulantes ;
crudeles gaudent in tristi funere fratris

et consanguincum mensas odere timentque.

consimili ratione ab eodem saepe timore

macerat invidia. ante oculos illum esse potentem, 75
illum aspectari, claro qui ineedit honore,

1051 se in tenebris volvi cacnoque queruntur.

intereunt partim statuarum et nominis ergo.

et sacpe usque adeo, mortis formidine, vitae

percipit humanos odium lucisque videndae, SO

Bent). 58 eiciuntur Lamb. ed. 2 and 3, Gif. Lach. for eliciuntur: the two
words being perpetually confounded, though eliciuntur is perhaps defensible here.
Lach. is wrong however in saying that Lamb. ‘tandem veritati concedens’
adopted ezciuntur from Gif. without acknowledgment: in his first ed. he keeps
elictuntur in the text, but has the same note as in ed. 3: ‘existimant quidam
legendum eiiciuntur...et ita amicus meus putat legendum in oratione pro M.
Caelio, nonne ipsam domum metuet, nequam vocem eiiciat ? ubi vulgo legitur eliciat:
cui propemodum nunc assentior, quamvis olim dissenserim’ cet. Lamb. angry
though he was, was too true a scholar to treat Gif. as Gif. treated him. Nor does
what he here says of his friend Muretus call for the petty malignity with which
the latter in his var. lect. 11 17 speaks of him after his death. manet res
Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar. for manare. 65 ferme. famae Mar. Ald. 1 Junt.
from formae of Brix. Ver. Ven. fama et Lamb. 66 videntur Lamb. for
videtur, aS semota is neut. plur. according to the usage of Lucr.: but it is with
much doubt and hesitation and in deference only to two such scholars as Lamb.
and Lach. that I refuse to allow to Lucr. the liberty which the purest writers
seem to have claimed, of making the partic. and verb refer only to the last of two
or more nominatives. 72 fratris Macrob. sat, vi 2 15, Junt. not Mar, for
fratres. 78 statuarum Flor. 31 Camb. corr. Vat. 1954 Othob. Mar. Junt. for

124 II

ut sibi consciscant maerenti pectore letum
obliti fontem curarum hunc esse timorem,
hunc vexare pudorem, hunc vincula amicitiai
rumpere et in summa pietatem evertere suadet ;
nam iam saepe homines patriam carosque parentis 85
prodiderunt, vitare Acherusia templa petentes.
nam veluti pueri trepidant atque omnia caecis
in tenebris metuunt, sic nos in luce timemus
interdum, nilo quae sunt metuenda magis quam
quae pueri in tenebris pavitant finguntque futura. 90
hune igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest
non radii solis neque lucida tela die
discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque.
Primum animum dico, mentem quam saepe vocamus,
in quo consilium vitae regimenque locatum est, 95
esse hominis partem nilo minus ac manus ct pes
atque oculei partes animantis totius extant.
secnsum animi certa non esse in parte locatum,
verum habitum quendam vitalem corporis esse,
harmoniam Grai quam dicunt, quod faciat nos 100
vivere cum sensu, nulla cum in parte siet mens;
ut bona saepe valetudo cum dicitur esse
corporis, et non est tamen haec pars ulla valentis.
sic animi sensum non certa parte reponunt ;

statum, 81 consciscant Nice. for coniciscant. 82 I assume av. to be
lost here, such as Qui miseros homines cogens scelus omne patrare : sce notes 2.
84 suadet. fundo Lamb. fraude Lach. clade Bern. 94 quam Charisius

p. 187 (210) for quem: so Mon. Junt. Lamb. Lach. ‘hoc ipsum dedit, ante
quam Charisii liber innotuisset, Marullus; quod miror, cum ille tam subtiliter
iudicare non soleat’ says Lach.: but Marullus found it in his ms. out of which
Candidus also got it. 95 locatum Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for vocatum. 988
before this verse one or more have been lost: Ald. 1 thus supplies it, Quamvis
multa quidem sapientum turba putaret: Mar. Junt. and eds. in general before
Lach. give the same, but for putaret more correctly putarunt: Gif. has putarit,
and this note, ‘Ita v. q. 1. [vetus quidam liber]. in al. putaret. al. putartt.’ It
is not improbable the v. q. 1. is the Ven. with Marullus’ ms. notes: it is very
possible too that putaret in Ald. 1 is a misprint for putarit: see what I say
above p. 10 on the heavy charge brought against Avancius by Lach, here. [As
Marullus therefore in cod. Victor. writes putarunt, putarit was probably an earlier
suggestion: see n. to τι 529: other instances will be noticed below.] 100 faciat

III 125

magno opere in quo mi diversi errare videntur. 105
saepe itaque, in promptu corpus quod cernitur, acgret,
cum tamen ex alia laetamur parte latenti;

et retro fit uti contra sit saepe vicissim,

cum miser ex animo laetatur corpore toto;

non alio pacto quam si, pes cum dolet aceri, 110
in nullo caput interea sit forte dolore.

practerea molli cum somno dedita membra

effusumque lacct sine sensu corpus honustum,

est aliud tamen in nobis quod tempore in illo

multimodis agitatur et omnis accipit in se 115
lactitiae motus et curas cordis inanis.

nune animam quoque ut in membris cognoscere possis
esse neque harmonia corpus sentire solere,

principio fit uti detracto corpore multo

saepe tamen nobis in membris vita moretur ; 120
atque eadem rursum, cum corpora pauca caloris
diffugere forasque per os est editus aer,

deserit extemplo venas atque ossa relinquit ;

noscere ut hine possis non aequas omnia partis

corpora habere neque ex aequo fulcire salutem, I
sed magis haec, venti quae sunt calidique vaporis
semina, curare in membris ut vita moretur.

est igitur calor ac ventus vitalis in 1pso

corpore qui nobis moribundos deserit artus.

quapropter quoniam est animi natura reperta 130
atque animae quasi pars hominis, redde harmoniai

nomen, ad organicos alto delatum Helicon1 ;

sive aliunde ipsi porro traxere et in illam

transtulerunt, proprio quae tum res nomine egebat.

ty
Cy

Nice. B corr. for taciat. 106 aegret Lach. from ‘ grammaticus Vindobonensis
Eichenfeldii? who quotes the verse on account of the word aegret. aegrum
mss. aegrit Lamb. ed. 3. 108 fit ut? Lamb. for fit ubi. ‘Itali fit uti’ says

Lach. What Itali? not Nice. nor Flor, 31 Camb. Ver. Ven. Pont. Mar. Ald. 1
Pius Junt. Ald. 2: all of which I have now before me except Nicc. and Flor. 31,
and of these two I have a collation of my own. 118 corpus senteire Lach.
from ἃ conj. of Wak. for corpus interire. harmoniam corpus retinere Mar. Ald. 1
Junt. 132 is first rightly given by Is. Voss. in ms. notes, by simply
reading alto for altu of AB. A corr. Nicc. and all late mss. read ab organico and
salto or saltu or sacro: hence endless confusion. ab organico saltu...Heliconis in

126 ΠΙ

quidquid zd est, habeant: tu cetera percipe dicta. 135
Nune animum atque animam dico coniuncta tener

inter se atque unam naturam conficere ex se,

sed caput esse quasi et dominari in corpore toto

consilium quod nos animum mentemque vocamus,

idque situm media regione in pectoris haeret. 140

hic exultat enim pavor ac metus, haec loca circum

laetitiae mulcent; hic ergo mens animusquest.

cetera pars animae per totum dissita corpus

paret et ad numen mentis momenque movetur.

idque 5101 solum per se sapit, 2d 5101 gaudet, 145

cum neque res animam neque corpus commovet una.

et quasi, cum caput aut oculus temptante dolore

lacditur in nobis, non omni concruciamur

corpore, sic animus nonnumquam laeditur 1056

laetitiaque viget, cum cetera pars animal 150

per membra atque artus nulla novitate cietur.

verum ubi vementi magis cst commota metu mens,

consentire animam totam per membra videmus

sudoresque ita palloremque existere toto

corpore et infringi linguam vocemque aboriri, 155

caligare oculos, soncre auris, succidere artus,

denique concidere ex animi terrore videmus

saepe homines; facile ut quivis hine noscere possit

esse animam cum animo coniunctam, quae cum animi υἱ

percussast, exim corpus propellit et icit. 160
Haec eadem ratio naturam animi atque animai

corpoream docet esse; ubi enim propellere membra,

corripere ex somno corpus mutareque vultum

atque hominem totum regere ac versare videtur,

quorum nil fierl sine tactu posse videmus 165

nec tactum porro sine corpore, nonne fatendumst

corporea natura animum constare animamque ?

praeterea pariter fungi cum corpore et una

consentire animum nobis in corpore cernis.

the old vulgate. 135 td added by Flor. 31 Camb. 145 sapit, id sibi
Wak. for sapit sibi. sapit et sibi Nice. vulg. 154 ita palloremque Nice.
Mar. ete. for itaque pallorem. itaque et pallorem Lamb. etc. 159 animi vi

Ven. Mar. first for animi: Lach. is wrong: Flor. 31 reads animai. Ver. om. vi

1] 177

sl minus offendit vitam vis horrida teli 170
ossibus ac nervis disclusis intus adacta,
at tamen insequitur languor terraeque petitus
segnis, et in terra mentis qui gignitur aestus,
interdumque quasi exurgendi incerta voluntas,
ergo corpoream naturam animi esse necessest, 175
corporeis quoniam telis ictuque laborat.
Ts tibi nunc animus quali sit corpore et unde
constiterit pergam rationein reddere dictis.
principio esse aio persuptilem atque minutis
perquam corporibus factum constare. id ita esse 180
hine licet advertas animum ut pernoscere possis:
nil adeo fier celer ratione videtur,
quam 8101 mens fierl proponit ct inchoat ipsa;
oclus ergo animus quam res se perciet ulla,
ante oculos quorum in promptu natura videtur. 185
at quod mobile tanto operest, constare rutundis
perquam seminibus debet perquamque minutis,
momine uti parvo possint inpulsa mover.
namque movetur aqua ct tantillo momine flutat
quippe volubilibus parvisque creata figuris, 190
at contra mellis constantior est natura
et pigri latices magis et cunctantior actus ;
haeret enim inter se magis omnis material
copia, nimirum quia non tam levibus extat
corporibus neque tam suptilibus atque rutundis. 195
namque papaverls aura potest suspensa levisque
cogere ut ab summo tibi diffluat altus acervus ;
at contra lapidum conlectum ipse euru’ movere

with AB Nice. anitmi vis Nonius Brix. 170 offendit B corr. for offendis.
teli Mar. Junt. most truly for leti. 172 terraeque petitus Segnis Ed. for
t. p. Suavis, because I can think of nothing better: swavis manifestly has no
sense. Suppus Lach.: but why suppus rather than pronus? a man is generally
wounded in front and then, as Luer. says tv 1049, he falls forwards not back-
wards. Saevus et Bern. after a friend of Wak. Mr John Jones: but the copula
et is never found in Lucr. out of its place, and a single example must not be
introduced by conjecture. 183 stbi Wak. for si: v 1142 B has sé for sibi.
198 spicarumque mss. Bern. has seen that in the letters μοῦ the verb
MOUERE lurks: in 236 mss. multamqueri for multa moveri: he reads caurw’
movere : but whence comes the spi? I have therefore written ipse eurw’ movere.
spiritus acer Lach,: but the sentence requires a verb. spiclorum and the like of

128 ΠῚ

noénu potest. igitur parvissima corpora proquam

et levissima sunt, ita mobilitate fruuntur; 200

at contra quaecumque magis cum pondere magno

asperaque inveniuntur, eo stabilita magis sunt.

nunc igitur quoniam est animi natura reperta

mobilis egregie, perquam constare necessest

corporibus parvis et levibus atque rutundis. 205

quae tibi cognita res in multis, o bone, rebus

utilis invenictur et opportuna cluebit.

haec quoque res etiam naturam dedicat eius,

quam tenul constet textura quamque loco se

contineat parvo, si possit conglomerari, 210

quod simul atque hominem leti secura quies est

indepta atque animi natura animaeque recessit,

nil ibi libatum de toto corpore cernas

ad speciem, nil ad pondus: mors omnia praestat

vitalem praeter sensum calidumque vaporem. 215

ergo animam totam perparvis esse necessest

seminibus, nexam per venas viscera nervos ;

quatenus, omnis ubi e toto 1am corpore cessit,

extima membrorum circumcaesura tamen se

incolumem praestat nec defit ponderis hilum. 220

quod genus est Bacchi cum flos evanuit aut cum

spiritus unguenti suavis diffugit in auras

aut aliquo cum iam sucus de corpore cessit ;

nil oculis tamen esse minor res ipsa videtur

propterea neque detractum de pondere quicquam, 225

nimirum quia multa minutaque semina sucos

efficiunt et odorem in toto corpore rerum.

quare etiam atque etiam mentis naturam animacque

scire licet perquam pauxillis esse creatam

seminibus, quoniam fugiens nil ponderis aufert. 230
Nec tamen haec simplex nobis natura putanda est.

tenvis enim quaedam moribundos deserit aura

older editors are absurd. conlectum Muretus for coniectum which Lamb, approves
of in his notes and Lach. rightly adopts. 203 est added after quoniam by
Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. It is added at the end of the verse by Flor. 31
Camb. 210 sz for se Nicc. Mon. Ver. Ven. not Flor. 31 or Camb. 224 Nil
oculis. ‘leg. nilo’ Heins. in ms, notes. 227 rerum. rei Lach., I now think

Iil 129

mixta vapore, vapor porro trahit aera secum.

nec calor est quisquam, cui non sit mixtus et aer;

‘ara quod eius enim constat natura, necessest 235
aeris inter eum primordia multa moveri.

iam triplex animi est igitur natura reperta ;

nee tamen haec sat sunt ad sensum cuncta ereandum,

nil horum quoniam recepit res posse creare

sensiferos motus et homo quae mente volutat. 240
quarta quoque his igitur quaedam natura necessest
adtribuatur; east omnino nominis expers ;

qua neque mobilius quicquam neque tenvius exstat,

nec magis e parvis et levibus est elementis ;

sensiferos motus quae didit prima per artus. 245
prima cietur enim, parvis perfecta figuris;

inde calor motus et venti caeca potestas

aceipit, inde aer; inde omnia mobilitantur,

concutitur sanguis, tum viscera persentiseunt

omnia, postremis datur ossibus atque medullis 250
sive voluptas est sive est contrarius ardor.

nec temere hue dolor usque potest penetrare neque acre
permanare malum, quin omnia perturbentur

without reason. 232 Tenuis A corr. for Tenus. 234 cui non sit mixtus
ct aer. cui miztus non siet aer Lach. who will not tolerate et for etiam.

236 multa moveri A corr. Nice. and all before Lamb. for multumqueri: comp.
198. mutta cieri Lamb. wrongly after Turnebus. 239 240 a most doubtful
passage: 239 res Ed. after Bern. for mens, 240 it seems to me certain that qguaedam
has come here from the quaedam of 241, and as what the poet wrote must be
uncertain, I have written et homo quae for quaedam que. Lach. 239 reads quem
for mens, 240 quaedam vis menti’, Just retaining the word he ought not and
making a most awkward construction. Bern. strangely reads in 240 quidam quod
manticulatur. Is. Voss, in ms, notes ‘legendum videtur qui dant quae mente
volutes’. 239 I retain recépit with AB: comp. ἢ. to 1 1025 Accedere: Virgil’s
and other old mss. retain many traces of this e, intermediate between the a of the
simple verb and the later 7. 244 e parvis et levibus est elementis Wak. in
notes for e p. et l. ex elem. and justly: comp. vi 330: in his text he follows
Camb. est p. et l. ex el. which may be right. et p. et l. exe. Lach. e parvis aut
l. ex el. Junt. Lamb. not Pont. or Mar. 249 is first rightly given by Pont. and
Avance. in notes at the end of his Catullus: AB have Concutitur tum sanguis viscera
persentisiunt : Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat. give persentiscunt: this unrhythmical order of
the first words appears in the Junt. and in the text even of Lamb. ed. 1; in ed. 2
and 3 and notes of 1 he reads Tum quatitur sanguis, tum: Nice. misled by persen-
tistunt strangely gave Concutitur tum sanguis per sentes viscera iunt; and hence
Ver. and Ven. vint for iunt; out of which Avanc, in Ald. 1 ingeniously devised

M. 9

130 Il

usque adeo ut vitae desit locus atque animai
diffugiant partes per caulas corporis omnis. 255
sed plerumque fit in summo quasi corpore finis
motibus: hance ob rem vitam retinere valemus.
Nunc ea quo pacto inter sese mixta quibusque
ecompta modis vigeant rationem reddere aventem
abstrahit invitum patri sermonis egestas; 260
sed tamen, ut potero, summatim, attingere, tangam.
inter enim cursant primordia principiorum
motibus inter se, nil ut secernier unum
possit nec spatio fieri divisa potestas,
sed quasi multae vis unius corporis extant. 265
quod genus in quovis animantum viscere volgo
est odor et quidam color et sapor, et tamen ex his
omnibus est unum perfectum corporis augmen.
sic calor atque aer et venti caeca potestas
mixta creant unam naturam et mobilis illa 276
vis, initum motus ab se quae dividit ollis,
sensifer unde oritur primum per viscera motus.
nam penitus prorsum latet haec natura subestque
nec magis hac infra quicquam est in corpore nostro
atque anima est animae proporro totius ipsa. 275
quod genus in nostris membris et corpore toto
mixta latens animi vis est animaeque potestas,
corporibus quia de parvis paucisque creatast.
sic tibi nominis haec expers vis facta minutis
corporibus latet atque animae quasi totius ipsa 280
proporrost anima et dominatur corpore toto.
consimili ratione necessest ventus et aer
et calor inter se vigeant commixta per artus
adque aliis aliud subsit magis emineatque

Concutitur sanguis per venas, viscera vivunt Omnia, but he afterwards learnt
better. 254 ut added by Lamb.

257 retinere valemus A corr. Nicc. all before Lach. most properly for retinemus
valemus: he reads absurdly retinemw’ valentes, as if we could not be in life without
being in health: the origin of the corruption is obvious. 266 viscere B. visere
A and clearly ms. of Poggio, as Nice. and all late mss. and early editions so read,
even Junt. but not Avanc.: ‘alii viscere’ Mar.: yet to Wak. viscere is ‘sordidum et
ineptum’! 267 color Lamb. conj. rightly for calor. calor vulgo Lach.

284 aliis. alias Brieger. 288 etenim Faber in emend. and Lach. for etiam:

ΠῚ 131

ut quiddam fieri videatur ab omnibus unum, 285
ni calor ac ventus seorsum seorsumque potestas

aeris interemant sensum diductaque solvant.

est etenim calor ille animo, quem sumit, in ira

cum fervescit et ex oculis micat acribus ardor ;

est et frigida multa comes formidimis aura 290
quae ciet horrorem membris et concitat artus ;

est etlam quoque pacati status aeris 1116,

pectore tranquillo fit qui voltuque sereno.

sed calidi plus est ilhs quibus acria corda

iracundaque mens facile effervescit in ira. 205
quo genere in primis vis est violenta leonum,

pectora qui fremitu rumpunt plerumque gementes

nec capere irarum fluctus in pectore possunt.

at ventosa magis cervorum frigida mens est

et gelidas citius per viscera concitat auras 300
quae tremulum faciunt membris existere motum.

at natura boum placido magis aere vivit,

nec nimis irai fax umquam subdita percit

fumida, suffundens caecae caliginis umbra,

nec gelidis torpet telis perfixa pavoris : 305
inter utrosque sitast, cervos saevosque leones.

sic hominum genus est. quamvis doctrina politos
constituat pariter quosdam, tamen illa relinquit

naturae culusque animi vestigia prima.

nec radicitus evelli mala posse putandumst, 310
quin proclivius hie iras decurrat ad acris,

ille metu citius paulo temptetur, at 1116

tertius accipiat quaedam clementius aequo,

inque aliis rebus multis differre necessest

a necessary change. Lach. rightly follows Bentl. in joining in ira with Cum
fervescit. 289 acribus Lamb, ed. 2 and 3 for acrius. 290 et. ea Lach.
intolerant of et for etiam. 293 fit qui. qui fit Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulgo Lach.:
but see notes 2, 298 is placed by Lach. before 296 without cause. 303
nimis Flor. 31 Camb. Vat. 1954 Othob. Mar. for minus. 304 Fumida suffundens
Flor. 31 Camb. corr. for Fumidas effundens. umbra B. umbram A Nice. Camb.
which may be right: comp. Plaut. rud. 583 Quast vinis Graecis Neptunus nobis
suffudit mare. 305 pavoris Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for vaporis. 306 Inter wtros-
que sitast Avance. (sita est Mar. Junt.) for Inter utrasque sitas. sitas of mss. must
be sitast: the scribe has then adapted utrasque to sitas, Interutraque secus Lach.
Interutraque secat Bern. 309 Naturae Mar, Junt. for Natura. 317 quot. quod

9.—2

[32 ITI

naturas hominum varias moresque sequacis ; 315
quorum ego nunc nequeo caecas exponere causas
nec reperire figurarum tot nomina quot sunt
principiis, unde haec oritur variantia rerum.
illud in his rebus videor firmare potesse,
usque adeo naturarum vestigia linqui 320
parvola quae nequeat ratio depellere nobis,
ut nil inpediat dignam dis degere vitam.
Haec igitur natura tenetur corpore ab omni
ipsaque corporis est custos et causa salutis ;
nam communibus inter se radicibus haerent 325
nec sine pernicie divelli posse videntur.
quod genus e thuris glaebis evellere odorem
haud facile est quin intereat natura quoque eius.
sic animi atque animae naturam corpore toto
extrahere haut facile est quin omnia dissoluantur. 330
inplexis ita principiis ab orlgine prima
inter se fiunt consorti praedita vita,
nec 5101 quaeque sine alterius vi posse videtur
corporis atque animi seorsum sentire potestas,
sed communibus inter eas conflatur utrimque 335
motibus accensus nobis per viscera sensus.
praeterea corpus per se nec gignitur umquam
nec crescit neque post mortem durare videtur.
non enim, ut umor aquae dimittit saepe vaporem
qui datus est, neque ea causa convellitur ipse, 340
sed manet incolumis, non, inquam, sic animai
discidium possunt artus perferre relicti,
sed penitus pereunt convulsi conque putrescunt.
ex ineunte aevo sic corporis atque animai
mutua vitalis discunt contagia motus 345
maternis etiam membris alvoque reposta,
discidium wt nequeat fieri sine peste maloque;

AB, which Luer. may have written: so quod vis AB in 1090: Augustus in his res
gestae writes aliquod ; as does B in vi 317: capud A or B repeatedly. 319 videor
Faber for video. jfirmare Ver. Ven. for formare. 321 nobis Lach. for noctis. dictis
Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. ed. land 2. doctis Lamb. ed. 3. 332 fiunt consorti...vita
Mar. Junt. for consorti fiunt...vitae. 333 though sound, is much corrupted by
Mar. Junt. Lamb. vulg. 335 eas Lach. for eos; as eos is contrary to the usage of
Luer. 346 reposta Avance. for reposto. reposti Mar. Junt. without sense not

\

Ill 133

ut videas, quoniam coniunctast causa salutis,
coniunctam quoque naturam consistere eorum.
Quod superest, siquis corpus sentire refutat 350
atque animam credit permixtam corpore toto
suscipere hunc motum quem sensum nominitamus,
vel manifestas res contra verasque repugnat.
quid sit enim corpus sentire quis adferet umquam,
si non ipsa palam quod res dedit ac docnit nos? 355
at dimissa anima corpus caret undique sensu ;
perdit enim quod non proprium fuit eius in aevo;
multaque praeterea perdit quam expellitur «ante.
Dicere porro oculos nullam rem cernere posse,
sed per eos animum ut foribus spectare reclusis, 360
difficilest, contra cum sensus dicat eorum ;
sensus enim trahit atque acies detrudit ad ipsas ;
fulgida pracsertim cum cernere saepe nequimus,
lumina Iuminibus quia nobis praepediuntur.
quod foribus non fit; neque enim, quia cernimus 1051, 365
ostia suscipiunt ullum reclusa laborem.
praeterea si pro foribus sunt lumina nostra,
lam magis exemptis oculis debere videtur
cernere res animus sublatis postibus ipsis.
Illud in his rebus nequaquam sumere possis, 370
Democriti quod sancta viri sententia ponit,
corporis atque animi primordia smgula privis
adposita alternis variare, ac nectere membra.
nam cum multo sunt animae elementa minora
quam quibus e corpus nobis et viscera constant, 375
tum numero quoque concedunt et rara per artus
dissita sunt dumtaxat; ut hoc promittere possis,

repostis. 347 ut added by Mar. Junt. 350 refutat. renutat Lamb.

358 perdit quam expellitur ante Ed. for perditum expellitur aevo quam: the v. is
rejected by Creech in notes, and Bern. JIultaque. Nullaque Lach. which seems
scarcely to be Latin. Lamb. condemns 357 which Creech well defends. 861

Difficilest. Desiperest Lamb. ed. 2 and 3, Gif. Lach.: but see notes 2, dicat
Lamb. for ducat. 362 Lamb. rejects. Lach. puts it after 363. 365 quia
Lach. for qua. 372 privis Bentl. for primis: 389 priva is in the mss. 374

animae elementa minora AB Nicc.: this I have retained. animai el. min. Flor. 31
Camb. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulgo; but the elision is not tolerable. elementa minora
animai Lach. 375 e AB Lamb. ed. 3 Creech Lach. rightly. et A corr. B corr.

134 ΠῚ

quantula prima queant nobis iniecta ciere

corpora sensiferos motus in corpore, tanta

intervalla tenere exordia prima animal. 380

nam neque pulveris interdum sentimus adhaesum

corpore nec membris incussam sidere cretam,

nec nebulam noctu neque aranei tenvia fila

obvia sentimus, quando obretimur euntes,

nec supera caput eiusdem cecidisse vietam 385

vestem nec plumas avium papposque volantis

qui nimia levitate cadunt plerumque gravatim,

nec repentis itum cuiusviscumque animantis

sentimus nec priva pedum vestigia quaeque,

corpore quae in nostro culices et cetera ponunt. 390

usque adeo prius est in nobis multa ciendum,

quam primordia sentiscant concussa animai

semina corporibus nostris Inmixta per artus,

et quam in his intervallis tuditantia possint

concursare coire et dissultare vicissim. 395
Et magis est animus vitai claustra coercens

et dominantior ad vitam quam vis animal.

nam sine mente animoque nequit residere per artus

temporis exiguam partem pars ulla animal,

sed comes insequitur facile et discedit in auras 400

et gelidos artus in leti frigore linquit.

at manet in vita cul mens animusque remansit.

quamvis est circum caesis lacer undique membris

truncus, adempta anima circum membrisque remota

vivit et aetherias vitalis suscipit auras. 405

Si non omnimodis, at magna parte animai

privatus, tamen in vita cunctatur et haeret;

Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. all Vat. all eds. bef. Lamb. 3, Gif, Wak. 378 and 380
prima. priva Bentl. Lach. Ed. in ed. 1: but see notes 2, 383 araneit Mar.
Ald. 1 Junt. for arani: see Lach. 391 ciendum Avance. for ciendo. 392
and 393 wrongly transposed by Mar. and in all editions including Lach. Bern. and
Ed. formerly. 394 Et quam in his intervallis Lach. acutely for Et quantis int. Et
quam intervallis tantis Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. Et tantis intervallis Wak. 400
et discedit Vat. 3276 Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for ediscedit. 403 circum Flor. 31 Camb.
corr. Mar. for cretum. 404 remota B corr. Lach. for remot B, remotus A,
remotis vulg. 405 aetherias. aerias Lach.: without any just cause he alters
this and many passages of Virgil and others on the assumption that aetheriae

Iil 135

ut, lacerato oculo cireum si pupula mansit
incolumis, stat cernundi vivata potestas,
dummodo ne totum corrumpas luminis orbem 410
et circum caedas aciem solamque relinquas :
id quoque enim sine pernicie non fiet et orbei.
at si tantula pars oculi media illa peresa est,
occidit extemplo lumen tenebraeque secuntur,
incolumis quamvis aliquoi si¢ splendidus orbis. 415
hoc anima atque animus vincti sunt foedere semper.
Nune age, nativos animantibus et mortalis
esse animos animasque levis ut noscere possis,
conquisita diu dulcique reperta labore
digna tua pergam disponere carmina cura. 420
tu fac utrumque uno sub iungas nomine eorum,
atque animam verbi causa cum dicere pergam,
mortalem esse docens, animum quoque dicere credas,
quatenus est unum inter se coniunctaque res est.
principio quoniam tenuem constare minutis 425
corporibus docui multoque minoribus esse
principus factam quam liquidus umor aquai
aut nebula aut fumus:—nam longe mobilitate
praestat et a tenul causa magis icta movetur ;
quippe ubi imaginibus fumi nebulaeque movetur: 430
quod genus in somnis sopiti ubi cernimus alte
exhalare vaporem altaria ferreque fumum ;

cannot be joined with aurae. 411 Et. Sed Mon. Junt. Lamb. etc. wrongly.
412 and 415 are necessary to complete the comparison between the ball and pupil
of the eye and the anima and aninws: Lach. ejects them. 412 et orbei Ed. for
eorum: see notes 2: Lamb. ruins the sense by reading confiet for non jiet. 415
alioqui is corrupt: I transpose a single letter and write aliquot, adding sit which
could easily fall out before splendidus. 420 Digna tua...cura Lach. for Digna
tua...vita. Perpetua...vita Bern. with reference I presume to 13 perpetua semper
dignissima vita: but surely digna or dignissima would be required: and see notes 2.

Digna tuo...vate Creech: but vates to Lucr. had only a bad meaning. 421 sub
iungas nomine Ed. for subiungas nome (nomine B corr.) : this the context requires:
see notes 2. subiungas nomen vulgo. uni subiungas nomen Lach. 428 I retain

the ms. reading. Lach. writes iam for nam: but he thereby inverts the argument:
comp. 203 sqq. ΤΟΥ, says ‘the soul is seen to be marvellously nimble: therefore
it is formed of very minute seeds’: Lachmann’s error is most manifest. 430
and 433 are ejected by Lach.: wrongly in my opinion. 430 movetur Mar. Junt.
for moventur. 431 Quod genus in somnis. Here again Lach. reads est for in:
comp. 11194. alte Ex. vaporem Lach. rightly for aita Ex. vapore. 432 Exha-

136 II

nam procul hine dubio nobis simulacra genuntur :—
nunc igitur quoniam quassatis undique vasis
diffluere umorem et laticem discedere cernis 435
et nebula ac fumus quoniam discedit in auras,
crede animam quoque diffundi multoque perire
ocius et citius dissolvi 7m corpora prima,
cum semel ex hominis membris ablata recessit.
quippe etenim corpus, quod vas quasi constitit elus, 440
cum cohibere nequit conquassatum ex aliqua re
ac rarefactum detracto sanguine venis,
aere qui credas posse hance cohiberier ullo ?
corpore qui nostro rarus magis 18. cohibessit ?
Praeterea gigni pariter cum corpore et una 445
crescere sentimus pariterque senescere mentem.
nam velut infirmo pueri teneroque vagantur
corpore, sic animi sequitur sententia tenvis.
inde ubi robustis adolevit viribus aetas,
consilium quoque maius et auctior est animi vis. 450
post ubi iam validis quassatum est viribus aevi
corpus et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus,
claudicat ingenium, delirat lingua, /abat mens,
omnia deficiunt atque uno tempore desunt.
ergo dissolui quoque convenit omnem animal 455
naturam, ceu fumus, in altas aeris auras;
quandoquidem gigni pariter pariterque videmus
erescere et, ut docui, simul aevo fessa fatisci.

lare: exalare, v 463 Exalantque, v1 478 alitus AB, followed by Lach. who does not
however omit the aspirate, where only A or B omit it, as m 417 v 253 vi 811 and 1v
864 vr 221. ‘exala: this form is better attested by ancient mss. than the common
exhalare’ Halm, Cic. phil. 11 80 ed. Mayor. This seems doubtful even in Cicero:
his colleagues, Baiter Tusc. 1 43 11 22 and Jordan Verr. 11 28 retain h: of the
capital mss. of Virgil only M seems ever to omit it. 433 hine Bentl. for haec. ἢ
genuntur Lamb. for geruntur. 438 Octus Nicc. B corr. for Opius. in added
by B corr. 441 Cum. Quam Mar. Junt. Wak. Lach. 444 is cohibessit
Lach. for incohibescit. am cohibessit Lamb. Gif. incohibessit Wak. usque liquescit
Bern. in quo habitet sit Kd. in small ed.: in quo might be looked on as one word
and the elision thus defended; but see Luc. Mueller de re metr. p. 284 and notes 2
to 1 1091, 450 auctior B corr. Nice. corr. (?), Flor. 31 Camb. for auctor. 453
lingua, labat mens Lach. for lingua mens. lingua madet mens B corr. from 479.
linguaque mensque Nicc. vulg. 456 aeris old eds. for acris. 458 ut added
vy B corr. fatisci Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. Vat. Mon. Bentl. for faetis. fatiscit B

ΠῚ 137

Huc accedit uti videamus, corpus ut ipsum
suscipere inmanis morbos durumque dolorem, 460
sic animum curas acris luctumque metumque ;
quare participem leti quoque convenit esse.
quin etiam morbis in corporis avius errat
saepe animus; dementit enim deliraque fatur
interdumque gravi lethargo fertur in altum 465
aeternumque soporem oculis nutuque cadenti,
unde neque exaudit voces nec noscere voltus
illorum potis est, ad vitam qui revocantes
circumstant lacrimis rorantes ora genasque.
quare animum quoque dissolui fateare necessest, 470
quandoquidem penetrant in eum contagia morbi;
nam dolor ac morbus leti fabricator uterquest,
multorum exitio perdocti quod sumus ante.
denique quor, hominem cum vini vis penetravit 476
acris et in venas discessit diditus ardor,
consequitur gravitas membrorum, praepediuntur
crura vacillanti, tardescit lingua, madet mens,
nant oculi, clamor singultus iurgia gliscunt, 480
et iam cetera de genere hoc quaecumque secuntur,
cur ea sunt, nisi quod vemens violentia vini
conturbare animam consuevit corpore in ipso ?
at quaecumque queunt conturbari inque pediri,
significant, paulo si durior insinuarit 485
causa, fore ut pereant aevo privata futuro.
quin etiam subito vi morbi saepe coactus
ante oculos aliquis nostros, ut fulminis ictu,
concidit et spumas agit, ingemit et tremit artus,
desipit, extentat nervos, torquetur, anhelat 490
inconstanter, et in iactando membra fatigat.
nimirum quia vis morbi distracta per artus

corr. Junt. Lamb. not Mar. 472 dolor Nicc. for polor. 474 475 Et quoniam
mentem sanari corpus ut aegrum Et pariter mentem sanari corpus inani: an absurd
interpolation: 474=510; for 475 Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. substitute 511. Lamb. first
expelled both. 476 quor. cor AB, which is the same thing: so 11 194, rv 575
com=quom or cum: Iv 116 eorum AB, corum Lach. i.e. quorum. cdr hominum Nice,
Flor. 31 Camb. 5 Vat. old eds. before Mar. and Junt.: which Wak. absurdly
keeps. 482 Cur ea sunt Nice. for curba sunt. 492 quia Nice. Flor. 31 Mar.

138 JOE

turbat, agens animam spumat, quasi in aequore salso

ventorum validis fervescunt viribus undae.

exprimitur porro gemitus, quia membra dolore 495

adficiuntur et omnino quod semina vocis

eiciuntur et ore foras glomerata feruntur

qua quasi consuerunt et sunt munita vial.

desipientia fit, quia vis animi atque animal

conturbatur et, ut docul, divisa seorsum 500

disiectatur eodem illo distracta veneno.

inde ubi iam morbi reflexit causa reditque

in latebras acer corrupti corporis umor,

tum quasi vaccillans primum consurgit et omnis

paulatim redit in sensus animamque receptat. 505

haec igitur tantis ubi morbis corpore in ipso

iactentur miserisque modis distracta laborent,

cur eadem credis sine corpore in aere aperto

cum validis ventis aetatem degere posse ?

et quoniam mentem sanari, corpus ut aegrum, 510

cernimus et flecti medicina posse videmus,

id quoque praesagit mortalem vivere mentem.

addere enim partis aut ordine traiecere aecumst

aut aliquid prorsum de summa detrahere hilum,

commutare animum quicumque adoritur et infit 515

aut aliam quamvis naturam flectere quaerit,

at neque transferri sibi partis nec tribui vult

inmortale quod est quicquam neque defluere hilum.

nam quodcumque suis mutatum finibus exit,

continuo hoc mors est illius quod fuit ante. 520

ergo animus sive aegrescit, mortalia signa

mittit, uti docni, seu flectitur a medicina.

usque adeo falsae rationi vera videtur

res occurrere et effugium praecludere eunti

ancipitique refutatu convincere falsum. 525
Denique saepe hominem paulatim cernimus ire

old eds. for qua. 493 spumat, quasi in Lach. for spumans in, most acutely:
former correctors and editors, even Lamb., had quite mistaken the meaning, and
joined agens animam with vis morbi: their various readings are not worth mention-
ing: Wak, is unusually perverse. 497 Eictuntur Lamb. for Eliciuntur: see 58
and tv 945. 023 rationi Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for rationis. 525 refutatu Mar.

ΠῚ 139

et membratim vitalem deperdere sensum ;
in pedibus primum digitos livescere et unguis,
inde pedes et crura mori, post inde per artus
ire alios tractim gelidi vestigia leti. 530
scinditur itque animae hoc quoniam natura nec uno
tempore sincera existit, mortalis habendast.
quod si forte putas ipsam se posse per artus ’
introsum trahere et partis conducere in unum
atque ideo cunctis sensum deducere membris, 535
at locus ille tamen, quo copia tanta animal
cogitur, in sensu debet maiore videri ;
qui quoniam nusquamst, nimirum ut diximus ante,
dilaniata foras dispargitur, interit ergo.
quin etiam si 1am libeat concedere falsum 540
et dare posse animam glomerari in corpore eorum,
lumina qui lincunt moribund: particulatim,
mortalem tamen esse animam fateare necesse,
nec refert utrum pereat dispersa per auras
an contracta suis e partibus obbrutescat, 545
quando hominem totum magis ac magis undique sensus
deficit et vitae minus et minus undique restat.

Et quoniam mens est hominis pars una, loco quae
fixa manet certo, velut aures atque oculi sunt
atque alii sensus qui vitam cumque gubernant, 550
et veluti manus atque oculus naresve seorsum
secreta ab nobis nequeunt sentire neque esse,
sed tamen in parvo licuntur tempore tabe,

Junt. for refutatur. 531 Scinditur itque animae hoc Ed. for Scinditur atque
animo haec: comp. 526. Sc. wsque adeo haec Lach. Sc. aeque animae haec Bern.
Sc. atqui animo haec Mar. Junt. Sc. atqui animae Lamb. vulg. 535 deducere
Camb. Ver. Ven. Mar. for diducere. 538 ante added by Nice. 548 loco
quae Lach. first for locoque. 551 atque. aut Lach.: but comp. v 965
glandes atque arbita vel pira lecta. 553 Sed tamen in parvo linguntur tempore
tali mss. ‘quidam doctus’ says Lamb. who condemns the verse ‘liquuntur. ‘lin-
guntur. mass. puto legend.: secta etenim parvo vincuntur tempore tabi, nisi malis
liquuntur...tabt pro tabe, ut parti contagi pro parte contage vet. passim’ Is, Voss.
in ms. notes. Sed tamen is of course quite right; I have written therefore with
Creech in notes Sed tamen in parvo licuntur tempore tabe (Aen. 111 28 P has linguntur
for licuntur and Lucr. τν 1243 Ver. Ven. have liynitur for liquitur). linquuntur
Flor. 31 vulg. in parvo lincuntur tempore tabi Lach. ‘ita Vergil. Alitibus linquere
feris, et Ovid. leto poenaeque relictus’: but the moment the body is dead, linquitur

140 III

sic animus per se non quit sine corpore et ipso

esse homine, illius quasi quod vas esse videtur 555

sive aliud quid vis potius coniunctius ei

fingere, quandoquidem conexu corpus adhaeret.

Denique corporis atque animi vivata potestas

inter se coniuncta valent vitaque fruuntur ;

ne@ sine corpore enim vitalis edere motus 560

sola potest animi per se natura nec autem

cassum anima corpus durare et sensibus uti.

scilicet avolsus radicibus ut nequit ullam

dispicere ipse oculus rem seorsum corpore toto,

sic anima atque animus per se nil posse videtur, 565

nimirum quia per venas et viscera mixtim,

per nervos atque ossa, tenentur corpore ab omni

nec magnis intervallis primordia possunt

libera dissultare, ideo conclusa moventur

sensiferos motus quos extra corpus in auras 570

aeris haut possunt post mortem eiecta moveri

propterea quia non simili ratione tenentur.

corpus enim atque animans erit aer, si cohibere

sese anima atque in eo poterit concludere motus

quos ante in nervis et in ipso corpore agebat. 575
592 quin etiam finis dum vitae vertitur intra,

saepe aliqua tamen e causa labefacta videtur

ire anima ac toto solui de corpore velle
595 et quasi supremo languescere tempore voltus

molliaque exsangui trunco cadere omnia membra. 580

tabi, whether the tabes comes at once or years after; so that tamen in parvo tempore
would have no meaning. 555 homine old eds. for hominem. vas esse Nice. for
Vasse. 557 558 Lach. has no stop after adhaeret, and a comma after Denique :
558 begins a new paragraph; and I find from his proof-sheets that he altered the
usual punctuation only in his final revise. 564 ipse oculus Flor. 31 Mar. (not ἡ
Nice. Camb. Brix. Ver. or Ven.) for oculus ipse. 566 per added by Nice.
mizxtim Nice. (not Flor. 31) Camb. Mon. Brix. Ver. Ven. for mizti. 571 moveri
Lamb. for movere, ‘inscitissime’ says Wak.: see notes 2 to γι 595. 573 ani-
mans erit Lamb. for animam serit. 574 eo Faber for eos: a certain correction
rightly admitted by Bentl. and Creech. Lach. strange to say has neglected it and
received instead Wakefield’s conjecture In se animam for Sese anima. 576—590
(592—606) Christ quaest. Lucr. p. 19 has acutely seen that these vss. are out of
place : he puts them after 579 (594): I put them after 575: see notes 2. 578
de corpore velle Lach, acutely for de corpore omnia membra which has come from

It 141

quod genus est, animo male factum cum perhibetur
aut animam liquisse; ubi iam trepidatur et omnes
extremum cupiunt vitae repraehendere vinclum.
600 conquassatur enim tum mens animaecque potestas
omnis et haec ipso cum corpore conlabefiunt ; 585
ut gravior paulo possit dissolvere causa.
quid dubitas tandem quin extra prodita corpus
inbecilla foras in aperto, tegmine dempto,
605 non modo non omnem possit durare per aevom,
sed minimum quodvis nequeat consistere tempus ? 590
576 quare etiam atque etiam resoluto corporis omni
tegmine et eiectis extra vitalibus auris
dissolui sensus animi fateare necessest
atque alimam, quoniam coniunctast causa duobus.
580 Denique cum corpus nequeat perferre animai 595
discidium quin in taetro tabescat odore,
quid dubitas quin ex imo penitusque coorta
emanarit uti fumus diffusa animae vis,
atque ideo tanta mutatum putre ruina
585 conciderit corpus, penitus quia mota loco sunt 600
fundamenta, foras anima emanante per artus
perque viarum omnis flexus, in corpore qui sunt,
atque foramina? multimodis ut noscere possis
dispertitam animae naturam exisse per artus
590 et prius esse sibi distractam corpore in ipso, 605
quam prolapsa foras enaret in acris auras.
nec sibi enim quisquam moriens sentire videtur
ire foras animam incolumem de corpore toto
nec prius ad iugulum et supera succedere fauces,
verum deficere in certa regione locatam ; 610
ut sensus alios in parti quemque sua scit
dissolui. quod si inmortalis nostra foret mens,
non tam se moriens dissolvi conquereretur,
sed magis ire foras vestemque relinquere, ut anguis.

580: Nice. Mon. Brix. Ver. Ven. omit 579 and 580. 580 trunco added by Lach.
cadere omnia corpore membra Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. vulg. 581 perhibetur B corr.
for peribet B, periberet A Nicc. 591 Quare Nice. B corr. for Quae. 597 ex
Flor. 31 Camb. for ea. 598 animae vis Flor. 31 Camb. Ver. Ven. Mar. etc. for
anima e7tus. 601 foras anima emanante Wak. for foras manant animaeque.
foras manante anima usque Lach, After 614 Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. add

142 It

Denique cur animi numquam mens consiliumque 615
gignitur in capite aut pedibus manibusve, sed unis
sedibus et certis regionibus omnibus haeret,
si non certa loca ad nascendum reddita cuique

sunt, et ubi quicquid possit durare creatum,
*
atque ita multimodis partitis artubus esse, 620

membrorum ut numquam existat praeposterus ordo ?
usque adeo sequitur res rem neque flamma crear
fluminibus solitast neque in igni gignier algor.

Praeterea si inmortalis natura animaist
et sentire potest secreta a corpore nostro, 625
quinque, ut opinor, eam faciundum est sensibus auctam ;
nec ratione alia nosmet proponere nobis
possumus infernas animas Acherunte vagari.
pictores itaque et scriptorum saecla priora
sic animas intro duxerunt sensibus auctas. 630
at neque sorsum oculi neque nares nec manus ipsa
esse potest animae neque sorsum lingua, neque aures
auditu per se possunt sentire neque esse.

Et quoniam toto sentimus corpore imesse
vitalem sensum et totum esse animale videmus, 635
si subito medium celeri praeciderit ictu
vis aliqua ut sorsum partem secernat utramque,
dispertita procul dubio quoque vis animal
et discissa simul cum corpore dissicietur.
at quod scinditur et partis discedit in ullas, 640
scilicet aeternam sibi naturam abnuit esse.
falciferos memorant currus abscidere membra
saepe ita de subito permixta caede calentis,
ut tremere in terra videatur ab artubus id quod
decidit abscisum, cum mens tamen atque hominis vis 645
mobilitate mali non quit sentire dolorem ;
et semel in pugnae studio quod dedita mens est,

Gauderet, praelonga senex aut cornua cervus. 617 regionibus omnibus haeret.
regionibu’ pectoris h. Lach. hominis reg. haeret Ed. formerly. After 619
some vss. are lost. 620 partitis Bern. for pro totis. perfectis Lach. 623 solita
neque insigni AB. intgni Nice. solita est Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar. 624 st
immortalis Nice. for si mortalis. 628 vagari Lach. for vacare. vagare B corr.
Lamb. vulg. perhaps rightly. 632 animae Pius con}. for anima. 633

Auditu Ed. for Auditum. Haud igitur Lach. who here begins a new sentence,

ΠῚ 143

corpore reliqiio pugnam caedesque petessit,
nec tenet amissam laevam cum tegmine saepe
inter equos abstraxe rotas falcesque rapaces, 650
nec cecidisse alius dextram, cum seandit et instat.
inde alius conatur adempto surgere crure,
eum digitos agitat propter moribundus humi pes.
et caput abscisum calido viventeque trunco
servat humi voltum vitalem oculosque patentis, 655
donec reliquias animai reddidit omnes.
quin etiam tibi si, lingua vibrante, micanti
serpentis cauda e procero corpore, utrumque
sit libitum in multas partis discidere ferro,
omnia lam sorsum cernes ancisa recent 660
volnere tortari et terram conspargere tabo,
ipsam seque retro partem petere ore priorem,
volneris ardenti ut morsu premat icta dolorem.
omnibus esse igitur totas dicemus in illis
particulis animas? at ea ratione sequetur 665
unam animantem animas habuisse in corpore multas.
ergo divisast ea quae fuit una simul cum
corpore; quapropter mortale utrumque putandumst,
in multas quoniam partis disciditur aeque.
Praeterea si inmortalis natura animai 670
constat et in corpus nascentibus insinuatur,
cur super anteactam aetatem meminisse nequimus
nec vestigia gestarum rerum ulla tenemus ?
nam si tanto operest animi mutata potestas,
omnis ut actarum exciderit retineutia rerum, 675
non, ut opinor, id a leto iam longiter errat;
quapropter fateare necessest quae fuit ante

647 semel Lach. for simul. 650 rotas Nice. for rote. 657 658 micanti
and eauda e Ed. with Lach. for minanti and caude. 658 a v. is lost here
such as Et caudam et molem totius corporis onnem: see v1 499: Lach. reads
serpentem for serpentis, utrimque after Mar. Junt. for wtrumque; and after all his
construction is very forced. l. v. minantis Serpentis caudam procero corpore,
wtringue Lamb. 662 seque retro Nice. for sequere retro. 663 doloren
Lach. for dolore. 674 tanto operest animi May. for tanto opere animist, 680
solitast animi Mar. Ald. 1 for solita animist: see 623, τι 275 and Lach.
there. 676 a leto Lach., longiter Lamb. Lach. from Charisius and Nonius,

144 ΤΠ

interlisse et quae nunc est nunc esse creatam.
Praeterea si iam perfecto corpore nobis

inferri solitast animi vivata potestas 680

tum cum gignimur et vitae cum limen mimus,

haud ita conveniebat uti cum corpore et una

cum membris videatur m ipso sanguine cresse,

sed velut in cavea per se sibi vivere solam.

CONVENIT UT SENSU CORPUS TAMEN AFFLUAT OMNE 685
690 quod fieri totum contra manifesta docet res ;

namque ita conexa est per venas viscera nervos

ossaque, uti dentes quoque sensu participentur ;

morbus ut indicat et gelidai stringor aquai

et lapis oppressus, subut si e frugibus, asper. 690
686 quare etiam atque etiam neque originis esse putandumst

expertis animas nec leti lege solutas.

nam neque tanto opere adnecti potuisse putandumst
689 corporibus nostris extrinsecus insinuatas,

nec, tam contextae cum sint, exire videntur 695

incolumes posse et salvas exsolvere sese

omnibus e nervis atque ossibus articulisque.

quod si forte putas extrinsecus insinuatam

permanare animam nobis per membra solere,

tanto quique magis cum corpore fusa peribit. 700

quod permanat enim dissolvitur, interit ergo.

dispertitus enim per caulas corporis omnis

ut cibus, in membra atque artus cum diditur omnis,

disperit atque aliam naturam sufficit ex se,

sic anima atque animus quamvis integra recens in 705

corpus eunt, tamen in manando dissoluuntur,

dum quasi per caulas omnis diduntur in artus

particulae ‘quibus haec animi natura creatur,

quae nunc in nostro dominatur corpore nata

for ab l, longius. 685 Lamb. has most properly rejected: it is clearly ἃ
sarcastic gloss. Lach. retains it and for afluat reads areeat: an unlikely con-
jecture. 686—690 (690—694): Lach. was the first to transpose these vss.;
and strange it is he should have been the first. 689 Morbus. Morsus
Lach. Bern. Ed. formerly. 690 oppressus, subiit si e frugibus Bern. for op-
pressus subitis e frugibus. expressus, subiens 6 fr. Lach. 102 Dispertitus enim
Lach. for dispertitur ergo. Dispertitur enim Pont. Brix. Ald. 1 Lamb.

705 quamvis integra recens in Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for guamvis est integra re-

IIT 145

ex illa quae tum periit partita per artus. 710
quapropter neque natali privata videtur
esse 416 natura animae nec funeris expers.

Semina practerea linquontur necne animal
corpore in exanimo? quod si lincuntur et insunt,
haut erit ut merito inmortalis possit haber, τε
partibus amissis quoniam libata recessit.
sin lta sinceris membris ablata profugit
ut nullas partis in corpore liquerit ex se,
unde cadavera rancenti 1am viscere vermes
expirant atque unde animantum copia tanta
exos et exangtis tumidos perfluctuat artus ?
quod si forte animas extrinsecus insinuari
vermibus et privas in corpora posse venire
eredis nec reputas cur milia multa animarum
conveniant unde una recesserit, hoc tamen est ut ͵
απδουθηά πη videatur et in discrimen agendum,
utrum tandem animae venentur semina quaeque
vermiculorum ipsaeque sibi fabricentur ubi sint,
an quasi corporibus perfectis insinuentur.
at neque cur faciant ipsae quareve laborent 726
dicere suppeditat. neque enim, sine corpore cum sunt,
sollicitae volitant morbis alguque fameque ;
corpus enim magis his vitiis adfine laborat
et mala multa animus contage fungitur elus.
sed tamen his esto quamvis facere utile corpus, 735
cum subeant; at qua possint via nulla videtur.
haut igitur faciunt amimae 5101 corpora et artus.
nec tamen est utqui perfectis insinuentur
corporibus; neque enim poterunt suptiliter esse

ΣῚ
to
O

to
im

ns. 710 tum Brix. Ver. Ven. rightly for tunc. periit. peritat Nice. and
later mss. and eds. before Pont. Junt. 718 Ut Ver. Ven. for Et. 723 privas
in B corr. for priva st. 732 alguque Lamb. and mss. of Nonius for
algoque. 733 adjfine A p.m. (?) atfine B. et fine A corr. Nice.: Gif. first
restored adjfine to text: the note in ed. 3 of Lamb. is amusing. Wak. returns to
et fine. 734 contage. contagibus Lach. 736 Cum subeant. Quod sube-
ant a friend of Faber’s, both Faber and Bentl. approving. Cui s. Bern. qua
Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for que. 738 wtqui Ed. for ut quicum: see notes 2 to 1 758:
cum Was written over qui by some one who did not understand qui: quidum
Lern. and Ed. in ed. 1. Lach. adopts from Lamb. ut iam, which he allows ‘a

M. 10

140 II]

conexae neque consensus contagia fient. 740
Denique cur acris violentia triste leonum

seminium sequitur, volpes dolus, et fuga cervos,

A PATRIBUS DATUR ET A PATRIUS PAVOR INCITAT ARTUS

et iam cetera de genere hoc cur omnia membris

ex ineunte aevo generascunt ingenioque, 745

si non, certa suo quia semine seminioque

vis animi pariter crescit cum corpore toto?

quod si inmortalis foret et mutare soleret

corpora, permixtis animantes moribus essent,

effugeret canis Hyrcano de semine saepe 750

cornigerl incursum cervl tremeretque per auras

aeris accipiter fugiens veniente columba,

desiperent homines, saperent fera saecla ferarum.

illud enim falsa fertur ratione, quod aiunt

inmortalem animam mutato corpore flecti. 755

quod mutatur enim dissolvitur, interit ergo;

traicluntur enim partes atque ordine migrant;

quare dissolu1 quoque debent posse per artus,

denique ut intereant una cum corpore cunctae.

sin animas hominum dicent in corpora semper 700

ire humana, tamen quaeram cur e sapienti

stulta queat fieri, nec prudens sit puer ullus

nec tam doctus equae pullus quam fortis equi vis.

scilicet in tenero tenerascere corpore mentem 765

confugient. quod si iam fit, fateare necessest

mortalem esse animam, quoniam mutata per artus

tanto opere amittit vitam sensumque priorem.

quove modo poterit pariter cum corpore quoque

confirmata cupitum aetatis tangere florem 776

litteris nimium recedere’. 740 consensus Lach. for consensu. 743 rightly
rejected by Lach. and before him by a ‘doctus quidam’ ap. Lamb. as a manifest
sarcastic gloss, which interrupts sense and construction: Ven. Ald. 1, not Pont.
Mar. or Junt., read cervis for cervos. Lamb. dolu’ vulpibus also. 747 toto B,
quoque A and all other mss. and old eds. ‘toto praetuli, quia non possum ullam
artem agnoscere in simili hoc trium versiculorum exitu, ingentoque, seminioque,
corpore quoque. non potest autem dubitari quin utraque scriptura fuerit in ar-
chetypo’ Lach. Lamb. also has toto: quoque seems a gloss from 769. 760 sin
Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for sic. corpora B corr. etc. for corpore. 763= 746:
of course a gloss, with no connexion with the text. Bern. includes 764 in the
gloss, in my opinion not rightly. 764 pullus Nicc. for paulus. 181 in

ΠῚ 147

vis animi, nisi erit consors in origine prima ?

quidve foras 5101 vult membris exire senectis ?

an metuit conclusa manere in corpore putri

et domus actatis spatio ne fessa vetusto

obruat ? at non sunt immortali ulla pericla. 775

Denique conubia ad Veneris partusque ferarum
esse animas praesto deridiculum esse videtur,
expectare immortalis mortalia membra
innumero numero certareque praeproperanter
inter se quae prima potissimaque insinuetur; 780
si non forte ita sunt animarum foedera pacta
ut quae prima volans advenerit insinuetur
prima neque inter se contendant vinbus hilum.

Denique in aethere non arbor, non aequore in alto
nubes esse queunt nec pisces vivere in arvis 785
nec cruor in lignis neque saxis sucus inesse.
certum ac dispositumst ubi quicquit crescat et insit.
sic animi natura nequit sine corpore oriri
sola neque a nervis et sanguine longiter esse.
quod si (posset enim multo prius) ipsa animi vis 790
in capite aut umeris aut imis calcibus esse
posset et innasci quavis in parte, soleret
tandem in eodem homine atque in eodem vase manere.
quod quoniam nostro quoque constat corpore certum
dispositumque videtur ubi esse et crescere possit 795
sorsum anima atque animus, tanto magis infitiandum
totum posse extra corpus durare genique.
quare, corpus ubi interlit, pertisse necessest
confiteare animam distractam in corpore toto.
quippe etenim mortale aeterno iungere et una 800
consentire putare et fungi mutua posse
desiperest; quid enim diversius esse putandumst

alto. salso Lach, because salso is found in the repetition of this passage v 128:
but as Lucr. so often varies in such points, I cannot bring myself to depart from
the mss. 789 longiter Lamb. Lach. longius all mss. here and v 133: comp.
676. 790—793 are repeated v 134—137 without the mss. differing in a single
letter. I flatter myself I have made the passage clear by a correct punctuation
without the change of a word: 790 posset enim multo prius I enclose in brackets,
and begin the apodosis at soleret. Lach. here and in v reads Quid si posset enin ?
multo. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. give Hoc si posset enim, multo. 800 mortale

10—2

148 ΠῚ

aut magis inter se disiunctum discrepitansque,

quam mortale quod est inmortali atque perenni

iunctum in concilio saevas tolerare procellas ? S05
quod si forte ideo magis immortalis habendast, 819
quod letalibus ab rebus munita tenetur,

aut quia non veniunt omnino aliena salutis

aut quia quae veniunt aliqua ratione recedunt

pulsa prius quam quid noceant sentire queamus,
praeter enim quam quod morbis cum corporis aegret,
advenit id quod eam de rebus saepe futuris 825
macerat inque metu male habet curisque fatigat
praeteritisque male admissis peccata remordent.

adde furorem animi proprium atque oblivia rerum,

Junt. for mortalem. 805 saevas Mar. Junt. for salvas. 806—818=v 351—363
word for word: they here interrupt the argument, and are of course one of the
many glosses with which some reader has wished either to explain or refute the
poet by quoting his own verses for or against him, as the case may be. But
as that which follows in the fifth book applies only to the heaven, not to the mind
of which Lucr. is here speaking, he did not continue his quotation; but Ald. 1 and
Junt. after Marullus followed by ali editors before Lach. add v 364—373, rudely
altered to suit the present subject. ‘at Michahel Marullus’ says Lach. justly
indignant ‘illo [lectore] audacior nihil veritus est ceteris transferendis immanes
ineptias inferre; quos versus cum omnes libris veteribus sine exceptione omnibus
abesse aut scirent aut certe deberent scire, plerique sine admonitione susceperunt,
Wakefieldus, cui Forbiger adsensus est, ‘‘ poetae” (id est Marulli) miratur ‘ con-
sideratam severitatem diligitque, per tam dilucidam ratiocinationem simpliciter
mentem suam exponentis”. mihi Marulli male sedula simplicitas non nimis
exagitanda esse videtur: subiclam tamen eius versiculos, ut appareat quae Lam-
binis et Wakefieldis (ceteros nunc omitto) Lucretio dignissima visa fuerint. At
neque, uti docui, solido cum corpore mentis Natura est, quoniam admistum est in
rebus inane, Nec tamen est ut inane, neque autem corpora desunt Ex infinito, quac
possint forte coorta Corruere hance mentis violento turbine molem, Aut aliam quamvis
cladem importare pericli, Nec porro natura loci spactumque profundi Deficit, expargt
quo possit vis animai Aut alia quavis possit vi pulsa perire, Haud igitur leti
praeclusa est ianua menti’. 820 letalibus Lamb. for vitalibus. After
823 a verse is lost, which Lach. thus supplies, Mnlta tamen tangunt animam mala,
multa pericla. Mar. Ald. 1 and Junt. insert after 820 the following, Scilicet a
vera longe ratione remotumst ; which Lamb. retained, but placed after 823.

824 morbist eum corporis aegrit AB. morbis Avanc. first: no ‘Italus’ before
him. acgret Gif. in notes rightly for aegrit. Nicc., deceived by morbist and think-
ing cum a conjunction, wrote cum corpus aegrotat, which led to endless confusion
in later mss. and eds.: even Lamb. was misled, and Creech and others before
Lach. neglected Gifanius’ hint. 826 macerat Flor. 31 Pont. Mar, Ald. 1 Junt.
for maccret: yet Wak. retains the solecism,

III 149

adde quod in nigras lethargi mergitur undas.
Nil igitur mors est ad nos neque pertinet hilum, 830
quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur,
et velut anteacto nil tempore sensimus aecgri,
ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis,
omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu
horrida contremuere sub altis aetheris oris, $35
in dubioque fuere utrorum ad regna cadendum
omnibus humanis esset terraque marique,
sic, ubi non erimus, cum corporis atque animai
discidium fuerit quibus e sumus uniter apti,
scilicet haud nobis quicquam, qui non erimus tum, 8.40
accidere omnino poterit sensumque movere,
non si terra mari miscebitur et mare caelo.
et si iam nostro sentit de corpore postquam
distractast animi natura animaeque potestas,
nil tamen est ad nos qui comptu coniugioque 8.45
corporis atque animae consistimus uniter apti.
nec, 51 materiem nostram collegerit aetas
post obitum rursumque redegerit ut sita nunc est
atque iterum nobis fuerimt data lumina vitae,
pertineat quicquam tamen ad nos id quoque factum, 850
interrupta semel cum sit repetentia nostri.
et nunc nil ad nos de nobis attinet, ante
qui fuimus, neque iam de illis nos adficit angor.
nam cum respicias inmensi temporis omne
praeteritum spatium, tum motus materiai $55
multimodis quam sint, facile hoc adcredere possis,
semina saepe in eodem, ut nunc sunt, ordine posta
865 haec eadem, quibus e nunc nos sumus, ante fuisse.
858 nec memori tamen id quimus repraehendere mente;
inter enim iectast vital pausa vageque 860

829 nigras. ‘f. pigras’ Heins. in ms. notes: Markland proposed the same,
but without cause. 835 aetheris oris Gif. for aetheris auris; and so Lucr.
always writes elsewhere. 844 Distractast Nice. for Distractas. 847 mate-
riem B, materiam A Nicc. 851 repetentia B rightly. repentia A Nice. Flor. 31
Camb. vretinentia Avane. Lach. mostri Pius in notes, Gif. Lach. for nostris.
nobis Pont. Avance. nostra Mar. Junt. vulg. 853 neque added by Lach. nec
Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. adjficit Flor. 31 Mon, Pont. for adjfigit. 856 muilii-
modis Lach. with Wakefield’s A for multimodi. 858 (865) transferred here

150 Il

deerrarunt passim motus ab sensibus omnes.
debet enim, misere si forte aegreque futurumst,
ipse quoque esse in eo tum tempore, cui male possit
accidere. id quoniam mors eximit, esseque probet
864 illum cui possint incommoda conciliari, 865
scire licet nobis nil esse in morte timendum
nec miserum fieri qui non est posse neque hilum
ditferre anne ullo fuerit iam tempore natus,
mortalem vitam mors cum inmortalis ademit.
Proinde ubi se videas hominem indignarier ipsum, 870
post mortem fore ut aut putescat corpore posto
aut flammis interfiat malisve ferarum,
scire licet non sincerum sonere atque subesse
caecum aliquem cordi stimulum, quamvis neget ipse
credere se quemquam 5101 sensum in morte futurum. 875
non, ut opinor, enim dat quod promittit et unde,
nec radicitus e vita se tollit et eicit,
sed facit esse sui quiddam super inscius ipse.
vivus enim sibi cum proponit quisque futurum,
corpus uti volucres lacerent in morte feraeque, S80
ipse sul miseret; neque enim se dividit illim,
nec removet satis a proiecto corpore et illum
se fingit sensuque suo contaminat astans.
hine indignatur se mortalem esse creatum
nec videt in vera nullum fore morte ahum se δὸς
qui possit vivus 5101 se lugere peremptum
stansque iacentem se lacerari urive dolere.

by Lach. who is naturally surprised that it was left for him to do. 862 misere
si Pont. Turnebus and Is. Voss. in ms. notes, before Lach., for miserest.

864 mors B corr. Flor. 31 for moz. probet Lach. prohibet Turnebus for
prohibe. 868 Differre anne ullo Ed. for Differre annullo anullo A, anullo
anullo B. a nullo Nice. isne ullo Ed. in small ed. Differre ante ullo Lach. ;
but differre fuerit seems not to be Latin. Differre an nullo of Pont. Mar. Ald. 1
Junt. Lamb. etc. has no sense. 871 putescat Avance. Wak. Lach. for putes.
putrescat Flor. 31 Pont. Mar. Junt. Lamb. vulg. Cic, de fin. v 38 ne putisceret
Nonius, putresceret mss.: de nat. deor. 11 160 ne putesceret mss. speaking of the
same thing. 873 non sincerum Flor. 81 Camb. Pont. Mar. for no sincerum
A. Nice., nos sinc. B. 880 lacerent Nicc. for tacerent. 881 dividit illim
A. viditillumB, dividitillum Nice. dividit hilum Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. vindicat
hilum Lamb. 886 Qui Flor. 31 Mon. Pont. Ald. 1 Junt, for Cuz.

887 se added by Flor. 31 Camb. Avance. dolere Mon. p. m. Lamb. for dolore.

ΠῚ [5]

nam si in morte malumst malis morsuque ferarum
tractaril, non invenio qui non sit acerbum

ignibus inpositum calidis torrescere flammis 890
aut in melle sittum suffocari atque rigere

frigore, cum summo gelidi cubat aequore sax),

urgerive superne obtritum pondere terrae.

‘Jam iam non domus accipiet te laeta, neque uxor
optima nec dulces occurrent oscula nati S95
praeripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent.
non poteris factis florentibus esse, tuisque
praesidium. misero misere’ alunt ‘omnia ademit
una dies infesta tibi tot praemia vitae.’
illud in his rebus non addnnt ‘nec tibi earum goo
iam desiderium rerum super insidet una.’
quod bene si videant animo dictisque sequantur,
dissoluant animi magno se angore metuque. .

‘tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris aevi

quod superest cunctis privatu’ doloribus aegris: 905
at nos horrifico cinefactum te prope busto

insatiabiliter deflevimus, aeternumque

nulla dies nobis maerorem e pectore demet.’

illud ab hoe igitur quaerendum est, quid sit amar

tanto opere, ad somnum si res redit atque quietem, οἵο
cur quisquam aeterno possit tabescere luctu.

Hoe etiam faciunt ubi discubuere tenentque
pocula saepe homines et inumbrant ora coronis,
ex animo ut dicant ‘brevis hic est fructus homullis;
iam fuerit neque post umquam revocare licebit.’ O15
tamquam in morte mali cum primis hoe sit eorum,
quod sitis exurat miseros atque arida torres,
aut aliae cuius desiderium insideat ΓΟ].
nec sibi enim quisquam tum se vitamque requirit,

893 obtritum Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for obrutum. 894 Iam iam Flor. 31
4 Vat. Lach. Amiam A Nicc. Vimiam B. At iam Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg.
At iam is perhaps right. 897 898 Lamb. has departed widely from the mss.
without any cause, reading tibi fortibus for florentibus, miser o miser for misero
misere. 902 quod Nice. for Quo. 904—908: to these verses Bern. has
properly attached the mark of apostrophe. 914 fructus Flor. 31 Camb. for
jluctus. 917 torres Lach. for torret A, torrat A corr. B Nice. terra Flor. 31
Camb. Mon. Lamb. 919 requirit Flor. 29 corr. (Politian?) Camb. corr.

152 ΠῚ

cum pariter mens et corpus sopita quiescunt ; 920

nam licet aeternum per nos sic esse soporem,

nec desiderium nostn nos adficit ullum.

et tamen handquaquam nostros tunc illa per artus

longe ab sensiferis primordia motibus errant,

cum correptus homo ex somno se colligit ipse. Q2

multo igitur mortem minus ad nos esse putandumst,

si minus esse potest quam quod nil esse videmus;

maior enim turbae disiectus material

consequitur leto nec quisquam expergitus exstat,

frigida quem semel est vitai pausa secuta. 930
Denique si vocem rerum natura repente

mittat et hoc alicui nostrum sic increpet ipsa

‘quid tibi tanto operest, mortalis, quod nimis aegris

luctibus indulges? quid mortem congemis ac fles?

nam gratis anteacta fuit tibi vita priorque 935

et non omnia pertusum congesta quasi in vas

commoda perfluxere atque ingrata interlere:

cur non ut plenus vitae conviva recedis

aequo animoque capis securam, stulte, quietem ?

sin ea quae fructus cumque es periere profusa 940

vitaque in offensust, cur amplius addere quaeris,

rursum quod pereat male et ingratum occidat omne,

non potius vitae finem facis atque laboris ?

nam tibi praeterea quod machiner inveniamque,

quod placeat, nil est: eadem sunt omnia semper. 945

si tibi non annis corpus iam marcet et artus

confecti languent, eadem tamen omnia restant,

omnia si pergas vivendo vincere saecla,

atque etiam potius, si numquam sis moriturus,’

μι

Nauger. for requiret. 921 esse soporem A Nicc. vulg. esse praemo B: a merc
blunder, the so being absorbed in esse: yet Bern. reads per acvum. 922 ad-
ficit Lamb. ed. 1 and 2, Heins. in ms. notes for adigit. attigit Flor. 31 Camb.
Mar. Avance. Lamb. ed. 3. 935 Nam gratis anteacta fuit tibi vita priorque
Ed. for N. gr. fuit tibi vita anteacta priorque. Perhaps Lucr. wrote Nam gratis
fuvit or fait tibi cet.: the % is common in old writers. N. gr. fuit haec t. v. a. pr.
Lach, UN. si grata f. t. v. a. p. Nauger. Nam gratis flucit cet. Mar. Junt. Nam

gratum f. t. v. Nice. Nam gratisne fuit Bern. 941 offensust Lamb. for offen-
sost. 942 male et B Flor. 31 etc. rightly. mali et A Nicc. Camb,
Wak. 943 finem facis Avance. for finem iacis, 945 placeat Nice. for

place. 948 pergas Lamb. ed. 3 for perges. 950 nist Mar. Junt. for

Il τ:

quid respondemus, nisi iustam intendere litem 950
naturam et verain verbis exponere causam ?

955 grandior hic vero si 1am senlorque queratur

952 atque obitum lamentetur miscr amplius aequo,
non mcrito inclamet magis et voce increpet acri ?

954 ‘aufer abhinc lacrimas, balatro, ct compesce querellas. 955
omnia perfunctus vitai pracmia marces.
sed quia semper aves quod abest, praesentia temnis,
inperfecta tibi clapsast ingrataque vita
et nec opinanti mors ad caput adstitit ante
quam satur ac plenus possis discedere rerum. 960
nune aliena tua tamen aetate omnia mitte
acquo animoque agedum magnus concede: necessest.’
lure, ut opinor, agat, iure increpet inciletque ;
cedit euim rerum novitate extrusa vetustas
semper, et ex 4115. aliud reparare necessest ; 965
nec quisguam in barathrum nec Tartara deditur atra:
materies opus est ut crescant postera saecla ;
quae tamen omnia te vita perfuncta sequentur ;
nec minus ergo ante haec quam tu cecidere, cadentque.
sic alid ex alio numquam desistet oriri 970
vitaque mancipio nulli datur, omnibus usu.
respice item quam nil ad nos anteacta vetustas
temporis aeterni fuerit, quam nascimur ante.
hoc igitur speculum nobis natura futuri
temporis exponit post mortem denique nostram. 975
numquid 101 horribile apparet, num triste videtur
quicquam, non omni somno securius exstat ?

Atque ea nimirum quaecumque Acherunte profundo

prodita sunt esse, in vita sunt omnia nobis.

e

si. 952 (955) placed here first by Lach. 955 balatro certain critics in
Turneb. advers. and Heins. in ms. notes for baratre. barde Ald. 1 Junt. not Mar.
958 inperfecta Flor. 31 Camb. for inperfecte. 960 discedere Nicc. for
discere. 962 agedum Nice. for agendum. magnus ‘censor Orellii Ienenis’ for
magnis. iam aliis Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. dignis Lach. gnatis Bern. humanis
and mage sis Ed. formerly. 966 deditur A Nice, dedit B. decidit B corr.
Lamb. 978 Atque ea nimirum AB Flor. 31 Camb. 2 Vat. Priscian rightly. Nice.
has Atque animarum etiam: a strange error which is repeated by 2 Vat. Brix. Ver.
Ven. Mar. Ald. 1 and 2, Junt.: the last four read Atqui. Avane. however at the
end of his Catullus rightly recalls Atqgue ea nimirum; as do Lamb. vulg. but not

154 11

nec miser inpendens magnum timet aere saxum 980
Tantalus, ut famast, cassa formidine torpens ;

sed magis in vita divom metus urget inanis

mortalis casumque timent quem cuique ferat fors.

nec Tityon volucres ineunt Acherunte iacentem

nec quod sub magno scrutentur pectore quicquam 985
perpetuam aetatem possunt reperire profecto.

quamlibet immani proiectu corporis exstet,

qui non sola novem dispessis iugera membris

optineat, sed qui terrai totius orbem,

non tamen aeternum poterit perferre dolorem 990
nec praebere cibum proprio de corpore semper.

sed Tityos nobis hic est, in amore lacentem

quem volucres lacerant atque exest anxius angor

aut alia quavis scindunt cuppedine curae.

Sisyphus in vita quoque nobis ante oculos est 995
qui petere a populo fasces saevasque secures

imbibit et semper victus tristisque recedit.

nam petere imperium quod inanest nec datur umquam,
atque in eo semper durum sufferre laborem,

hoc est adverso nixantem trudere monte 1000
saxum quod tamen e summo iam vertice rusum

volvitur et plani raptim petit aequora campi.

deinde animi ingratam naturam pascere semper

Wak. 983 cuique. cumque B Lamb. etc. wrongly. 985 quod Camb.
Junt. ete. for guid. 988 dispessis Turneb. for dispersis: so Ed. in τι 1126:
comp. Ovid. met. tv 458, and Plaut. miles 1407. dispensis Lamb. ed. 3. ‘leg.
distensis dispansis’ Heins. in ms. notes. 992 est B corr. Flor. 31 for es. et
Nice. 994 cuppedine Pont. Lamb. rightly, as v 45 vi 25. curpedine AB.
turpedine A corr. Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. Junt. etc. torpedine Ven. Ald. 1 Gif. who -
says ‘Ita v. nostri et aliorum fere. in 4. v. cuppedine, quod inrepsisse puto ex aliis
locis inf. lib. 5 et 6...contra Marull. ex hoc loco mutarat inf. lib. 5 et 6 torpedine
pro cupp. supposito’. Now the Junt. reads here, as I have said, turpedine; v 45
and vi 25 cupedinis. Again Ven. not Brix. or Ver. torpedine here. This therefore
is one of many proofs, some of which I have given elsewhere, that Gifanius had
the old Venice edition with Marullus’ ms. notes before him, and that this is
the book belonging to Sambucus of which he speaks both in his preface to
Sambucus himself and in his address to the reader: see above Ὁ. 9. [turpedine
Mon. as I now find: and the corrector Marullus repeats the words in marg. as
notable: torpedine must have been an earlier notion of Marullus; as in v and vi
he properly corrects the ms. reading to cuppedinis.] 1001 e summo iam vertice
Pont. Avanc. for summo iam vertice. summo iam 6 vertice Flor. 31 Camb. a su. i. v.

III ἊΣ

atque explere bomis rebus satiareque numquam,
quod faciunt nobis annorum tempora, circum 1005
cum redeunt fetusque ferunt variosque lepores,
nec tamen explemur vitai fructibus umquam,
hoe, ut opinor, id est, aevo florente puellas
quod memorant laticem pertusum congerere in vas,
quod tamen expleri nulla ratione potestur. ΙΟΙΟ
Cerberus et furiae iam vero et lucis egestas
*

Tartarus horriferos cructans faucibus aestus,
qui neque sunt usquam nec possunt esse profecto.
sed metus in vita poenarum pro male factis
est msignibus insignis scelerisque luella, ΙΟΙ5
carcer et horribilis de saxo iactw’ deorsum,
verbera carnifices robur pix lammina tacdae;
quae tamen ctsi absunt, at mens 5101 conscia factis
praemetuens adhibet stimulos terretque flagellis
nec videt interea qui terminus esse malorum 1020
possit nec quae sit poenarum denique finis
atque eadem metuit magis haee ne in morte gravescant.
hic Acherusia fit stultorum denique vita.

Hoe etiam tibi tute interdum dicere possis

‘lumina sis oculis etiam bonus Ancu’ reliquit 1025
Mar. Junt. vulg. 1005 circum Cum redeunt. victum, Cum redeunt Lach.
without cause. 1009 congerere B corr. ete. for cogere. 1010 nulla
Nicc. for ulla. After 1011 I believe some verses are lost: both the words of

Servius to Aen. vi 596 and his context prove to me that he is speaking of Lucretius,
not of Virgil as Bernays affirms in Rhein. Mus. n. f. v p. 584, when he says ‘per
rotam autem ostendit negotiatores qui semper tempestatibus turbinibusque vol-
vuntur’, I have appended the mark of a hiatus and made no change in the
text. furiae B corr. Pont. Mar. for funae. For egestas of all mss. and of Brix.
and Ver., Ven, has the remarkable reading egenus, adopted by Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb.
vulg. Lach.; but it is of course a pure conjecture which Lach. wrongly gives to
Marullus. 1013 Qui neque. Quid? neque Lach. Haec neque Mar. Junt.
vulg. 1014 poenarum Nicc. for paenarum of AB: in ancient times there
seems to have been a struggle between paena and the more correct poena which
finally prevailed. paenitet, or later penitet, was alone known. 1016 tactw’
deorsum Lamb. for iactus eorum. itactu’ reorum Heins. in ms. notes. 1017 iam
mina AB. agmina Nicc. Flor. 31 Brix. Ver. lamina Ven. vulg. lammina Lach.

1019 terretque Lach. for torretque. torquetque Heins, in ms. notes and advers.
which Virg, Aen. v1 670 sontis...flagello...quatit might perhaps support.

1023 Hic. Hine Pont. Mar. Junt. Lamb. vulg. without cause. 1031 superare

156 Ul

qui melior multis quam tu fuit, improbe, rebus.
inde alii multi reges rerumque potentes
occiderunt, magnis qui gentibus imperitarunt.
ille quoque ipse, viam qui quondam per mare magnum
stravit iterque dedit legionibus ire per altum 1030
ac pedibus salsas docuit superare lucunas
et contemsit equis insultans murmura ponti,
lumine adempto animam moribundo corpore fudit.
Scipiadas, belli fulmen, Carthaginis horror,
ossa dedit terrae proinde ac famul infimus esset. 1035
adde repertores doctrinarum atque leporum,
adde Heliconiadum comites; quorum unus Homerus
sceptra potitus eadem aliis sopitu’ quietest.
clenique Democritum postquam matura vetustas
admonuit memores motus languescere mentis, 1040
sponte sua leto caput obvius optulit ipse.
ipse Epicurus obit decurso lumine vitae,
qui genus humanum ingenio superavit et omnis
restinexit, stellas exortus ut aetherius sol.
tu vero dubitabis et indignabere obire ? 1045
mortua cul vita est prope iam vivo atque videnti,
qui somno partem maiorem conteris aevi
et vigilaus stertis nee somnia cernere cessas
sollicitamque geris cassa formidine mentem
nec reperire potes tibi quid sit saepe mali, cum 1050
ebrius urgeris multis miser undique curis
atque animi incerto fluitans errore vagaris.’
Si possent homines, proinde ac sentire videntur
pondus messe animo quod se gravitate fatiget,

Nice. (not Flor. 31 or Camb.) for super ire. Lach. encloses the v. in [], as wrongly

retained by the first editor. 1032 equis. aquis Lamb. etc. wrongly.

1033 fudit Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for fugit. 1034 Scipiadus AB Lach.
Scipiades Nice. vulg, 1038 potitus Flor. 31 Camb. Brix. Pont. Mar. for
potius. 1040 memores. memorem Lamb. 1042 obvit Flor. 31 Pont. Mar.

for obiit, wit Lach, 7it can scarcely be used in this unqualified way for mortuus
est ; nor is the evidence adduced by Lach. in his long and most learned note suffici-
ent to shew that Lucr. could not have used the form obit before a consonant: but
see notes 2. 1044 aetherius Lactantius Junt. aerius mss. 1050 potes
tibi quid sit Lach. for potest ibi quod sit. potes tibi quod sit Mar. potes quod sit ibi
Nice. ; hence potes quid sit tibi Flor. 31 Camb, Brix. Ver. Ven. Avance. vulg. potes
quod sit tibt Junt. Ald. 2 wrongly. 1052 animi incerto Lamb. for animo

III ies 7

e quibus id fiat causis quoque noscere et unde 1055

tanta mali tamquam moles in pectore constet,

haut ita vitam agerent, uf nunc plerumque videmus

quid sibi quisque velit nescire et quaerere semper

commutare locum quasi onus deponere possit.

exit sacpe foras magnis ex aedibus ile, 1060

esse domi quem pertaesumst, subitoque revertzt,

quippe foris nilo melius qui sentiat esse.

cwrit agens mannos ad villain praccipitanter,

auxilium tectis quasi ferre ardentibus instans ;

oscitat extemplo, tetigit cum limina villae, 1065

aut abit in somnum gravis atque oblivia quaerit,

aut etiam properans urbem petit atque revisit.

hoe se quisque modo fugit (at quem scilicet, ut fit,

effugere haut potis est, ingratis haeret) et odit

propterea, merbi quia causam non tenet aeger; 1070

quam bene si videat, iam rebas quisque relictis

naturam primum studeat cognosccre rerum,

temporis acterni quoniam, non unius horae,

aunbigitur status, in quo sit mortalibus omnis

aetas, post mortem quae restat cumque manenda. 1075

Denique tanto opere in dubus trepidare periclis

quae mala nos subigit vitai tanta cupido ?

eerta quidem finis vitae mortalibus adstat

nec devitari letum pote quin obeamus.

praeterea versamur ibidem atque insumus usque 1080

nec nova vivendo procuditur ulla voluptas ;
incerto. 1061 revertit added by Politian in marg. Flor. 29 Ald. 1 Junt. vulg.
reventat Flor. 29 Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. revertens Pont. revisit Proll, deform. ant.
Luer. p. 44—48. 1063 praecipitanter Nice. for praecipiter. ‘f. praecipiterque...
instat’ Heins. in ms. notes. 1068 1069: by a better punctuation I have
I think made this disputed passage quite clear: 1069 ingratis Lamb. rightly for
ingratius ; nothing else is to be changed; but at quem...haeret are to be enclosed in
brackets. 1068 for quem Lach. quom: his note is most unsatisfactory and
to me almost unintelligible; especially the words ‘nam sese homo aut semper
effugere potest aut numquam, quoniam hoc totum figurate dicitur’. Seneca de

tranquill, 1 14 clearly read quem: he explains Lucr. quite correctly. fugit at.
fugitat Madvig poet. Lat. carm. sel. 1843: but Seneca, as well as our mss., clearly

read fugit at. 1069 haeret et angit Mar. Junt. Lamb, vulg. For ingratius
Ven. alone has initus; therefore Avance. who founded his revision on it has invitus
adhaeret., 1073 Temporis aeterni Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. first for Aeterni

temporis. 1075 manenda Lamb, for manendo. 1078 Certa quidem Avance

158 ΠῚ

sed dum abest quod avemus, id exsuperare videtur
cetera; post aliut, cum contigit illud, avemus

et sitis aequa tenet vitai semper hiantis.

posteraque in dubiost fortunam quam vehat aetas, 1085
quidve ferat nobis casus quive exitus instet.

nee prorswn vitam ducendo demimus hilum

tempore de mortis nec delibare valemus,

quo minus esse diu possimus forte perempti.

proinde licet quot vis vivendo condere saecla; 1090
mors aeterna tamen nilo mmus illa manebit,

nec minus ille diu iam non erit, ex hodierno

lumine qui finem vitai fecit, et ille,

imensibus atque annis qui multis occidit ante.

before Lamb. for Certe equidem: Lucr. may have written equidem., 1085 for-
tunan Ald. 1 Junt. tirst for fortuna. 1088 delibare Pont. Mar. Junt. for
deliberare. delibrare Avanc. Lamb. ‘f. devitare,’ Heins. in ms. notes.

1089 possimus forte Nice. B corr. Flor, 31 Camb. Brix. Ver. Ven. for possumus
forte. sorte Ald. 1 Pius Junt. Naugerius. morte Lamb. first: no ‘Italus’
before him.

T. LUCRETI CARI

DE RERUM NATURA

LIBER QUARTUS

{Avia Picridum peragro loca nullius ante

trita solo, iuvat integros accedere fontis

atque haurire, 1uvatque novos decerpere flores

Insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam

unde prius nulli velarint tempora musae; 5
primum quod magnis doceo de rebus et artis

religionim animum nodis exsolvere pergo,

deinde quod obscura de re tain lucida pango

carmina, musaeo contingens cuncta lepore.

id quoque enim non ab nulla ratione videtur; 10
nam veluti pueris absinthia taetra medentes

cum dare conantur, prius oras pocula circum

contingunt mellis dulci flavoque hquore,

ut puerorum aetas inprovida ludificetur

labrorum tenus, interea perpotet amarum 15
absinthi laticem deceptaque non capiatur,

sed potius tali pacto recreata valescat,

sic ego nunc, quoniam haec ratio plerumque videtur
tristior esse quibus non est tractata, retroque

volgus abhorret ab hac, volui tibi suaviloquenti 20
carmine Pierio rationem exponere nostram

7 animum. animos Lactant. 1 16: see 1 932. 8 pango Flor. 31 Camb.
3 Vat. vulg. for pando: so 1 933. 11 Nam. Ac Quintil. mr 1 4 Nonius
Hieronym. 13 Contingunt. Inspirant or Aspergunt Quintil. 17 pacto Lach.

for atacto: so 1 942. a tactu Nicc. one Vat. Ver. Ven. Ald. 1 Junt. Wak. attactu
Flor. 31 8 Vat. adtactu Camb. tactu Lamb. ed. 3. facto Lamb. ed. 1 and 2,

160 iY

et quasi musaco dulci contingere melle,

si tibi forte animum tali ratione tenere

versibus in nostris possem, dum percipis omnem

naturam rerum ac persentis utilitatem. | 25
Atque anim quoniam docui natura quid esset

et quibus ὁ rebus cum corpore compta vigeret

quove modo distracta rediret in ordia prima,

nune agere incipiam tibi, quod vementer ad has res

attinet, esse ea quae rerum simulacra vocamus: 30

quae, quasi membranae summo de corpore rerum

dereptac, volitant ultroque citroque per auras,

atque eadem nobis vigilantibus obvia mentes

terrificant atque In somnis, cum sacpe figuras

contuimur miras simulacraqne luce carentum,

Cr)
oa

quae nos horrifice languentis saepe sopore
excierunt: ne forte animas Acherunte reamur
effugere ant umbras inter vivos volitare
neve aliquid nostri post mortem posse relinqui,
cum corpus simul atque anim) natura perempta 40
in sua discessum dederint primordia quaeque.
Dico igitur rerum effigias tenuisque figuras
mittier ab rebus summo de corpore rerum,
51 quoi quasi membranae, vel cortex nominitandast, 50
quod speciem ac formam similem gerit elus imago

Git. 32 dereptae B Lamb. direptae A Nicc. all before Lamb. 41 quaeque.
quoique Lach. ‘discessus’ he says ‘non aliter dari potest quam quomodo sugam dari
Vergilius dixit, id est concedi’: but Virgil also says x11 367 fugam dant nubila, that
is fugiunt: see notes 2 for many more illustrations: discessum «lederint therefore =
discesserint, 42 effigias Lamb. for effugias of AB. effigies Nicc. and all mss.
and eds. between him and Lamb. 43 summo de corpore rerum Lach. for summo
de cortice eorum. summo de corpore earum Lamb. vulg.: but comp. 31 and 64,
and Lachmann’s note. 44. 47 (45—48) =111 31-34, except 44 Sed quoniam
for Et quoniam, 47 Quoque, possit for Quove, possint, and are rightly ejected by
Lach. as a gloss. In this place they are of course quite inadmissible. Mar,
Junt, vulg. put them before 26; and thither, if retained, they must be
transferred. To this Lach. offers the objection that while the first 24 lines are
repeated word for word from the first book, in 25 we have ac persentis utilitatem
for qua coustet compta figura: this change he says was probably made because
in 27 are the words compta vigeret; but had the poet really inserted 44—47 before
26, this alteration would not have been called for: see however what is said in
notes 2. 48 49 (49 50)=29 30 and seem to be repeated here without meaning
because of the resemblance between what precedes and follows them there and-

ΙΝ 101

euluscumque elnet de corpore fusa vagart.
44 id licet hine quamvis hebeti cognoscere corde,
54 principio quoniam mittunt in rebus apertis
corpora res multae, partim diffusa solute,
robora ceu fumum mittunt 1gnesqne vaporem,
et partim contexta magis condensaque, ut olim
cum teretis ponunt tunicas acstate cicadae,
et vituli cum membranas de corpore summo
nasventes mittunt, οὔ item cum lubrica serpens 6o
exuit in spinis vestem; nam saepe videmus
illorum spoliis vepres volitantibus auctas:
quae quomam fiunt, tenuis quoque debet imago
ab rebus mitti summo de corpore rerum.
nam cur illa cadant magis ab rebusque recedant 65
quam quae tenvia sunt, hiscendist nulla potestas;
praesertim cum sint in sumimis corpora rebus
multa minuta, 1acl quae possint ordine eodem
quo fuerint et formai servare figuram,
et multo citius, quanto minus indupedini 70
pauca queunt et quae sunt prima fronte locata.
nam certe lacere ac largiri multa videmus,
non solum ex alto penitusque, ut diximus ante,
verum de summis ipsum quoque saepe colorem.

tn
1

et volgo faciunt id lutea russaque vela ΤῊΣ

et ferrugina, cum magnis intenta theatris

per malos volgata trabesque trementia flutant ;

namque ibi consessum caveai supter et omnem
what precedes and follows here. Mar. and Junt. first omitted them. 50
Quoi Kid. for Qui. Quae Nonius Flor. 31 Camb. vulgo and Lach. 52 cluet
Brix. Avance. Ald. 2 for ciuct. cui et Nicc. tut et Flor. 31 Camb. eluwet Ver. Ven.
queat Mar. Junt. 53 (44) first transferred hither by Mar. Junt. D4 mit-
tunt Nicc. for mittuntur. 68 eodem Pont. Mar. Junt. for eornm. rerum Ven.
Avance. 69 et formai Is. Voss. in ms. notes for et forma. et cum forma B corr.

veterem et formam Camb. veterem et formae Vat. 1136 and 1954 Othob. Lamb.
solitam et formae Avanc, Nauger. formaeque suam Pont. Junt. conformem or con-
similem conj. Lamb. conformem Heins. in ms. notes. 71 et quae sunt prima
Lach. for et sunt prima AB. ‘quadratus habet in ante prima additum antiquissima,
si non prima manu’ Lach,: and so Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. et sunt prima sub
Flor. 31 Camb. 72 iacere ac largiri Lach. most acutely for iacere aciergiri.
iacere uc iaculari Flor. 31 Camb. 2 Vat. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. 77 flutant Turnebus
Lamb, ed. 3 for fluctus B. om. A Nicc. 2 Vat. Brix. Ver.: hence circum, pendent,

ΣΙ. 11

162 IV

scaenal speciem, patrum coetumque decorum

inficiunt coguntque suo fluitare colore. SO
et quanto circum mage sunt inclusa theatri

moenibu’, tam magis haec intus perfusa lepore

omnia conrident correpta luce diel.

ergo lintea de summo cum corpore fucum

mittunt, effigias quoque debent mittere tenvis 85
res quaeque, ex summo quoniam iaculantur utraque.

sunt igitur iam formarum vestigia certa

quae volgo volitant suptili praedita filo

nec singillatim possunt secreta vider.

praeterea omnis odor fumus vapor atque aliae res go
consimiles ideo difttisae e rebus abundant,

ex alto qiia dum veniunt intrinsecus ortae,

scinduntur per iter flexum, nec recta viarum

ostia sunt qua contendant exire coortae.

at contra tenuis summi membrana coloris 95
cum iacitur, nil est quod eam discerpere possit,

in promptu quoniam est in prima fronte locata.

postremo speculis in aqua splendoreque in omni
quaecumque apparent nobis simulacra, necessest,
quandoquidem simili specie sunt praedita rerum 100
exfima, Imaguubus missis consistere rerum.

duras in various mss. and eds. 79 Scaenai Lamb. first for Scaenal A, Scacuali
B. Scaenalem A corr. Nice. all mss. and eds. between him and Lamb. patrum
coetumque decorum Ed. for patrum matrumque deorum. patrum matrumque deo-
runique Nicc. all before Lach. pulcram variumque decorem Lach, claram variamque
deorsum Bern. But comp. Aen. v 340, Tac. ann. χε 54 and Camb. Journ. of phil.
1 373. ΤΟΥ. often has que in the third place: comp. 104, and see notes 2 to 11
1050. patrum and decorum seem to me pretty certain: for coetumque perhaps
ornatumque or the like. 81 inclusa theatri Mo. nibw’ Ed. for inelusa (B, in-
claustra A Nice.) theatri Moenia: a necessary and simple correction: Moenia has’
arisen from the neighbouring inclusa, haec, perfusa: so 11 458 omnia for omnibw’,
919 animalibw for animalia. inclusa theatri Mocnia, the vulg. reading, has no sense.

angusta theatri Moenia Lach. which is contrary to the truth. 91 diffusae
rebus AB. Lamb. has rightly added e; and 92 he has also rightly given intrinsecus
for extrinsecus: so v1 1099 intrinsecus A for extrinsecus. 94 coorte B, i.e.

coortae; and so Lamb. ed. 3. coorta A. qua contendant AB most properly. qua
contendunt Nice. and all mss. and eds. between him and Lach.: 91 diffusa e, 92
extrinsecu’ torte, 94 coorta Lach. whose explanation is most forced. 101
Extima, imaginibus Ed. for Ex imaginibus: the scribe neglected to repeat the
ima. Exeita imaginibus Lach. Esse in imaginibus Avance. Nauger. Lamb. vulg.
without meaning. Esse et Mar. Junt. rerum Lach. for eorum, as in 43. carum

IV 163

sunt igitur tenues formae, rerum similesque 104
effigiae, singillatim quas cernere nemo
cum possit tamen, adsiduo ecrebroque repulsu
reicctae reddunt speculorum ex aequore visum,
nec ratione alia servari posse videntur,
tanto opere ut similes reddantur ecuique figurae.

Nune age quam tenui natura constet imago I1O
pereipe. et i primis, quoniam primordia tantum
sunt infra nostros sensus tantoque minora
quam quae primum oculi coeptant non posse tueri,
nunc tamen id quoque uti confirmem, exordia rerum
cunctarum quam sint suptilia percipe paucis. L15
prinum animalia sunt 1am partim tantula, quorum
tertia pars nulla possit ratione videri.
horum intestinum quodvis quale esse putandumst:!
quid cordis globus aut oculi? quid membra? quid artus?
quantula sunt! quid praeterea primordia quacque 120
unde anima atque animi constet natura necessumst ?
nonne vides quam sint subtilla quamque minuta?
praeterea quaecumque suo de corpore odorem
expirant acrem, panaces absinthia taetra

Mar. Junt. 102 103=65 66. 104 formae rerum similesque Ed. for forma-
rum dissimilesque: comp. Camb. Journ. of phil.1 p. 43; I have since learnt that
Hugo Purmann hit upon the same correction before me: dissimilesque was written
merely to fill up the verse. formarum illis similesque Lach. formarum consimi-

lesque Lamb. vulg. 116 quorum H. Purmann Lucr. quaest. p. 27, corum Lach.
for eorum. eorum ut Camb. Vat. 1136 Othob. Mar. Junt. wt horuwm Vat. 3276
Pont. Nauger. eorum...nulla wt possit Avanc. After 126 not a few vss. must

have been lost. Heins. in ms. notes says ‘aliquid deest’: Haverc. suspected the
same. Lach. by an elaborate and acute calculation shews or endeavours to shew
that one page of the archetype containing 25 lines and one heading, Esse item
matora, has been lost. That a page of the archetype ended with 126 is certain;
that another page commenced with 127, and that this page was a left-hand or even-
numbered page is no less certain, as Lach. has demonstrated. It is also perhaps
more probable that 25 lines were here lost, than double that number or more,
because the poet in 115 says, as Lach. points out, percipe pauecis. But Lachmann’s
calculation, taken in conjunction with his general theory of the mode in which AB
and the other mss. descended from the archetype, involves a great difficulty which
is discussed above p. 27, 28. Lach. thus continues the sentence of 126 duobus
[dttingas digitis}: Haverc. [Contrectes digitis]. Among the lost verses Lach. places
this fragment, qui fulmine claro Oninia per sonitus arcet, terram mare caelum: which
I believe belongs to Ennius, not to Lucr. at all, as it has nothing of his style about
it; and Servius Aen. 1 30 assigns it distinctly to the former, while the words of

11--

164 IV

habrotonique graves et tristia centaurea, 125
quorum unum quidvis leviter si forte duobus
*
quin potius noscas rerum simulacra vagarl
multa modis multis nulla vi cassaque sensu ?
[Sed ne forte putes ea demum sola vagari,
quaecumque ab rebus rerum simulacra recedunt, 130
sunt etiam quae sponte sua gignuntur et ipsa
constituuntur m hoc caelo qui dicitur aer,
135 quae multis formata modis sublime feruntur
[41 nec speciem mutare suam liquentia cessant
et culusque modi formarum vertere in oras ; I
133 ut nubes facile interdum concrescere in alto
cernimus et mundi speciem violare serenam
136 aera mulcentes motu. nam saepe Gigantum
ora volare videntur et umbram ducere late,
interdum magni montes avolsaque saxa 140
montibus anteire et solem succedere praeter,
140 inde alios trahere atque inducere belua nimbos.]
143 Nunc ea quam facili et celer1 ratione genantur
perpetuoque fluant ab rebus lapsaque cedant

os)
Wat

e Φ . .« .Ψ e e . e e

semper enim summum quicquid de rebus abundat 145
quod iaculentur. et hoc alias cum pervenit in res,

transit, ut in primis vitrum. sed ubi aspera saxa

aut in materiam ligni pervenit, 101 1am

scinditur ut nullum simulacrum reddere possit.

at cum splendida quae constant opposta fuerunt 150
densaque, ut in primis speculum est, nil accidit horum ;

Probus to ecl. vr 31 are ambiguous. 129— 142, strangely transposed in the
inss. as may be seen by our left-hand numbering, were first brought into order by
the acuteness of Lamb.: see above p. 30 for a possible explanation of this dis-
order. 138 motu. nam. motum in Nice. the cause of great confusion in later
mss. and eds. before Mar. Junt. and Lamb. 143 genantur Lamb. for gerantur:
a necessary change here, though he often introduces the word without cause.

After 144 a verse has manifestly been lost: it is curious that Marullus and Lamb.
should have overlooked this. ‘deest Percipe vel Expediam, tum paucula a quibus
illud enim quod subicitur pendeat’ Lach. 147 and 152 vitrum Oppenrieder for ves-
tem: a necessary correction which it is strange neither Lamb. nor Lach. should have
made: Lamb. indeed sees the difficulty involved in vestem, Lach. does not: comp.

Ty 165

nam neque, uti vitrum, potis est transire, neque autem

scindi; quam memunit levor praestare salutem.

quapropter fit ut hinc nobis simulacra redundent.

et quamvis subito quovis in tempore quamque 155

rem contra speculum ponas, apparet imago ;

perpetuo fluere ut noscas e corpore summo

texturas rerum tenuis tenuisque figuras.

ergo multa brevi spatio simulacra genuntur,

ut merito ccler his rebus dicatur origo. 160

et quasi multa brevi'spatio summittere debet

lumina sol ut perpetuo sint ommia plena,

sic ab rebus item simili ratione necessest

temporis in puncto rerum simulacra ferantur

multa modis multis in cunctas undique partis ; 165

quandoquidem speculum quocumque obvertimus oris,

res 101 respondent simili forma atque colore.

praeterea modo cum fuerit liquidissima caeli

tempestas, perquam subito fit turbida foede,

undique uti tenebras omnis Acherunta rearis 170

liquisse et magnas cael1 complesse cavernas.

usque adeo taetra nimborum nocte coorta

inpendent atrae formidinis ora superne ;

quorum quantula pars sit imago dicere nemost

qui possit neque eam rationem reddere dictis. 175
Nune age, quam celerl motu simulacra ferantur

et quae mobilitas ollis tranantibus auras

reddita sit, longo spatio ut brevis hora teratur,

in quem quaeque locum diverso numine tendunt,

suavidicis potius quam multis versibus edam ; 180

parvus ut est cyeni melior canor, ille gruum quam

clamor in aetheriis dispersus nubibus austz7i.

principio persaepe levis res atque minutis

corporibus factas celeris licet esse videre.

602. 152 potis est Lach. for possunt. autem. ante Mon. Ven. and hence Avance.
Junt. and all eds. before Lach. 159 genuntur Lamb. for geruntur: here too
a necessary correction. 167 Res ibi A and most mss. andeds. Res sibi B
Camb. Ven. which Lach. thinks ‘unice verum’. Res tibi Gif. 178 teratur
Pont. Junt. most properly for jeratur. 179 tendunt Lamb, for tendit. Lach.
puts this verse after 175, reading tendat, and momine for numine with Mar. Junt.,
a change which I am now not inclined to acquiesce in: see 11 632, and Epicurus

166 IV

in quo 1am genere est solis lux et vapor eius 185
propterea quia sunt e primis facta minutis

quae quasi cuduntur perque aeris mtervallum

non dubitant transire sequenti concita plaga.

suppeditatur enim confestim lumine lumen

et quasi protelo stimulatur fulgere fulgur. 190
quapropter simulacra pari ratione necesse est

inmemorabile per spatium transcurrere posse

temporis in puncto, primum quod parvola causa

est procul a tergo quae provehat atque propellat,

quod superest, ubi tam volucri levitate ferantur ; 195
deinde quod usque adeo textura praedita rara

mittuntur, facile ut quasvis penetrare queant res

et quasi permanare per aeris intervallum.

praeterea si, quae penitus corpuscula rerum

ex altoque foras mittuntur, solis uti lux 200
ac vapor, haec puncto cernuntur lapsa diei

per totum caeli spatium diffundere sese

perque volare mare ac terras caelumque rigare,

quid quae sunt igitur iam prima fronte parata,

cum laciuntur et emissum res nulla moratur ? 205
quone vides citius debere et longius ire

multiplexque loci spatium transcurrere eodem

tempore quo solis pervolgant lumina caelum ?

hoc etiam in primis specimen verum esse videtur

quam celeri motu rerum simulacra ferantur, 210
quod simul ac primum sub diu splendor aquai

ponitur, extemplo caelo stellante serena

sidera respondent in aqua radiantia mundi.

iamne vides igitur quam puncto tempore imago

aetheris ex oris in terrarum accidat oras ? 215
quare etiam atque etiam mira fateare necessest |

cited in notes 2. 190 fulgere AB Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. 3 Vat. fulgure
2 Vat. Brix. Ven. Mar. eds. before Lach. 195 Lach. places after 205: I wrongly
followed him formerly. 199 203 in my small ed. I allowed by accident Lach-
mann’s punctuation to stand: of course there should be a comma after si and after
203, the apodosis beginning at Quid quae. 203 caelum. circum Lach.

206 Quone. Nonne B corr. Pont. Mar. vulg. 211 diwu AB Nice. divo vulg. be-
fore Lach. 213 mundi. mundo Lach. but here, as 1 1060 and rv 418, he seems
not to feel that Lucr. calls the reflected image a mundus : a quite natural notion.

IV 167

"Ὅ - . . ν + * * . ΓῚ

corpora quae feriant oculos visumque lacessant.
perpetuoque fluunt certis ab rebus odores ;
frigus ut a fluvus, calor ab sole, aestus ab undis
aequoris exesor moerorum litora circum. 220
nec varlae cessant voces volitare per auras.
denique in os salsi venit umor sacpe saporis,
cum mare versamur propter, dilutaque contra
cum tuimur misceri absinthia, tangit amaror.
usque adeo omnibus ab rebus res quaeque fluenter 225
fertur et in cunctas dimittitur undique partis
nec mora nec requies interdatur ulla fluendi,
perpetuo quoniam sentimus, et omnia semper
cernere odoran) licet et sentire sonare.
Praeterea quoniam manibus tractata figura 230
in tenebris quacdam cognoscitur esse eadem quae
cernitur in luce et claro candore, necessest
consimili causa tactum visumque mover'.
nuuc igitur si quadratum temptamus et id nos
commovet in tencbris, in luci quae poterit res 235
accidere ad speciem quadrata, nisi elus imago ?
esse In Imaginibus quapropter causa videtur
cernundi neque posse sine his res ulla videri.
nunc ea quae dico rerum simulacra feruntur
undique et in cunctas iaciuntur didita partis; 240
verum nos oculis quia solis cernere quimus,
propterea fit uti, speciem quo vertimus, omnes
res 101 eam contra feriant forma atque colore.
et quantum quaeque ab nobis res absit, imago

216 mira. mitti Lach.; but Lucr. is here speaking not simply of the emission of
images, but of their enormous velocity. I therefore keep mira, and suppose with
Purmann Jahn’s Jahrb, vol. 67 p. 676 and Goebel obs. Lucret. p. 25 that a verse is
lost. 218 fluunt Lamb. rightly, as vi 924, for fuant. This and the ten follow-
ing verses, which are repeated in the sixth book, were undoubtedly read in the fourth
by Gellius and Nonius. There is no question therefore that Lucr. or his editor
placed them here ; there is just as little question that they are much more appropriate
in vithan here. [219 wt. Seen. to vi 925.) 229 is ejected by Lach. here and in
the sixth book: it must I think be retained in both places; for to say that we always
perceive all things is a simple absurdity: we always have sensation, and may at any
time, if we please, exert the sense of sight smell hearing : again Perpetuo...et omnia
semper would be an intolerable tautology. 240 didita Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt.

168 IV

efficit ut videamus et internoscere curat; 245

nam cum mittitur, extemplo protrudit agitqne

aera qui inter se cumque est oculosque locatus,

isque ita per nostras acies perlabitur omnis

et quasi perterget pupillas atque ita transit.
251 propterea fit uti videamus quam procul absit 250
250 res quaeque. et quanto plus aeris ante agitatur

et nostros oculos perterget longior aura,

tam procul esse magis res quaeque remota videtur.

scilicet haec summe celeri ratione geruntur,

quale sit ut videamus et una quam procul absit. 255

illud in his rebus minime mirabile habendumst,

cur, ea quae feriant oculos simulacra videri

singula cum nequeant, res ipsae perspiciantur.

ventus enim quoque paulatim cum verberat et cum
261 acre fluit frigus, non privam quamque solemus 260
260 particulam venti sentire et frigoris 6105,

sed magis unorsum, fierique perinde videmus

corpore tum plagas in nostro tamquam aliquae res

verberet atque sui det sensum corporis extra.

praeterea lapidem digito cum tundimus, ipsum 265

tangimus extremum saxl summumque colorem,

nec sentimus eum tactu, verum magis ipsam

duritiem penitus saxi sentimus in alto.

Nune age, cur ultra speculum videatur imago

percipe; nam certe penitus semota videtur. 270

quod genus illa foris quae vere transpiciuntur,

lanua cum per se transpectum praebet apertum,

multa facitque foris ex aedibus ut videantur.

is quoque enim duplici geminoque fit aere visus.

for dedita. 245 curat. cogit Lach. because, with curat, internoscere would
stand he says for an accusative, and in that case Lucr. would make it govern another
accusative, though he allows that Ennius does not observe such a law, as in audere
repressit: @ somewhat far-fetched distinction: see notes 2. 246 protrudit
Lamb. for protudit: so 280 procudit Flor. 31 Camb. ete. Flor. 29 reads with Nice.

protultt: Politian in marg. has protudit ; in 187 he wrote tr. over the ὁ of cudun-
tur. 250 and 251, 260 and 261: Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. first have these verses in
their right order. 260 privam Gif, for primam; ‘ex v. c.’ he says. 267
ipsam Nice. B corr. for ipsa. 270 semota Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for remota: so
288. remmota B, which may be right. 271 and 278 quae vere transpiciuntur.
Lach. possessed by his theory of quod genus (see 11 194) without any authority reads

lV 169

primus enim citra postes tum cernitur aer, 275
inde fores ipsae dextra laevaque secuntur,
post extraria lux oculos perterget et aer
alter et illa foris quae vere transpiciuntur.
sic ubi se primum speculi proiecit imago,
dum ventt ad nostras acies, protrudit agitque 280
aera qui inter se cumquest oculosque locatus,
et facit ut prius hune omnem scentire queamus
quam speculum. sed ubi speculum quoque sensimus ipsum,
continuo a nobis in 7dem quae fertur imago
pervenit ct nostros oculos reiecta revisit 285
atque alium prae se propellens aera volvit
et facit ut prius hune quam se videamus, eoque
distare ab speculo tantum semota videtur.
quare etiam atque etiam minime mirarier est par,
illic quor reddant speculorum ex aequore visum, 290
aeribus binis quoniam res confit utraque.
hune ea quae nobis membrorum dextera pars est,
in speculis fit ut in laeva videatur eo quod
planitiem ad speculi veniens cum offendit imago,
non convertitur incolumis, sed recta retrorsum 205
sic eliditur, ut siquis, prius arida quam 510
cretea persona, adlidat pilaeve trabive,
atqnue ea continuo rectam si fronte figuram
323 servet et elisam retro sese exprimat ipsa.

sunt, bene for vere, and ruins the argument. 275 tum cernitur. cum Nicc.
Flor. 31 Camb. etc. which has caused much confusion in the eds. before Lach.

277 perterget Lamb. first for perteget: (so perteget AB in 249; but there perterget
Nicc.) pertinget Nice. and so all before Lamb. 283 ubi speculum Mar. Junt.
for ubi in speculum. 28+ in idem Ed. for in eum: id was absorbed by in, and
em was then changed to eum: in was lost after id in 1v 1037. iterum Lach.

290 Illie quor reddant Ed. for Iilis quae reddunt. Lach. puts this verse after 270,
where it is quite out of place: from 107 it is manifest that the images, not the real
things, ‘reddunt speculorum ex aequore visum’. Lamb. and Creech think 289—291
spurious: Wak. as usual sees no difficulty in the ms. reading and boldly calls in the
Pythagoreans to the rescue. 299—347 (323—347 299—322) were first placed
in their proper order by Lamb. after B corr. This is one of the main passages
which enabled Lach. so acutely to determine the number of lines in a page of the
lost archetype of all our mss. These 49 verses+three headings amount to fifty-
two or twice twenty-six; that is to say the original ms. had twenty-six lines in a
page, and by some chance one leaf, the 76th, had its pages inverted ; hence the
transposition: see introduction p. 27. The marg. of Flor. 29 in the writing of

170 IV

fiet ita, ante oculus fuerit qui dexter, ut idem 300
nunc sit laevus, et e laevo sit mutua dexter.
fit quoque de speculo in speculum ut tradatur imago,
quinque etiam sexve ut fierl simulacra suérint.
nam quaecumque retro parte interiore latebunt,
inde tamen, quamvis torte penitusque remota, 305
330 omnia per flexos aditus educta licebit

pluribus haec speculis videantur in aedibus esse.

usque adeo specnulo in speculum translucet imago,

et cum laeva data est, fit rusum ut dextera fiat,

inde retro rursum redit et convertitur eodem. 310
335 quin etiam quaecumque latuscula sunt speculorum

adsimili lateris flexura praedita nostri,

dextera ea propter nobis simulacra remittunt,

aut quia de speculo in speculum transfertur imago,

inde ad nos elisa bis advolat, aut etiam quod 315
340 circum agitur, cum venit, 1mago propterea quod

flexa figura docet speculi convertier ad nos.

indugredi porro pariter simulacra pedemque

ponere nobiscum credas gestumque imitari

propterea quia, de speculi qua parte recedas, 320
345 continuo nequeunt illinc simulacra reverti ;

omnia quandoquidem cogit natura referri

ac resilire ab rebus ad aequos reddita flexus.
299 ~=6: Splendida porro oculi fugitant vitantque tueri.

sol etiam caecat, contra si tendere pergas, 325

propterea quia vis magnast ipsius et alte

aera per purum graviter simulacra feruntur

et feriunt oculos turbantia composituras.

praeterea splendor quicumque est acer adurit
305 saepe oculos ideo quod semina possidet ignis 330

multa, dolorem oculis quae gignunt insinuando,

ῳ
i)
yu

Politian apparently, and Mar. give the same order as the Junt. viz. 298 323—325
299—322 348—352 326—341 353—363 342—347 364 of the ms. order, or that on the
left of my edition. 299 et elisam B corr. Flor. 31 Camb. for et lisam. 300
Fiet ita, ante Lach. for Fiet ut ante. Fiet ut...hic idem Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. 303
sexve Mar. Junt. for sex. aut sex Lach. 304 latebunt Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for
latebit. 310 convertitur Lach. for convertit: see 295 and 817. retrorsum A
corr. B for retro rursum has caused much confusion in old eds. 318 porro pariter
A Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. etc. pariter porro B. Mon. 321 nequeunt. nequeant A

ΙΝ πὶ

lurida praeterea fiunt quaecumque tuentur
arquati, quia luroris de corpore eorum
seinina multa fluunt simulacris obvia rerum,
310 multaque sunt oculis in eorum denique mixta,
quae contage sua palloribus omnia pingunt.
e tenebris autem quae sunt in luce tuemur
propterea quia, cum propior caliginis aer
ater init oculos prior et possedit apertos,
315 insequitur candens confestim lucidus aer 340
qui quasi purgat eos ac mgras discutit umbras
aeris illius; nam multis partibus hic est
mobilior multisque minutior et mage pollens.
qui simul atque vias oculorum luce replevit
320 atque patefecit quas ante obsederat aer 345
ater, continuo rerum simulacra secuntur
quae sita sunt in luce, lacessuntque ut videamus.
348 quod contra faucere in tenebris e luce nequimus
propterea quia posterior caliginis aer
erassior insequitur qui cuncta foramina complet 350
obsiditque vias oculorum, ne simulacra
possint ullarum rerum coniecta movere.
quadratasque procul turris cum cernimus urbis,
propterea fit uti videantur saepe rutundae,
angulus optusus quia longe cernitur omnis 355
sive etiam potius non cernitur ac perit eius
plaga nec ad nostras acies perlabitur ictus,
aera per multum quia dum simulacra feruntur,
cogit hebescere eum crebris offensibus aer.
hoc ubi suffugit sensum simul angulus omnis, 360
fit quasi ut ad tornum saxorum structa terantur ;
non tamen ut coram quae sunt vereque rutunda,

Os
Ga
nn

Nice. wrongly. 342 illius Flor. 31 Camb. Ver. Ven. Mar. for ullius. 345
346 aer Ater Bern. for Ater. ater, Aera Lach. ater Continuo r. 8. adaperta 8.
Flor. 31 Camb. vulg. without meaning. 351 que vias B corr. Flor. 31
Camb. Mar. for quia. 352 coniecta Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for contecta. movere
Bentl. rightly for moveri. 357 acies Nicc. B corr. for ates. perlabitur Lamb.
ed. 3 first for deriabitur ; from whom Gif. ed. 2 took it without acknowledgment.
derivabitur Nice. delabitur Avanc. illabitur Mar. Junt. adlabitur Lamb. ed. 1
and 2. arlabitur Gif. ed. 1. 361 tornum Flor. 31 2 Vat. Brix. Mar. for turnum.
tortum Camb. terantur Ed. for tuantur. tuamur Lach., but ad tornum has no sense
or construction with tuantur or tuamur, as Lamb. saw, who reads tornata ut for ad

17: IV

sed quasi adumbratim paulum simulata videntur,
uinbra videtur item nobis in sole moveri
et vestigia nostra sequi gestumque imitart; 365
aera si credis privatum lumine posse
indugredi, motus hominum gestumque sequentem ;
nam nil esse potest aliut nisi lumine cassus
aer id quod nos umbram perhibere suémus.
nimirum quia terra locis ex ordine certis 370
lumme privatur solis quacumque meantes
officimus, repletur item quod liquimus eius,
propterea fit uti videatur, quae fuit umbra
corporis, e regione eadem nos usque secuta,
semper enim nova se radiorum lumina fundunt 375
primaque dispereunt, quasi in ignem lana trahatur.
propterea facile et spoliatur lumine terra
et repletur item nigrasque sibi abluit umbras.
Nec tamen hic oculos falli concedimus hilum.
nam quocumque loco sit lux atque umbra tueri 380
illoruam est; eadem vero sint lumina necne,
umbraque quae fuit hic eadem nunc transeat illue,
an potius fiat paulo quod diximus ante,
hoc animi demum ratio discernere debet,
nec possunt oculi naturam noscere rerum. 385
proinde animi vitium hoc oculis adfingere noli.
qua vehimur navi, fertur, cum stare videtur ;
quae manet in statione, ea praeter creditur ire.
et fugere ad puppim colles campique videntur
quos agimus praeter navem velisque volamus. 390
sidera cessare aetheriis adfixa cavernis
cuncta videntur, et adsiduo sunt omnia motu,
quandoquidem longos obitus exorta revisunt,
cum permensa suo sunt caelum corpore claro.
solque pari ratione manere et luna videntur 395
in statione, ea quae ferri res indicat ipsa.
exstantisque procul medio de gurgite montis
classibus inter quos liber patet exitus ingens,

tornum, a violent change. 378 abluit Ver. Ven. Mar. for adluit. 395
videntur Lach. for videtur, as plur. ea follows. In small ed. I thought that after
397 a verse was lost of this nature, Fallere saepe animum simili ratione videmus ;

IV 173

insula coniunctis tamen ex his una videtur.

atria versarl et circumcursare columnae 400
usque adeo fit uti pueris videantur, ubi ipsi

desierunt verti, vix ut iam credere possint

non supra sese ruere omnia tecta minari.

1amque rubrum tremulis iubar ignibus erigere alte

cum coeptat natura supraque extollere montes, 405
quos tibi tum supra sol montis esse videtur

comminus ipse suo contingens fervidus igni,

vix absunt nobis missus bis mille sagittae,

vix etiam cursus quingentos saepe veruti:

inter eos solemque lacent immania ponti 410
aequora substrata aetherlis ingentibus oris,

lnteriectaque sunt terrarum milia multa

quae varilae retinent gentes et saecla ferarum.

at conlectus aquae digitum non altior unum,

qui lapides inter sistit per strata viarum, 415
despectum praebet sub terras inpete tanto,

a terris quantum caeli patet altus hiatus;

nubila dispicere et fcaelum ut videare videre

corpora mirando sub terras abdita caelo.

denique ubi in medio nobis ecus acer obhaesit 420

but see notes 2. Lach. reads Farstant usque for Exstantisque. 406 tibi tum
Nauger. first for τὲ tui. 414 conlectus Lamb. for coniectus: see 11
198. 418 A has properly ut before videare: caelum appears to have
come from caeli of 417 or caelo of 419: see notes 2: Flor. 31 has mirando;
Nice. Camb. etc. miranda. Lach. seems to have misapprehended the matter, as in
213 and 11061: he reads Ut prope miraclo for Corpora mirande, caeli for caelo, and
transposes the two verses. But I have obeyed him in reading dispicere for despicere,
as ms, authority is of little weight on such a point: comp. 421 dispeximus AB Nicc.
for desp. Virgil’s mss. both in Aen, 1 224 and georg. 11 187 are nearly all in favour
of despicere. Ph. Wagner philologus xv p. 352 quotes on the side of despicere
Quintil. inst. vr prooem. 4 ‘nullam terras despicere providentiam’, but on referring
to Zumpt ed. Spald. suppl. annot. I find that the best ms. Ambros. 1, and Turic. p. m.
have nulla in terras despicere, another terras dispicere: this passage therefore will
not refute Lachmann’s position that dispicere nubila or despicere in nubila is ‘ to
look upon the clouds’, despicere nubila ‘to despise the clouds’: comp. for the former
sense 111 26 quin omnia dispiciantur ; Iv 421 in rapidas amnis despeximus undas;
for the latter 119 Despicere wnde queas alios. AB on the whole support this dis-
tinction. Conington to Virgil 1. 1. keeps despicere; and Aen. 1 224 he says that the
reason for the distinction fails completely: but surely the fact that the personal
passive despicior and the participle despectus always have the sense of being despised

174 IV

flumine et in rapidas amnis despeximus undas,

stantis equi corpus transversum ferre videtur

vis et in adversum flumen contrudere raptim,

et quocumque oculos traiecimus omnia ferri

et fluere adsimili nobis ratione videntur. 425
porticus aequali quamvis est denique ductu

stansque in perpetuum paribus suffulta columnis,

longa tamen parte ab summa cum tota videtur,

paulatim trahit angusti fastigia coni,

tecta solo iungens atque omnia dextera laevis 430
donee in obscurum coni conduxit acumen.

in pelago nautis ex undis ortus in undis

sol fit uti videatur obire et condere lumen;

quippe ubi nil aliud nisi aquam caelumque tuentur ;

ne leviter credas labefactari undique sensus. 435
at maris lgnaris in portu clauda videntur

navigia aplustris fractis obnitier undae.

nam quaecumque supra rorem salis edita pars est
remorum, recta est, et recta superne guberna:

quae demersa liquorem obeunt, refracta videntur 440
omnia converti sursumque supina reverti

et reflexa prope m swnmo fluitare liquore.

raraque per caelum cum venti nubila portant

tempore nocturno, tum splendida signa videntur

labier adversum nimbos atque ire superne 445
longe aliam in partem ac vera ratione feruntur.

at si forte oculo manus uni subdita supter

pressit eum, quodam sensu fit uti videantur

omnia quae tuimur fieri1 tum bina tuendo,

bina lucernarum florentia lumina flammis 450
binaque per totas aedis geminare supellex

et duplicis hominum facies et corpora bina.

is some reason: to me indeed it is a conclusive one. amb. reads videre et Corpora
mirando 8. t. a. c. but in ed. 3 he obelises et and the following verse. 421
despeximus Flor. 31 Camb. Ver. Ven. Mar. for dispeximus. 436 At maris Nice.
B. corr. for Amaris. 437 fractis Flor. 31 Mar. for factas. undae Lach. for
undas. undis vulg. 440 liquorem Lach. for liquore. 446 ac vera ratione
15. Voss. in ms. notes for aque ratione: the scribe wrote ra only once: ‘quidam
codices’ says Creech: that is he had heard indirectly of Vossius’ correction.

448 fit uti Mar. Junt. for jit ut. 456 videmur Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for videa-

IV 175

denique cum suavi devinxit membra sopore

somnus et in summa corpus iacet omne quiete,

tum vigilare tamen nobis et membra movere 455

nostra videmur, et in noctis caligine caeca

cernere censemus solem lumenque diurnum

conclusoque loco caelum mare flumina montis

mutare et campos pedibus transire videmur,

et sonitus audire, severa silentia noctis 460

undique cum constent, et reddere dicta tacentes.

cetera de genere hoc miracula multa videmus,

quae violare fidem quasi sensibus omnia quaerunt,

nequiquain, quoniam pars horum maxima fallit

propter opinatus animi quos addimus 1081],

pro visis ut sint quae non sunt sensibu’ visa.

nam nil aegrius est quam res secernere apertas

ab dubiis, animus quas ab se protinus addit.
Denique nil sciri siquis putat, id quoque nescit

an sciri possit, quoniam nil scire fatetur. 470

hunc igitur contra mittam contendere causam,

qui capite 1056. sua in statuit vestigia sese.

et tamen hoc quoque uti concedam scire, at id ipsum

quaeram, cum in rebus veri nil viderit ante,

unde sciat quid sit scire et nescire vicissim, 475

notitiam veri quae res falsique crearit

et dubium certo quae res differre probarit.

invenies primis ab sensibus esse creatam

notitiem veri neque sensus posse refelli.

nam matore fide debet reperinier illud, 480

sponte sua veris quod possit vincere falsa.

quid maiore fide porro quam sensus haberi

debet ? an ab sensu falso ratio orta valebit

dicere eos contra, quae tota ab sensibus orta est ?

«ὃς
OV
un

tur. 460 noctis B corr. Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar. for montis. 462 miracuia
Ed, for mirande: acula was probably absorbed in multa and the word completed
from 419. mirando Flor. 31 Vat. 1136 Othob. Mar. for mirande. miracli Lach.
here as 419. 467 aegrius est. Later mss. and old. eds. also Pont. Mar. Ald. 1
Junt. Lamb. ete. egregius, absurdly. 468 addit A Nice. Camb. 2 Vat. Junt.
Creech. abdit B Flor. 31 3 Vat. Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Lamb. Wak. without meaning.
471 mittam Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for mituam. 472 sua in statuit Lach. for suo in
statuit. 479 sensus Mar. Junt. for senst. 486 poterunt Flor. 31 Camb. for

176 IV

qui nisi sunt veri, ratio quoque falsa fit omnis. 485
an poterunt oculos aures reprehendere, an aures

tactus? an hunc porro tactum sapor arguet oris,

an confutabunt nares oculive revincent ?

non, ut opinor, ita est. mam seorsum cuique potestas
divisast, sua vis cuiquest, ideoque necesse est 490
et quod molle sit et gelidum fervensve seorsum

et seorsum varios rerum sentire colores

et quaecumque coloribu’ sint coniuncta vdere.

seorsus item sapor oris habet vim, seorsus odores
nascuntur, sorsum sonitus. ideoque necesse est 495
non possint alios 81] convincere sensus.

nec porro poterunt 1051 reprehendere 5686,

aequa fides quoniam debebit semper haberi.

proinde quod in quoquest his visum tempore, verumst.

et si non poterit ratio dissolvere causam, 500
cur ea quae fuerint iuxtim quadrata, procul sint

visa rutunda, tamen praestat rationis egentem

reddere mendose causas utriusque figurae,

quam manibus manifesta suis emittere quoquam

et violare fidem primam et convellere tota 505
fundamenta quibus nixatur vita salusque.

non modo enim ratio ruat omnis, vita quoque ipsa
concidat extemplo, nisi credere sensibus ausis
praecipitisque locos vitare et cetera quae sint

in genere hoc fugienda, sequi contraria quae sint. 510
ila tibi est igitur verborum copia cassa

omnis quae contra sensus Instructa paratast.

denique ut in fabrica, si pravast regula prima,

normaque si fallax rectis regionibus exit,

et libella aliqua si ex parti claudicat hilum, 515
omnia mendose fier atque obstipa necesse est

prava cubantia prona supina atque absona tecta,

lam ruere ut quaedam videantur velle, rnantque

poterit. poterint Mar. Ver. Ven. 491 seorsum Bentl. for videri: a necessary
change. Lamb. here interpolates a verse. 493 videre Lach. for necessest which
has come from a neighbouring verse. 495 Nascuntur Ver. Ven. Mar. for nas-
cantur. 496 possint Flor. 31 Mon. Pont. Ald. 1 Junt. for possunt. possent
Camb. 498 aequa Flor. 31 Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for aeque. 500 poterit

Nice. for poteris. 514 si Nicc. B corr. for sibi. 517 Prava Mar. Ald. 1

IV 177

prodita indiciis fallacibus omnia primis,
sic igitur ratio tibi rerum prava necessest 520
falsayue sit, falsis quaecumque ab sensibus ortast.
Nune alii sensus quo pacto quisque suam rem
sentiat, haudquaquam ratio scruposa relicta est.
Principio auditur sonus et vox omnis, in auris
insinuata suo pepulere ubi corpore sensum. seals
corpoream vocem quoque enim constare fatendumst
et sonitum, quoniam possunt inpellere sensus.,
praeterea radit vox fauces saepe facitque
asperiora foras gradiens arteria clamor.
quippe per angustum turba maiore coorta 530
ire foras ubi coeperunt primordia vocum,
scilicet expleti quoque ianua raditur oris.
haud igitur dubiumst quin voces verbaque constent
corporeis e principiis, ut laedere possint.
nec te fallit item quid corporis auferat et quid 535
detrahat ex hominum nervis ac viribus ipsis
perpetuus sermo nigrai noctis ad umbram
aurorae perductus ab exoriente nitore,
praesertim si cum summost clamore profusus.
ergo corpoream vocem constare necessest, 540
multa loquens quoniam amittit de corpore partem.
551 asperitas autem vocis fit ab asperitate
principiorum et item levor levore creatur.
542 nec simili penetrant auris primordia forma,
cum tuba depresso graviter sub murmure mugit 545
et reboat raucum regio cita barbara bombum,

Junt. for parva. 526 vocem om. AB Nicc.: rightly inserted by Lach. before
quoque enim: Flor. 31 Camb. vulg. place it after. 528 Praeterea radit A and
Gellius x 26, one Vat. Pont. Avance. rightly. Propterearadit B. Praeter radit Nice.
one Vat. Ver. Ven. whence Praeter radit enim Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat. Brix. Mar.
Nauger. vulg. Praeter enim radit Junt. 532 expleti Lach. for expletis, thus
simply healing a desperate passage. raditur B Politian in marg. Flor. 29: (creditur
in text). reditur A Nicc.; hence xedditur Flor. 31 Camb. vulg. and to give ἃ mean-
ing to the passage, Mar. Junt. add a verse Rauca viis, et iter laedit, qua vox it in
auras; Avance. taking ovis as a plur. thus Rauca suis et iter reddit qua vox it in

auras. 542 543 (551 552) rightly placed here by Lamb. first. 543 levo
letiore AB. levis levore Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. laevor laevore Lamb. 545 murmure
Brix. Pont. Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. for murmura. 546 Et reboat raucum regio cita

barbara Lach. for Et revorat raucum retro cita barbara: the older readings are

M. 1»

178 IV

545 et validis cycni torrentibus ex Heliconis
cum liquidam tollunt lugubri voce querellam.

Hasce igitur penitus voces cum corpore nostro
exprimimus rectoque foras emittimus ore, 550
mobilis articulat verborum daedala lingua

550 formaturaque labrorum pro parte figurat.
553 hoc ubi non longum spatiumst unde una profecta
perveniat vox quaeque, necessest verba quoque ipsa
plane exaudiri discernique articulatim ; 555
servat enim formaturam servatque figuram.
at sl interpositum spatium sit longius aequo,
aera per multum confundi verba necessest
et conturbari vocem, dum transvolat auras.
ergo fit, sonitum ut possis sentire neque ilam 560
internoscere, verborum sententia quae sit:
usque adeo confusa venit vox inque pedita.
praeterea verbum saepe unum perciet auris
omnibus in populo, missum praeconis ab ore.
in multas igitur voces vox una repente 565
diffugit, in privas quoniam se dividit auris
obsignans formam verbi clarumque sonorem.
at quae pars vocum non auris incidit ipsas,
praeterlata perit frustra diffusa per auras.
pars solidis adlisa locis reiecta sonorem 570
reddit et interdum frustratur imagine verbi.
quae bene cum videas, rationem reddere possis
tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola

mostly too absurd to be mentioned. Berecynthia barbara Is. Voss. in ms. notes
and in Catullus: Berecynthia cornua Bentl. ὅ47 Et validis cycni torrentibus
ex Heliconis Is. Voss. in ms. notes for Et validis necti tortis ec Heliconis of A: the
middle words of this line, as of the preceding, were mutilated by some accident.
Et cycnitortis convallibus Lach. mete tortis A corr. B. nece tortis Nice.: hence a
vast variety of strange readings, such as Et gelidis cycni nocte oris of Bern. 550
emittimus A corr. for mittimus. 551 verborum Lamb. for nervorum. 553
‘lego wna, unaquaeque vox perveniat. B’ Bentl. for illa. 560 illam. illa Pont.
Ald. 1 Junt. hilum Lamb. without cause, 563 verbum. peditum Nicc. and
all later mss. and early eds.: hence edictum Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg.: peditum came
from the pedita of 562 catching the copyist’s eye. 567 verbi Lach. for verbis:
a@ necessary change. 568 auris incidit. ‘aureis accidit. 510 reposui, a Plauto
et ceteris Latini sermonis auctoribus admonitus’ Lamb.; and Lach. thinks he is
probably right, as Lucr. himself v 608 uses the same construction. 570 locis

a 179

saxa paris formas verborum ex ordine reddant,
palantis comites quom montis inter opacos 575
quaerimus et magna dispersos voce ciemus.
sex etiam aut septem loca vidi reddere vocis,
unam cum iaceres: ita colles collibus ipsi
verba repulsantes iterabant docta referri.
haec loca capripedes satyros nymphasque tenere 580
finitimi fingunt et faunos esse locuntur
quorum noctivago strepitu ludoque iocanti
adfirmant volgo taciturna silentia rumpi
chordarumque sonos fieri dulcisque querellas,
tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum, 585
et genus agricolum late sentiscere, quom Pan
pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans
unco saepe labro calamos percurrit hiantis,
fistula silvestrem ne cesset fundere musam.
cetera de genere hoc monstra ac portenta loquontur, 590
ne loca deserta ab divis quoque forte putentur
sola tenere. ideo iactant miracula dictis
aut aliqua ratione alia ducuntur, ut omne
humanum genus est avidum nimis auricularum.
Quod superest, non est mirandum qua ratione, 595
per loca quae nequeunt oculi res cernere apertas,
haec loca per voces veniant aurisque lacessant.
conloquium clausis foribus quoque saepe videmus,
nimirum quia vox per flexa foramina rerum
incolumis transire potest, simulacra renutant ; 600
perscinduntur enim, nisi recta foramina tranant,
qualia sunt vitrei, species qua travolat omnis.

B corr. Mar. for lopis. lapis Niece. Lach. as I now think without sufficient reason
separates solidis adlisa from locis. 577 vocis: see n. tot 744 frugis. voces
Lach. vulg. 578 ipsi. ipsis one Vat. Mon. Ver. Ven.: hence Ald. 1 Junt.
vulg. before Wak. 579 docta referri Lach. for dicta referri. dicta referre Mar.
Junt. vulg. icta referre Bentl. icta is also in Mon. 582 tocanti A corr. for
locanti. 587 velamina Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. vulg. for ullamina. valla-
mina Heins. in ms. notes, Is. Voss. in ms. notes, Wak. 590 Cetera Flor. 31
Camb. Mar. for Petere. 594 nimis auricularum. nimi’ miraclorum Lach. after
Bentl.: this is now the third time he has introduced into his text the form miraclum,
which is not once found in the mss. of Lucr. 598 videmus. «ἰδὲ demus Lach.:
but Conloquium clausis foribus videmus=C. cl. f. fieri νυ. and is not the same thing
at all as Conloguium videmus. Cum loqguimur clausis foribus, quod saepe videmus

12—2

180 LV

praeterea partis in cunctas dividitur vox,
ex 8115 aliae quoniam gignuntur, ubi una
dissuluit semel in multas exorta, quasi ignis 605
saepe solet scintilla suos se spargere in ignis.
ergo replentur loca vocibus, abdita retro
omnia quae circum fervunt sonituque cientur.
at simulacra vis derectis omnia tendunt
ut sunt missa semel; quapropter cernere nemo 610
saepem ultra potis est, at voces accipere extra.
et tamen ipsa quoque haec, dum transit clausa domorum,
vox optunditur atque auris confusa penetrat
et sonitum potius quam verba audire videmur.
Nec, qui sentimus sucum, lingua atque palatum 615
plusculum habent in se rationis plus operaeve.
principio sucum sentimus in ore, cibum cum
mandendo exprimimus, ceu plenam spongiam aqual
siquis forte manu premere ac siccare coépit.
inde quod exprimimus per caulas omne palati 620
diditur et rarae perplexa foramina linguae.
hoe ubi levia sunt manantis corpora suci,
suaviter attingunt et suaviter omnia tractant
umida linguai circum sudantia templa.
at contra pungunt sensum lacerantque coorta, 625
quanto quaeque magis sunt asperitate repleta.
deinde voluptas est e suco fine palati;

Mar. Junt.: Pont. notes videmus as a solecism for audimus. 604 whi una B
corr. Lamb. for whina. whi nam Nice. 605 Dissuluit B: see Plaut. miles 279
eds. Ritschl and Fleckeisen, Rhein. mus. n. f. viii p. 451, Corssen 1 p. 314. Disst-
luit A vulg. Lach. 608 fervunt Ed. for fuerunt transposing one letter: (Plaut.
Pseud. 840 fervont A, feerunt Z, fervent vulg.): fertunt Lach. fuerint Mar, Ald. 1
Junt. vulg. subsunt Bern. 611 Saepem ultra Bern. for Saepe supra. Saepem
intra Lach. Se supra Pont. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. 612 domorum added by Lach.
viarum Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. vulg. 615 Nec Mar. Junt. Bentl. Lach. for Hoe.
qui, quis of Mar. Junt. as Lach. says is not necessary. Haec quis Avanc. Lamb,
Creech without sense. 616 plus operaeve Lach. for plus opere: better than plus
operaeque or plus operai or plusque operai of others. 619 ac siccare coépit. siccare
recepit Mar., capessit Pont. exsiccareque coepit Avanc. in Ald. 1 Lamb, ete.; but at
end of his Catullus Avance. recalls this and says ‘ac siccare céepit per diaeresin’.
621 perplexa. ‘in Faern. neque perplexa neque per plexa, sed per flexa’ Lamb.,
and so Mon. rightly perhaps; for Lucr. elsewhere applies perplexa only to the en-
tangled atoms, never to the passages of things; yet Virgil has perplexum iter omne
revolvens. 622 manantis Pont. Junt. for manantes. 624 sudantia. sidentia

IV 18t

cum vero deorsum per fauces praecipitavit,
nulla voluptas est, dum diditur omnis in artus.
nec refert quicquam quo victu corpus alatur, 630
dummodo quod capias concoctum didere possis
artubus et stomachi umidulum servare tenorem.
Nunc alts alius qui sit cibu’ suavis et almus
expediam, quareve, aliis quod triste et amarumst,
hoc tamen esse aliis possit perdulce videri, 635
tantaque a his rebus distantia differitasque,
ut quod ali cibus est 8115 fuat acre venenum,
extetque ut serpens, hominis quae tacta salivis
disperit ac sese mandendo contficit ipsa.
praeterea nobis veratrum est acre venenum, 640
at capris adipes et coturnicibus auget.
ut quibus id fiat rebus cognoscere possis,
principio meminisse decet quae diximus ante,
semina multimodis in rebus mixta teneri.
porro omnes quaecumque cibum capiunt animantes, 64
ut sunt dissimiles extrinsecus et generatim
extima membrorum circumcaesura coercet,
proinde et semimibus constant variante figura.
semina cum porro distent, ditferre necessest
intervalla viasque, foramina quae perhibemus, 650
omnibus in membris et in ore ipsoque palato.
esse minora igitur quaedam maioraque debent,
esse triquetra aliis, aliis quadrata necessest,
multa rutunda, modis multis multangula quaedam.
namque figurarum ratio ut motusque reposcunt, 655
proinde foraminibus debent differre figurae,

ᾳι

Lach. an elegant, but not I think necessary, change. 627 fine. in fine Lamb.
etc. wrongly. 631 possis Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. Ver. Ven. for posses. 632
umidulum Lach. for umidum. humectum Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. 633

cibw’ stavis ct almus Ed. for eibus ut videamus: see Camb. Journ. of phil. 1p. 41:
for almus perhaps aptus with Lach. cibus unieus aptus Lach.; but wnieus is not at
all appropriate. 636 in added by Nonius p. 95, and est at end of verse rightly
om. by the same. 637 ali Lach. for aliis. 638 Extetque ut serpens Ed,
for Est ttaque ut serpens: v1 690 Fert itque mss. for Fert ttaque. Est aliquae ut
serpens Lach. Est utique ut s. Mar. Junt. Lamb. ed. 3. Saepe etenims. ed. 1 and
2. 641 coturn. coeturn. A. quod turn. B. 642 Ut quibus td Lamb. ed. 2
and 3 for Id quibus ut. 648 et. ex Mon. Junt. Lamb. ed. 1 and 2, Lach. but
et Mar. constant variante figura Lach. for constant variantque figura. distant vari-

182 IV

et varlare viae proinde ac textura coercet.
hoc ubi quod suave est alis alis fit amarum,
illi, cui suave est, levissima corpora debent
contractabiliter caulas intrare palati, 660
at contra quibus est eadem res intus acerba,
aspera nimirum penetrant hamataque fauces.
nunc facile est ex his rebus cognoscere quaeque,
quippe ubi cui febris bili superante coorta est
aut alia ratione aliquast vis excita morbi, 665
perturbatur ibi iam totum corpus et omnes
commutantur ibi positurae principiorum ;
fit prius ad sensum wt quae corpora conveniebant
nunc non conveniant, et cetera sint magis apta,
quae penetrata queunt sensum progignere acerbum; 670
utrague enim sunt in mellis commixta sapore ;
id quod iam supera tibi saepe ostendimus ante.
Nunc age quo pacto naris adiectus odoris
tangat agam. primum res multas esse necessest
unde fluens volvat varius se fluctus odorum, 675
et fluere et mitti volgo spargique putandumst ;
verum aliis alius magis est animantibus aptus
dissimilis propter formas. ideoque per auras
mellis apes quamvis longe ducuntur odore,
volturiique cadaveribus. tum fissa ferarum 680
ungula quo tulerit gressum promissa canum vis
ducit, et humanum longe praesentit odorem
Romulidarum arcis servator candidus anser.
sic aliuis alius nidor datus ad sua quemque
pabula ducit et a taetro resilire veneno 685
cogit, eoque modo servantur saecla ferarum.
Hic odor ipse igitur, naris quicumque lacessit,
est alio ut possit permitti longius alter ;
sed tamen haud quisquam tam longe fertur eorum
quam sonitus, quam vox, mitto 1am dicere quam res 690

antque figura Lamb. ed. 3. 668 ut added by Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. Ut Lach.
for Fit. 671 672 Lach. places after 662. Bernays supposes some verses to
have been lost before them; I followed him in my small ed. but now believe there is
no hiatus: see notes 2. 680 Volturiique Pont. Ald. 1 for Volturique. Vul-
turiique Mar. Junt. 681 promissa. permissa Gronoy. Lach. ‘pmissa v. [not A
or Β] i.e. permissa i.e. immissa, concitata’ Is. Voss. in ms. notes. 682 Ducit.

TV 183

quae feriunt oculorum acies visumque lacessunt.
errabundus enim tarde venit ac perit ante
paulatim facilis distractus in aeris auras;
ex alto primum quia vix emittitur ex re:
nam penitus fluere atque recedere rebus odores 695
significat quod fracta magis redolere videntur
omnia, quod contrita, quod igni conlabefacta :
deinde videre licet maioribus esse creatum
principlis quam vox, quoniam per saxea saepta
non penetrat, qua vox volgo sonitusque feruntur. 700
quare etiam quod olet non tam facile esse videbis
investigare in qua sit regione locatum;
refrigescit enim cunctando plaga per auras
nec calida ad sensum decurrunt nuntia rerum.
errant saepe canes itaque et vestigia quaerunt. 705
[Nec tamen hoc solis in odoribus atque saporum
in generest, sed item species rerum atque colores
non ita conveniunt ad sensus omnibus omnes,
ut non sint aliis quaedam magis acria visu.
quin etiam gallum, noctem explaudentibus alis 710
auroram clara consuetum voce vocare,
noenu queunt rabidi contra constare leones
inque tueri: ita continuo meminere fugai,
himirum quia sunt gallorum in corpore quaedam
semina, quae cum sunt oculis inmissa leonum, σις
pupillas interfodiunt acremque dolorem
praebent, ut nequeant contra durare feroces ;
cum tamen haec nostras acies nil laedere possint,
aut quia non penetrant aut quod penetrantibus illis
exitus ex oculis liber datur, in remorando πος
laedere ne possint ex ulla lumina patte.]
Nunc age quae moveant animum res accipe, et unde
quae veniunt veniant in mentem percipe paucis.
principio hoc dico, rerum simulacra vagari
multa modis multis in eunctas undique partis 725
tenvia, quae facile inter se iunguntur in auris,
obvia cum veniunt, ut aranea bratteaque auri.

Dicit Lach. without cause. 698 creatum Mar. Junt. for creatam. 699
quam vox. voci Lamb. etc. perversely. 712 rabidi Wak. for rapidi. 719

184 IV

quippe etenim multo magis haec sunt tenvia textu

quam quae percipiunt oculos visumque lacessunt,

corporis haec quoniam penetrant per rara cientque 730
tenvem animi naturam intus sensumque lacessunt.
Centauros itaque et Scyllarum membra videmus
Cerbereasque canum facies simulacraque eorum

quorum morte obita tellus amplectitur ossa ;

omne genus quoniam passim simulacra feruntur, 735
partim sponte sua quae fiunt aere in ipso,

partim quae variis ab rebus cumque recedunt

et quae confiunt ex horum facta figuris.

nam certe ex vivo Centauri non fit imago,

nulla fuit quoniam talis natura animantis ; 740
verum ubi equi atque hominis casu convenit imago,
haerescit facile extemplo, quod diximus ante,

propter subtilem naturam et tenvia texta.

cetera de genere hoc eadem ratione creantur.

quae cum mobiliter summa levitate feruntur, 745
ut prius ostendi, facile uno commovet ictu

quaelibet una animum nobis subtilis imago ;

tenvis enim mens est et mire mobilis ipsa.

Haec fieri ut memoro, facile hinc cognoscere possis.
quatenus hoc simile est illi, quod mente videmus 750
atque oculis, simili fierl ratione necesse est.
nune igitur docui quoniam me forte leonem
cernere per simulacra, oculos quaecumque lacessunt,
scire licet mentem simili ratione mover,
per simulacra leonem et cetera quae videt aeque 755
nec minus atque oculi, nisi quod mage tenvia cernit.
nec ratione alia, cum somnus inembra profudit,

ills B corr. for tlus: ? tbus. 727 brattea Ab, not braetea: so mss. of Virg. |
Aen. vr 209. 730 per rara Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for perara. 735 Onne genus
Mar. Junt. for Omnigenus. Omnigenum Nice. ες 736 fiunt Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. for
flunt A, fluunt A corr. B. 740 anima AB, animai Nice. and all before Gif. ani-

malis Lamb, ed. 3 vulg. Lach. animantis Gif. most properly, as Lucr. does not use
the substantive animal in the singular, except v 823, where omne animal is equiva-

lent to omnia animalia: see notes 2 there. 741 ubi equi atque hominis casu.
ubi equi casu atque hominis Lach. who denies that the last syll. of an iambus is
ever elided in Luer. 752 doeni quoniam. quoniam docui Lamb. ed. 2 and 3,

etc. and Lach. leonem Lach. for leonum. leones Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. 755
leonem et cetera Lach. for leonum cetera: et was already added by Mar. Ald. 1 and

EY 185

mens animi vigilat, nisi quod simulacra lacessunt
haec eadem nostros animos quae cum vigilamus,
usque adeo, certe ut videamur cernere eum quem 760
rellicta vita iam mors et terra potitast.
hoc ideo fieri cogit natura, quod omnes
corporis offecti sensus per membra quiescunt
nec possunt falsum veris convincere rebus.
praeterea memuinisse iacet languetque sopore 765
nee dissentit eum mortis letique potitum
lam pridem, quem mens vivom se cernere credit.
quod superest, non est mirum simulacra moveri
bracchiaque in numerum iactare et cetera membra;
nam fit ut in somnis facere hoc videatur imago; 770
quippe ubi prima perit alloque est altera nata
inde statu, prior hic gestum mutasse videtur.
scilicet id fieri celeri ratione putandumst :
tanta est mobilitas et rerum copia tanta
tantaque sensibili quovis est tempore in uno 7a
copia particularum, ut possit suppeditare.

[Multaque in his rebus quaeruntur multaque nobis
clarandumst, plane si res exponere avemus.
quaeritur in primis quare, quod cuique libido
venerit, extemplo mens cogitet e1us id ipsum. 780
anne voluntatem nostram simulacra tuentur
et simul ac volumus nobis occurrit imago,
51 mare, si terrast cordi, si denique caclum ?
conventus hominum pompam convivia pugnas,
omnia sub verbone creat natura paratque ? 785
cum praesertim alus eadem in regione locoque
longe dissimilis animus res cogitet omnis.
quid porro, in numerum procedere cum simulacra
cernimus in somnis et mollia membra movere,
mollia mobiliter cum alternis bracchia mittunt 790
et repetunt oculis gestum pede convenienti ?

Junt.: Lamb. Creech Wak. all blunder sadly here. 761 Rellicta vita Bern.
for Reddita vita, and before him Is. Voss. in ms. notes ‘Relicta vita, malim
tamen Reddita media producta ut Salmasius’. Reddita pro v. Lach. ~ 783
si terrast cordi Ed. for si terram cordist. [si terra est cordi Pont. before me,
as I now find.] ‘The frequency with which our mss. thus transpose this st is
very remarkahlJe: see Lach. to 11 275 who cites ten instances: so 799, the repe-

186 iv

scilicet arte madent simulacra et docta vagantur,

nocturne facere ut possint m tempore ludos.

an magis illud erit verum? quia tempore in uno,

cum sentimus id, et cum vox emittitur una, 705

tempora multa latent, ratio quae comperit esse,

propterea fit uti quovis in tempore quaeque

praesto sint simulacra locis in quisque parata.

et quia tenvia sunt, nisi quae contendit, acute 802

cernere non potis est animus; proinde omnia quae sunt

praeterea pereunt, nisi siquae ad se ipse paravit.

ipse parat sese porro speratque futurum 805

ut videat quod consequitur rem quamque; fit ergo.

nonne vides oculos etiam, cum tenvia quae sunt

cernere coeperunt, contendere se atque parare,

nec sine eo fierl posse ut cernamus acute ? 810

et tamen in rebus quoque apertis noscere possis,

si non advertas animum, proinde esse quasi omni

tempore semotum fuerit longeque remotum.

cur igitur mirumst, animus si cetera perdit

praeterquam quibus est in rebus deditus ipse ? 815

deinde adopinamur de signis maxima parvis

ac nos in fraudem induimus frustraminis ipsi.]

Fit quoque ut interdum non suppeditetur imago

elusdem generis, sed femina quae fuit ante,

in manibus vir uti factus videatur adesse, 820

aut alia ex alia facies aetasque sequatur.
826 quod ne miremur sopor atque oblivia curant.
822 [lllud in his rebus vitium vementer avessis
tition of 774, has Tanta mobilitast. si terra est, si cordi Junt. 791 repetunt.
referunt Lach. 795 Cum sentimus id, et cum Ed. for Consentimus id est cum: a
slight and necessary alteration. Lamb. and Lach. in vain declare the verse to be
out of place: the latter puts it, thus altered Quod sentimus, id est? cet., before 783,
where it sadly involves the construction. 798 sint Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar.
for sin B, in A Nice. locis Flor. 31 and Candidus at end of Junt. for locos.

799 800 801=774 771 772: an evident gloss here. Lamb. retains the first and
rejects the two last; while he wrongly obelises the whole three in their former place,
where they cannot be dispensed with. 802 nisi quae contendit. nisi se con-
tendit Lamb. prompted he says by 809, and Lach.: but see notes 2. 804 nisi
si quae ad se ipse Lach. for nist que ex se ipse. nisi sic 8686 tpse Lamb. 805
futurum Pont. Junt. for futuram. 808 = 804. 815 Praeterquam Avance.

for Praeterea quam. 818 non Brix. Pont. Mar. for nos. 820 vir uti B
corr. Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. for virtuti. vir tune Nicc. vir tum Lamb. ete. 822

Vv 187

effugere, errorem vitareque praemetuenter,

lumina ne facias oculorum clara creata, § 25
825 prospicere ut possemus, et ut proferre queamus

proceros passus, ideo fastigia posse

surarum ac feminum pedibus fundata plicari,

bracchia tum porro validis ex apta lacertis

esse manusque datas utraque ex parte ministras, §30

ut facere ad vitam possemus quae foret usus.

ectera de genere hoc inter quaecumque pretantur,

omiia perversa praepostera sunt ratione,

nil ideo quoniam natuimst in corpore ut uti

possemus, sed quod natumst id procreat usum, 835

nec fuit ante videre oculorum lumina nata

nec dictis orare prius quam lingua ereatast,

sed potius longe linguae praecessit origo

sermonem multoque creatae sunt prius aures

quam sonus est auditus, et omnia denique membra 840

ante fuere, ut opinor, corum quam foret usus;

haud igitur potuere utendi crescere causa.

at contra conferre manu certamina pugnae

et lacerare artus focdareque membra cruore

ante fuit multo quam lucida tela volarent, 845

et volnus vitare prins natura coegit

quam daret obiectum parmai laeva per artem.

scilicet et fessum corpus mandare quieti

multo antiquius est quam Iecti mollia strata,

et sedare sitim prius est quam pocula natu. 850

haec igitur possunt utendi cognita causa

(826) brought here by B corr. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. 823 avessis Ed. for inesse:
p. 171 of the archetype, the terminations of the lines therefore being towards the outer
margin, ended with 827: by some chance then s the last letter of this line, and the
three last, mus, of 826 were lost; avessi was then changed to inesse, quea to via.
vitium vementer rebu’ necessest Lach.: a violent alteration. inesto Mar. Ald. 1 Junt.
Gronov. avemus Te effugere Bern. 824 errorem vitareque B corr. Avance. for
errore nultareque. errore multas que premeditentur Flor. 31 Camb. one Vat. cor-
ruptly for 6. v. praemetuenter (praemetuentur A): this has led to further corruptions
by Mar. Junt. Lamb. etc. 826 possemus Lach. for possimus, as the usage of
Lucr. requires. gweamus Lach. for via: see above to 823: the vulg. viai has no
sense. 827 fastigia. suffragia Pont. 830 ex added by Lach. a Mar.
Ald, 1 Junt. vulg. 836 nata. natum Lach, as in 850: but as nata gives a
good sense, I have retained it: it seems to me more elegant than the other.

188 IV

credier, ex usu quae sunt vitaque reperta.
illa quidem seorsum sunt omnia quae pnius ipsa
nata dedere suae post notitiam utilitatis.
quo genere in primis sensus et membra videmus; 855
quare etiam atque etiam procul est ut credere possis
utilitatis ob officium potuisse creari.]
[Illud item non est mirandum, corporis ipsa
quod natura cibum quaerit cuiusque animantis.
quippe etenim fluere atque recedere corpora rebus S60
multa modis multis docui, sed plurima debent
ex animalibu’. quae quia sunt exercita motu,
multaque per sudorem ex alto pressa feruntur,
multa per os exhalantur, cum languida anhelant,
his igitur rebus rarescit corpus et omnis 855
subruitur natura; dolor quam consequitur rem.
propterea capitur cibus ut suffulciat artus
et recreet vires interdatus atque patentem
per membra ac venas ut amorem opturet edendi.
umor item discedit in ommia quae loca cumque 870
poscunt umorem; glomerataque multa vapons
corpora, quae stomacho praebent incendia nostro,
dissupat adveniens liquor ac restinguit ut ignem,
urere ne possit calor amphius aridus artus.
sic igitur tibi anhela sitis de corpore nostro 875
abluitur, sic expletur ieiuna cupido.]
Nunc qui fiat uti passus proferre queamus,
cum volumus, varieque datum sit membra movere,
et quae res tantum hoc oneris protrudere nostri
corporis insuerit, dicam: tu percipe dicta. 880
dico animo nostro primum simulacra meandi
accidere atque animum pulsare, ut diximus ante.
inde voluntas fit; neque enim facere incipit ullam
rem quisguam, quam mens providit quid velit ante.
id quod providet, illius rei constat imago. 885

862 quae quia Lach. for quia. et quia Vat. 3276 Brix. Pont. haec quia Wak.
his, quia Ald.1 Junt. his quae Mar. iis, quae Lamb. 863 foll.: by a better
stopping I have made the passage quite clear: the apodosis of the sentence begins
with His igitur. Lach. inverts 863 and 864. Comp. 908. 877 fiat Camb,
Brix. Pont. Mar. for flat. 878 varieque Ver. Ven. Mar. for vareque.

884 quisquam quam Brix. Mar. for quis quai. 885 Id quod. dt, quod

IV 189

ergo animus cum sese ita commovet ut velit ire
inque gredi, ferit extemplo quae in corpore toto
per membra atque artus animai dissita vis est.
et facilest factu, quoniam coniuncta tenetur.
inde ea proporro corpus ferit, atque ita tota 890
paulatim moles protruditur atque movetur.
praeterea tum rareseit quoque corpus et aer,
scilicet ut debet qui semper mobilis extat,
per patefacta venit penetratque foramina larens
et dispargitur ad partis ita quasque minutas 895
corporis. hic igitur rebus fit utrimque duabus,
corporis ut ae navis velis ventoque feratur.
nee tamen illud in his rebus mirabile constat,
tantula quod tantum corpus corpuscula possunt
contorquere et onus totum convertere nostrum. goo
quippe etenim ventus suptili corpore tenvis
trudit agens magnam magno molimine navem
et manus una regit quantovis impete euntem
atque gubernaclum contorquet quolibet unum,
multaque per trocleas et tympana pondere magno 905
commovet atque levi sustollit machina nisu.
Nunc quibus ille modis somnus per membra quietem
Inriget atque animi curas e pectore solvat,
suavidicis potius quam multis versibus edam ;
parvus ut est cycnl melior canor, 1116 gruum quam 910
clamor in aetheriis dispersus nubibus austri.
tu mihi da tenuis aures animumque sagacem,
ne fierl negites quae dicam posse retroque
vera repulsanti discedas pectore dicta,
tutimet in culpa cum sis neque cernere possis. QI5
principio somnus fit ubi est distracta per artus
vis anlmae partimque foras electa recessit
et partim contrusa magis corcessit in altum;
dissoluuntur enim tum demum membra fluuntque.

Lamb. Gif. Creech ete. wrongly. constat Flor. 31 Mar. for constare. 890 ferit
Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for perit. 897 is corrupt: see notes 2. Corpus ut ad navis
Eid. in ed. 2. Aeque id ut ac navis Bern. and Ed. in ed. 1. Corporis ut Camb.
Vat. 3276: also Lach. after Muretus. Corpus uti, ut Lamb. Creech. velis ventoque.
remis ventoque Gassendi opera 11 p. 506 b. 905 pondere magno. ‘immo pon-
dera nagna’ Lach. without good reason: comp. v 556. 915 Tutimet Ed. with

190 IV

nam dubium non est, animai quin opera sit 920
sensus hic in nobis, quem cum sopor inpedit esse,

tum nobis animam perturbatam esse putandumst
electamque foras; non omnem; namque laceret

aeterno corpus perfusum frigore leti.

quippe ubi nulla latens animai pars remaneret 925
in membris, cinere ut multa latet obrutus ignis,

unde reconflari sensus per membra repente

posset, ut ex 1gni cacco consurgere flamma ?

Sed quibus haee rebus novitas confiat et unde
perturbari anima et corpus languescere possit, 930
expediam: tu fac ne ventis verba profundam.
principio externa corpus de parte necessum est,
acriis quoniam vicinum tangitur auris,
tundier atque elus erebro pulsarier ictu,
proptereaque fere res omnes aut corio sunt 935
aut etiam conchis aut callo aut cortice tectae.
interiorem etiam partem spirantibus aer
verberat hic idem, cum ducitur atque reflatur.
quare utrimque secus cum corpus vapulet et cum
perveniant plagae per parva foramina nobis 940
corporis ad primas partis elementaque prima,
fit quasi paulatim nobis per membra ruina.
conturbantur enim positurae principiorum
corporis atque anim. fit uti pars inde animai
eiclatur et introrsum pars abdita cedat, 945
pars etiam distracta per artus non queat esse
coniuncta inter se neque motu mutua fungl;
inter enim saepit coetus natura viasque ;
ergo sensus abit mutatis motibus alte.
et quoniam non est quasi quod suffulciat artus, 950
debile fit corpus languescuntque ommia membra,
bracchia palpebraeque cadunt poplitesque cubanti

AB Nice. Tutemet vulg. Lach. 928 Posset Lach. for Possit. 929 confiat Pont.

Lach. for conflat. confletur Flor. 31 Lamb. vulg. 934 eius. αὖ ibus Lach. :
but see notes 2. 944 fit uti AB Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. sicuti Brix. sicué Ver.
Ven. sic, ut Pont. Mar. vulg. wrongly. 945 Eiciatur Lamb. for Eliciatur.

952 958, though perfectly sound, are much corrupted by Lamb. Creech vulg. Is.
Vossius’ ms. note is worth quoting, as Havere. and Preiger misrepresent, and con-
sequently Wak. and Lach. misapprehend it; ‘omnino legend.: poplitesque cubanti

IV IOI

saepe tamen summittuntur virisque resolvunt.
deinde cibum sequitur somnus, quia, quae facit aer,
haec eadem cibus, in venas dum diditur omnis, 955
efficit. et multo sopor ille gravissimus exstat
quem satur aut lassus capias, quia plurima tum se
corpora conturbant magno contusa labore.
fit ratione eadem coniectus partim animai
altior atque foras eiectus largior elus, 960
et divisior inter se ac distractior in test.
Et quo quisque fere studio devinctus adhacret
aut quibus in rebus multum sumus ante morati
atque in ea ratione fuit contenta magis mens,
in somnis eadem plerumque videmur obire; 965
causidici causas agere et componere leges,
induperatores pugnare ac proelia obire,
nautae contractum cum ventis degere bellum,
nos agere hoc autem et naturam quaerere rerum
semper et inventam patriis exponere chartis. 970
cetera sic studia atque artes plerumque videntur
in somnis animos hominum frustrata tenere.
et quicumque dies multos ex ordine ludis
adsiduas dederunt operas, plerumque videmus,
cum iam destiterunt ea sensibus usurpare, 975
relicuas tamen esse vias in mente patentis,
qua possint eadem rerum simulacra venire.
per multus itaque illa dies eadem obversantur
ante oculos, etiam vigilantes ut videantur
cernere saltantis et mollia membra moventis 980
et citharae liquidum carmen chordasque loquentis
auribus accipere et consessum cernere eundem
scenaique simul varios splendere decores.

Saepe tamae [not tama] summittuntur. Tama quid sit docet Festus, cubantem vero
tamam dixit quod deorsum ad pedes tendat. sic infra cubantia tecta. Idem error
apud Nonium in versu Lucilii in voce differre, ubi pro tama legitur tumen’.

959 partim Lach. for parte: comp. 918. porro Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. 961
in test Ed. for intus: v1 674 qui viisus mss. for quivis est: comp. 916 and 946, and
capias in 957. “actus Lach. 962 quo...devinctus. quo...defunctus Mon. Ven.
Ald. 1 Junt. quoi...devinctus Lamb. without reason. 964 in ea. in qua
Mar. Junt. vulg. wrongly. 968 degere. cernere Lamb. 982 consessum
Mar. Junt. for consensum. 983 Scenaique Brix. (?), Pont. Ald. 1 Junt. for

192 IV

usque adeo magni refert studium atque voluptas,
et quibus in rebus consuerint esse operati 985
non homines solum sed vero animalia cuncta.
quippe videbis equos fortis, cum membra iacebunt,
in somnis sudare tamen spirareque semper
et quasi de palma summas contendere viris,
aut quasi carceribus patefactis 990
999 venantumque canes in molli saepe quiete
gg! iactant crura tamen subito vocisque repente
mittunt et crebro redducunt naribus auras,
ut vestigia si teneant inventa ferarum,
expergefactique secuntur inania saepe 995
995 cervorum simulacra, fugae quasi dedita cernant,
donec discussis redeant erroribus ad se.
at consueta domi catulorum blanda propago
998 discutere et corpus de terra corripere instant 999
proinde quasi ignotas facies atque ora tuantur. 1004
et quo qtlaeque magis sunt aspera seminiorum,
tam magis in somnis eadem saevire necessust.
at variae fugiunt volucres pinnisque repente
sollicitant divom nocturno tempore lucos,
accipitres somno in leni si proelia pugnas
edere sunt persectantes visaeque volantes. ΙΟΙΟ
porro hominum mentes, magnis quae motibus edunt
magna, itidem saepe in somnis faciuntque geruntque,
reges expugnant, capluntur, proelia miscent,
tollunt clamorem quasi si 1ugulentur ibidem.
multi depugnant gemitusque doloribus edunt ΙΟΙ5

Scenatque. 984 voluptas Lach. for voluntas. 989 de palma summas
Lamb. for palmas. palmis A corr. Nice. all before Lamb. 990 saepe quiete
which mss. add at end has of course come from 991 (999) and supplanted the words
of Lucr. colligere aestum Lach. offers: velle volare might also do. 991 (999)
was brought here by Ald. 1 Junt. and by Mon., but there 998 999 (997 998) precede
it; 992 vocis: see ἢ. ἴοι T44 frugis. voces Lach. vulg. 996 fugae Mar.
Ald. 1 Junt. first for fuga. 997 redeant erroribus Lamb. after Turnebus for
redeant terroribus. 1000—1003 are merely 992—995 repeated because of
991 (999): see introduction p. 29. 1005 quo. quam Lamb. wrongly. semi-
niorum. semina eorum. Lamb. ‘Marull. et vulg. semina eorum’ says Gif. and so
Mar. changes seminiorum of Mon. to semina eorum. Junt. has rightly seminiorum.
1009 que wrongly added by Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. at end: see τὶ 118. 1011
motibus Mon. Pont. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. for montibus. agua I join with what pre-

IV 193

et quasi pantherae morsu saevive leonis
mandantur magnis clamoribus omnia complent.
multi de magnis per somnum rebu’ loquuntur
indicioque sui facti persaepe fuere.
multi mortem obeunt. multi, de montibus altis 1020
ut qui praecipitent ad terram corpore toto,
externantur et ex somno quasi mentibu’ capti
vix ad se redeunt permoti corporis aestu.
flumen item sitiens aut fontem propter amoenum
adsidet et totum prope faucibus occupat amnem. 1025
puri saepe lacum propter si ac dolia curta
somno devincti credunt se extollere vestem,
totius umorem saccatum corpori’ fundunt,
cum Babylonica magnifico splendore rigantur.
tum quibus aetatis freta primitus insinuatur 1030
semen, ubi ipsa dies membris matura creavit,
conveniunt simulacra foris e corpore quoque
nuntia praeclari voltus pulchrique coloris,
qui ciet inritans loca turgida semine multo,
ut quasi transactis saepe omnibu’ rebu’ profundant [1035
fluminis ingentis fluctus vestemque cruentent.
Sollicitatur id 7 nobis, quod diximus ante,
semen, adulta aetas cum primum roborat artus.
namque alas aliud res commovet atque lacessit ;
ex homine humanum semen ciet una hominis vis. 1040
quod simul atque suis electum sedibus exit,
per membra atque artus decedit corpore toto
in loca conveniens nervorum certa cietque
continuo partis genitalis corporis 1psas.
inritata tument loca semine fitque voluntas 1045
eicere id quo se contendit dira lubido,

cedes. Magna etenim Mar. Junt. Lamb. wrongly. mentes, magnis qui mentibus e.
M. Lach. strangely. 1021 Ut quiAp.m. rightly. Ut quasi BA corr. Nice.
Flor. 31 Camb. all Vat. Mon. etc.: hence much confusion before Wak. Se quasi
Mar. 1022 Externantur Lach. for Exterruntur. Exterrentur vulg. 1026
sei Lach, for se: Mar. Junt. vulg. omit se in 1027, and 1028 insert wt after (Avance.
before) saccatum, and read fundant with Brix. (?) Ver. Ven. 1032 quoque.
quodam Lach. without reason I think. 1034 Qui Lamb. for Quae. 1035
Ut Mar. Nauger. for Et. 1036 cruentent Flor. 31 Camb. for cruentet.

1037 id in nobis Flor. 31 Camb, Pont. Avance. at end of Catullus for id nobis.
id e Lach. idem Brix. Ver. Ven. Avane. in Ald. 1, 1038 aduilta B corr.

M. 13

194 IV

idque petit corpus, mens unde est saucia amore.
namque omnes plerumque cadunt in vulnus et illam
emicat in partem sanguis unde icimur ictu, 1050
et si comminus est, hostem ruber occupat umor.
sic igitur Veneris qui telis accipit ictus,
sive puer membris muliebribus hune iaculatur
seu mulier toto iactans e corpore amorem,
unde feritur, eo tendit gestitque coire 1055
et iacere umorem in corpus de corpore ductum;
namque voluptatem praesagit muta cupido.

Haec Venus est nobis; hinc autemst nomen amoris,
hinc illaec primum Veneris dulcedinis in cor
stillavit gutta et successit frigida cura. 1060
nam si abest quod ames, praesto simulacra tamen sunt
illius et nomen dulce obversatur ad auris.
sed fugitare decet simulacra et pabula amoris
absterrere sibi atque alio convertere mentem
et lacere umorem conlectum in corpora quaeque 1065
nec retinere, semel conversum unius amore,
et servare sibi curam certumque dolorem.
ulecus enim vivescit et iveterascit alendo
inque dies gliscit furor atque aerumna gravescit,
sl non prima novis conturbes volnera plagis 1070
volgivagaque vagus Venere ante recentia cures
aut alio possis animi traducere motus.

Nec Veneris fructu caret is qui vitat amorem,
sed potius quae sunt sine poena commoda sumit;
nam certe purast sanis magis inde voluptas 1075
quam miseris. etenim potiundi tempore in ipso
fluctuat incertis erroribus ardor amantum
nec constat quid primum oculis manibusque fruantur.

Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for advita. 1047 = 1034. 1057 muta A Nice.
Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. old eds. Junt. multa B Avance. Nauger. Lamb. vulg.
before Lach. 1058 nomen. momen Lach. most unpoetically; Creech

more elegantly, but without necessity, numen: see Camb, Journ. of phil. 1
p. 35. Lach. also in the next verse wrongly puts a stop at tllaec. illaec A
corr. for ille A, illa B. illace Niec. one Vat. illa et Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Yat.
Pont. 1060 frigida. fervida Mar. Junt. (not Nauger.) Creech. 1061
ames. aves Lach. without necessity : see notes 2. 1065 conlectum (collectum)
Junt. not Pont. or Mar. for coniectum. congestum Avanc. at end of Catullus.

IV 195

quod petiere, premunt arte faciuntque dolorem

corporis et dentes inlidunt saepe labellis 1080
osculaque adfligunt, quia non est pura voluptas

et stimuli subsunt qui instigant laedere id ipsum
quodcumque est, rabies unde illaec germina surgunt.

sed leviter poenas frangit Venus inter amorem

blandaque refrenat morsus admixta voluptas. 1085
namque in eo spes est, unde est ardoris origo,

restingui quoque posse ab eodem corpore flammam.

quod fieri contra totum natura repugnat ;

unaque res haec est, cuius quom plurima habemus,

tum magis ardescit dira cuppedine pectus. 1090
nam cibus atque umor membris adsumitur intus ;

quae quoniam certas possunt obsidere partis,

hoe facile expletur laticum frugumque cupido.

ex hominis vero facie pulchroque colore

nil datur in corpus praeter simulacra fruendum 1095
tenvia; quae vento spes raptast saepe misella.

ut bibere in somnis sitiens quom quaerit et umor

non datur, ardorem qui membris stinguere possit,

sed laticum simulacra petit frustraque laborat

in medioque sitit torrenti flumine potans, 1100
sic in amore Venus simulacris ludit amantis

nec satiare queunt spectando corpora coram,

nec manibus quicquam teneris abradere membris

possunt errantes incerti corpore toto.

denique cum membris conlatis flore fruuntur 1105

1068 Ulcus A corr, for Vicus. 1081 adjligunt A Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. all Vat.
Mon. rightly. adfigunt B Pont. and in marg. Mar. Junt. Lamb. ete, 1083
illaee germina Lach. after a friend of Lamb. for tllae cermina (?) A p.m. ille
germina B. ille haec germina A corr. Nicc.: see 1059. 1085 refrenat Nice.
for frenat. 1089 cuius quom, Tum Ed. for cuius quam, Tam. cuius quo mage
Lach. cuius quo pluria Mar. Ald.1 Junt. qiam pluria Lamb. etc. which is not
Latin. [But comparing Ter. heaut. 997 Nam quam maxime huic vana haeec suspicio
Erit, tam factllume patris pacem in leges conficiet suas; Cato r. r. 85 9 Quam
plurimum bibit, tam mazxime sitit; and old poet (inc. fab. 160 Ribb.) ap. Quintilian
1x 8 16 Quam magis aerumna urget, tam magis ad maleficiendum urget; and Aen.
vit 787 quoted there: perhaps Lucr. mixed the two constructions and wrote as his
mss. give. Compare too Plaut. aul. 229 Quam ad probos propinquitate proxumnie

te adiunzeris, Tam optumumst: and see Ussing there. ] 1096 raptast Ed. for
raptat. rapta est Vat. 3276 Pont. Candidus at end of Junt. Wak. mentem spes
raptat Lach. mentem spe lactant or captant Bentl. 1098 membris stinguere

13—2

196 IV

aetatis, lam cum praesagit gaudia corpus

atque in eost Venus ut muliebria conserat arva,

adfigunt avide corpus iunguntque salivas

oris et imspirant pressantes dentibus ora,

nequiguam, quoniam nil inde abradere possunt 1110

nec penetrare et abire in corpus corpore toto;

nam facere interdum velle et certare videntur:

usque adeo cupide in Veneris compagibus haerent,

membra voluptatis dum vi labefacta liquescunt.

tandem ubi se erupit nervis conlecta cupido, 1118

parva fit ardoris violenti pausa parumper.

inde redit rabies eadem et furor ille revisit,

cum sibi quid cupiant ipsi contingere quaerunt,

nec reperire malum id possunt quae machina vincat;

usque adeo incerti tabescunt volnere caeco. 1120
Adde quod absumunt viris pereuntque labore,

adde quod alterius sub nutu degitur aetas.

labitur interea res et Babylonica fiunt,

languent officia atque aegrotat fama vacillans.

huic lenta et pulchra in pedibus Sicyonia rident 1125

scilicet et grandes viridi cum luce zmaragdi

auro includuntur teriturque thalassina vestis

adsidue et Veneris sudorem exercita potat.

et bene parta patrum fiunt anademata, mitrae,

interdum in pallam atque Alidensia Ciaque vertunt. 1130

eximia veste et victu convivia, ludi,

Avance. for membri stinguere or membris tinguere. 1115 conlecta Lamb. for
coniecta. 1118 quid Lach. for quod: a necessary change. 1121 viris
(vires) Pont. Mar. Junt. for utris. 1123 Babylonica Pius in notes for
Babylonia. vadimonia Mar. Junt. vulg. before Lach. 1124 vacillans Mar.
Junt. for vigillans. vacilans Avance. 1125 Huic lenta Ed. for Unguenta: see
Camb. Journ. of phil. 1v p. 287: the reading is of course quite uncertain: indeed
unguenta may have come from Languent of 1124 and have expelled a totally
different word: perhaps drguta, if huic were not wanted: comp. Catull. 68 72
Inniza arguta constituit solea; and Tib.18 14. <Argentum Lah. 1129 fiunt
B corr. Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. for flunt. 1130 Alidensia of mss. may be right: see
notes 2. alideusia Lach. very ingeniously; but yet alideusia is not even a known
Greek word. ac Melitensia Ceaque Lamb. after ‘Adrianus Turnebus, seu potius
Gul. Pelliserius, Episc. Montepessul.’ Ciaque Lach. for chia: so Cic. de nat. deor.
1118 Prodicus Cius Victorius: chiuis or chius mss. 1131 ludi A corr. Nicc. for
luidi. lychni Lach.: but see notes 2; and v 295 from which it appears that Lucr.
wrote l¥chini or luchint or lichini.

IV 197

pocula crebra, unguenta coronae serta parantur,

nequiquam, quoniam medio de fonte leporum

surgit amari aliquit quod in ipsis floribus angat,

aut cum conscius ipse animus se forte remordet 1135

desidiose agere aetatem lustrisque perire,

aut quod in ambiguo verbum iaculata reliquit

quod cupido adfixum cordi vivescit ut ignis,

aut nimium iactare oculos aliumve tueri

quod putat in voltuque videt vestigia risus. 1140
Atque in amore mala haec proprio summeque secundo

inveniuntur; in adverso vero atque inopi sunt,

prendere quae possis oculorum lumine operto,

innumerabilia; ut melius vigilare sit ante,

qua docui ratione, cavereque ne inliciaris. 1145

nam vitare, plagas in amoris ne laciamur,

non ita difficile est quam captum retibus ipsis

exire et validos Vencris perrumpere nodos.

et tamen implicitus quoque possis inque peditus

effugere infestum, nisi tute tibi obvius obstes 1150

et praetermittas animi vitia omnia primum

aut quae corpori’ sunt elus, suquam petis ac vis.

nam faciunt homines plerumque cupidine caeci,

et tribuunt ea quae non sunt his commoda vere.

multimodis igitur pravas turpisque videmus 1155

esse in deliciis summoque in honore vigere.

atque alios alii inrident Veneremque siiadent

ut placent, quoniam foedo adflictentur amore,

nec sua respiciunt miseri mala maxima saepe.

nigra melichrus est, inmunda et fetida acosmos, 1160

caesia Palladium, nervosa et lignea dorcas,

parvula, pumilio, chariton mia, tota merum sal,

magna atque inmanis cataplexis plenaque honoris.

balba loqui non quit, traulizi, muta pudens est;

at flagrans odiosa loquacula Lampadium fit. 1165

ischnon eromenion tum fit, cum vivere non quit

1141 mala haec Flor. 31 Camb. 2 Vat. Pont. Mar. for male haec. 1145 inli-
ciaris Ald. 1, ill. Mar. Junt. for inligniaris: so τι]. 553 linguntur mss, for
licuntur. 1152 Aut Lach. for Ut. Et Pont. Mar. Tum Nauger. vulg. si quam

petis Lach. for quam praepetis A Nicc. Flor. 31 Camb. quam precis B. quam
percupis Lamb, 1156 delictis Camb. Mar. for delictis.

198 IV

prae macie; rhadine verost 1am mortua tussi.
at tumida et mammosa Ceres est ipsa ab Iaccho,
simula Silena ac saturast, labeosa philema.
cetera de genere hoc longum est si dicere coner. 1170
sed tamen esto iam quantovis oris honore,
cul Veneris membris vis omnibus exoriatur:
nempe aliae quoque sunt; nempe hac sine viximus ante ;
nempe eadem facit, et scimus facere, omnia turpi,
et miseram tactris se suffit odoribus ipsa {175
quam famulae longe fugitant furtimque cachinnant.
at lacrimans exclusus amator limina saepe
floribus et sertis operit postisque superbos
unguit amaracino et foribus miser oscula figit ;
quem si, iam ammissum, venientem offenderit aura [180
una modo, causas abeundi quaerat honestas,
et meditata diu cadat alte sumpta querella,
stultitiaque 101 se damnet, tribuisse quod ili
plus videat quam mortali concedere par est.
nec Veneres nostras hoc fallit; quo magis ipsae 1185
omnia summo opere hos vitae poscaenia celant
quos retinere volunt adstrictosque esse in amore,
nequiquam, quoniam tu animo tamen omnia possis
protrahere in lucem atque omnis inquirere risus
et, si bello animost et non odiosa, vicissim 1190
praetermittere οὐ humanis concedere rebus.
Nec mulier semper ficto suspirat amore
quae conplexa viri corpus cum corpore iungit
et tenet adsuctis umectans oscula labris.
nam facit ex animo saepe et communia quaerens 1195
gaudia sollicitat spatium decurrere amoris.
nec ratione alia volucres armenta feraeque

1168 At tumida Bern. for At tamina: this I had myself seen many years ago on
comparing Ovid ars 11 661, where he is imitating Lucr. At Lamia Avano. Lach. At
gemina Lamb. vulg. 1174 turpi Nauger. for turpis. 1176 longe Flor. 31 Camb.
for longt. 1180 iam ammissum (admissum) Lamb. for iam missum. iam ammissu
Lach. iam iussu Bern. iam immissum Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. venientem. veniens Ald. 1
Junt, Bentl. 1182 cadat Lamb. for cadet. 1183 Stultitia. Stultitiae Mar.
Ald. 1 Junt. Lach. 1188 possis Mar. Junt. for posses. 1189 inquirere
risus. itnusus Pont. Junt. lusus Mar. Candidus at end of Junt. anguirere nisus
Lamb. Creech ete. 1191 et added by Mar. Lach. Praetermittet te Junt.

ΙΝ 199

et pecudes et equae maribus subsidere possent,
si non, ipsa quod illorum subat ardet abundans
natura et Venerem salientum laeta retractat. 1200
nonne vides etiam quos mutua saepe voluptas
vinxit, ut in vinelis communibus excrucientur ἢ
in triviis quam saepe canes, discedere aventis,
1210 divorsi cupide summis ex viribu’ tendunt,
1204 quom interea validis Veneris compagibus haerent! 1205
quod facerent numquam nisi mutua gaudia nossent
quae iacere in fraudem possent vinctosque tenere.
quare etiam atque etiam, ut dico, est communi’ voluptas.
Et commiscendo quom semine forte virili
1209 femina vim vicit subita vi corripuitque, 1210
tum similes matrum materno semine fiunt,
ut patribus patrio. sed quos utriusque figurae
esse vides, iuxtim miscentes vulta parentum,
corpore de patrio et materno sanguine crescunt,
semina cum Veneris stimulis excita per artus 1215
obvia conflixit conspirans mutuus ardor, .
et neque utrum superavit eorum nec superatumst.
fit quoque ut interdum similes existere avorum
possint et referant proavorum saepe figuras
propterea quia multa modis pnmordia multis 1220
mixta suo celant in corpore saepe parentis,
quae patribus patres tradunt ab stirpe profecta ;
inde Venus varia producit sorte figuras

Lamb. 1198 possent. Lach. reads possunt, and refers quod illorum subat to
the male. 1200 salientum Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for sallentum. retractat Lamb.
ed. 2 and 8 first for retractant, 1201 etiam om. Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. 2 Vat.
Brix. Ver. Ven. memi one Vat. illos 2 Vat. etiam of AB rightly added by Pont.
and Avance. 1202 vinclis Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for vineiis. 1203 quam
Lach. for cum. quin Mar. Junt. Lamb. ed. 1 and 2. non saepe Lamb. ed. 3,
Creech. 1204 (1210) first brought here by Nauger. 1207 tacere Lamb.
and above 1146 laciamur, without cause. 1209 semine. semen would simplify
the constr. 1210 vim vicit Salmasius for vi mulcit: a certain correction,

which Wak. and Lach. justly adopt: the older readings are not worth mentioning ;
Lamb. in vain tries to extricate himself: it appears from 500 instances that in
our archetype, as in other mss. written in square capitals, 2 and i were often
undistinguishable: 824 errore multareque, 1 659 ver aula AB. 1220 multa
modis Lamb. ed. 2 and 3 for multimodis; and, although Junt. has multimodis in
the text, it would appear from his note at the end that Candidus intended to print

200 IV

maiorumque refert voltus vocesque comasque,
1227 et muliebre oritur patrio de semine saeclum 1225
maternoque mares existunt corpore creti;
1225 quandoquidem nilo magis haec de semine certo
fiunt quam facies et corpora membraque nobis;
semper enim partus duplici de semine constat,
atque utri similest magis id quodcumque creatur, 1230
elus habet plus parte aequa; quod cernere possis,
sive virum suboles sivest muliebris origo.

Nec divina satum genitalem numina cuiquam
absterrent, pater a gnatis ne dulcibus umquam
appelletur et ut sterili Venere exigat aevom ; 1235
quod plerumque putant et multo sanguine maesti
conspergunt aras adolentque altaria donis,
ut gravidas reddant uxores semine largo.
nequiquam divom numen sortisque fatigant.
nam steriles nimium crasso sunt semine partim 1240
et liquido praeter iustum tenuique vicissim.
tenve locis quia non potis est adfigere adhaesum,
liquitur extemplo et revocatum cedit abortu.
crassius his porro quoniam concretius aequo
mittitur, aut non tam prolixo provolat ictu 1245
aut penetrare locos aeque nequit aut penetratum
aegre admiscetur muliebri semine semen.
nam multum harmoniae Veneris differre videntur.
atque alias alii complent magis ex aliisque
succipiunt aliae pondus magis inque gravescunt,. 1250
et multae steriles Hymenaeis ante fuerunt
pluribus et nactae post sunt tamen unde puellos
suscipere et partu possent ditescere dulci.
et quibus ante domi fecundae saepe nequissent
uxores parere, inventast illis quoque compar 1255
natura, ut possent gnatis munire senectam.

multa modis. 1222 ab Lach. for a. 1225 1226 (1227 1228) I have trans-
ferred hither, the sense requiring the change, 1227 de added by Flor. 31
Pont. Mar. Junt. a Avance. magis, minus Lamb. followed by all before Lach.

1230 quodcunque Flor. 31 Camb. Ver, Ven. Mar. for quocumque.

1234 pater a gnatis Brix.?, Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for praeter agnatis.

1243 cedit Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for credit. 1244 his Lach. for
hie. 1252 post sunt Lamb. first for possunt; though Lucr. perhaps wrote

IV 201

usque adeo magni refert, ut semina possint
seminibus commisceri genitaliter apta,
crassane conveniant liquidis et liquida crassis.
atque in eo refert quo victu vita colatur ; 1260
namque alus rebus concrescunt semina membris
atque aliis extenvantur tabentque vicissim.
et quibus ipsa modis tractetur blanda voluptas,
id quoque permagni refert; nam more ferarum
quadrupedumque magis ritu plerumque putantur 1265
concipere uxores, quia sic loca sumere possunt,
pectoribus positis, sublatis scmina lumbis.
nec molles opw’ sunt motus uxoribus hilum.
nam mulier prohibet se concipere atque repugnat,
clunibus ipsa vir Venerem si laeta retractat 1270
atque exossato ciet omni pectore fluctus ;
eicit enim suleum recta regione viaque
vomeris atque locis avertit seminis ictum.
idque sua causa consuerunt scorta moveri,
ne complerentur crebro gravidaeque iacerent 1275
et simul ipsa viris Venus ut concinnior esset ;
coniugibus quod nil nostris opus esse videtur.
Nec divinitus interdum Venerisque sagittis
deteriore fit ut forma muhercula ametur.
nam facit ipsa stis interdum femina factis 1280
morigerisque modis et munde corpore culto,
ut facile insuescat te secum degere vitam.
quod superest, consuetudo concinnat amorem;
nam leviter quamvis quod crebro tunditur ictu,
vincitur in longo spatio tamen atque labascit. 1285
nonne vides etiam guttas in saxa cadentis
umoris longo in spatio pertundere saxa ?

pos sunt: comp. 1186 poscaenia. 1259 Crassane Kd. for Crassaque; as refert
conveniant does not seem Latin any more than 111 868 differre fuerit, and que is
quite superfluous. conveniant Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for conveniunt. 1262 aliis
Ver, Ven. Mar. for alii. 1268 Nec Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for Ne. Non
Camb. 1270 retractat B. vretractet A and all other mss. and eds. before
Lach. 1281 modis Pont. Mar. Junt. for moris. 1282 te secum Bern.
for secum. secum nos Lach. vir secum Flor. 31 Camb. vulg. ‘Italice magis quam
Latine’ says Lach.

T. LUCRETI CARI

DE RERUM NATURA

LIBER QUINTUS

Quis potis est dignum pollenti pectore carmen

condere pro rerum maiestate hisque repertis ?

quisve valet verbis tantum qui fingere laudes

pro meritis eius possit qui talia nobis

pectore parta sno quaesitague praemia liquit ? -
nemo, ut opinor, erit mortali corpore cretus.

nam si, ut ipsa petit maiestas cognita rerum,

dicendum est, deus ille fuit, deus, inclyte Memmi,

qui princeps vitae rationem invenit eam quae

nunc appellatur sapientia, quique per artem 10
fluctibus e tantis vitam tantisque tenebris

in tam tranquillo et tam clara luce locavit.

confer enim divina aliorum antiqua reperta.

namque Ceres fertur fruges Liberque liquoris

vitigeni laticem mortalibus instituisse ; 15
cum tamen his posset sine rebus vita manere,

ut fama est aliquas etiam nunc vivere gentis.

at bene non poterat sine puro pectore vivi;

quo magis hic merito nobis deus esse videtur,

ex quo nunc etiam per magnas didita gentis 20
dulcia permulcent animos solacia vitae.

Herculis antistare autem si facta putabis,

longius a vera multo ratione ferere.

quid Nemeaeus enim nobis nunc magnus hiatus

2 maiestate hisque repertis Lamb. for maiestatis atque repertis: he proposes also
maiestate atquer. maiestatisque repertis Nicc. and all before Lamb. 12 locavit

V 203

ille leonis obesset et horrens Areacius sus ? 25
denique quid Cretae taurus Lernaecaque pestis

hydra venenatis posset vallata colubris ?

quidve tripectora tergemini vis Geryonai

30 tanto opere officerent nobis Stymphala colentes

29 et Diomedis equi spirantes nanbus ignem 30
Thracis Bistoniasque plagas atque Ismara propter ?
aureaque Hesperidum servans fulgentia mala,
asper, acerba tuens, Immani corpore serpens
arboris amplexus stirpem quid denique obesset
propter Atlanteum litus pelageque sonora, 3
quo neque noster adit quisquam nec barbarus audet ?

—eetera de genere hoe quae sunt portenta perempta,

561 non victa forent, quid tandem viva nocerent ?
nil, ut opinor: ita ad satiatem terra ferarum
nune etiam scatit et trepido terrore repleta est 40
per nemora ac montes magnos silvasque profundas ;
quae loca vitandi plerumque est nostra potestas.
at nisi purgatumst pectus, quae proelia nobis
atque pericula tumst ingratis insinuandum !
quantae tum scindunt hominem cuppedinis acres 45
sollicitum curae quantique perinde timores !
quidve superbia spurcitia ac petulantia? quantas

Nice. for vocavit. 29 foll. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. and all succeeding eds. invert 30
and 31; I transnose 29 and 30: again Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. and all before Lach. insert
between nobis and Stymphala the words uncisque timendae Unguibus Arcadiae volu-
cres. Lach. weakly reads ct aves for nobis. 1 have no doubt a verse has fallen out
before 29 (30), beginning with Quid: such for instance as this Quid volucres pennis

acratis invia stagna. 31 Thracis Ed. for Thracita. Thracam Lach. Thracen
Ald, 1 Junt.: see Camb. Journ. of phil. 1 p. 44. 34 stirpem Mon. Nauger.
(stipem Mar. Junt.) for stirpes. 35 Atlanteum Gif. (Atlantaeum Lamb. and

Turneb. first) for dtianeum. Oceanwm propter Nice. followed by many: Oceanum
was probably written in the margin of Poggio’s ms. to explain Atlanteum. pelageque
Lamb. for pelagique. sonora Nicc. (not Flor. 31 or Camb.) Mon. Brix. Ver. Ven.
Ald. 1 Junt. Nauger. Lach. for severu: it was probably in Poggio’s ms.: Pont. in
marg. ‘alii severa’. 38 Sei Lach. Si Nice. for Sed. 44 tumst Lach. for
sunt. tunc Lamb. Gif. ed. 1. Lamb. ed. 3 remarks ‘hunc locum Zoilus...secutus est
tacitus et dissimulans, tamquam integrum in aliis libris repertum et non a me
emendatum’: Gif. thened. 2 reads pericula est, and says ‘sic scripsi. in 0. v. sunt.
Marull. et vulg. tunc’: now when Lamb. had so pointedly drawn attention to it,
Gif. must have been a most impudent liar, if he did not find tunc in Marullus’ ms.

204 V

efficiunt clades! quid luxus desidiaeque ?
haec igitur qui cuncta subegerit ex animoque
expulerit dictis, non armis, nonne decebit 50
hunc hominem numero divom dignarier esse ¢
cum bene praesertim multa ac divinitus ipsis
immortalibu’ de divis dare dicta suénit
atque omnem rerum naturam pandere dictis.
Cuius ego ingressus vestigia dum rationes 55
persequor ac doceo dictis, quo quacque creata
foedere sint, in eo quam sit durare necessum
nec validas valeant aevi rescindere leges,
quo genere in primis animi natura reperta est
nativo primum consistere corpore creta 60
nec posse incolumis magnum durare per aevom,
sed simulacra solere in somnis fallere mentem,
cerhere cum videamur eum quem vita reliquit,
quod superest, nune hue rationis detulit ordo,
ut mihi mortali consistere corpore mundum 65
nativomque simul ratio reddunda sit esse ;
et quibus ille modis congressus materiai
fundarit terram caelum mare sidera solem
lunaique globum; tum quae tellure animantes
extiterint, et quae nullo sint tempore natae; 70
quove modo genus humanum variante loquella
coeperit Inter se vescl per nomina rerum ;
et quibus ille modis divom metus insinuarit
pectora, terrarum qui in orbi sancta tuetur
fana lacus lucos aras simulacraque divom. 75
praeterea solis cursus lunaeque meatus
expediam qua vi flectat natura gubernans;
ne forte haec inter caelum terramque reamur
libera sponte sua cursus lustrare perennis
morigera ad fruges augendas atque animantis, SO
neve aliqua divom volvi ratione putemus.
nam bene qui didicere deos securum agere aevom,

notes; though Mon. has no trace of it. Junt. reads sunt. 51 numero divom.
divum numero Lactant. 53 Immortalibus Flor, 31 Mar. Inmortalibus B Camb.
Iam mortalibus A Nice. etc. de Lamb. for e. 61 incolumis Mar. Junt. for inco-
lumen A, vinculum est B, incolumé Camb. 71 Quove. Quoque Nonius, contrary to

V 205

81 tamen interea mirantur qua ratione
quacque geri possint, pracsertim rebus in illis
quae supera caput aetheriis cernumtur in oris, $5
rursus in antiquas referuntur religiones
et dominos acris adsciscunt, omnia posse
quos miseri credunt, ignari quid queat esse,
quid nequeat, finita potestas denique cuique
quanam sit ratione atque alte terminus haerens. go
Quod superest, ne te in promissis plura moreimur,
principio maria ac terras caclumque tuere;
quorum naturam triplicem, tria corpora, Memuini,
tris species tam dlissimilis, tria talia texta,
una dies dabit exitio, multosque per annos 95
sustentata ruet moles et machina mundt.
nee me animi fallit quam res nova miraque menti
accidat exitinm cacli terraeque futurum,
et quam difficile id mihi sit pervincere dictis;
ut fit ubi insolitam rem adportes auribus ante 100
nec tamen hanc possis oculorum subdere visu
nec laccre indu manus, via qua munita fidel
proxima fert humanum in pectus templaque mentis.
sed tamen etfabor. dictis dabit ipsa fidem res
forsitan et graviter terrarum motibus ortis 105
omnia conquassarl in parvo tempore cernes.
quod procul a nobis flectat fortuna gubernans,
et ratio potius quam res persuadeat ipsa
succidere horrisono posse omnia victa fragore.
[Qua pnus adgrediar quam de re fundere fata 110
sanctius et multo certa ratione magis quam
Pythia quae tripode a Phoebi lauroque profatur,
multa tibi expediam doctis solacia dictis ;
religione refrenatus ne forte rearis
terras et solem et caelum, mare sidera lunam, 110
corpore divino debere aeterna manere,
proptereaque putes ritu par esse Gigantum
pendere eos poenas inmani pro scelere omnis
qui ratione sua disturbent moenia mundi

the use of Luer. 114 Religione Nice. Ver. Ven. Relligione AB in this place
only, Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. 116 manere Junt. for meare, 117 par Mar. Junt.

200

V

praeclarumque velint caeli restinguere solem 120

inmortalia mortali sermone notantes ;

quae procul usque adeo divino a numine distent,

inque deum numero quae sint indigna videri,

notitiam potius praebere ut posse putentur

quid sit vitali motu sensuque remotum. 125

quippe etenim non est, cum quovis corpore ut esse

posse animi natura putetur consiliumque ;

sicut in aethere non arbor, non aequore salso

nubes esse queunt neque pisces vivere in arvis

nec cruor in lignis neque saxis sucus inesse. 130

certum ac dispositumst ubi quicquit crescat et insit.

sic animl natura nequit sine corpore oriri

sola neque a nervis et sanguine longiter esse.

quod si (posset enim multo prius) ipsa animi vis

in capite aut umeris aut imis calcibus esse 135

posset et innascl quavis in parte, soleret

tandem in eodem homine atque in eodem vase manere.

quod quoniam nostro quoque constat corpore certum

dispositumque videtur ubi esse et crescere possit

seorsum anima atque animus, tanto magis infitiandum 140

totum posse extra corpus formamque animalem

putribus in glebis terrarum aut solis in igni

aut in aqua durare aut altis aetheris oris.

haud igitur constant divino praedita sensu,

quandoquidem nequeunt vitaliter esse animata. 145
Tllud item non est ut possis credere, sedes

esse deum sanctas in mundi partibus ullis.

tenvis enim natura deum longeque remota

sensibus ab nostris animi vix mente videtur;

quae quoniam manuum tactum suffugit et ictum, 150

tactile nil nobis quod sit contingere debet.

tangere enim non quit quod tangi non licet ipsum.

quare etiam sedes quoque nostris sedibus esse

dissimiles debent, tenues de corpore eorum;

for pars: comp. 881 122 a numine distent Flor. 31 Camb. Brix. Mar. for ani-
minbistent. animilastent Nice. 133 longiter. longius mss.: see 111 789.
134 foll.: see 111 790 foll. 152 quod Mar. Junt. for quod si. 154 de

corpore. pro corpore Lamb. conj. and Ed. in ed. 1: see notes 2. tenuest si corpu’?

δὴ 207

quae {101 posterius largo sermone probabo. 155
dicere porro hominum causa voluisse parare
praeclaram mundi naturam proptereaque
adlaudabile opus divom laudare decere
aeternumque putare atque inmortale futurum
nec fas esse, deum quod sit ratione vetusta 160
gentibus humanis fundatum perpetuo aevo,
solicitare suis ulla vi ex sedibus umquam
nec verbis vexare et ab imo evertere suinma,
cetera de genere hoe adfingere et addere, Meinmi,
desiperest. quid enim inmortalibus atque beatis 165
gratia nostra queat largirier emolumenti,
ut nostra quicquam causa gerere adgrediantur ?
quidve novi potuit tanto post ante quietos
inlicere ut cuperent vitam mutare priorem ?
nam gaudere novis rebus debere videtur 170
cui veteres obsunt; sed cui nil accidit aegri
tempore in anteacto, cum pulchre degeret aevom,
quid potuit novitatis amorem accendere tali ?
{75 an, credo, in tenebris vita ac maerore iacebat,
donec diluxit rerum genitalis origo. 175
174 quidve mali fuerat nobis non esse creatis ?
177 natus enim debet quicumque est velle manere
in vita, donee retinebit blanda voluptas.
qui numquam vero vitae gustavit amorem
nec fuit in numero, quid obest non esse creatum ? 180
exemplum porro gignundis rebus et ipsa
notities divis hominum unde est insita primum
quid vellent facere ut scirent animoque viderent,
quove modost umquam vis cognita principiorum
quidque inter sese permutato ordine possent, 185
si non ipsa dedit specimen natura creandi ?
namque ita multa modis multis primordia rerum

deorum Lach. tenuwes ceu corpora eorum Ed. in small ed. 162 ulla vi ex. ullum
de Lamb. Creech ete. most gratuitously. 163 summa. summam Lamb. ete.
174 175 (175 176) rightly placed by Lamb. before 176 (174): but for credo, which
can scarcely be right, I propose crepera. Lach. whom I followed formerly, puts
them before 170, and reads At for An in 174. 182 divis hominum unde est
Ed. for hominum divis unde est. hominum dis unde est Wak. Lach. est om. Mar.
Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb, ete. divisum deest Nicc. Mon. Ver. Ven. 185 sese Brix.

208

δὴ

ex infinito iam tempore percita plagis
ponderibusque suis consuerunt concita fern
omnimodisque coire atque omnia pertemptare,
quaecumque inter se possent congressa creare,
ut non sit mirum si in talis disposituras
deciderunt quoque et in talis venere meatus,
qualibus haec rerum geritur nunc summa novando.
Quod st iam rerum ignorem primordia quae sint,
hoc tamen ex ipsis caeli rationibus ausim
confirmare aliisque ex rebus reddere multis,
nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam
naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa.
principio quantum caeli tegit impetus ingens,
inde avidei partem montes silvaeque ferarum
possedere, tenent rupes vastaeque paludes
et mare quod late terrarum distinet oras.
inde duas porro prope partis fervidus ardor
adsiduusque geli casus mortalibus aufert.
quod superest arvi, tamen id natura sua vi
sentibus obducat, ni vis humana resistat
vitai causa valido consucta bidenti
ingemere et terram pressis proscindere aratris.
si non fecundas vertentes vomere glebas
terraique solum subigentes cimus ad ortus,
sponte sua nequeant liquidas cxistere in auras,
et tamen interdum magno quacsita labore
cum iam per terras frondent atque omnia florent,
aut nimuis torret fervoribus aetherius sol
aut subiti peremunt imbris gelidaeque pruinae,
flabraque ventorum violento turbine vexant.
praeterea genus horriferum natura ferarum
humanae genti infestum terraque marique
cur alit atque auget? cur anni tempora morbos
adportant ? quare mors inmatura vagatur ?

190

195

200

205

210

21τ

220

Pont. Mar. for se. 186 specimen Pius in notes for speciem. 187 multa
modis Lamb. ed. 1 and 2 rightly for multimodis; but ed. 3 again multimodis: see
191 possent for possint Lach. rightly, as 426. 193 meatus Flor. 31
Mar. for maestus. 195 si added by Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. 201 avidei partem
Ed. for avidam partem. avide Bern. aliquam Lach. ‘Marull. aliam pessime’

422.

\ 209

tum porro puer, ut saevis proiectus ab undis
navita, nudus humi iacet, infans, indigus omni
vitali auxilio, cum primum in luminis oras
ntxibus ex alvo matris natura profudit,
vagituque locuin lugubri complet, ut aecumst
em tantum in vita restet transire malorum.
at variae crescunt peeudes armenta feraeque
nec crepitacillis opus est nee cuiquain adhibendast
almae nutricis blanda atque infracta loquella 230
nec varias quaerunt vestes pro tempore caeli,
denique hon armis opus est, non moenibus altis,
qui sua tutentur, quando omnibus omnia large
tellus ipsa parit naturaque dacdala rerum. ]

Principio quoniam terral corpus et umor 2
aurarumque leves animae calidique vapores,
e quibus haee rerum consistere summa videtur,
omnia nativo ac mortali corpore constant,
debet ecodem omnis mundi natura putari.
quippe etenim quorum partis et membra videmus 240
corpore nativo ac mortalibus esse figuris,
haee ecadem ferme mortalia cernimus esse
et nativa simul. quapropter maxima mundi
cum videam membra ac partis consumpta regigni,
scire licet caeli quoque item terraeque fuisse 245
principiale aliquod tempus clademque futuram.

Illud in his rebus ne corripuisse rearis
me mihi, quod terram atque ignem mortalia sumpsi
esse neque umorem dubitavi aurasque perire
atque eadem gigni rursusque augescere dixi, 250
prineipio pars terrai nonnulla, perusta
solibus adsiduis, multa pulsata pedum vi,

to
ty
Le a |

Go
aA

Gif.; Junt. as Ald. 1 has avidam: but in marg. of Mon. ‘avidam partem’ is noted

as strange. 227 restet transire Lactant. and Nice. for re et transirest, that
curiously frequent blunder of AB: see 1v 783. 239 eodem omnis Gif, rightly for
eadem omnis, and before him the Paris ed. of Pius. tota eadem Lamb. 241

nativo ac mortalibus Lach. for nativom mortalibus: not Naugerius who has nativa
mortalibus. nativo et mortalibus Avance, in notes at end of his Catullus, and vulg.

nativo in mortalibus Mar. 245 item Bentl. for idem. 248 Me mihi B most
rightly. Memini A. Memmi vulg.: hence Lamb. me arripuisse for corripuisse in
247. 251 non nulla Nice. Camb. Ver. Ven. Mar. for non ulla. 257 alid

M. 14

210 V

pulveris exhalat nebulam nubesque volantis

quas validi toto dispergunt aere venti.

pars etiam glebarum ad diluviem revocatur 255

imbribus et ripas radentia flumina rodunt.

praeterea pro parte sua, quodcumque alid auget,

redditur; et quoniam dubio procul esse videtur

omniparens eadem rerum commune sepulcrum,

ergo terra tibi libatur et aucta recrescit. 260
Quod superest, umore novo mare flumina fontes

semper abundare et latices manare perennis

nil opus est verbis: magnus decursus aquarum

undique declarat. sed primum quicquid aquai

tollitur in summaque fit ut nil umor abundet, 265

partim quod validi verrentes aequora venti

diminuunt radiisque retexens aetherius sol,

partim quod supter per terras diditur omnis;

percolatur enim virus retroque remanat

materies umoris et ad caput amnibus omnis 270

convenit, inde super terras fluit agmine dulci

qua via secta semel liquido pede detulit undas.
Aera nunc igitur dicam qui corpore toto

innumerabiliter privas mutatur in horas.

semper enim, quodcumque fluit de rebus, id omne 275

ueris In magnum fertur mare; qui nisi contra

corpora retribuat rebus recreetque fluentis,

omnia iam resoluta forent et in aera versa.

haut igitur cessat gigni de rebus et in res

reccidere, adsidue quoniam fluere omnia constat. 280
Largus item liquidi fons luminis, aetherius sol,

inrigat adsidue caelum candore recenti

suppeditatque novo confestim lumine lumen.

nam primum quicquid fulgoris disperit ei,

quocumque accidit. id licet hine cognoscere possis, 285

quod simul ac primum nubes succedere soli

coepere et radios inter quasi rumpere lucis,

extemplo inferior pars horum disperit omnis

Lamb, ed. 1 and 2 for alit rightly; ed. 3 he restores alit. 258 Redditur.
Roditur Mar. Junt. Lamb. vulgo before Wak. 282 recentt B corr. Flor. 31
Camb. Mon. for regenti. 288 disperit Nice. B corr. for disperis. 291

V 211

terraque Inumbratur qua nimbi cumque feruntur ;

ut noseas splendore novo res semper egere 290

et primum iactum fulgoris quemque perire

nee ratione alia res posse in sole vidert,

perpetuo ni suppeditet lucis caput ipsum.

quin etiam nocturna tibi, terrestria quae sunt,

lumina, pendentes lychini claraeque coruscis 205

fulguribus pingues multa caligine taedae

consimili properant ratione, ardore munistro,

suppeditare novom lumen, tremere ignibus instant,

instant, nee loca lux inter quasi rupta relinquit:

usque adeo properanter ab omnibus ignibus ei 300

exitinm celeri celatur origine flammae.

sic igitur solem lunam stellasque putandumst

ex alio atque alio lucem iactare subortu

et primum quicquid flammarum perdere semper ;

inviolabilia haee ne credas forte vigere. 305
Denique non lapides quoque vinei cernis ab aevo,

non altas turris ruere et putrescere saxa,

non delubra deum simulacraque fessa fatiscl,

nec sanctum numen fati protollere finis

posse neque adversus naturae foedera niti ? 310

denique non monimenta virum dilapsa videmus

quaerere proporro sibi sene senescere credas,

Et Mar. Ald, 1 Junt. for Ut. 295 lychini Ed. for lyclini. lychni A corr.
Nice, Macrob.: Lucr. seems to have known only the trisyllabic form, whether he
wrote lychint or luchini or lichini; or even one of the still older forms lucini or
licint. Ritschl in Rhein. Mus. n. f. x p. 447—451 shews that Enu. ann. 328 wrote
luctnorum lumina bis sex; Lucilius lucinosque or luchinosque: so dracuma mina
(ura), tecina (τέχνη), ciicinus or cicinus (κύκνος), and other like forms all arising
from the dislike of the old Latins to certain combinations of consonants: comp.
Aesculapius Alcumena Hercules and many such like. Luer. or his editor may have
written y, as it was introduced for Greek words just before his death: the aspirated
ch was in common use some 40 years earlier, as Ritschl proves. 296 caligine.
fuligine Bentl. and Wak. from a sheer misunderstanding of Luer. 297 pro-
perant Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for proferant. 300 ab omnibus. obortis Bruno
(Harburg 1872, p. 9). 301 celert celatur Mar. Madvig and Lach. for celeri
celeratur. toleratur Nice. Ver. Ven. Ald. 1 vulg. Junt. keeps the celeratur of Mon.,
Candidus not having observed that Marullus had put points of rejection under the
er. 302 putandumst Lach. for putandum: see 1111. 312 sene senescere
Ed. for cumque senescere: see Journ. of phil. n. 5. rv p. 122 and notes 2.
sibi qui de se quoque dicat Polle. Aeraque proporro solidumique senescere ferrum
Ed. formerly: see Camb. Journ. of phil. 1 p. 373 and iv p. 142. Quae fore

14—2

212 V

non ruere avolsos silices a montibus altis
nec validas aevi vires perferre patique
finiti? neque enim caderent avolsa repente, 215
ex infinito quae tempore pertolerassent
omnia tormenta aetatis privata fragore.

Denique iam tuere hoc, circum supraque quod omnem
continet amplexu terram: si procreat ex se
omnia, quod quidam memorant, recipitque perempta, 320
totum nativum mortali corpore constat.
nam quodcumque alias ex se res auget alitque,
deminui debet, recreari, cum recipit res.

Praeterea si nulla fuit genitalis origo
terrarum et caeli semperque aeterna fuere,
cur supera bellum Thebanum et funera Troiae
non alias alii quoque res cecinere poetae ?
quo tot facta virum totiens cecidere neque usquam
aeternis famae monimentis insita florent ?
verum, ut opinor, habet novitatem summa recensque
naturast mundi neque pridem exordia cepit.
quare etiam quaedam nunc artes expoliuntur,
nunc etiam augescunt; nunc addita navigis sunt
multa, modo organici melicos peperere sonores.
denique natura haec rerum ratioque repertast - 335
nuper, et hanc primus cum primis ipse repertus
nunc ego sum in patrias qui possim vertere voces.
quod si forte fuisse antehac eadem omnia credis,
sed periisse hominum torrenti saecla vapore,
aut cecidisse urbis magno vexamine mundl, 340
aut ex imbribus adsiduis exisse rapaces
per terras amnes atque oppida cooperuisse,

[4]
bo
in

ts
ῳ
O

proporro vetitumque senescere credas Lach. Cedere proporro subitoque senescere
casz Mar. Junt. Lamb. ed. 1 and 2, Creech. Lamb. ed. 3 obelises this and
adds the ms. verse. Is. Voss. (not Preiger) in ms. notes has Quae ruere proporro
ibi congue senescere credas. [Quare proporro sibi cumque senescere credas}
Bern.: Gif. and Wak. find no difficulty in the ms. reading. 318 omnem Mar.
Junt. for omne. 319 si om. Nice. and all later mss.: hence much confusion
in eds. before Lach., Havercamp not deigning to record that AB both had si.
omne...terrat Avane. terram, quod Mar. Junt. vulg. 321 nativum. nativo ac
Bern. 331 Naturast mundi Ald. 1, Natura est Mar. Junt. for Natura mundist:
this common blunder of our mss. Wak. here keeps. 339 periisse Flor. 31 for
perisse. 342 atque oppida Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. for at oppida. ac Nicc. 2 Vat.

ν

to
Go

tanto quique magis victus fateare necessest

exitium quoque terrarum caelique futurum.

nam cum res tantis morbis tantisque periclis 345

temptarentur, ibi si tristior incubuisset

causa, darent late cladem magnasque ruinas,

nec ratione alia mortales esse videmur,

inter nos nisi quod morbis aegrescimus isdem

atque illi quos a vita natura removit. 350
Praeterea quaecumque manent acterna necessust

aut, quia sunt solido cum corpore, respuere ictus

nec penetrare pati 5101 quicquam quod queat artas

dissociare intus partis, ut material

corpora sunt quorum naturam ostendimus ante, 355

aut ideo durare aetatem posse per omnem,

plagarum quia sunt expertia, sicut inane est

quod manet intactum neque ab ictu fungitur hilum,

aut etiam quia nulla loci fit copia circum,

quo quasi res possint discedere dissoluique, 360

sicué summarum summa est aeterna neque extra

qui locus est quo dissiliant neque corpora sunt quae

possint incidere et valida dissolvere plaga.

at neque, uti docu, solido cum corpore mundi

naturast, quoniam admixtumst in rebus inane, 305

nec tamen est ut inane, neque autem corpora desunt,

ex infinito quae possint forte coorta

corruere hance rerum violento turbine summam

aut aliam quamvis cladem inportare pericli,

nec porro natura loci spatiumque profundi 370

deficit, exspargi quo possint moenia mundi,

aut alia quavis possunt vi pulsa perire.

haut igitur leti praeclusa est ianua caelo

nec soli terraeque neque altis aequoris undis,

sed patet immani et vasto respectat hiatu. 17:

quare etiam nativa necessumst confiteare

haec eadem; neque enim, mortali corpore quae sunt

Brix. Ver. Yen. Wak. 349 isdem Pius in notes, Lamb. for idem which Lach.
keeps: see 11693. Lach. was the first to join inter nos with what follows. 359 fit
Lach. first for sit. 367 coorta Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for coperta. 368 Cor-

ruere. Proruere Lamb, ete. 375 immant. immane Bruno 1. 1, p. 10: he

214 | Vv

ex lnfinito iam tempore adhuc potuissent
inmensi validas aevi contemnere vires.
Denique tantopere inter se cum maxima mundi 380
pugnent membra, pio nequaquam concita bello,
nonne vides aliquam longi certaminis ollis
posse dari finem? vel cum sol et vapor omnis
omnibus epotis umoribus exsuperarint :
quod facere intendunt, neque adhuc conata patrantur: 385
tantum suppeditant amnes ultraque minantur
omnia diluviare ex alto gurgite ponti,
nequiquam, quoniam verrentes aequora venti
deminuunt radisque retexens aetherius sol,
et siccare prius confidunt omnia posse 390
quam liquor incepti possit contingere finem,
tantum spirantes aequo certamine bellum
magnis inter se de rebus cernere certant,
cum semel interea fuerit superantior ignis
et semel, ut fama est, umor regnarit in arvis. 395
ignis enim superat et lambens multa perussit,
avia cum Phaethonta rapax vis solis equorum
aethere raptavit toto terrasque per omnis.
at pater omnipotens ira tum percitus acri
magnanimum Phaethonta repenti fulminis ictu 400
deturbavit equis in terram, solque cadenti
obvius aeternam succepit lampada mundi
disiectosque redegit equos iunxitque trementis,
inde suum per iter recreavit cuncta gubernans,
scilicet ut veteres Graium cecinere poetae. 405
quod procul a vera nimis est ratione repulsum.
lgnis enim superare potest ubi materiai
ex infinito sunt corpora plura coorta;
inde cadunt vires aliqua ratione revictae,
aut pereunt res exustae torrentibus auris. 410

thinks that 369 and 372 are interpolations. 382 certaminis ollis Flor. 31 Camb.
Mar. for certamini solis. 385 patrantur. patrarunt Goebel. 386 ultraque.
ultroque Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. vulg. 393 inter se inserted by Lach. before, by
Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. vulg. after de rebus. 396 superat (perf.) et
lambens Lach. for superavit et ambens. lambens B corr.: nor has ambens any
existence, whether as partic. of ambedo or ambio. 399 tum Flor. 31
Camb. Mar. for cum. 405 Graium Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar. for

Vv 215

umor item quondam coepit superare coortus,

ut fama est, hominum multas quando obruit urbis.

inde ubi vis aliqua ratione aversa recessit,

ex infinito fuerat quaecumque coorta,

constiterunt imbres et flumina vim minuerunt. 415
Sed quibus ille modis coniectus material

fundarit terram et caclum pontique profunda,

solis lunai cursus, ex ordine ponam.

nam certe neque consilio primordia rerum

ordine se suo quaeque sagaci mente locarunt 420

nec qwos quaeque darent motus pepigere profecto,

sed quia multa modis multis primordia rerum

ex infinito 1am tempore percita plagis

ponderibusqne suis consuerunt concita ferri

omnimodisque coire atque omnia pertemptarc, 425

quaecumque inter se possent congressa creare,

propterea fit uti magnum volgata per aevom

omne genus coetus et motus experiundo

tandem conveniant ea quae convecta repente

magnarum rerum fiunt exordia saepe, 430

terral maris et caeli generisque animantum.
Hic neque tum solis rota ecrm lumine largo

altivolans poterat nec magni sidera mundi

nec mare nec caelum nec denique terra neque aer

nec similis nostris rebus res ulla vider, 435

sed nova tempestas quaedam molesque coorta

440 omne genus de principiis, discordia quorum
intervalla vias conexus pondera plagas
concursus motus turbabat proelia miscens,

gratum. graium (gratum) Ver. Ven. 409 410 Lach. by a strange mis-
apprehension inverts these verses and for Awt pereunt reads Et pereunt. 412
urbis Pont. Junt. for undis. Flor. 31 Camb. Ver. Ven. Mar. etc. keep undis, and
for hominum multas read hominum multos. 428 Omne genus Lach. for Omnigenus.
Omnigenos A corr. vulg. 429 convecta Lach. for conventa. T.c. quae ubi
convenere Lamb. ed.1; T.eac. quae ut convenere ed, 2 and 8, followed by Creech, ete.
430 fiunt Flor. 31 Camb. for fluunt. saepe. semper, as 11 1062 Lach. 432 largo.
claro Macrob. 433 Altivolans Pont. Avanc. and Macrob. sat. v1 2 23 for Alte
volans, dita volans Mar. Junt. 437—442 (440—445) are thus arranged by Lach.
after Reisacker quaest. Lucr.; and the necessity of this change is manifest, though
Macrob. 1]. 1. evidently read them in the order in which they appear in our mss,
See what I say on this and similar points p. 30. 437 Omne genus de Lach. as

216 "6

propter dissimilis formas variasque figuras 440
quod non omnia sic poterant coniuncta manere
445 nec motus inter sese dare convenientis.
437 diffugere inde loci partes coepere paresque
cum paribus iungi res et discludere mundum
membraque dividere et magnas disponere partes, 445
446 hoc est, a terris altum secernere caelum
et sorsum mare uti secreto umore pateret,
seorsus item puri secretique aetheris ignes.

Quippe etenim primum terrai corpora quaeque,
propterea quod erant gravia et perplexa, coibant 450
in medio atque 1mas capiebant omnia sedes ;
quae quanto magis inter se perplexa coibant,
tam magis expressere ea quae mare sidera solem
lunamque efficerent et magni moenia mundi.
omnia enim magis haec e levibus atque rutundis 455
semimbus multoque minoribu’ sunt elementis
quam tellus. ideo, per rara foramina, terrae
partibus erumpens primus se sustulit aether
ignifer et multos secum levis abstulit ignis,
non alia longe ratione ac saepe videmus, 460
aurea cum primum gemmantis rore per herbas
matutina rubent radiati lumina solis
exhalantque lacus nebulam fluviique perennes,
ipsaque ut interdum tellus fumare videtur ;
omnia quae sursum cum conciliantur, in alto 465
corpore concreto subtexunt nubila caelum.
sic igitur tum se levis ac diffusilis aether
corpore concreto circumdatus undique flexit
et late diffusus in omnis undique partis
omnia sic avido complexu cetera saepsit. 470
hune exordia sunt solis lunaeque secuta,

before, for Omnigenus e B, Omnigenis e A Nicc. vulg. 446 altum. magnum
Maer. 447 umore Macrob. B corr. Vat. 3276 Pont. Junt. for umor. humorque
Nice. Flor. 31 Camb, 4 Vat. Brix. Ver. Ven. Avane. 458 se Nice. for et.

459 Ignifer. Signifer Ver. Ven. Ald. 1 Junt. (not Mar.) Lamb. ete. on no ms.
authority, though Lamb. falsely says all mss. have it. 460 463 videmus...
Exhalantque. videntur,.,.Exalare Lach.: a violent change which only impairs the
beauty of the passage. 468 jlexit Lach. for saepsit: saepsit has come from

Υ 2517

interutrasque globi quorum vertuntur in auris;
quae neque terra 5101 adscivit nec maximus aether,
quod neque tam fuerunt gravia ut depressa sederent,
nec levia ut possent per summas labier oras, 475
et tamen interutrasque ita sunt ut corpora viva
versent et partes ut mundi totius extent ;
quod genus in nobis quaecdam licet in statione
membra manere, tamen cum sint ea quae moveantur.
his igitur rebus retractis terra repeute, 480
maxuma qua nune se ponti plaga caerula tendit,
succidit et salso suffudit gurgite fossas,
lnque dies quanto circum magis actheris acstus
et radi solis cogebant undique terram
verberibus crebris extrema ad limina zn artum, 485
in medio ut propulsa suo condensa coiret,
tam magis expressus salsus de corpore sudor
augebat mare manando camposque natantis,
et tanto magis illa foras elabsa volabant
corpora multa vaporis ct aeris altaque caeli 490
densebant procul a terris fulgentia templa.
sidebant campi, crescebant montibus altis
ascensus; neque enim poterant subsidere saxa
nec pariter tantundem omnes succumbere partis.
Sic igitur terrace concreto corpore pondus 495
constitit atque omnis mundi quasi limus in imum

470. 471 secuta. ‘secuta, et Y’ (i.e. our A) says Havercamp. This is quite
false: though he had A and B before him, he has chosen to copy out this, as well
as three fourths of his worthless various readings, from the bookseller Tonson’s
London ed. of 1712, which gives ‘collationes trium ms. codicum Vossii a
R® Viro ΒΕ Cannon S. T. P. factas’: this collator says ‘secuta, & V.1.’ Havere.
copies even the comma and the & into his ed. This is but one of a thousand
instances of his unprincipled sloth. 472 476 Interutrasque. Interutraque
Lach. 474 fuerunt. fuerint Pont. Avanc. and strange to say Lamb. who
made it the vulg. before Lach. 482 salso suffudit A corr. Lamb. for salsos
offudit. salso suffodit Nicc. Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. ete. Wak. 485 extrema ad
limina in artum Ed. for extrema ad limina partem: the scribe neglected to write
ina twice, and to fill up the verse wrote partem for rtum. extrema a limini’ parte
Lach. who connects this verse with the next. extrema ad limina apertam Lamb.
e. a. l. raptim Bentl. radiis for radii A Nice. Camh. lumina Nice. Flor. 81
Camb. etc. 491 Densebant Lamb. Lach. for Densabant, as our mss. in all
other places make it of the 2nd conjugation: see Wagn. to Virg. geor. 1 248.

218 V

confluxit gravis et subsedit funditus ut faex;

inde mare inde aer inde aether ignifer ipse

corporibus liquidis sunt omnia pura relicta,

et leviora aliis alia, et liquidissimus aether 500
atque levissimus aerias super influit auras,

nec liquidum corpus turbantibus aeris auris

commiscet; sinit haec violentis omnia verti

turbinibus, sinit incertis turbare procellis,

ipse suos ignis certo fert impete labens. 505
nam modice fluere atque uno posse aethera nisu

significat Pontos, mare certo quod fluit aestu

unum labendi conservans usque tenorem.

[Motibus astrorum nune quae sit causa canamus.
principio magnus caeli si vortitur orbis, 510
ex utraque polum parti premere aera nobis
dicendum est extraque tenere et claudere utrimque;
inde alium supra fluere atque intendere eodem
quo volvenda micant aeterni sidera mundi;
aut alium supter, contra qui subvehat orbem, 515
ut fluvios versare rotas atque haustra videmus.
est etlam quoque uti possit caelum omne manere
in statione, tamen cum lucida signa ferantur ;
sive quod inclusi rapidi sunt aetheris aestus
quaerentesque viam circum versantur et ignes 520
passim per caeli volvunt Summania templa;
sive aliunde fluens alicunde extrinsecus aer
versat agens ignis; Sive 1081 serpere possunt
quo culusque cibus vocat atque invitat euntis,
flammea per caelum pascentis corpora passim. 525
nam quid in hoc mundo sit eorum ponere certum

503 Commiscet Nauger. first for Commisci. haec. hic Bentl. and Lach. ; but see
notes 2. 507 Pontos, mare Lach. for ponto mare. Ponti mare Pont. Lamb.
ed. 3, tantum mare ed. 1 and 2. 513—516 Lach. quite misapprehends and
sadly mutilates this passage: 513 he reads deorsum for eodem, 515 Hine for Aut;
and places 514 after 516: not one of these changes but mars the sense.

515 Aut. Ast Nauger. vulg. wrongly. qui Mar. Nauger. rightly for quis.

518 lucida Flor, 31 Ver. Ven. Mar. for lucia. 521 Summania: see notes 2.
immania Creech in notes, Lach. Pont. says ‘summania pro immania’. 86
immania Avance. in notes at end of Catullus, Lamb. perversely. I onee thought of
summa avia, 524 euntis. aventis Lach. 530 omne B corr. Mar. Ald. 1

δὴ 219

difficile est; sed quid possit fiatque per omne

in varlis mundis varia ratione creatis,

id doceo plurisque sequor disponere causas,

motibus astrorum quae possint esse per omne; 530

e quibus una tamen sit in hoc quoque causa necessest

quae vegeat motum signis; sed quae sit earum

praecipere hautquaquamst pedetemtim progredicntis. ]
Terraque ut in media mundi regione quiescat,

evanescere paulatim et decrescere pondus 535

convenit, atque aliam naturam supter habere

ex ineunte aevo conlunctam atque uniter aptam

partibus aerlis mundi quibus imsita vivit.

propterea non est oneri neque deprimit auras ;

ut sua cuique homini nullo sunt pondere membra 540

nec caput est oneri collo nec denique totum

corporis in pedibus pondus sentimus inessce ;

at quaccumque foris veniunt inpostaque nobis

pondera sunt laedunt, permulto saepe minora.

usque adeo magni refert quid quaeque obeat res. 545

sic igitur tellus non est aliena repente

allata atque auris aliunde obiecta alienis,

sed pariter prima concepta ab origine mundi

certaque pars eius, quasi nobis membra videntur.

praeterea grandi tonitru concussa repente, 550

terra supra quae se sunt concutit omnia motu:

quod facere haut ulla posset ratione, nisi esset

partibus aeriis mundi caeloque revincta.

nam communibus inter se radicibus haerent

ex Ineunte aevo coniuncta atque uniter apta. στ

Junt, for omnem. 531 sit in hoc quoque causa Ed. for sit et haec quoque causa.
siet haec Lach.: but haec has no force and has come from the neighbouring causa.
siet hic Bern, 532 vegeat Gif. for vigeat. 533 progredientis Lamb. for
progredientes: est for licet is not Lucretian. 536 supter. subter Flor. 31 Mar.
Junt. for swper. 538 vivit. crevit Lach. sidit Lamb. ed. 2 and 3 ‘ex antiquae
scripturae quae reperitur in codice Bertin. vestigiis’, and Heins. notes that s, i.e. the
ms. of Modius, has sidit, unless I mistake his meaning: but Modius made his
collation with the small 2nd ed. of Lamb. so that it is probably a mere oversight;
for B has vivit. 545 quid quaeque obeat res Ed. for quit queque quaeat
res: Lach. to 1 222 gives more than 40 instances in which AB change ὃ to v: ahen
obeat became oueat, the further corruption to queat was inevitable with capitals.
uveat Lach, vehat Gronovius and Is. Voss. in notes. gerat N. P. Howard.

220 δ

nonne vides etiam quam magno pondere nobis
sustineat corpus tenuissima vis animal
propterea quia tam coniuncta atque uniter apta est ?
denique iam saltu pernici tollere corpus
quid potis est nisi vis animi quae membra gubernat? 560
lamne vides quantum tenuis natura valere
possit, ubi est coniuncta gravi cum corpore, ut aer
coniunctus terris et nobis est animi vis ?
Nee nimio solis maior rota nec minor ardor
esse potest, nostris quam sensibus esse videtur. 565
nam quibus e spatiis cumque ignes lumina possunt
adicere et calidum membris adflare vaporem,
nil illa his intervallis de corpore libant
flammarum, nil ad speciem est contractior ignis.
573 proinde, calor quonmiam solis lumenque profusum 570
570 perveniunt nostros ad sensus et loca mulcent,
forma quoque hine solis debet filumque videri,
572 nil adeo ut possis plus aut minus addere, vere,
575 lunaque sive notho fertur loca lumine lustrans 575
sive suam proprio iactat de corpore lucem,
quidguid id est, nilo fertur maiore figura
quam, nostris oculis qua cernimus, esse videtur,
nam prius omnia, quae longe semota tuemur
aera per multum, specie confusa videntur 580
quam minut filum. quapropter luna necesse est,
quandoquidem claram speciem certamque figuram

E55 uniter apta Pont. Junt. for uniter aucta: 558 uniter apta for uniter rapta
B corr. Flor. 31 Camb. etc. as 537. Mar. has first corrected Mon., then written
aucta above, and then apta in marg.; unless the first correction is from Pontanus,
the other from Marullus: it is more than probable that Pontanus had the cod.
Victor. in his hands before Marullus: comp. 1152. 559 pernict Brix. Pont.
Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for pernice. pernice attollere Flor. 31: a mere conj. 560
Quid Lamb. in errata to ed. 3, Faber in his emend. for Quis. animi Lach. for
animae; as 563. 563 Coniunctus Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar. for Coniuncta.

567 Adicere (Adiicere) Lamb, for Adlicere: a confusion of which we have had so
many examples. 568 Nil illa his intervallis Bern. for Nihil nisi intervallis.
Nil ea in his int. Lach. Illa ipsa intervalla nihil Lamb. Nilque nisi ex int. Flor.
31 Camb. 3 Vat. Mar. libant Mar. Junt. for librant. limant Lamb. ed. 1 and 2,
librant ed. 3. 570 (573) brought here by Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. 571 loca mulcent
Lach. for loca fulgent. locatinguntLamb. 572 filumque Lamb. ed. 2 in notes and
ed. 3 after Turnebus for tlumque. 574=571 (570). 581 minui filum Bentl. for mi

V 591

praebet, ut est oris extremis cumque notata
quantaque quantast hine nobis videatur in alto.
postremo quoscumque vides hine aetheris ignes ; 585
quandoquidem quoseumque in terris cernimus ignes,
dum tremor est clarus, dum cernitur ardor corum,
perparvom quiddam interdum mutare videtur
alteram utram in partem filum, quo longius absunt ;
594 scire licet perquam pauxillo posse minores 590
esse vel exigua maioris parte brevique.
590 Π|μα item non est mirandum, qua ratione
tantulus ille queat tantum sol mittere lumen,
quod maria ac terras omnis caelumque rigando
compleat et calido perfundat cuncta vapore. 595
597 nam licet hinc mundi patefactum totius unum
largifluum fontem scatere atque erumpere lumen,
ex omni mundo quia sic elementa vaporis
undique conveniunt et sic coniectus eorum 600
confluit, ex uno eapite hie ut profluat ardor.
nonne vides etiam quam late parvus aquai
prata riget fons interdum campisque redundet ?
est etlam quoque uti non magno solis ab igmi
aera percipiat calidis fervoribus ardor, 605
opportunus ita est si forte et idoneus aer,
ut queat accendi parvis ardoribus ictus;
quod genus interdum segetes stipulamque videmus
accedere ex una scintilla incendia passim.

filum. minimum filum Niece. vulg. 584 Quantaque quantast hine Eichstadt
for Quanto quoque quantast hinc, and in the repetition 596 Quanta quoque est
tanta hinc: ‘qua emendatione’ says Lach. ‘effecit ut hic semel valde laudandus
sit’. Quantaque sit, nobis tanta hine Pont. Ald. 1 Junt. Quanta haec cumque
fuat, tanta hine Lamb. 586 ignes added by Mar. Ald. 1 Junt.: the ignes of
585 caused its omission. horum Flor. 31 Camb. flammae Lach. who says that
ignes is an unmeaning repetition: but similar repetitions are very common in
Lueyr. 587 est added by Flor. 31 Camb. etc. 588 videtur A Nicc. Flor. 31
Camb. Mon. etc. and Lamb. ed. 1. videntur B Lamb. ed. 2 and 3, perhaps
rightly. 589 absunt Lach. for absit: a necessary change. cum longius absint
Lamb. 590 591 (594 595) first brought here by Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. 596 = 584.

598 lumen. flumen Avane. Lamb. ete. without any authority. 599 quia
AB. qua Nice. Flor. 31 (Lach. is in error) Camb. Mon. all Vat. Brix. Ver. Ven.
Ald. 1 Jant. guo Lamb. etc. vaporis Lamb. first for vapore. 605 percipiat
Nauger. for percipitat. 609 Accedere A. Accidere B. Accendere A corr. Nicc. 2

222 ν᾿

forsitan et rosea sol alte lampade lucens 610
possideat multum caecis fervoribus ignem
circum se, nullo qui sit fulgore notatus,
aestifer ut tantum radiorum exaugeat ictum.
Nec ratio solis siniplex οὐ certa patescit,
quo pacto aestivis e partibus aegocerotis 615
brumalis adeat flexus atque inde revertens
cancer: se ut vertat metas ad solstitialis,
lunaque mensibus id spatium videatur obire,
annua sol in quo consumit tempora cursu.
non, inquam, simplex his rebus reddita causast. 620
nam fieri vel cum primis id posse videtur,
Democriti quod sancta viri sententia ponit,
quanto quaeque magis sint terram sidera propter,
tanto posse minus cum caeli turbine ferri.
evanescere enim rapidas illius et acris 625
imminui supter vinis, ideoque relinqui
paulatim solem cum posterioribu’ signis,
inferior multo quod sit quam fervida signa.
et magis hoc lunam: quanto demissior eius
cursus abest procul a caelo terrisque propinquat, 630
tanto posse minus cum signis tendere cursum.
flaccidiore etenim quanto iam turbine fertur
inferior quam sol, tanto magis omnia signa
hane adipiscuntur circum praeterque feruntur.
propterea fit ut haec ad signum quodque reverti 635
inobihus videatur, ad hanc quia signa revisunt.
fit quoque ut e mundi transversis partibus aer
alternis certo fluere alter tempore possit,
qui queat aestivis solem detrudere signis
brumalis usque ad flexus gelidumque rigorem, 640
et qui reiciat gelidis a fiigoris umbris

Vat. Ver. Ven. Accendi Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat. Brix. Pont. Avance. Nauger. Accipere
Mar. Junt. Lamb.: see 11 1025. 610 et. e Lach. who will never tolerate et for
etiam. 613 Aestifer ut tantum Flor. 31 3 Vat. Mar. Junt. for Aestiferi utantum
B, utantur A Nice. Aestiferum ut tantum Avanc. Lamb. etc. Aestiferum tantum
Nauger. 614 simplex et certa Ed. for simplex recta. simplex nec certa Lamb.
simplex aut recta Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat. ac recta or et recta others. simplex rellata
Lach. reclusa Bern. 617 Cancri se Lach. for Canceris. 632 etexim Lach.

V 223

aestiferas usque in partis et fervida signa.

et ratione pari lunam stellasque putandumst,

quae volvunt magnos in magnis orbibus annos,

aeribus posse alternis e partibus ire. 645

nonne vides etiam diversis nubila ventis

diversas ire in partis inferna supernis ?

qui minus illa queant per magnos aetheris orbis

aestibus inter se diversis sidera ferri ?
At nox obruit ingenti caligine terras, 650

aut ubi de longo cursu sol ultima cael

impulit atque suos efflavit languidus ignis

concussos itere et labefactos acre multo,

aut quia sub terras cursum convortere cogit

vis eadem, supra quae terras pertulit orbem. 655
Tempore item certo roseam Matuta per oras

actheris auroram differt et lumina pandit,

aut quia sol idem, sub terras ille revertens,

anticipat caelum radiis accendere temptans,

aut quia conveniunt ignes et semina multa 660

confluere ardoris consuerunt tempore certo,

quae faciunt solis nova semper lumina gigni;

quod genus Idaeis fama est e montibus altis

dispersos ignis orienti lumine cerni,

inde coire globum quasi in unum et conficere orbem. 665

nec tamen illud in his rebus mirabile debet

esse, quod haec ignis tam certo tempore possunt

semina confluere et solis reparare nitorem.

multa videmus enim, certo quae tempore fiunt

omnibus in rebus. florescunt tempore certo 670

arbusta et certo dimittunt tempore florem.

nec minus in certo dentes cadere imperat aetas

tempore et inpubem moll: pubescere veste

et pariter mollem malis demittere barbam.

fulmina postremo nix imbres nubila venti 675

for etiam. 648 illa Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar. for ille. 651 sol ultima
Camb. Vat. 1136 and 1954 Othob. for solvet ima caeli. sol extima Flor. 31 Mar.
Ald. 1 Junt. etc. Politian in marg. Flor. 29 has both ultima and extima.

656 Matuta Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for matura. 667 possunt Lach. for
possit. possint vulg. contrary to the unvarying usage of Lucr. 675 Fulimina

224 Vv

non nimis incertis fiunt in partibus anni.
namque ubi sic fuerunt causarum exordia prima,
atque ita res mundi cecidere ab origine prima,
consequé quoque iam redeunt ex ordine certo.
Crescere itemque dies licet et tabescere noctes, 680
et minui luces, cum sumant augmina noctes,
aut quia sol idem sub terras atque superne
imparibus currens amfractibus aetheris oras
partit et in partis non aequas dividit orbem,
et quod ab alterutra detraxit parte, reponit 685
eius in adversa tanto plus parte relatus,
donee ad id signum caeli pervenit, ubi anni
nodus nocturnas exaequat lucibus umbras.
nam, medio cursu flatus aquilonis et austri,
distinet aequato caelum discrimine metas 690
propter signiferl posituram totius orbis,
annua sol in quo concludit tempora serpens,
obliquo terras et caelum lumine lustrans,
ut ratio declarat eorum qui loca cael
omnia dispositis signis ornata notarunt. 695
aut quia crassior est certis in partibus aer,
sub terris ideo tremulum iubar haesitat ignis
nec penetrare potest facile atque emergere ad ortus.
propterea noctes hiberno tempore longae
cessant, dum veniat radiatum insigne diel. 700
aut etiam, quia sic alternis partibus anni
tardius et citlus consuerunt confluere ignes
qui faciunt solem certa desurgere parte,
propterea fit uti videantur dicere verum

s e e . . . . . . «

Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. first for Flumina. 679 Consequé quoque iam redeunt Lach..
for Consequiae quoque iam rerum: a briliant emendation. Consequae 2 Vat. Ver.
Ven. Consequa natura est iam rerum Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat. Mar. vulg. Consequi-
tur quoque tam series Pont. 689—693 Lach. has quite causelessly altered
this passage in many points: 690 for metas he reads metans as Pont. before him:
(caeli Mar. for caelum:] 692 and 693 he inverts, 693 for obliquo he reads obliqui,
joining it with orbis: he will not have serpens, lustrans in apposition any more than
524 euntis, pascentis; or v1 1141 veniens, ortus, and 1260 languens, conveniens;
though suchlike constructions are common in Lucr. and in Cicero’s Aratea which
Luer. often imitates. 692 concludit Lach. for contudit. contundit Mon. Brix.
vulg. 700 diei Nice. for dict. 704 it seems to me manifest that the poet

δι 225

Luna potest solis radiis percussa nitere 705
Inque dies magis 7d lumen convertere nobis
ad specicm, quantum solis secedit ab orbi,
donique eum contra pleno bene lumine fulsit
atque oriens obitus eius super edita vidit ;
inde minutatim retro quasi condere lumen 710
debet item, quanto propius iam solis ad ignem
labitur ex alia signorum parte per orbem;
ut faciunt, lunam qwi fingunt esse pilai
consimilem cursusque viam sub sole tenere.
est etiam quare proprio cum lumine possit τὶ
volvier et varias splendons reddere formas.
corpus enim licet esse aliud quod fertur et una
labitur omnimodis oceursans officiensque
nec potis est cerni, quia cassum lumine fertur.
versarique potest, globus ut, si forte, pilai 720
dimidia ex parti candenti lumine tinctus,
versandoque globuin variantis edere formas,
donique eam partem, quaecumque est ignibus aucta,
ad speciem vertit nobis oculosque patentis ;
inde minutatim retro contorquet et aufert 725
luciferam partem glomeraminis atque pilai;
ut Babylonica Chaldaeum doctrina refutans
astrologorum artem contra convincere tendit,
proinde quasi id fieri nequeat quod pugnat uterque
aut minus hoc illo sit cur amplectier ausis. 730
denique cur nequeat semper nova luna creari
ordine formarum certo certisque figuris
inque dies privos aborisci quaeque creata

refers to 660—665, and that a verse is lost such as this, Qui faciunt solis nova
semper lumina gigni: probably its resemblance to 703 caused its omission. Lach.
strangely supposes the sentence complete and joins 704 with 703, as if anybody
could ever deny that the sun rose in a certain quarter: 704 which by itself has
no meaning was placed after 714 by Nauger. followed by all before Lach. 705
percussa Flor, 31 Camb. before Lamb. for perculsa. 706 magis id lumen Lach.
for magis lumen. magis hoc Flor. 31. maius Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. magis: et
lumen Pont. Nauger. 708 723 Donique. Donicum Lamb. wrongly in both
places. 711 iam Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for tam. 720 ut, st forte. wut sit
forte Lach. after J. Dousa fil. ‘sine ulla causa et cum orationis sententiaeque detri-
mento’ says Madvig emend. Liv. p. 123. 727 Babylonica Flor. 31 Pont. Mar.
for Babylonisa. Chaldaewm Avance. Chaldeum AB. Chaldeam A corr. Nice. Flor.

NT 15

226 V

atque alia illius reparari in parte locoque,

difficilest ratione docere et vincere verbis, 73:

ordine cum possint tam certo multa creari.

it ver et Venus, et Veneris praenuntius ante

pennatus graditur, zephyri vestigia propter

Flora quibus mater praespargens ante vial

cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet. 740

inde loci sequitur calor aridus et comes una

pulverulenta Ceres et etesia flabra aquilonum.

inde autumnus adit, graditur simul Euhius Euan.

inde aliae tempestates ventique secuntur,

altitonans Volturnus et auster fulmine pollens. 745

tandem bruma nives adfert pigrumque rigorem

reddit: hiemps sequitur crepitans hanc dentibus algu.

quo minus est mirum si certo tempore luna

gignitur et certo deletur tempore rusus,

cum fieri possint tam certo tempore multa. 750
Solis item quoque defectus lunaeque latebras

pluribus e causis fieri tibi posse putandumst.

nam cur luna queat terram secludere solis

lumine et a terris altum caput obstruere ei,

obiciens caecum radiis ardentibus orbem ; 755

tempore eodem aliud facere id non posse putetur

corpus quod cassum labatur lumine semper ?

solque suos etiam dimittere languidus ignis

tempore cur certo nequeat recreareque lumen,

cum loca praeteriit flammis infesta per auras, 760

quae faciunt ignis interstingui atque perire ?

31 Camb. ete. 738 aborisci. ubolisci AB. abolesci Mar. Junt. aboriri Brix. Pont.
Avane. abolescere Lamb. 736 possint added by Lach,: see 750: videas by Flor.
31 Camb. Mar. vulg. 737 Veneris. veris Pont. Bentl. Wak. Lach. 738.
zephyri. zephyrus Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulgo Lach.: but see notes 2, 742
Pulverulenta Ceres Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for Pulverunta Ceres. et added by Mar.
Ald. 1 Juni. 747 Reddit Flor. 31 Camb. for Redit. Prodit hiemps, Lach.
crepitans Flor, 31 Vat. Mon. Brix. for ereditans. hance B rightly. ae A. accentibus
algit Nice. Flor, 31 Camb. Mon. Vat. Junt. algu Bergk for algi. algus Lamb.
algor Lach. 750 fiert Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for fleri. florere queant one Vat.

753 solis Lamb. first for possis. posces Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. 761 perire Mar.
Ald. 1 Junt. for periri. Fleckeisen krit. miscellen Ὁ. 55 defends perivi on the
analogy of fiert, for which Ennius ann. 15 has fiere, and of véniri sometimes used
for vénire: but the scribe was unconsciously misled by the other infinitive.

Vv 227,

et cur terra queat lunam spoliare vicissim
lumine et oppressum solem super ipsa tenere,
menstrua- dum ngidas coni perlabitur umbras;
tempore eodem aliut nequeat succurrere lunae 70;
corpus vel supra solis perlabier orbem,
quod radios interrumpat lumenque profusum ?
et tamen ipsa suo si fulget luna nitore,
cur nequeat certa mundi languescere parte,
dum loca luminibus propriis inimica per exit ? 770
Quod superest, quoniam magni per caerula mundi
qua ficri quicquid posset ratione resolvi,
solis uti varios cursus lunaeque meatus
noscere possemus quae vis et causa cieret, 775
quove modo possent offecto lumine obire
et neque opinantis tenebris obducere terras,
cum quasi conivent et aperto lumine rursum
omnia convisunt clara loca candida luce,
nunc redeo ad mundi novitatem et mollia terrae 780
arva, novo fetu quid primum in lumuinis oras
tollere et incertis crerint committere ventis.
Principio genus herbarum viridemque nitorem
terra dedit circum collis camposque per omnis,
florida fulserunt viridanti prata colore, 785
arboribusque datumst variis exinde per auras
erescendi magnum inmissis certamen habenis.
ut pluma atque pili primum saetaeque creantur
quadripedum membris et corpore pennipotentum,
sic nova tum tellus herbas virgultaque primum 790
sustulit, inde loci mortalia saecla creavit
multa modis multis varia ratione coorta.
nam neque de caelo cecidisse animalia possunt
nec terrestria de salsis exisse lacunis.
linquitur ut merito maternum nomen adepta 795
terra sit, e terra quoniam sunt cuncta creata.
multaque nunc etiam existunt animalia terris

768 fulget. julgit Lamb. Lach. 711: 776 possent added by
Brix. soleant (not valeant) Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Nauger. Lamb. Gif.
Creech Wak. 782 Tollere et Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt, for Tolleret. crerint com-
mittere Orelli ecl. poet. Lat., Madvig in Henrichsen de frag. Gott. p. 36, Lach. all

15—2

228 V

imbribus et calido solis concreta vapore ;

quo minus est mirum si tum sunt plura coorta

et maiora, nova tellure atque aethere adulta. SOO

principio genus alituum variaeque volucres

ova relinquebant exclusae tempore verno,

folliculos ut nune teretis aestate cicadae

lincunt sponte sua victum vitamque petentes.

tum tibi terra dedit primum mortalia saecla. 805

multus enim calor atque umor superabat in arvis.

hoc ubi quaeque loci regio opportuna dabatur,

crescebant uteri terram radicibus apti;

quos ubi tempore maturo patefecerat aestus

infantum fugiens umorem aurasque petessens, 810

convertebat ibi natura foramina terrae

et sucum venis cogebat fundere apertis

consimilem lactis, sicut nunc femina quaeque

cum peperit, dulci repletur lacte, quod omnis

impetus in mammas convertitur ille alimenti. 815

terra cibum pueris, vestem vapor, herba cubile

praebebat multa et molli lanugine abundans.

at novitas mundi nec frigora dura ciebat

nec nimios aestus nec magnis vinibus auras.

omnia enim pariter crescunt et robora sumunt. ὃ2
Quare etiam atque etiam maternum nomen adepta

terra tenet merito, quoniam genus ipsa creavit

humanum atque animal prope certo tempore fudit

omne quod in magnis bacchatur montibu’ passim,

aerlasque simul volucres variantibu’ formis. 825

sed quia finem aliquam pariendi debet habere,

destitit, ut mulher spatio defessa vetusto.

mutat enim mundi naturam totius aetas

ex alioque alius status excipere omnia debet,

three independently for credunt committere. tentaret credere Lamb. 800
maiora Pont. Mar. Avance. in notes at end of Catullus, Junt. for maiore. 805
primum. passim Lach, without any necessity. 808 terram AB Nice. rightly.
terrae vulg. before Lach. 809 aestus Lach. for aestas. aetas Mar. Ald. 1 Junt.
vulg. 812 Εἰ Flor. 31 Camb. for Ut. 823 animal Mar. Ald. 1 Junt., for
anima. animas A corr. Nice. all later mss. animans Wak.: but animans is femi-
nine in Luer. 824 magnis Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. Pont. for magni. 825

V 229

nec manet ulla sui similis res: omnia migrant, $30
omnia commutat natura et vertere cogit.
namque aliut putrescit et aevo debile languct,
porro aliut clarescit et e contemptibus exit.
sic igitur mundi naturam totius actas
mutat et ex alio terram status excipit alter: 835
quod potuit nequit, ut possit quod non tulit ante.
Multaque tum tellus etiam portenta creare
conatast mira facie membrisque coorta,
androgynum, interutrasque nec utrum, utrimque remotum,
orba pedum partim, manuum viduata vicissim, 840
muta sine ore etiam, sine voltu caeca reperta,
vinctaque membrorum per totum corpus adhaesu,
nec facere ut possent quicquam nec cedere quoquam
nec vitare malum nec sumere quod foret usus.
cetera de genere hoc monstra ac portenta creabat, 845
hequiquam, quoniam natura absterruit auctum
nec potuere cupitum actatis tangere florem
nec reperire cibum nec iungi per Veneris res.
multa videmus enim rebus concurrere debere,
ut propagando possint procudere saecla ; 850
pabula primum ut sint, genitalia deinde per artus
semina qua possint membris manare remissis ;
feminaque ut maribus coniungi possit, habere
mutua qui mutent inter se gaudia uterque.
Multaque tum interiisse animantum saecla necessest 855
nec potiisse propagando procudere prolem.
nam quaecumque vides vesci vitalibus auris,
aut dolus aut virtus aut denique mobilitas est

Aeriasque Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for Aeriaeque. 833 clarescit Lach. for crescit: he
also suggests succrescit, which may be right: or tum crescit. concrescit Ald. 1 Junt.
not Pont. or Mar. e added by Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. 836 Quod potuit nequit,
ut Ed. for Quod potuit nequeat. pote uti nequeat Lach. tulit wt Bentl. 838
facie Flor. 31 Brix. for facit. 839 tnterutrasque. interutraque Lach. Andro-
gynum, interutraque nec utrum, utrimque remotum Lach. most acutely for Androgy-
nem inter utras nec utramque utrumque remotum. Androgynem interutra neutrumque

utrinque remotam Mar.: utrinque is in Brix. 841 Muta Nauger. for Alulta.
844 foret usus Lamb. for volet usus, as iv 831. 852 remissis, remissa
Lach. 853 coniungi possit, habere. coniungt possit avere Lach.: a most

awkward phrase: the wish of the female is not important. 854 Mutua quit

226) V

ex ineunte aevo genus id tutata reservans.
multaque sunt, nobis ex utilitate sua quae 860
commendata manent, tutelae tradita nostrae.
principio genus acre leonum saevaque saecla
tutatast virtus, volpes dolus et fuga cervos.
at levisomna canum fido cum pectore corda
et genus omne quod est veterino semine partum S65
lanigeraeque simul pecudes et bucera saecla
omnia sunt hominum tutelae tradita, Memmi,
nam cupide fugere feras pacemque secuta
sunt et larga suo sine pabula parta labore,
quae damus utilitatis eorum praemia causa. 870
at quis nil horum tribuit natura, nec ipsa
sponte sua possent ut vivere nec dare nobis
utilitatem aliquam quare pateremur eorum
praesidio nostro pasci genus esseque tutum,
scilicet haec aliis praedae lucroque iacebant 875
indupedita suis fatalibus omnia vinclis,
donec ad interitum genus id natura redegit.
Sed neque Centauri fuerunt, nec tempore in ullo
esse queunt duplici natura et corpore bino
ex alienigenis membris compacta, potestas S80
hine illine visgue ut non sat par esse potissit.
il licet hine quamvis hebeti cognoscere corde.
principio circum tribus actis 1mpiger annis
floret ecus, puer hautquaquam; nam saepe etiam nunc
ubera mammarum in somnis lactantia quaeret. 885

mutent Bern. for Mutua qui metuent. Mutua quis nectent Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. nectant
Nauger. Lamb. Alutuaque insinuent Lach. 859 tutata Brix. Pont. Mar. Ald. 1
Junt. for tuta. 863 et fuga B Avane. ut fuga A Nice. Mon. Junt. S65
veterino Nonius Pont, Mar. Avanc. Junt. veteri non mss. 868 secuta Lamb.
in errata to ed. 3 first for secutae. 871 nil Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for ni A, tn
Ῥ: 880 potestas Hine illinc visq. ut non sat par esse potissit Ed. for potestas
Hine illine par vis ut non sat (B, sit A) pars esse potissit: par I assume was written
in the margin to take the place of the unmeaning pars, and thus got into the text:
so above 117 pars esse mss. for par esse; and 111017 par for pars. p.H.1. partis ut
si par δ. p. Lach. which I hardly understand, Lamb. reads queat for queunt after
Mar. Ald. 1 and Junt. joining potestas with what precedes, and ed. 3 has Hine
illine par vis ut non sic esse potissit. p. H. ὁ. parilis quis non superesse potissit
Bern. 884 hautquaquam Nice. for hautquamquam. nam om. A Nice. and
later mss.: hence guia Avance. quin Mar. Junt. Lamb. ete. haut tta quamquan

Vv 21

post ubi ecum validae vires aetate senecta

membraque deficiunt fugienti languida vita,

tum demum puero illi aevo florente iuventas

occipit et molli vestit lanugine malas.

ne forte ex homine et veterino semine equorum S90
confierl credas Centauros posse neque esse,

aut rabidis canibus succinctas semimarinis

corporibus Scyllas et cetera de genere horum,

inter se quorum discordia membra videmus ;

quae neque florescunt pariter nec robora sumunt 895
corporibus neque proiciunt aetate senecta

nec simili Venere ardescunt nec moribus unis

conveniunt, neque sunt eadem iucunda per artus.

quippe videre licet pinguescere saepe cicuta

barbigeras pecudes, homini quae est acre venenum. 900
flamma quidem vero cum corpora fulva leonum

tam soleat torrere atque urere quam genus ome

visceris In terris quodcumque et sanguinis extet,

qui fierl potwit, triplicl cum corpore ut una,

prima leo, postrema draco, media ipsa, Chimaera 905
ore foras acrem flaret de corpore flammam ?

quare etiam tellure nova caeloque recenti

talia qui fingit potuisse animalia gigni,

nixus in hoc uno novitatis nomine inani,

multa licet simili ratione effutiat ore, O10
aurea tum dicat per terras flumina vulgo

fluxisse et gemmis florere arbusta suésse

aut hominem tanto membrorum esse impete natum,

trans maria alta pedum nisus ut ponere posset

et manibus totum circum se vertere caelum. OTs
nam quod multa fuere in terris semina rerum

Flor. 31 Camb. 885 lactantia Flor. 31 Mon. Ver. Ven. for laetantia. quaeret.
quaerit Mon. Pont. Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. 888 puero illi Ed. for puerili. pueris
Avance. Lamb. Lach.; perhaps Lucr. wrote puero li. 889 Occipit Mar. Ald. 1
Junt. for Officit. 892 rabidis Heins. in ms, notes, and Bentl. for rapidis: see
Iv 712. 896 proictunt Lamb. in notes to ed. 2 and in ed. 3, after Turnebus, for
proficiunt. 901 vero added by Ald. 1 Junt. (not Pont. or Mar.) vulg. Denique
f.q. Lach. Ardua, Ignea others. 904 ut una Brix. Pont. Avance. for ut unam.
iuncta Mar. Junt. 906 foras Nauger. for feras, ferox Pont. Junt. ferens
Mar. 914 ponere B corr. Mar. Junt. for pondere. pandere Avance. 923

232 γ

tempore quo primum tellus animalia fudit,
nil tamen est signi mixtas potuisse creari
inter se pecudes compactaque membra animantum,
propterea quia quae de terris nunc quoque abundant 920
herbarum genera ac fruges arbustaque laeta
non tamen inter se possunt complexa crear,
sed res quaeque suo ritu procedit et omnes
foedere naturae certo discrimina servant.
At genus humanum multo fuit illud im arvis 925
durius, ut decuit, tellus quod dura creasset,
et maioribus et solidis magis ossibus intus
fundatum, validis aptum per viscera nervis,
nec facile ex aestu nec frigore quod caperetur
nec novitate cibi nec labi corporis ulla. 930
multaque per caelum solis volventia lustra
volgivago vitam tractabant more ferarum.
nec robustus erat curvi moderator aratri
quisquam, nec scibat ferro molirier arva
nec nova defodere in terram virgulta neque altis 935
arboribus veteres decidere falcibu’ ramos.
quod sol atque imbres dederant, quod terra crearat
sponte sua, satis id placabat pectora donum.
glandiferas inter curabant corpora quercus
plerumque; et quae nunc hiberno tempore cernis 940
arbita puniceo fierl matura colore,
plurima tum tellus etiam maiora ferebat.
multaque praeterea novitas tum florida mundi
pabula dura tulit, miseris mortalibus ampla.
at sedare sitim fluvi fontesque vocabant, 945
ut nunc montibus e magnis decursus aquai
claru’ citat late sitientia saecla ferarum.
denigue nota vagi silvestria templa tenebant

Sed res quaeque Ed. for Sed si quaeque. Scd sic quodque Mar. (sic Pont.). Res

sic Lamb. Sed vis Lach. 925 At Lach. for Et; and the change seems
necessary. 934 molirier Brix. Junt. for mollerier. mollirier Pont. Mar. as A
corr. 944 dura Vat. 3276 Nauger. for dira: a certain correction. dia
Avance. 947 Clarw’ citat late Forbiger for Claricitati a te. Clarior accitat

Flor. 31 2 Vat. Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. ed. 1 and 2. Claricitat late Lamb. ed. 3
after Sim. Bosius. Clarior invitat Politian in marg. Flor. 29. Clarigitat late
Lach. who sneers at Forbiger: but see notes 2. 948 nota vagi silvestria Lach,

V τ

nympharum, quibus 6 scibant umori’ fluenta
lubrica proluvie larga lavere umida saxa, 950
umida saxa, super viridi stillantia musco,
et partim plano scatere atque erumpere campo.
necdum res igni scibant tractare neque uti
pellibus et spoliis corpus vestire ferarum,
sed nemora atque cavos montis silvasque colebant 955
et frutices inter condebant squalida membra
verbera ventorum vitare imbrisque coacti.
nec commune bonum poterant spectare neque ullis
moribus inter se scibant nec legibus uti.
quod cuique obtulerat praedae fortuna, ferebat 960
sponte sua sibi quisque valere et vivere doctus,
et Venus in silvis iungebat corpora amantum ;
conciliabat enim vel mutua quamque cupido
vel violenta viri vis atque inpensa libido
vel pretium, glandes atque arbita vel pira lecta. 965
et manuum mira freti virtute pedumque
consectabantur silvestria saecla ferarum
975 missilibus saxis et magno pondere clavae;
968 multaque vincebant, vitabant pauca latebris ;
saetigerisque pares subu’ sic silvestria membra 970
nuda dabant terrae nocturno tempore capt,
circum se foliis ac frondibus involventes.
nec plangore diem magno solemque per agros
quaerebant pavidi palantes noctis in umbris,

for n. vagis s. noctivayi Nauger. (not Junt.) vulg. mnocte vagi Bentl. 949 quibus
escibant AB Vat. 1706 Reg. (‘ Nic. Heinsii’). quibus 6 scibant Lach. first after them.
aestibant Nicc. excibant Camb. Pont. exibant Flor. 81. umori’ Bentl. Lach. for
umore. 962 iungebat Nice. for lugebat. lugebat (iungebat) Ver. Veu. 968 (975)
first brought to this place by Nauger. not Avance. who like Mar. and Junt. places it
after 961. 970 subw’ sic silvestria Kd. for subus silvestria: sic could easily fall
out in this position. suibus Camb. Ver. Ven. vulg.; but Lucr. uses sibus in vi 974
977: Lue. Mueller de re metr, p. 350 defends sibus, from Varro Kumen. 22 An
colubrae an volvae de Albuci subus Athenis. Lach. deals with this passage in a most
arbitrary way: he splits 970 (969) into two verses, supposes the end of one and the
beginning of the other to be lost and inserts 968 (975) between them: thus 5. p. 8.
[ardorique leonum] M. s. 6. m. p. c. [Inde cavis temere abiecti] s. n.: &@ More uncon-
vincing note than his I never read, or more sophistical objections to the present
text. 971 Nuda dabant Lamb. ed. 3 first for Nudabant which Wak. indignantly
restores, making these simple sons of earth unclothe their naked limbs and rival the

own V

974 sed taciti respectabant somnoque sepulti, 975
976 dum rosea face sol inferret lumina caelo.

a parvis quod enim consuerant cernere semper

alterno tenebras et lucem tempore gigni,

non erat ut fierl posset mirarier umquam

nec diffidere ne terras aeterna teneret 980

nox in perpetuum detracto lumine solis.

sed magis illud erat curae, quod saecla ferarum

infestam miseris faciebant saepe quietem.

electique domo fugiebant saxea tecta

spumigeri suis adventu validique leonis 985

atque intempesta cedebant nocte paventes

hospitibus saevis instrata cubilia fronde.

Nec nimio tum plus quam nunc mortalia-saecla

duleia lingquebant labentis lumina vitae.

unus enim tum quisque magis deprensus eorum 990

pabula viva feris praebebat, dentibus haustus,

et nemora ac montis gemitu silvasque replebat

viva videns vivo sepeliri viscera busto.

at quos effuginum servarat corpore adeso,

posterius tremulas super ulcera taetra tenentes 995

palmas horriferis accibant vocibus Oreum,

donique eos vita privarant vermina saeva

expertis opis, 1gnaros quid volnera vellent.

at non multa virum sub signis milia ducta

una dies dabat exitio nec turbida ponti 1000

aequora fligebant navis ad saxa virosque.

hic temere incassum frustra mare saepe coortum

saevibat leviterque minas ponebat inanis,

farmed exploit of Prince Vortigern’s grandsire. 976 rosea Flor. 31 Brix. Pont.
Mar. for rotea. 984 Kiectique Flor. 31 Camb. etc. for Electique B, Et lectique
A Nice. 985 validique. validive Lach.; but comp. 987 Hospitibus saevis in
plur. 989 labentis Muretus Lamb. Lach. for lamentis. 993 vivo Flor, 31
Camb. Mon. ete. for vino. 995 ulcera Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. for vicerat. viscera
A corr. Niec. Ver. Ven. 997 Donique Is. Voss. in ms. notes, Lach. for Denique.
Doniquom Heins. in ms. notes. Donec Mar. Junt. Donicum Lamb. 1001
fligebant Lach. for lidebant. ledebant A corr. Camb. Mon. Ver. Ven. laedebant vulg.
lidebant may be from Lucr.: see notes 2. 1002 Hic Lach. for Nec. Sed
Lamb. The rest of this verse is quite causelessly altered by Mar. Junt. Lamb.

1003 ponebat Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for potebas. poscebat Flor. 31 Camb. 1006

to

V 3

mn

nec poterat quemquam placidi pellacia ponti

subdola pellicere in fraudem ridentibus undis, 1005

improba naucleri ratio cum caeca iacebat.

tum penuria deinde cibi languentia leto

membra dabat, contra nunc rerum copia mersat.

illi arprudentes 1051 5101 saepe venenum

vergebant, nuruz nunc dant sollertius 1051. [O10
Inde casas postquam ac pellis ignemque pararunt,

et mulier coniuncta viro concessit in unum

cognita sunt, prolemque ex se videre creatamn,

tum genus humanum primum mollescere coepit.

ignis enim curavit ut alsia corpora frigus 1015

non ita 1am possent caeli sub tegmine ferre,

et Venus inminuit viris puerique parentum

blanditiis facile ingenium fregere superbum.

tune et amicitiem coeperunt lungere aventes

finitimi inter se nec laedere nec violari, 1020

et pueros commendarunt muliebreque saeclum,

vocibus et gestu cum balbe significarent

imbecillorum esse aecum misererier omnis.

nec tamen omnimodis poterat concordia gigni,

naucleri ratio cum Ed. for navigti ratio tum. The v. is ejected by Lach. as spurious:
the ri of naucleri was absorbed in ratio; and then the corruption was easy.

1008 dabat Flor. 31 Camb. for daeant B, deant A. dedant Niece. Ver. Ven. 1009
Illi inyprudentes Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. for Illi prudentes. 1010 nurui nunc dant soller-
tius ipsi Ed. for nudant sollertius ipsi, the scribe having omitted the similar letters:
ipsi is dat.; see notes 2. nuptis nunc dant sollertiu’ sponsi Ed. in small ed. mune
se nudant 8. ipst Lach. which can hardly be right. nzne dant letum sol. ipso Mar.
nunc dant aliis sol. tpsi Junt. vulg. and Ed. in ed. 1; but ipsi is then solecistic.

1011 casas Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. Brix. Pont. for cassas. pellis (pelles) Mon. Brix.
Ver. Ven. for pellus. pelvis Flor. 31 Camb. 1012 a verse is lost here of this
nature Hospitium, ac lecti socialia iura duobus: see notes 2. Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. vulg.
give Castaque privatae Veneris connubia laeta. 1013 Cognita sunt. Conubium
Lach. Coniugium Bern. 1016 ferre Flor. 31 Camb. Pout. Mayr. for ferri.

1019 amicitiem A Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. Gif. amicitiaan B Mon. Avance. at end of
Catullus, Junt. Lamb, aventes Finitimi inter se. habentes A corr. Nice. Flor. 31
Camb. ete. Finitim A Nice. Ver. Ven.: hence though Mar. Junt. rightly read
aventes, yet Nauger. Lamb. Creech Wak. vulg. before Lach. keep the absurd ha-
bentes. Finitima Brix. Pont. Ald. 1 Nauger. Lamb. vulg. but Finitimi B Camb.
Mar. rightly. violari Lach. for violare. 1023 omnis (omneis) Mar. Junt. for
omni: a certain correction, yet strange to say Nauger. Lamb. etc. have adopted the

236 V

sed bona magnaque pars servabat foedera caste: 1025
aut genus humanum iam tum foret omne peremptum
nec potuisset adhuc perducere saecla propago.
At varios linguae sonitus natura subegit
mittere et utilitas expressit nomina rerum,
non ala longe ratione atque ipsa videtur 1030
protrahere ad gestum pueros infantia linguae,
cum facit ut digito quae sint praesentia monstrent.
sentit enim vim quisque suam quoad possit abuti.
cornua nata prius vitulo quam frontibus extent,
illis iratus petit atque infestus inurget. 1035
at catuli pantherarum scymnique leonum
unguibus ac pedibus 1am tum morsuque repugnant,
vix etiam cum sunt dentes unguesque creati.
ahtuum porro genus alis omne videmus
fidere et a pinnis tremulum petere auxiliatum. 1040
proinde putare aliquem tum nomina distribuisse
rebus et inde homines didicisse vocabula prima,
desiperest. nam cur hic posset cuncta notare
vocibus et varios sonitus emittere linguae,
tempore eodem alu facere id non quisse putentur? 1045
praeterea si non ali quoque vocibus usi
inter se fuerant, unde insita notities est
utilitatis et unde data est huic prima potestas,
quid vellet facere ut sciret animoque videret ?

omnium of one Vat. and Ald. 1 1025 caste Flor. 31 for casti. servabant casti
Mar. Junt. Lamb. vulg. contrary to usage of Luer. 1032 monstrent May. or
Mon. and Junt. for monstret. Flor. 30 has the mark of n over the e, but whether
from the hand of Nicc. I could not tell. 1033 vim Brix. (2) Ver. Ven. Avance.
for vis. vt...sua Flor. 31 Mar. Junt. vis...swas Luc. Mueller de re metr. p. 382,
perhaps rightly: comp. 11 586 111 265. quod i.e. gquoad AB. quam Avance. Lamb.
in all 3 eds. Creech etc.: Lamb. says in his notes that he had once thought of quoad,

but much preferred quam. 1035 infestus Flor. 31 Mar. Junt. Nauger. Wak.
Lach. for infessus. infensus Mon. Pont. Avance. Lamb.: but infestus is a Lucretian
word, infensus not 1038 Vix etiam cum Mar. Junt. for Vix tiam cum B, Vix

tam cum A Nice. ete. Vix quoque iam cum Flor. 31. Vix iam etiam cum Avance.
Vix iam cum ipsis Pont. Nauger. Lamb. ed. 1 and 2; Vix dum etiam cum ed. 3.
1039 porro Ald. 1 Junt. for proporro. 1010 pinnis B, pennis A Nonius Nice.
(v1 8384 pinnarum A, pennarum B). 1048 Utilitatis et Mar. Avance. Junt. for
Jtilitas et. Ald. 1 has the misprint Utilitatis etiam, but Avance. corrects it at end
of his Catullus. Lach. takes no notice of this and similar corrections, though his

V 237

cogere item pluris unus victosque domare 1050
non poterat, rerum ut perdiscere nomina vellent.

nec ratione docere ulla suadereque surdis,

quid sit opus facto, facilest; neque enim paterentur

nec ratione ulla sibi ferrent amplius auris

voeis inauditos sonitus obtundere frustra. 1055
postremo quid in hae mirabile tantoperest re,

51 genus humanum, cui vox et lingua vigeret,

pro varlo sensu varia res voce notaret ?

cum pecudes mutaec, cum denique saecla ferarum

dissimilis soleant voces variasque cicre, 1060
cum metus aut dolor est et cum iam gaudia gliscunt.
quippe etenim licet id rebus cognoscere apertis.

inritata canum cum primum magna Molossum

molha ricta fremunt duros nudantia dentes,

longe alio sonitu rabie restricta minantur, 1065
et cum iam latrant ct vocibus omnia complent.

et catulos blande cum lingua lambere temptant

aut ubi eos iactant pedibus morsuque petentes

suspensis teneros imitantur dentibus haustus,

longe alo pacto gannitu vocis adulant, 1070
et cum desert: baubantur in aedibus aut cum

own Catullus shews that he knew the edition of Avance. 1049 Avance. followed
by Lamb. Lach. etc. but not by Junt. or Nauger. has corrupted the sense by reading
Quid vellet, facere ut scirent animoque viderent: on comparing what precedes and
follows, it is manifest that the construction must be the same as 183 Quid vellent
facere ut scirent: first he, like the gods there, had to know what he wanted himself;
then item 1050 to make others to know. scirét is like fulgét in 11 27. 1053
Quid sit opus facto facilest Lach. for facile si. faciles neque enim Flor. 31 Camb.
Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. ed. 1 and 2; but ed. 3 Quid facto esset opus; neque enim
faciles: a violent change; but his knowledge of Latin taught him that in the old
reading sit and the position of neque enim were quite indefensible. 1058 varia
res Bentl. for varias res: the attraction of res has caused the error: 1090 alia re
mss. for alia res. 1062 licet id rebus Lach. after Gif. in note for licet in rebus.
id licet e rebus Lamb. 1063 magna. inmane Lach. without cause. 1064
fremunt Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for premunt. tremunt Nonius. 1065 alio Flor. 31
Camb, Mar. ete. for alia. rabie restricta Lach. for rabie stricta. rabies districta
Flor. 31 Camb. 2 Vat. Mar. rabie districta Pont. Lamb. rabie distracta 2 Vat.
Nauger. minantur Pont. Nauger. for minatur. 1067 Et Lach. for At which
even Lamb. retains. 1068 iactant Nauger. for lactant. petentes Flor. 31 Mon.
Ver. Ven. etc. for potentes. patente Is. Voss. in ms, notes. 1069 teneros imi-
tantur. veros tnitantur Faber in notes. tencros minitantur Lach.: but they refine

225 V

plorantis fugiunt summisso corpore plagas.

denique non hinnitus item differre videtur,

inter equas ubi equus Horenti aetate i1uvencus

pinnigeri saevit calcaribus ictus amoris, 1075

et fremitum patulis ubi naribus edit ad arma,

et cum sic alias concussis artibus hinnit ?

postremo genus alituum variaeque volucres,

accipitres atque ossifragae mergique marinis

fluctibus in salso victum vitamque petentes, 1080

longe alias alio iaciunt in tempore voces,

et quom de victu certant praedaeque repugnant.

et partim mutant cum tempestatibus una

raucisonos cantus, cornicum ut saecla vetusta

corvorumque greges ubi aquam dicuntur et imbris —-1085

poscere et interdum ventos aurasque vocare.

ergo si varil sensus animalia cogunt,

muta tamen cum sint, varias emittere voces,

quanto mortalis magis aecumst tum potuisse

dissimilis alia atque alia res voce notare! 1090
[Illud in his rebus tacitus ne forte requiras,

fulmen detulit in terram mortalibus ignem

primitus, inde omnis flammarum diditur ardor.

multa videmus enim caelestibus inlita flammis

fulgere, cum caeli donavit plaga vapore. 1095

et ramosa tamen cum ventis pulsa vacillans

aestuat in ramos incumbens arboris arbor,

exprimitur validis extritus vinbus ignis

too much I think, nor do I see any real difference in sense between imitantur and
minitantur. 1071 deserti baubantur Nonius Nice. for desertibus aubantur, i.e.
deserti ὃ. aubantur, AB: so v1 1241 Poenibus at: Aen. x1 572 Nutribus at P. 1076
patulis ubi naribus Lach. for patulis sub naribus: this slight change I adopt, but
with hesitation for other reasons and also on account of the apparent imitation of
Virgil georg. m1 85 Collectumque fremens volvit sub naribus ignem: ‘turpe et ob-
scenum loquendi genus’ really comes to nothing: Aen. x1 736 At non in Venerem
segnes nocturnaque bella; georg. 111 98 siquando ad proelia ventum est, and the like
are quite as coarse. 1080 salso. salsis Lamb. tacitly. 1082 praedaeque
Avane. rightly for praedataque. praedaque A corr. Nice. vulg. 1084 ut Nauger.
for et. Ald.1 Junt. omit the word; and also Mar., but he changes wbi of next v. to
uti, 1088 Muta Flor. 31 Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. for Jfulta. 1090 res Nicc. for
re: comp. n. to 1058. 1094 inlita Lach. for insita. incita Mar. Junt, vulg.
1095 vapore Lach. for vaporis. vapores vulg. vare Nonius. 1096 Et Mar.

Vv 239

et micat interdum flammai fervidus ardor,
mutua dum inter se rami stirpesque teruntur. 1100
quorum utrumque dedisse potest mortalibus ignem.
inde cibum coquere ac flammae mollire vapore
sol docuit, quoniam mitescere multa videbant
verberibus radiorum atque aestu victa per agros.
Inque dies magis hi victum vitamque priorem 1105
commutare novis monstrabant rebu’ benigni,
Ingenio qui praestabant et corde vigebant.
condere coeperunt urbis arcemque locare
praesidium reges ipsi 5101 perfugiumque,
et pecus atque agros divisere atque dedere 1110
pro facie culusque et viribus ingenioque ;
nam facies multum valuit viresque vigentes.
posterius res inventast aurumque repertum,
quod facile et validis et pulchris dempsit honorem ;
divitioris enim sectam plerumque seeuntur 1115
quamlubet et fortes et pulchro corpore creti.
quod siquis vera vitam ratione gubernet,
divitiae grandes homini sunt vivere parce
aequo animo; neque enim est umquam penuria parvl.
at claros homines voluerunt se atque potentes, [120
ut fundamento stabili fortuna maneret
et placidam possent opulenti degere vitam,
nequiquam, quoniam ad summum succedere honorem
certantes iter infestum fecere viai,
et tamen e summo, quasi fulmen, deicit ictos 1125
invidia interdum contemptim in Tartara taetra;

Junt. for Ut. 1099 Et micat Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for Emicat which Lamb. in
errata to ed. 3 wrongly restores. 1102 coquere. quoq; were A, cog. were B,
quoquere Nice. and Lach. 1105 hi victum Nauger. for tnvictum. et victun
Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. 1106 rebw’ benigni Lach. for rebus et igni. 1110 Et
pecus atque agros Lach. for Et pecudes atque agros: comp. 1291 where for pecus B
has pecudes. Et pecudes et agros Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar. vulg. divisere atque
dedere Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for diviseratque debere. divisim ut quisquis haberet
Camb. 1112 viresque vigentes Faber in notes for viresque vigebant. viresque
vigorque Lach.: vigebant he says has come from 1107: clearly vires vigebant could
only mean ‘their strength was then in its vigour’: a meaning here quite out of
place. 1116 creti Flor. 31 Camb. Brix. Ver. Ven. Mar. for certi. 1120 is
much corrupted by Lamb. 1124 Certantes iter Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for Certan-

240 V

1131 invidia quoniam, ceu fulmine, summa vaporant
plerumque et quae sunt aliis magis edita cumque ;
1127 ut satius multo iam sit parere quietum
quam regere imperio res velle et regna tenere. 1130
proinde sine incassum defessi sanguine sudent,
angustum per iter luctantes ambitionis;
1133 quandoquidem sapiunt alieno ex ore petuntque
res ex auditis potius quam sensibus ipsis,
nec magis id nunc est neque erit mox quam fuit ante.
Ergo regibus occisis subversa iacebat 1136
pristina maiestas soliorum et sceptra superba,
et capitis summi praeclarum insigne cruentum
sub pedibus vulgi magnum lugebat honorem ;
nam cupide conculcatur nimis ante metutum. 1140
res itaque ad summam faecem turbasque redibat,
imperium sibi cum ac summatum quisque petebat.
inde magistratum partim docuere creare
luraque constituere, ut vellent legibus uti.
nam genus humanum, defessum vi colere aevom, 1145
eX inimicitiis languebat; quo magis ipsum
sponte sua cecidit sub leges artaque 178.
acrius ex lra quod enim se quisque parabat
ulcisci quam nune concessumst legibus aequis,
hance ob rem est homines pertaesum vi colere aevom. 1150
inde metus maculat poenarum praemia vitae.
circumretit enim vis atque inluria quemque
atque, unde exortast, ad eum plerumque revertit,
nec facilest placidam ac pacatam degere vitam
qui violat factis communia foedera pacis. 1155
etsi fallit enim divom genus humanumque,
perpetuo tamen id fore clam diffidere debet ;

tesque inter: iter Flor. 31 Brix. Pont. before them. 1127 1128 (1131 1132) I
have brought to this place: Lach. puts them after 1135. 1128 aliis Lamb. for
altis. 1131 sine Flor. 31 Camb, 3 Vat. Mar. for side. 1141 redibat Flor.
31 Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for recidat. 1145 vi colere Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. for
vicere A, vigere B, vincere Nicec.: comp. 1150. 1151 Inde. Unde Mar.
Junt. Lamb. οἷο. Gif. attributes inde to Marullus, from a confusion prob.
between the Inde which Ven. rightly has, and Marullus’ change to Unde.

1152 vis Camb. Brix. Mar. for ius. circumretitae nimis Pont. and so in dark ink
on an erasure in Mon.; but enim vis is written over in a paler ink, like that most

Vv 241

quippe ubi se multi per somnia saepe loquentes

aut morbo delirantes protraxe ferantur

et celata mala in medium et peccata dedisse.] 1160
Nunc quae causa deum per magnas numina gentis

pervulgarit et ararum compleverit urbis

suscipiendaque curarit sollemnia sacra,

quae nunc in magnis florent sacra rebu’ locisque,

unde etiam nunc est mortalibus insitus horror 1165

qui delubra deum nova toto suscitat orbi

terrarum et festis cogit celebrare diebus,

non ita difficilest rationem reddere verbis.

quippe etenim iam tum divom mortalia saecla

egregias animo facies vigilante videbant [170

et magis in somnis mirando corporis auctu.

his igitur sensum tribuebant propterea quod

membra movere videbantur vocesque superbas

mittere pro facie praeclara et viribus amplis.

aeternamque dabant vitam, quia semper eorum 1175

subpeditabatur facies et forma manebat,

et tamen omnino quod tantis viribus auctos

non temere ulla vi convincei posse putabant.

fortunisque ideo longe praestare putabant,

quod mortis timor haut quemquam vexaret eorum, 1180

et simul in somnis quia multa et mira videbant

efficere et nullum capere ipsos inde laborem.

praeterea caeli rationes ordine certo

et varia annorum cernebant tempora verti

nec poterant quibus id fieret cognoscere causis. 1185

ergo perfugium sibi habebant omnia divis

tradere et illorum nutu facere omnia flecti.

in caeloque deum sedes et templa locarunt,

per caelum volvi quia nox et luna videtur,

luna dies et nox et noctis signa severa [190

used; another indication that Pontanus may have had possession of the ms. before
Marullus, 1160 mala added by Lach. diw Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. 1177
Et tamen omnino. Et manet omnino Lamb. most perversely. 1178 ulla vi Brix.
Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for illa vi. illa (ulla) Ver. Ven. 1189 nox. luz Lach. sol
Lamb. 1190 severa. serena Candidus at end of Junt. Lach. which Lamb. also
prefers: the change of course is very slight; but severa is to my taste the more

M. 16

242 V

.noctivagaeque faces caeli flammaeque volantes,
nubila sol imbres nix venti fulmina grando
et rapidi fremitus et murmura magna minarum.
O genus infelix humanum, talia divis
cum tribuit facta atque iras adiunxit acerbas! 1195
quantos tum gemitus ipsi sibi, quantaque nobis
volnera, quas lacrimas peperere minoribu’ nostris!
nec pietas ullast velatum saepe videri
vertier ad lapidem atque omnis accedere ad aras
nec procumbere humi prostratum et pandere palmas 1200
ante deum delubra nec aras sanguine multo
spargere quadrupedum nec votis nectere vota,
sed mage pacata posse omnia mente tueri.
nam cum suspicimus magni caclestia mundi
templa, super stellisque micantibus aethera fixum, 1205
et venit in mentem solis lunaeque viarum,
tunc aliis oppressa malis in pectora cura
illa quoque expergefactum caput erigere infit,
nequae forte deum nobis inmensa potestas
sit, vario motu quae candida sidera verset. [210
temptat enim dubiam mentem rationis egestas,
ecquaenam fuerit mundi genitalis origo,
et simul ecquae sit finis quoad moenia mundi
sollicitt motus hunc possint ferre laborem,
an divinitus aeterna donata salute 121:
perpetuo possint aevi labentia tractu
inmensi validas aevi contemnere viris.
praeterea cul non animus formidine divum
contrahitur, cul non correpunt membra pavore,
fulminis horribili cum plaga torrida tellus 1220
contremit et magnum percurrunt murmura caelum ?
non populi gentesque tremunt, regesque superbi
corripiunt divum percussi membra timore,

poetical. 1192 sol. vos Lamb. 1198 ullast velatum. ulla velatumst mss.
and eds. before Mar. and Ald. 1. 1203 pacata Junt. (not Pont. or Mar.) for
placata: a necessary correction which Nauger. rejects, but Lamb. ed. 2 and 3
properly adopts. 1207 in pectora. in pectore Ald. 1 Junt. followed by Nauger.
Lamb. Creech etc. most absurdly. 1214 Solliciti Bentl. for Et taciti: ,he refers
to 1 843 and νι 1038. Εἰ tanti one Vat. Ald. 1 Lamb. 1220 Fulminis Mar.

᾿ 243

nequid ob admissum foede dictumve superbe

poenarum grave sit solvendi tempus adultnm ? lees

summa etiam cum vis violenti per mare venti

induperatorem classis super aequora verrit

cum validis pariter legionibus atque elephantis,

non divom pacem votis adit ac prece quaesit

ventorum pavidus paces animasque secundas, 1230

nequiquam, quoniam violento turbine saepe

correptus nilo fertur minus ad vada leti ?

usque adeo res humanas vis abdita quaedam

opterit et pulchros fascis saevasque secures

proculeare ac ludibrio 5101 habere videtur. 1235

denique sub pedibus tellus cum tota vacillat

concussaeque cadunt urbes dubiaeque minantur,

quid mirum si se temnunt mortalia saeccla

atque potestatis magnas mirasque relinqunt

in rebus viris divum, quae cuncta gubernent ? 1240
Quod superest, aes atque aurum ferrumque repertumst

et simul argenti pondus plumbique potestas,

ignis ubi ingentis silvas ardore cremarat

montibus in magnis, seu caeli fulmine misso,

sive quod inter se bellum silvestre gerentes 1245

hostibus intulerant ignem formidinis ergo,

sive quod inducti terrae bonitate volebant

pandere agros pinguis et pascua reddere rura,

sive feras interficere et ditescere praeda.

nam fovea atque 1gni prius est venarier ortum 1250

quam saepire plagis saltum canibusque ciere.

quidquid id est, quacumque e causa flammeus ardor

Ald. 1 Junt. first for Fulmini. Fulmine Nice. Fulmine terribili Flor, 31. 1224
Nequid Lach. for Nequod: a necessary change, if it is joined with admissum.

1225 adultum Lach. for adauctum. adactum Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb,
ete, 1226 Summa F or. 31 Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for Summe. 1229 adit ac
prece Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. for adita prece. 1230 enclosed by Lach. in [1].

1237 dubiaeque. dubiaeve Bentl.: but see notes 2. 1241 superest aes atque
aurum Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for superest aeque aurum. 1244 caeli fulmine misso
BA corr. Nice. all later mss, and eds.: caelo A p.m.alone. caeli is quite right: see
1489. caelo Lach. who says ‘neque dixit alibi Lucretius fulmen caeli, sed plagam
caeli supra 1095’: but why his once using plaga caeli, should prevent him from
twice using fulmen caeli, my mind cannot comprehend. 1252 Quidquid.
Quicquid AB; and so the lex Rubria 26 and the ancient and sole ms. of Livy xiv

16-—2

244 Vv

horribili sonitu silvas exederat altis

ab radicibus et terram percoxerat igni,

manabat venis ferventibus in loca terrae 1255
concava conveniens argenti rivus et auri,

aeris item et plumbi. quae cum concreta videbant
posterius claro in terra splendere colore,

tollebant nitido capti levique lepore

et simili formata videbant esse figura 1260
atque lacunarum fuerant vestigia cuique.

tum penetrabat eos posse haec liquefacta calore

quamlibet in formam et faciem decurrere rerum

et prorsum quamvis in acuta ac tenvia posse

mucronum duci fastigia procudendo, 1265
ut sibi tela darent, silvasque ut caedere possent
materiemque dolare et levia radere tigna

et tercbrare etiam ac pertundere perque forare.

nec minus argento facere haec auroque parabant

quam validi pnmum violentis viribus aeris, 1270
nequiquam, quoniam cedebat victa potestas

nec poterat pariter durum sufferre laborem.

tum fuit in pretio magis aes aurumque iacebat

propter inutilitatem hebeti mucrone retusum.

nunc iacet aes, aurum in summum successit honorem. 1275
sic volvenda aetas commutat tempora rerum.

quod fuit in pretio, fit nullo demque honore;

porro aliut succedit et e contemptibus exit

inque dies magis adpetitur floretque repertum

32 9: Luer. may therefore have written quicquid here, though elsewhere his
mss. have quidquid for the relative; quicquid in the sense of quicque, rightly

according to the rule explained in notes 2 to 1 22 quicquam. 1253
altis A Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. Brix. Ver. Ven. Junt. altas BA corr. Avane.
Lamb. 1254 Ab Junt. first for A, rightly: not Pont. or Mar.

1258 in terra splendere Lach. first for in terras. in terris Lamb. 1259
capti Flor. 31 Ver. Ven. Mar. for capiti. 1266 darent, silvasque ut caedere
possent Lach. for parent silvasque et cedere possint. [But perhaps the mss, are right:
compare Plaut. Amph. 192 praemisit ut nuntiem; and see Ussing there. ] 1267

dolare et levia radere Mar. Junt. (Ald. 1 has ac for et) for dolaret levare ac radere:
which seems the simplest change. domo, levare ac radere Lach. laevare dolare et
radere Lamb. Lach. also suggests dolare secare ac or dolare aequare ac. 1272
poterat Lamb. and Lach. for poterant: this I have received with some hesitation.
1273 Tum Lach, for Nam. aes added by Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar. 1278 e

\ 245

laudibus et miro est mortalis inter honore. 1280
Nune tibi quo pacto ferri natura reperta

sit facilest ipsi per te cognoscere, Memmi.

arma antiqua manus ungues dentesque fuerunt

et lapides et item silvarum fragmina rami,

et flamma atque ignes, postquam sunt cognita primum. 1285

posterius ferri vis est aerisque reperta.

et prior aeris erat quam ferm cognitus usus,

quo facilis magis est natura et copia maior.

aere solum terrae tractabant, aereque belli

miscebant fluctus et vulnera vasta serebant 1290

et pecus atque agros adimebant; nam facile ollis

omnia cedebant armatis nuda et inerma,

inde minutatim processit ferreus ensis

versaque in obprobrium species est falcis ahenae,

et ferro coepere solum proscindere terrae 1295

exaequataque sunt creperi certamina belli.

et prius est armatum in equi conscendere costas

et moderarier hunc frenis dextraque vigere

quam biiugo curru belli temptare pericla.

et biugos prius est quam bis coniungere binos [300

et quam falciferos armatum escendere currus.

inde boves ducas turrito corpore, taetras,

anguimanus, belli docuerunt volnera Poeni

sufferre et magnas Martis turbare catervas.

sic alid ex alio peperit discordia tristis, 1305

horribile humanis quod gentibus esset in armis,

inque dies belli terroribus addidit augmen.
Temptarunt ctiam tauros in moenere belli

expertique sues saevos sunt mittere in hostis.

et validos partim prae se misere leones 1310

added by Brix. Pont. Mar. 1285 flamma atque B corr. Flor. 31 Camb. 4 Vat. for
jJlammatque ignes. flammae atque Mar. Nauger. Lamb. ete. 1294 obprobrium.
obscenum all the mss. of Macrob. sat. v1 1 63, collated by Ianus: a curious variation.
Lach. who depended on an old edition of Macrobius, is mistaken in supposing that
obscenum is not the ms. reading. 1297 armatum. reppertum Lamb. etc. and
1301 inventum Mar. Junt. Lamb. etc. for armatum: both needless changes.

1300 biiugos Faber for bitugo: biiugo makes the construction extremely harsh,
and, as Faber says, has come from 1299. 1302 taetras (tetras) Lach. for tetros:
rightly, see 1339. 1310 partim. Parthi Camb. 2 Vat.: a reading adopted by

246 V

cum doctoribus armatis saevisque magistris

qui moderarier his possent vinclisque tenere,

nequiquam, quoniam permixta caede calentes

turbabant saevi nullo discrimine turmas,

terrificas capitum quatientes undique cristas, 1315
nec poterant equites fremitu perterrita equorum

pectora mulcere et frenis convertere in hostis.

inritata leae iaciebant corpora saltu

undique et adversum venientibus ora petcbant

et nec opinantis a tcergo deripiebant 1320
deplexaeque dabant in terram volnere victos,

morsibus adfixae validis atque unguibus uncis,
lactabantque suos tauri pedibusque terebant

et latera ac ventres haurbant supter equorum

cornibus et terram muinitanti fronte ruebant. 1325
et validis socios caedebant dentibus apri

tela infracta suo tinguentes sanguine 5860],

in se fracta suo tinguentes sanguine tela,

permixtasque dabant equitum peditumque ruinas.

nam transversa feros cxibant dentis adactus 1330
iumenta aut pedibus ventos crecta petebant,

nequiquam, quoniam ab nervis succisa videres

concidere atque gravi terram consternere casu.

siquos ante domi domitos satis esse putabant,

effervescere cernebant in rebus agundis 1335
volneribus clamore fuga terrore tumultu,

nec poterant ullam partem redducere eorum ;

diffugiebat enim varium genus omne ferarum ;

ut nunc saepe boves lucae ferro male mactae

diffugiunt, fera facta suis cum multa dedere. 1340

Lamb. Creech Wak. vulg. before Lach. 1311 doctoribus. ductoribus Ver.
Ven. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Nauger. Lamb. ete. 1315 Lach. rejects as spurious;
and Ed. in ed. 1. 1319 petebant Vat. 640 Urbin. Mon. Junt. for patebant.
1320 deripiebant A Lach. diripiebant B Nicc. Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. all before
Lach. 1823 suos. sues Ver. Ven. Avanc. Lamb. etc. 1325 fronte Lach.
for mente which has no meaning. ad terramque minanti mente Mar. Lamb. Gif.
Creech etc. and this Candidus doubtless meant to read. 1327 1328 Mon.
Junt. Lach. and Ed. in small ed. omit the second; Lamb. ed. 1 obelises the first,
ed. 2 and 3 both: but see notes 2. 1330 dentis adactus Mar. Junt. for dentis
adauctus B, dentibus adauctus A Nice. Camb, dentibus ictus Politian in marg. Flor.

ν 247

581 FUIT UT FACERENT SED VIX ADDUCOR UT ANTE

NON QUIERINT ANIMO PRAESENTIRE ATQUE VIDERE

QUAM COMMUNE MALUM FIERET FOEDUMQUE FUTURUM

ET MAGIS ID POSSIS FACTUM CONTENDERE IN OMNI

IN VARIIS MUNDIS VARIA RATIONE CREATIS 1345

QUAM CERTO ATQUE UNO TERRARUM QUOLIBET ORBI

sed facere id non tam vincendi spe voluerunt,

quam dare quod gemcrent hostes, ipsique perire,

qui numero diffidebant armisque vacabant.
Nexilis ante fuit vestis quam textile tegmen. 1350

textile post ferrumst, quia ferro tela paratur,

nec ratione alia possunt tam levia gigni

insilia ac fusi radii scapique sonantes.

et facere ante viros lanam natura coegit

quam muliebre genus; nam longe praestat in arte 1355

et sollertius est multo genus omne virile;

agricolae donec vitio vertere severi,

ut muliebmbus id manibus concedere vellent

atque ipsi pariter durum sutferre laborem

atque opere in duro durarent membra manusque. 1360
At specimen sationis οὔ insitionis origo

ipsa fuit rerum primum natura creatrix,

arboribus quoniam bacae glandesque caducae

tempestiva dabant pullorum examina supter ;

unde etiam libitumst stirpis committere ramis 1365

et nova defodere in terram virgulta per agros.

inde alam atque aliam culturam dulcis agelli

temptabant ftructusque feros mansuescere terran

cernebant indulgendo blandeque colendo.

Inque dies magis in montem succedere silvags 1370

cogebant infraque locum concedere cultis,

prata lacus rivos segetes vinetaque laeta

29. 1340 facta. fata B corr. Lach.: but see notes 2. 1341—1346 Lach.
justly ejects the last three of these verses as the work of an interpolator; but it is
no less certain that the first three are likewise spurious; Si fuit ut facerent is
obviously a comment on Sed facere id non tam cet. Lach. to make sense and
grammar is compelled to read Sic fuit with Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. for Si fuit, and
to transpose 1342 and 1343: see Camb. Journ. of phil. rv p, 288: 1848 -- 598.

1351 tela paratur. tela parantur Lamb. perversely. 1368 terram Lach. for

248 Vv

collibus et campis ut haberent, atque olearum
caerula distinguens inter plaga currere posset
per tumulos et convallis camposque profusa ; 1375
ut nunc esse vides vario distincta lepore
omnia, quae pomis intersita dulcibus ornant
arbustisque tenent felicibus opsita circum.
At liquidas avium voces imitarier ore
ante fuit multo quam levia carmina cantu 1380
concelebrare homines possent aurisque iuvare.
et zephyri, cava per calamorum, sibila primum
agrestis docuere cavas inflare cicutas.
inde minutatim dulcis didicere querellas,
tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum, 1385
avia per nemora ac silvas saltusque reperta,
per loca pastorum deserta atque otia dia.
haee animos ollis mulcebant atque iuvabant 1390
cum satiate cibi; nam tum haec sunt omnia cord.
sacpe itaque inter se prostrati in gramine molli
propter aquae rivom sub ramis arboris altac
non magnis opibus iucunde corpora habebant,
praesertim cum tempestas ridebat et anni 1395
tempora pingebant viridantis floribus herbas.
tum ioca, tum sermo, tum dulces esse cachinni
consuerant. agrestis enim tum musa vigebat;
um caput atque umeros plexis redimire coronis
floribus et foliis lascivia laeta monebat, 1400
atque extra numerum procedere membra moventes
duriter et duro terram pede pellere matrem;
unde oriebantur risus dulcesque cachinni,
omnia quod nova tum magis haec et mira vigebant.
et vigilantibus hine aderant solacia somni, 1405
ducere multimodis voces et flectere cantus |
et supera calamos unco percurrere labro;

terra. 1388 1389=1454 1455, and are here quite out of place. 1391 tum
haec sunt omnia ‘ut quidam legunt’ says Lamb. for tum sunt omnia: comp. 1404,
tum sunt carmina Lach. otia Faber. 1397 toca Flor. 31 Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for
loca. 1400 monebat Flor. 31 Mar, Junt. for movebat. 1405 solacia somni
Lamb. Lach. for solacia somno. ‘secutus sum codicem Vaticanum’ says Lamb.
All the mss. at present in the Vatican have, I believe, somno: but again and again

v 249

unde etiam vigiles nune haec accepta tuentur

et numerum servare recens didicere, neque hilo

maiorem interea capiunt dulcedini’ fructum 1410

quam silvestre genus capiebat terrigenarum.

nam quod adest praesto, nisi quid cognovimus ante

suavius, in primis placet et pollere videtur,

posteriorque fere melior res illa reperta

perdit et immutat sensus ad pristina quaeque. 1415

sic odium coepit glandis, sic illa relicta

strata cubilia sunt herbis et frondibus aucta.

pellis item cecidit vestis contempta ferinae ;

quam recor invidia tal tune esse repertam,

ut Iectum insidiis qui gessit primus obirct, 1420

et tamen iter eos distractam sanguine multo

disperiisse neque in fructum convertere quisse.

tune igitur pelles, nunc aurum et purpura curis

exercent hominum vitam belloque fatigant ;

quo magis in nobis, ut opinor, culpa resedit. 1425

frigus enim nudos sine pellibus excruciabat

terrigenas; at nos nil laedit veste carere

purpurea atque auro signisque ingentibus apta,

dum plebeia tamen sit quae defendere possit.

ergo hominum genus incassum frustraque laborat 1430

semper et ὧν curis consumit inanibus aevom,

nimirum quia non cognovit quae sit habendi

finis et omnino quoad crescat vera voluptas.

idque minutatim vitam provexit in altum

et belli magnos commovit funditus aestus. 1435
At vigiles mundi magnum versatile templum

sol et luna suo lustrantes lumine circum

perdocuere homines annorum tempora verti

Lamb. speaks in the same vague way of Vatican and other mss. 1409 servare
recens Ed. for servare genus: servare first absorbed the re, then cens became genus.
sonis Lach. Certainly genus is quite unmeaning. mumeris Nicc. as well as Flor. 31
Ver. Ven. Avance. in Ald. 1; but at end of his Catullus he bids us read numerum.,
1410 Maiorem Flor. 31 Camb. for Jaiore. duleedini? Lamb. rightly for dul-

cedine. 1418 jferinae Junt. (not Pont. or Mar.) for ferina. vestis contemta
ferinast Lamb. ed. 2 and 3. 1419 tunc Brix. Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for
πιο. 1431 in added by Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. Pont. Ald. 1 Junt. 1436

magnum versatile, magnum ac versatile ἘΠῚ. in small ed.; and ac may have fallen

250 V

et certa ratione geri rem atque ordine certo.
Iam validis saepti degebant turribus aevom 1440
et divisa colebatur discretaque tellus,
lam mare velivolis florebat puppibus; urbes
auxilia ac socios iam pacto foedere habebant,
carminibus cum res gestas coepere poetae
tradere; nec multo priv’ sunt elementa reperta. 1445
propterea quid sit prius actum respicere actas
nostra nequit, nisi qua ratio vestigia monstrat.
Navigia atque agri culturas moenia leges
arma vias vestes et cetera de genere horum,
praemia, delicias quoque vitae funditus omnis, 1450
carmina picturas, et daedala signa polire,
usus et impigrae simul experientia mentis
paulatim docuit pedetemtim progredientis.
sic unumquicquid paulatim protrahit aetas
in medium ratioque in luminis erigit oras. 1455
namque alid ex alo clarescere et ordine debet
artibus, ad summum donec venere cacumen.

out after m: et is added by Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. vulg. versatili’ Lach. 1442
Iam Lach. for Tum. propter odores all mss. which Wak. absurdly defends. puppi-
bus (puppib.) et res Lach. puppibusis unquestionably right; but res appears strange
without any epithet; I have written therefore puppibus; urbes. Tum mare veli-
volum florebat navibu’ pandis Junt. (not Pont. or Mar.) Lamb. ete. probably after

Servius. 1449 et added by Flor. 31 Camb. 1451 polire Flor. 31 Vat. 640
Urbin. and 1954 Othob. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. Lach. for polito. 1455 erigit.
eruit Junt. (not Pont. or Mar.) Lamb. etc. wrongly. 1456 clarescere et ordine

debet Ed. for elarescere corde videbant: one e was absorbed by the other; then
tordine debet passed into corde videbant. clarescere conveniebat Lach. who joins
Artibus with venere,

T. LUCRETI CARI

DE RERUM NATURA

LIBER SEXTUS

Primae frugiparos fetus mortalibus aegris

dididerunt quondam praeclaro nomine Athenae

et recreaverunt vitam legesque rogarunt,

et primae dederunt solacia dulcia vitae,

cum genuere virum tall cum corde repertum, 5
omnia veridico qui quondam ex ore profudit;

cuius et extinct: propter divina reperta

divolgata vetus iam ad caelum gloria fertur.

nam cum vidit hic ad vietum quae flagitat usus

omnia iam ferme mortalibus esse parata 10
et, proquam posset, vitam consistere tutam,

divitiis homines et honore et laude potentis

affuere atque bona gnatorum excellere fama,

nec minus esse domi cuiquam tamen anxia corda,

atque animi ingratis vitain vexare sine ulla 15
pausa atque infestis cogei saevire querellis,

1 frugiparos AB. frugiferos A corr. Nicc. and later mss. and eds. before Wak.

4 solacia Nice. for solact. 7 extincti Mar. Ald, 1 Junt. for extincta. 10
mortalibus Nicc. for acortalibus. 11 proquam posset Lach. for proquam possent :
a simple and certain correction of a much-vexed passage. per quae possent Mar.
Avance. Madvig, deceived by this, conjectured in Henrichsen de frag. Gott. per

quae possent vita c. tuta. Lamb. and Creech obelise the verse. 18 excellere
Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for excolere A Nicc., excollere B. ezxtollere Flor. 31 Camb.
Pont. 14 corda Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for cordi. 15 querellis of mss. has of

course come from 16 and has supplanted the words of Lucr. who wrote sine ulla
Pausa atque. Lach. retains querellis here and in 16 reads Passimque...periclis.
σοφοὶ Lach., cogi Lamb., rightly for coget: a common corruption in our mss. Mar.
Avance. Junt. corrupt the passage greatly. Lamb. followed by Gif. Creech, ete.

252 VI

intellegit ibi vitium vas efficere ipsum
omniaque illius vitio corrumpier intus
quae conlata foris et commoda cumque venirent ;
partim quod fluxum pertusumque esse videbat, 20
ut nulla posset ratione explerier umquam ;
partim quod taetro quasi conspurcare sapore
omnia cernebat, quaecumque receperat, intus.
veridicis igitur purgavit pectora dictis
et finem statuit cuppedinis atque timoris 25
exposuitque bonum summum quo tendimus omnes
quid foret, atque viam monstravit, tramite parvo
qua possemus ad id recto contendere cursu,
quidve mali foret in rebus mortalibu’ passim,
quod fieret naturali varieque volaret 30
seu casu seu vi, quod sic natura parasset,
et quibus e portis occurni cuique deceret,
et genus humanum frustra plerumque probavit
volvere curarum tristis in pectore fluctus.
nam veluti pueri trepidant atque omnia caccis 35
in tenebris metuunt, sic nos in luce timemus
interdum, milo quae sunt metuenda magis quam
quae pueri in tenebris pavitant finguntque futura.
hune igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necessest
non radu solis nec lucida tela 616] 40
discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque.
quo magis inceptum pergam pertexere dictis.
Et quoniam docui mundi mortalia templa
esse et nativo consistere-corpore caelum,

contracts the two verses into one, thus Atque animum infestis cogi servire querelis:
servire also Ver. Ven. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Causam quae Avanc. Nauger. for Pausa
atque. 17 vas Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for fas. 25 cuppedinis A rightly, as v 45;
and so Marullus in marg. of cod. Victor. properly corrects: Lactantius inst. vir 27
has torpedinis, from whom Mar. probably got his first notion mentioned by
Gifanius: see n. to 111 994: unless he rather when young derived it from his master
Pontanus who expressly notes ‘ torpedinis est apud Lactantium ’. 27 tramite
parvo. tramite prono Lamb. limite prono Junt. apparently after Lactantius inst. v11
27. Lach. rightly joins tramite parvo with what follows. 28 recto A corr. Nice.
Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. Lactant. for recta. 30 jieret lac, Susius in Tonson, Lach.
for fuerit. flueret Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. naturali. naturae vi Lamb. naturali
viro atque Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. 81 casu. causa Lach. 32 Et quibus Flor. 31
Camb. Pont. Mar. for E quibus. 34 Volvere Ver. Ven. Mar. for Volnere., 44 ct

VI 253

et quaecumque in eo fiunt fierique necessest, 45
pleraque ressolui, quae restant percipe porro,
quandoquidem semel insignem conscendere currum

*

ventorum, ex ira ut placentur, wf omina rursum

quae fucrint sint placato conversa furore:

cetera quae ficri in terris cacloque tuentur 50
mortales, pavidis cum pendent mentibw’ saepe,

et faciunt animos humilis formidine divom

depressosque premunt ad terram propterea quod
ignorantia causarum conferre deorum

cogit ad imperium res et concedere regnum. 55
nam bene qui didicere deos securum agere aevom,

si tamen intecrea mirantur qua ratione

quaeque geri possint, praesertim rebus in illis 60
quae supera caput aetheriis cernuntur in oris,

rursus in antiquas referuntur religionis

et dominos acris adsciscunt, omnia posse

added by Flor. 31 Camb. Brix. Mar. 46 ressolui Goebel obs. Lucr. p. 18 for
dissolut : comp. v 773 Qua fieri quicquid posset ratione resolvi: a friend suggests
that rv 500 dissolvere causam may support dissolut here: but see notes 2. fiunt,
fatearc necessest Pleraque dissolui Lach. most unsuitably, as if only pleraque, not
omnia, were to be dissolved. fiunt possuntque, γι. P. dissolut Bern. to which the
same objection applies. Lamb. sceing this difficulty, in ed. 2 and 3 gives fiunt
fientque, necesse Esse ea dissolut. 47—49 an exceedingly corrupt passage; yet
I fancy that I have amended it without much violence: in 47 I have changed
nothing; after it there is manifestly a hiatus of several verses, the general sense of
which I have attempted to give in my translation. The ms. reading of 48 and 49 is
as follows, Ventorum exirtant placentur omnia rursum Que suerint sint placato conversa
favore: with exirtant for ex tra ut, comp. Iv 820 virtutifor vir uti. omnia for omina is
an alinost unfailing blunder of mss. furore is from Lamb. ed. 2 and 8, and Auratus
for favore. So Sen. Octav. 800 and 806 mss. have furore and furor for favore and
favor, The older emendations in Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. etc. are so devoid of all
probability that I will not cite them: Lamb. indeed believes the lines not to be
Lucretius’; nor is Lachmann’s text much happier: institui conscendere currum
Ventosum et certant plangentia flamina rursum, Quae fuerint, sine, placato conversa
furore: then at 50 he begins a new paragraph, and 52 for Et faciunt gives Haec
faciunt, though Lactantius twice over has the ms. reading. Bern. supposesa lacuna
both before and after 48 which he thus leaves, Ventorum existant, placentur omnia
rursum: 52 Mar. Junt. Lamb. etc. for Et faciunt have Ejficiunt. ὅθ 57=90
91=1 153 154: here in the 6th book Lach. rejects them in the first, retains them in
the second place: to me it is manifest that in both places they come from the
apnotator who thought they were in point and consequently jotted them down in

254 VI

quos miseri eredunt, ignari quid queat esse,

quid nequeat, finita potestas denique cuique 65
quanam sit ration! atque alte terminus haerens ;

quo magis errantes caeca ratione feruntur.

quae nisi respuis ex animo longeque remittis

dis indigna putare alicnaque pacis eorum,

delibata deum per te 0101 numina sancta 70
saepe oberunt; non quo violari summa deum vis

possit, ut ex Ira poenas petere inbibat aeris,

sed quia tute tibi placida cum pace quictos

eonstitues magnos irarum volvere fluetus,

nec delubra deum placido cum pectore adibis, 75
nee de corpore quae sancto simulacra feruntur

in mentes hominum divinae nuntia formae,

suscipere haee animi tranquilla pace valebis.

inde videre hicet qualis iam vita sequatur.

quam quidem ut a nobis ratio verissima longe 80
reiclat, quaamquam sunt a me multa profecta,

multa tamen restant et sunt ornanda politis

versibus; est ratio cach speciesque tenenda,

sunt tempestates et fulmina clara canenda,

quid faciant et qua de causa ecumque ferantur ; 85
ne trepides caeli divisis partibus amens,

unde volaus ignis pervenerit aut in utram se

verterit hine partim, quo pacto per loca saepta

insinuarit, et hine dominatus ut extulerit se.

tu mihi supremae praescribta ad candida caleis 92
currenti spatium praemonstra, callida musa

Calliope, requies hominum divomque voluptas,

the margin in his usual fashion, 68 longeque Nice. for longique. remittis.
Flor. 31 Camb. Brix. for remitti. 71 oberunt Wak. for oderunt. aderunt Mar.
Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. ete. 72 ex ira Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for ezire. 73 quietos
Mar. Junt. for quietus. 74 jluctus Flor. 31 Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for fletus.

76 feruntur Brix. Ald. 1 Junt. (not Pont. or Mar.) for fuerunt. ferunt Ver. Ven.

82 sunt ornanda. sunt tornanda Flor. 31 Politian in marg. Flor. 29,

83 est ratio caeli (caelis Brix.) speciesque tcnenda Brix. Avanc. Lamb, ed. 1 and 2
for est ratio caelisque tenenda: the scribe omitted specie because of the following
squete. est ratio fulgendi visque tonandi Lach. which seems to me most improbable.
est ratio supcrum caelique Flor. 31 Camb. 2 Vat. Lamb, ed. 3. 85—89 Lach.
encloses in [ J. 90 91=56 57=1 153 154: see above. Lach. admits them
here. 2 ad candida calcis Lamb. and Turnebus for ac candida callis: a certain

pill 255

te duce ut msigni capiam cum laude coronam. 95
Principio tonitru quatiuntur caerula caeli

propterea quia concurrunt sublime volantes

actheriae nubes contra pugnantibu’ ventis.

nec fit enim sonitus cacli de parte serena,

verum ubicumque magis denso sunt agmine nubes, 100

tam magis hinc magno fremitus fit murmure saepe.

praeterea neque tam condenso corpore nubes

esse queunt quam sunt lapides ac tigna, neque autem

tam tenues quam sunt nebulae fumique volantes;

nam cadere aut bruto deberent pondere pressae 105

ut lapides, aut ut fumus constare nequirent

nec cohibere nives gelidas et grandinis imbris.

dant etiam sonitum patuli super acquora mundi,

carbasus ut quondam magnis intenta theatris

dat crepitum malos inter iactata trabesque ; 110

interdum perscissa furit petulantibus auris

et fragilis sonitus chartarum commeditatur:

id quoque enim genus in tonitru cognoscere possis :

aut ubi suspensam vestem chartasque volantis

verberibus venti versant planguntque per auras. 115

fit quoque enim interdum ut non tam concurrere nubes

frontibus adversis possint quam de latere ire

diverso motu radentes corpora tractim,

aridus unde auris terget sonus ille diuque

ducitur, exierunt donec regionibus artis. 120
emendation. 102 nwbes Flor. 31 Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for nure. mire Nice. Brix.
Ver. Ven. 103 lapides Flor. 31 Ver. Ven. for pepides. tigna Flor. 31 Camb.
Mar. Junt. for vigna. wgna Nice. ligna Ver. Ven. Avance. 105 Nam cadere aut

bruto Flor. 31 Camb. all Vat. Brix. Ver. Ven. Mar. Junt. for Nam cudere avi B,
Nam candere aut A corr. (says Lach. but? p. m. also) Nicc. aut is unquestionably
right: comp. 1198 avi mss, for aut. Nam cadere abrupto Avance. Nam aut cadere
abrupto Lamb. ab bruto Lach. 110 malos Flor. 31 Mar. Junt. for matos.
muros Brix. Avanc. matos (muros) Ver. Ven. 112 sonitus added by Flor. 31
Camb, etc. 114 que. ve Mar. Junt. Lach. 115 planguntque Pont. Mar.
Junt. for planguentque. 116 wt added by Flor. 31 Vat. 640 Urbin. and 1136
Othob. Pius. 118 corpora tractim Gronov. Faber for corpore tractim. ‘f.
corpora tactu’ Heins. in ms. notes. corpore tractum Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. all Vat.
etc. corpor? tractum Mar. Junt. 120 exierunt Vat. 1706 Reg. for exierum:
also Heins. in ms. notes has ‘ exierunt s’ i.e. the ms, of Modius who must therefore
have read in it exierunt, as the ed. Paris. 1565 has exrverit, as well as Lamb. ed. 1

256 VI

Hoc etiam pacto tonitru concussa videntur
omnia saepe gravi tremere et divolsa repente
maxima dissiluisse capacis moenia mundi,
cum subito validi venti conlecta procella
nubibus intorsit sese conclusaque ibidem 125
turbine versanti magis ac magis undique nubem
cogit uti fiat spisso cava corpore circum,
post ubi conminuit vis clus et impetus acer,
tum perterricrepo sonitu dat scissa fragorem.
nec mirum, cum plena animae vensicula parva 130
sacpe ita dat torvum sonitum displosa repente.,
Est etiam ratio, cum venti nubila perflant,
ut sonitus faciant. etenim ramosa videmus
nubila saepe modis multis atque aspera fern ;
scilicet ut, crebram silvam cum flamina cauri 135
perflant, dant sonitum frondes ramique fragorem.
fit quoque ut interdum validi vis incita venti
perscindat nubem perfringens impete recto.
nam quid possit ibi flatus manifesta docet res,
hic, ubi lenior est, in terra cum tamen alta 140
arbusta evolvens radicibus haurit ab imis.
sunt etiam fluetus per nubila, qui quasi murmur
dant in frangendo graviter; quod item fit in altis
fluminibus magnoque mari, cum frangitur aestus.
fit quoque, ubi e nubi in nubem vis ineidit ardens 145
fulminis, haee multo si forte umore recepit
ignem, continuo wi magno clamore trucidet;
ut calidis candens ferrum e fornacibus olim

and 3. Is. Voss. too and Creech prefer exierunt. exierit Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat.
Ald. 1Junt. Lamb. ezierint Brix. Ver. Ven. Mar.; but exierit Mar. ap. Victor. in

ed. Ven. 124 concollecta AB. conlecta Nice. Brix. collecta A corr. Camb.
128 conminuit. commovit A corr, Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. Brix. Ver. Ven. vulg.
before Lach. 129 scissa Bern. for missa. jissa Lach.: it is clearly the nudes,

not the procella, which is here spoken of; though all editors before Lach. retain
missa, which Isidore too orig. x11 8 must have read: the corruption therefore must
be old. 131 torvum Ed. for parvum. magnum Is. Voss. in ms. notes and Wak.
pariter Mar. Junt. Lamb. etc. Saepe det haut parvum Lach. Noenu ita det p.
Bern.: but see notes 2. 132 and 136 peryiant A corr. Nice. for perfiant.

133 Ut. Cur Lamb. wrongly. 141 dArbusta evolvens A corr. Flor. 31 Pont.
Mar. for Arbusta volvens. Arbuste volvens Nicc. Camb. 144 aestus Flor. 31
Camb. ete. for aest. aestu A corr. Nicc. Mon. Ver. Ven. vulg. 147 ut added

VI 257

stridit, ubi in gelidum propere demersimus imbrem.
aridior porro si nubes aceipit ignem, 150
uritur ingenti sonitu succensa repente ;
lauricomos ut si per montis flamma vagetur
turbine ventorum comburens impete maguo ;
nec res ulla magis quam Phoebi Delphica laurus
terribili somtu flamma crepitante crematur. Ι
denique saepe geli multus fragor atque ruina
grandinis in magnis sonitum dat nubibus alte.
ventus enim cum confercit, franguntur, in artuin,
concreti montes nimborum et grandine imixti.

Fulgit item, nubes ignis cum semina multa 160
excusscre suo concursu; ceu lapidem si
pereutiat lapis aut ferrum; nam tum quoque lumen
exilit et claras scintillas dissipat ignis.
sed tonitrum fit uti post aunbus accipiamus,
fulgere quam cemant oculi, quia semper ad auris 105
tardius adveniunt quam visu quae moveant res.

rr
Loa |

id licet hine etiam cognosecre: caedere si quem
ancipiti videas ferro procul arboris auctum,
ante fit ut cernas ictum quam plaga per auris
det sonitum; sic fulgorem quoque cernimus ante 170
quam tonitrum accipimus, pariter qui mittitur igni
e simili causa, concursu natus eodem.
Hoe etiam pacto volucri loca lumine tingunt
nubes et tremulo tempestas impete fulgit.
ventus ubi invasit nubem et versatus ibidem 175
fecit ut ante cavam docui spissescere nubem,
mobilitate sua fervescit; ut omnia motu
percalefacta vides ardescere, plumbea vero
glaus etiam longo cursu volvenda liquescit.

by Lamb. ¢rucidet Junt, not Pont. or Mar. for trucidat. Lach. on the contrary in
145 for Fit reads Id. 149 propere Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for propter. 151
repente Flor. 31 Brix. Pont. for recente. 154 res ulla Macrob. sat. vi 4 5 for res
uita. resulla wita Ver. Ven. resina Flor. 31 Camb. 158 in artum. in arto
Lach.: but somewhat involved constructions are by no means avoided by Lucr::
comp. 176 and 111 843. 165 Fulgere Nice. B corr. for Fugere. 168 Ancipiti
Flor. 31 Mon. Brix. for Ungipiti. videas Mar. Junt. for videat. 172 E simili
A Nice. Flor. 31 (Lach. wrongly assigns to it Et) 2 Vat. Brix. Mar. Junt. Lamb.
Et simili B Camb. Mon. 3 Vat. Ver. Ven. Avance. 179 liquescit Pont. Mar.

M. 17

258 VI

ergo fervidus hic nubem cum perscidit atram, 180
dissipat ardoris quasi per vim expressa repente
semina quae factunt nictantia fulgura flammae ;
inde sonus sequitur qui tardius adficit auris
quam quae perveniunt oculorum ad lumina nostra.
scilicet hoc densis fit nubibus et simul alte 185
extructis alus alias super impete miro ;
ne tibi sit frudi quod nos inferne videmus
quam sint lata magis quam sursum extructa quid extent.
contemplator enim, cum montibus adsimulata
nubila portabunt venti transversa per auras, 190
aut ubi per magnos montis cumulata videbis
insuper esse 8115 alia atque urguere superne
in statione locata sepultis undique ventis:
tum potcris magnas moles cognoscere corum
speluncasque velut saxis pendentibu’ structas 195
cernere, quas venti cum tempestate coorta
conplerunt, magno indignantur murmure clausi
nubibus in caveisque ferarum more minautur ;
nune hine nunc illine fremitus per nubila mittunt
quaerentesque viam circum versantur et ignis 200
semina convolvunt e nubibus atque ita cogunt
multa rotantque cavis flanmam fornacibus intus,
donec divolsa fulserunt nube corusci.
Hac etiam fit uti de causa mobilis ille
devolet in terram liquidi color aureus ignis, 205
semina quod nubes ipsas permulta necessust
ignis habere; etenim cum sunt umore sine ullo,
flammeus est plerumque colos et splendidus ollis.

Ald. 1 Junt. for quiescit: a certain correction. calescit Lach. utterly destroying the
force of the passage. 180 perscidit Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. Brix. for perscindit.
183 adjicit Bentl. for adlicit. adtigit Lamb. conj. adcidit Heins. in me.
notes. 184 lumina B. limina A Nice. Flor. 31 three Vat. 185 alte Mar.
Ald. 1 Junt. for alti. 187 188 wrongly placed by Lach. after 193 on account of
the neuters: see 759 1 352 Iv 934. 187 Ne. Nec Mon. Lach. 188 sint
Mar. Junt. for sit. extructa Ald. 1 Junt. for extricta. 191 cumulata B corr.
Brix. Ver. Ven. Mar. for culata. procul alta Flor. 31 Camb. 192 urguere A
Nice. urgere B. superne Bentl. for superna. 201 ὁ added by Nice. 205
color Serv. ad 60]. v1 33, Mar. Avanc. Nauger. calor AB Nice. Flor. 31 Camb. Junt.
mss. of Macrob. sat. v1 5 4: yet color must be right: the mss. of Macrobius some-
times agree strangely with those of Lucr. in corruptions. 208 Flammeus est

VI 9

quin etiam solis de lumine multa neecssest
concipere, ut merito rubeant ignesque profundant. 210
hasce igitur crm ventus agens contrusit In unum
eompressitque locum cogens, expressa profundunt
semina quae faciunt flammae fulgere colores.
fulgit item, cum rarescunt quoque nubila caeli.
nam cum ventus eas leviter diducit euntis 5
dissoluitque, cadant ingratis illa necessest
ΒΟ δ quae faciunt fulgorem. tum sine taetro
terrore et sonitu fulgit nulloque tumultu.

Quod superest, quali natura praedita constent
fulmina, declarant ictus et inusta vaporis
signa notaeque gravis halantis sulpuris auras.
ignis enim sunt haee non venti signa neque imbris.
praeterea saepe accendunt quoque tecta domorum
et celeri flanma dominantur in aedibus ipsis.
hunce tibi subtilem cum primis ignibus ignem
constitmt natura minutis mobilibusque
corporibus, cul mil omnino obsistere possit.
transit enim validum fulmen per saepta domorum,
clamor ut ac voces, transit per saxa, per aera,
et hquidum puncto facit aes in tempore et aurum,
curat item vasis mtegris vina repente
diffugiant, quia nimirum facile omnia circum
conlaxat rareque facit lateramina vasis
adveniens calor eius et msinuatus in ipsum
mobiliter soluens differt primordia vini. 2

κι

bo
to
O

το
to
tn

i)
ῳ.
O

(om)
μι

Flor. 31 Camb. Mar, for Flammeusq. splendidus ollis Flor. 31 Mar. Camb. corr. but
p. m., Mar. for splendidusolis. 209 Quin etiam Lach. for Quippe enim.
Quippe etenim vulg. 210 rubeant Flor. 31 Camb. Brix. Pont. Mar. for
iubeant. 213 fulgere. fulgore Avane. Lach. in defiance of Epicurus and
Lucretius assigning colour to atoms. 216 ingratis Pius in notes for in-
gratius, 218 sonitu Vat. 1954 Othob. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for sonis. sonitis
Flor. 31 Camb. oue Vat. atque sonis Pont. 219 quali added by Lamb.
quod sic Flor. 31 Camb. 220 ictus et Flor. 31 Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg.
for ictu et. ictu loca Lach. 221 auras Mon. (or Mar.) Junt. for auris.

223 saepe Is. Voss. in ms. notes for se. per se Flor. 31 vulg. 226 mobili-
busque Ald. 1 Junt. (not Pont. or Mar.) for montibusque. 228 229 Lach. makes one
verse out of these two by omitting pers. ἃ. C.utacv. tr. 229 saxa B corr. for sasca,

231 Curatitem. Curatutei Lach. Curat item ut Lamb.: but surely there is sufficient
authority for omitting ut after curat. 234 et insinuatus Lach. for ut insinnatus.

17—2

260 VI

quod solis vapor aetatem non posse videtur
efficere usque adeo pellens fervore corusco :
tanto mobilior vis et dominantior haec est.
Nunc ea quo pacto gignantur et impete tanto
fiant ut possint ictu discludere turris, 240
disturbare domos, avellere tigna trabesque,
et monimenta virum demolir atque cremare,
exanimare homines, pecudes prosternere passim,
cetera de genere hoc qua vi facere omnia possint,
expediam, neque te in promissis plura morabor. 245
Fulmina gignier e crassis alteque putandumst
nubibus extructis; mam caclo nulla sereno
nec leviter densis mittuntur nubibus umquam.
nam dubio procul hoc fieri manifesta docet res ;
quod tum per totum concrescunt aera nubes, 250
undique uti tenebras omnis Acherunta reamur
liquisse et magnas cacli complesse cavernas:
usque adeo taetra nimborum nocte coorta
inpendent atrae formidinis ora superne :
cum commoliri tempestas fulmina coeptat. 255
praeterea persaepe niger quuque per mare nimbus,
ut picis ec caelo demissum flumen, 11 undas
sic cadit effertus tenebris procul et trahit atram
fulmmibus gravidam tempestatem atque procellis,
ignibus ac ventis cum primis ipse repletus, 260
in terra quoque ut horrescant ac tecta requirant.
sic igitur supera nostrum caput esse putandumst
tempestatem altam. neque enim caligine tanta
obruerent terras, nisi inaedificata superne

ut insinuatur Nicc. Flor. 31 Camb. vulg.: but ut for ubi is not Lucretian. 287
pellens Ed. for tellens. tollens A corr. Nicc. pollens Lamb. vulg. Lach. cellens
Wak. 241 tigna Lamb. first (not Flor. 31) for igna. ligna Nice. later mss,
and eds, before Lamb. 242 demoliri Mar. Ald, 1 Junt. for commoliri: prepo-
sitions seem often to be confounded in our mss. cremare Ed. for ciere which has
no meaning: the last letters, which were on the outside margin of this the 259th
page of the archetype, were lost. lamenta Lach. for monimenta: a violent change
which destroys the whole force of the passage. 245 te added by Flor. 31
Camb. Pont. Mar. 246 gignier Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for gigni. nune gigni Flor.
31 Camb. crassis Nice. for classis. 250 tum Lach. for tunc. 257 demis-
sum flumen Junt. for dimissum fulmen. demissum fulmen Mar. Avance. which is
repeated as a correction at the end of his Catullus and must be a misprint for

Vell | 261

multa forent multis exempto nubila sole ; 265
nec tanto possent venientes opprimere imbri,

flumina abundare ut facerent camposque natare,

si non extructis foret alte nubibus aether.

hic igitur ventis atque ignibus ommia plena

sunt; ideo passim fremitus et fulgura finnt. 270
quippe etenim supra docui permulta vaporis

semina habere cavas nubes et multa necessest

concipere ex solis radius ardoreque eorum.

hoe ubi ventus eas idem qui cogit in unum

forte locum quemvis, expressit multa vaporis 275
seinina seque simul cum eo commiscuit igi,

insinuatus ibi vortex versatur in arto

et calidis acuit fulmen fornacibus intus.

nam duplici ratione accenditur, ipse sua cum

mobilitate calescit et e contagibus ignis. 280
inde ubi percaluit venti vis οὐ gravis ignis

impetus incessit, maturum tum quasi fulmen

perseindit subito nubem, ferturque coruscis

omnia luminibus lustrans loca percitus ardor.

quem gravis insequitur sonitus, displosa repente 285
opprimere ut caeli videatur templa superne.

inde tremor terras graviter pertemptat et altum

murmura percurrunt caelum; nam tota fere tum
tempestas concussa tremit fremitusque moventur.

quo de concussu sequitur gravis imber et uber, 290
omnis uti videatur in imbrem vertier aether

atque ita praecipitans ad diluviem revocari:

tantus discidio nubis ventique procella

mittitur, ardenti sonitus cum provolat ictu.

est etlam cum vis extrinsecus incita venti 295

flumen. 258 effertus Lach. for et fertus. et fertur vulg. 269 plena Flor.
31 Camb. Mon. etc. for plana. 272 habere Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for
haeedere. hac de re Nice. 277 arto Lach. for alto. 281 venti vis et
gravis ignis Bentl. for gravis venti vis igni. gravida, aut vis ignis et acer Lach.
vis venti vel gravis ignis Mar. Junt. Lamb. ete. 286 videatur Ed. for videan-
tur: the scribe has adapted the verb to templa: see 1 1108: in 467 videatur mss.
for videantur. Lach. reads Exprimere for Opprimere, Bern. Occidere. 290 concussu
B corr. Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for concussws. 291 uti Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt.
for ut. ita ut Flor. 31 Camb. 292 revocari Lach. for revocare. 296 calidam

262 VI

incidit in ealidam maturo fulmine nubem ;

quam cum perseidit, extemplo cadit igneus ille

vertex quem patrio vocitamus nomine fulmen.

hoc fit idem in partis alias, quocumque tulit vis.

fit quoque ut interdum venti vis missa sine ignl

igniscat tamen in spatio longoque meatu,

dum venit, amittens in cursu corpora quaedam

grandia quae nequeunt pariter penetrare per auras;

atque alia ex ipso conradens aere portat

parvola quae faciunt ignem commixta volando ;

non alia longe ratione ae plumbea saepe

fervida fit glans in cursu, cum multa rigoris

corpora dimittens ignem concepit in auris.

fit quoque ut ipsius plagae vis excitet ignem,

frigida cum venti pepulit vis missa sine igni,

nimirum quia, cum vementi perculit ictu,

confluere ex ipso possunt elementa vaporis

et simul ex illa quae tum res excipit ictum;

ut, lapidem ferro cum caedimus, evolat ignis,

nec, quod frigida vis ferrist, hoc setius illi

semina concurrunt calidi fulgoris ad ictum.

sic igitur quoqne res aecendi fulmine debet,

opportuna fuit si forte et idonea flammis.

nec temere omnino plane vis frigida venti

esse potest, ea quae tanta vl missa supernest,

quin, prius in cursu si non accenditur 1gni,

at tepefacta tamen veniat commixta ealore.
Mobilitas autem fit fulminis et gravis ictus,

et celeri ferme pereurrunt fulmina lapsu,

nubibus ipsa quod omnino prius incita se vis

300

395

310

320

325

Bern. rightly for valida. gravidam Bentl. Lach. fulmine Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for
culmine. 298 patrio Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat. ete. for spatio. quam spatio (quem
patrio) Ver. Ven. Latio Bcorr., perhaps rightly. quem. quod Camb. 2 Vat. Mar.
Junt. Lamb, 302 Dum venit, amittens. ‘Immo Cum venit amittens: alioquin
oratio non constat’ Lach. 308 concepit Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. Ver. Ven. for
concipit. 309 ipsius Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for ipsis. 315 illt Lach. for ille.
illa Flor. 31 vulg. 320 ea quae Lach. first for ex quae. ex quo vulg. without
sense. tanta vi missa Flor. 31 Camb. 2 Vat. Pont. for tantaumissa. tanta immissa
Nice. Ver. tanta vi immissa Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. 321 cursu si Flor. 31 Camb. for
cursus. 323 Mobilitas A corr. Camb. etc. for Nobilitas. 324 Et Mar. Nauger. for

At. AcJunt, Wak. percurrunt Lach. for percunt. pergunt A corr. Nicc.

iam per-

VI 263
colligit et magnum conamen sumit eundi,
inde ubi non potuit nubes capere inpetis auctum,
exprimitur vis atque ideo volat impete miro,
ut validis quae de tormentis missa feruntur.
adde quod e parvis et levibus est eletmentis, 330
nec facilest tali naturae opsistere quicquam ;
inter enim fugit ac penetrat per rara viarum,
non igitur multis offensibus in remorando
haesitat, hane ob rem celeri volat impete labens.
deinde, quod omnino natura pondera deorsum 335

omma mituntur, cum plagast addita vero,

mobilitas duplicatur et impetus ille gravescit,

nt vementius et citius quaecumque morantur

obvia discutiat plagis itinerque sequatur.

denique quod longo venit tmpete, sumere debet 340
mobilitatem etiam atque ctiam, quae crescit eundo

et validas auget viris et roborat ictum.

nam facit ut quae sint illius semima cumque

e regione locum quasi in unum cuncta ferantur,

omnia coniciens in eum volventia cursum. 345
forsitan ex ipso veniens trahat aere quaedam

corpora quae plagis incendunt mobilitatem.

incolumisque venit per res atque integra transit

multa, foraminibus hquidus quia transvolat ignis.
multaque perfringit, cum corpora fulminis ipsa 350
corporibus rerum inciderunt, qua texta tenentur.
dissoluit porro facile aes aurumque repente
confervefacit, e parvis quia facta minute
corporibus vis est et levibus ex elementis,

quae facile insinuantur et imsinuata repente
dissoluont nodos omnis et vincla relaxant.
autumnoque magis stellis fulgentibus apta

Gp
A
mn

gunt Flor. 31 Camb. 2 Vat. perguntsic Mar. Jant. Lamb. 335 Deinde, quod. Adde
quod Lach. which seems to me much weaker than the ms. reading. 336 plagast
Lach. for plaga si. plaga sit Flor. 31 Camb. all before Lach. 347 incendunt
B rightly. incedunt A Niece. intendunt Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. ete. 349
transvolat Nauger. vulg. for transviat. trameat Gif. 350 perfringit Mar.
Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. for perfrigit B, perfigit A, perfregit A corr. all later mss. Ver.
Ven.: comp. 138 perfringens A corr. vulg. perfingens A, perfrigens B. Lach. keeps
perfigit, which can hardly be right. 397 apta Turnebus Bentl. Wak. Lach. for

264 VI

concutitur caeli domus undique totaque tellus,
et cum tempora se veris florentia pandunt.
frigore enim desunt ignes ventique calore 360
deficiunt neque sunt tam denso corpore nubes.
interutrasque igitur cum caeli tempora constant,
tum variae causae concurrunt fulminis omnes.
nam fretus ipse anni permiscet frigus et aestum,
quorum utrumque opus est fabricanda ad fulmina nubi, 365
ut discordia si¢ rerum magnoqgue tumultu
ignibus et ventis furibundus fluctuet aer.
prima caloris enim pars et postrema rigoris,
tempus id est vernum; quare pugnare necessest
dissimilis res inter se turbareque muixtas. 370
et calor extremus primo cum frigore mixtus
volvitur, autumni quod fertur nomine tempus,
hic quoque confligunt hiemes aestatibus acres.
propterea freta sunt haec anni nominitanda,
nec mirumst, in eo si tempore plurima fiunt 375
fulmina tempestasque cietzr turbida caelo,
ancipiti quomam bello turbatur utrimque,
hine flammis illine ventis umoreque mixto.
Hoc est ignifer] naturam fulminis ipsam
perspicere et qua vi faciat rem quamque videre, 380
non Tyrrhena retro volventem carmina frustra
indicia occultae divum perquirere mentis,
unde volans ignis pervenerit aut in utram se
verterit hinc partim, quo pacto per loca saepta
insinuarit, et hinc dominatus ut extulerit se, 385
quidve nocere queat de caelo fulminis ictus.

alta. 359 se veris Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. etc. for seris. seris (veris) Ver. Ven.

360 calore Mar. ap. Victor. in ed. Ven. Ald. 1 Junt. for calores. 362 Interu-
trasque. Interutraque Lach. 364 et added by Mar. Junt. frigidus aestum
Nice. to Avance. ad aestum Nonius. 365 nubi Lach. for nobis which has no
sense, 366 sit added by Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. sic Flor. 31 Camb. 368 et,
rigoris Mar. Junt. vulg. for est, ligoris. Lach. keeps est, and for id reads ut.

370 res inter se Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat. for inter se. inter se res Ver. Ven. Mar.
vulg. Lach. wrongly, as inter se is metrically one word. 374 freta added by
Lach. most acutely. Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. vulg. add bella after haec. 375 60 si
B corr. Lamb. for eos. st in eo sic Camb. Mar. si in eo tum Avance. si in 60 iam
Pont. Junt. 376 cietur turbida B corr. Flor. 31 Camb. Brix. for cie turbida.

382 mentis Flor. 31 Camb. 2 Vat. Mar. for menti. 384 hine Mar. Lach. for hic,

Ἢ 265

quod si Iuppiter atque aln fulgentia divi

terrifico quatinnt sonitu caelestia templa

et lucilunt ignem quo quoiquest cumque voluptas,

eur qiibus incautum seelus aversabile cumquest 390
non faciunt icti flammas ut fulguris halent

peetore perfixo, documen mortalibus aerc,

et potius nulla 5101 turpl conscius in re

volvitur in flammis mnoxius inque peditur .
turbine caclesti subito correptus et igmi ? 395
cur etiam loca sola petunt frustraque laborant ?

an tum braecchia consuescunt firmantque lacertos ?

in terraque patris cur το ἢ perpetiuntur

optundi? cur ipse sinit neque parcit in hostis ἢ

denique cur numquam caelo lacit undique puro 400
Tuppiter an terras fulmen somtusque profundit ?

an simul ac nubes successere, 1pse mm eas tum

descendit, prope ut hine teli determinet ictus ?

in mare qua porro mittit ratione ? quid undas

arguit et hquidam molem camposque natantis 7 405
praeterea si vult caveamus fulminis ictum,

cur dubitat facere ut possimus cernere missum ?

51 nec opinantis autem volt opprimere igni,

cur tonat ex illa parte, ut vitare queamus,

cur tenebras ante et fremitus et murmura concit ? 410
et simul in multas partis qui credere possis

mittere ? an hoc ausis numquam contendere factum,

ut fierent ictus uno sub tempore plures ?

at saepest numero factum fierique necessest,

ut pluere in multis regiombus et cadere imbris, 415
fulmina sic uno fier1 sub tempore multa.

postremo cur sancta deum delubra suasque

discutit infesto praeclaras fulmine sedes

et bene facta deum frangit simulacra suisque

demit imaginibus violento volnere honorem ? 420
as in 88. 389 quo quoiquest. quo cuigue est Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. etc. for quo
inquest. voluptas Junt. first (not Flor, 31 or Mar.) for voluntas. 401 Iuppiter

in terras Nice. B corr. for Iuppiterras: but both B and Nice. spell lupiter. 402
ipse in eas tum Lamb. first for ipse in aestum. ipsus in acstum Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat.
Mar. Wak. 406 Praeterea. Propterea A Nice. si vult Avance. Candidus at
end of Junt. Nauger. for si vivit B, si iuvit A, senuit Nice. sevi ut Flor. 31 Camb.

206 VI

altaque cur plerumque petit loca plurimaque eius
montibus in summis vestigia cernimus ignis ?
Quod superest, facilest ex his cognoscere rebus,
presteras Grai quos ab re nominitarunt,
in mare qua missi veniant ratione superne. 425
nam fit ut interdum tamquam demissa columna
in mare de caelo descendat, quam freta circum
fervescunt graviter spirantibus incita flabris,
et quaeccumque in eo tum sint deprensa tumultu
navigia in summum veniant vexata periclum. 430
hoc fit ubi interdum non quit vis incita venti
rumpere quam coepit nubem, sed deprimit, ut sit
in mare de caelo tamquam demissa columna,
paulatim, quasi quid pugno bracchique superne
coniectu trudatur et extendatur in undas ; 435
quam cum discidit, hinc prorumpitur in mare venti
vis et fervorem mirum concinnat in undis;
versabundus enim turbo descendit et illam
deducit pariter lento cum corpore nubem ;
quam simul ac gravidam detrusit ad aequora ponti, 440
ille in aquam subito totum se inmittit et omne
excitat ingenti sonitu mare fervere cogens.
fit quoque ut involvat venti se nubibus ipse
vertex conradens ex aere semina nubis
et quasi demissum caelo prestera imitetur. 445
hic ubi se in terras demisit dissoluitque,
turbinis immanem vim provomit atque procellae.
sed quia fit raro omnino montisque necessest
officere in terris, apparet crebrius idem
prospectu maris in magno caeloque patenti. 450
Nubila concrescunt, ubi corpora multa volando

saevi ut Mar. Junt. 421 loca B corr. Flor. 31 Camb, Mon. Ver. Ven. for ioca.
que etus Lach. for que plus. que hutus Lamb. 424 Grai Flor. 31 Camb.
Brix. for Grali. Graii B corr. Mar. Graiei Lach.: Lucretius wrote either Graiei
or Grat, not Graii, 426 tamquam Flor. 31 Camb. Ver. Ven. Mar. for tam cum.
428 incita Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. ete. for lacita. 430 veniant Lach. for veniunt:
Flor. 31 Mar. Junt. Lamb. vulg. keep veniunt, and 429 read sunt. 440 detrusit
Lamb. first for detruit. detrudit A corr. Nicc. 447 procellae Flor. 31 Vat. 640
Urbin. Vat. 1136 Othob. Mar. for procellat which Wak. absurdly retains. 449
Officere Flor, 31 Camb, Mon. for Oficerct. 452 supero Lach. for super. supera

¥I

to
CV
NI

hoc supero m eaeli spatio coiere repente

asperiora, Moris quae possint indupedita

exiguis tamen inter se comprensa teneri.

hace faciunt primum parvas consistere mubes ; 48ξ
inde haee comprendunt inter se conque gregantur

et coniungendo crescunt ventisque feruntur

usque adeo donee tempestas saeva coortast.

fit quoque uti montis vicina cacumina caclo

quam sint quoque magis, tanto magis edita fument 460
adsidue furvae nubis caligine crassa

propterea quia, cum consistunt nubila primun,

ante videre ocull quam possint, tenvia, venti

portantes cogunt ad summa cacumina montis.

hic demum fit uti turba maiore coorta 465
et condensa queant apparere οὔ simul ipso

vertice de montis videantur surgere in aethram.

nam loca declarat sursum ventosa patere

res ipsa et sensus, montis cum ascendimus altos,

praeterea permulta mari quoque tollere toto 470
corpora naturam declarant litore vestes

suspensae, cum concipiunt umoris adhaesum.

quo magis ad nubis augendas multa videntur

posse quoque ὁ salso consurgere momine pont ;

nam ratio consanguineast umoribus ollis. 475
praeterea fluviis ex ommibus et simul ipsa

Lamb. conj. coiere Flor. 31 Camb. Brix. Mar. for coire. 453 moris Lach. for
modis: a certain correction. 454 comprensa Mar. Lamb. for compressa. 456
haec lach. for ea: ea might possibly be defended by 188, and 215 eus: see notes 2
there: but the harshness would be very great. 460 quoque. quaeque Camb.
2 Vat. Ald. 1 Mar. Junt. Lamb. etc. wrongly. 461 furvae Benil. Lach. for
Julvae. nubis Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for nubes. 465 turba maiore Pont. Mar. Ald.
1 Junt. for turbammor. turba minore Flor. 31 Camb. 466 Et condensa
queant apparere Lach. most acutely for Et conlensatque arta parere. Et condensa
atque arta Flor. 31, 3 Vat. Pont. Mar. Avance. at end of Catullus. 467 vide-
autur Flor. 31 Camb. Vat. 640 Urbin. 1136 Othob. Lamb. for rideatur. 468
loca Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. Junt. for lo. so Nice. se Brix. Ver. Ven. Ald. 1. 469
et sensus Avanc. for et sensum: Mar. Junt. Nauger. have ad sensun. 473 Quo
magis Mon. Ald. 1 Junt. for Quod magis. 474 consurgere momine Flor. 31
Camb. Vat. 1136 and 1954 Othob. Mar. for consurgerem homine. 475 consan-
guineast Is. Voss. in ms, notes for consanguinea se. cum sanguine ob eumoribus
Nice. cum sanguine abest Flor. 31 Camb. 4 Vat. Lamb. ollis Lach. for ownis.
Avance. at end of Catullus says ‘non percipio illum mancum versum Nam ratio cun

268 VI

surgere de terra nebulas aestumque videmus,
quae velut halitus hine ita sursum expressa feruntur
suffunduntque sua caelum caligine et altas
sufficiunt nubis paulatim conveniundo; 480
urget enim quoque signiferi super aetheris aestus
et quasi densendo subtexit caerula nimbis.
fit quoque ut hue veniant in caclum extrinsecus ila
corpora quae faciunt nubis nimbosque volantis;
innumerabilem enim numerum summamque profundi 485
esse infinitam docui, quantaque volarent
corpora mobilitate ostendi quamque repente
inmemorabile per spatium transire solerent.
haut igitur mirumst si parvo tempore saepe
montibu’ tam magnis tempestas atque tenebrae 490
coperlunt maria ac terras inpensa superne,
undique quandoquidem per caulas aetheris omnis
et quasi per magni circum spiracula mundi
exitus introitusque elementis redditus extat.

Nune age, quo pacto pluvius concrescat in altis 495
nubibus umor et in terras demissus ut imber
decidat, expediam. primum iam semina aquai
multa simul vineam consurgere nubibus ipsis
omnibus ex rebus pariterque ita crescere utrumque
et nubis et aquam quaecumque in nubibus extat, 500
ut pariter nobis corpus cum sanguine crescit,
sudor item atque umor quicumque est denique membris.
concipiunt etiam multum quoque saepe marinum
wmorem, veluti pendentia vellera lanae,
cum supera magnum mare venti nubila portant. 505

sanguine ab humoribus omnis’; which he found in Ven. 483 huc Vat. 3276
Avane. for hunc. hine Flor. 31 Camb. 2 Vat. Mon. hune coetum Mar. Junt. Lamb.
vulg. ilia Flor. 31 Camb. Vat. 640 Urbin. Mar. for illi A, ille B. 488 per
added by Pont. Mar. Junt. 490 Montibu’ tam magnis Ed. for Tam magnis
montis: Tam magnis montib. was the first corruption: see 189 and 1v 140. Tam
magnis nimbis Lach. Tam magnae molis Bern. Tam magnos montis Pont. Mar. Ald.
1 Junt. vulg. 491 Coperiunt Lach. rightly for Coperiant. [I now think it pro-
bable that Lucr. wrote coperiant as given by the mss: compare Cic. Laelius 29 quid
mirum est st animi hominum moveantur 2 see Mueller ap. Seyffert p. 206: so here
Lucr. seems to realise a special case before his eyes.] 492 caulas Mar. Ald, 1
Juut. for cavias. 496 demissus Flor. 31 Mon. Lamb. for dimissus.

498 vincam Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. Ver, Ven. for vineam. 503 Concipiunt

VI 269

consimili ratione ex omnibus amnibus umor
tollitur in nubis. quo cum bene semina aquarum
niuuta modis multis convenere undique adaueta,
confertae nubes wmorem mittere certant
dupliciter; nam vis venti contrudit et ipsa 510
copia nimborum turba maiore coacta
urget, de supero premit ac facit efHuere imbris.
praeterea cum rarescunt quoque nubila ventis
aut dissolvuntur, solis super icta calore,
mittunt umorem pluvium stillantque, quasi igni 515
cera super calido tabescens multa liqueseat.
sed vemens imber fit, wbi vementer utraque
nubila vi cumulata premuntur ef impete venti.
atque tenere diu pluviae longumque morari
consuerunt, ubi multa cientur semina aquarum 520
atque aliis aliae nubes nimbique ngantes
lusuper atque omm vulgo de parte feruntur,
terraque cum fumans umorem tota redhalat.
hic ubi sol radiis tempestatem inter opacam
adversa fulsit nimborum aspargine contra, 5
tum color in nigris existit nubibus arqui.
Cetera quae sorsum crescunt sorsumque creantur,
et quae concreseunt in nubibus, omnia, prorsum
omnia, mix venti grando gelidaeque pruinae
et vis magna geli, magnum duramen aquarum, 530
et mora quae fluvios passim refrenat euntis,

ἴω
μι

Brix. Pont. Mar. for Concidiunt. 509 wmorem Ed. for vi venti which as
Creech has seen comes from the vis venti of 510: he proposes imbres tum: what
Lucr. wrote must be quite uncertain. wmentia Lach. after a conj. of Wak. 511
turba natore Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. for turbam more: the same error as in 465, minore
Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat. 512 Urget de supero Lach. for Urgete supero. Urget
et e supero A corr. Nice. vulg. 515 stillantque B corr. Lamb. fer stillante.

516 Cera Flor. 31 Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt.for Tela. Teda B corr. 518 v7.
aquis Lach. thereby ruining the sense. 519 Atque tenere Lach. for At
retineret. At remanere Bern. 520 cientur Lach. from a conj. of Wak., for
fientur. fluentur Flor. 31 Camb. Wak. fuerunt Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. 523
umorem, humorem AB: often as this and cognate words occur, this is the only
instance where B has the aspirate: A has it in three other places: 11114 Umor ad
humorem ἃ. redhalat Is. Voss. in ms. notes for redralat: he also proposes relatrat
“1.6. reposcit’, rehalat A corr. vulg. 524 inter Nice. for inte B, ime A.

527 sorsum...sorsumque Koch in Rhein. mus. n. f. vir p. 640 for sursum...strsum-
que. cursu...cursuque Lach. 531 euntis B corr. Pont. Avance. for avintis. aventis

270 vel

perfacilest tamen haee reperire animoque videre
omnia quo pacto fiant quareve creentur,
cum bene cognoris elementis reddita quae sint.
Nune age quae ratio terrai motibus extet 535
percipe. et in primis terram fac ut esse rearis
supter item ut supera ventosis undique plenam
syeluncis multosque lacus multasque lucunas
in gremio gerere et rupes deruptaque saxa;
multaque sub tergo terrai flumina tecta 540
volvere vi fluctus summersaque saxa putandumst ;
undique eniin similem esse sui res postulat ipsa.
his igitur rebus subiunctis suppositisque
terra superne tremit magnis concussa ruinis,
subter ubi ingentis speluncas subruit aetas ; 545
quippe cadunt ἰοῦ! montes magnoque repente
eoncussu late disserpunt inde tremores.
et merito, quoniam plaustri concussa tremeseunt
tecta viam propter non magno pondere tota,
nec minus exultant, ut scrupus cumque vial 550
ferratos utrimque rotarum succutit orbes.
fit quoque, ubi in magnas aqiiae vastasque lucunas
gleba vetustate e terra provolvitur ingens,
ut iactetur aquae fluctu quoque terra vacillans;

A corr. aquantis Flor. 31 Mar. Junt. 533 fiant Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for fluant.
536 terram Flor. 31 Camb. ete. for terras. 537 supera Avance. for super.
supra est Mar. Junt. supera’st Lamb. etc. ventosis Wak. for ventis, ‘egregie’ says
Lach. justly. 541 summersaque sara Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat, Mar. vulg. for
summersosca. ‘summerso capte i.e. capite. sic Enn. Capitibus nutantes pinus’ Is.
Voss. in ms. notes. 542 similem Junt. first for simile. esse sui Ald. 1 Junt.
for esse vi. simile esse et par Mar. 548 plaustri Lach. for plaustris. 550
exultant, ut scrupus cumque viai Ed, for erultantes dupnis cumque vim: see notes 2:
Lach. rightly saw that vim meant viai: so 465 and 511 the mss, have mmore for
maiore; but the rest of his reading et ubi lapi’ cumque seems to me to pervert the
meauing, as Luer. is giving two distinct instances of great results from small causes;
and it would be a really monstrous exaggeration to say that houses shake in the
way a carriage does, when the wheels are struck up by a stone on the road, τὲ
cwrrus cumque equum vi Flor. 31 Camb. and 8 Vat.: but Camb. in text and Vat.
1136 Othob.in marg. have also the ms. reading. wbi currus cunque equitum vi Mar.
Junt. Lamb. ed. 1. wbi currus fortis equum vis ed. 2 and 3, the fortis equum vis
being from Avance. aedes, ubi cumque equitum vis Wak. sola Pisacumque flumen Is.
Voss. in ms. notes: he adds eum after Ferratos. 5d2 in nagnas aqgiiae. magnas in
aquae Lamb, vulg. before Lach. 554 vacillaus B corr. Avance. for vacillas.

VI 271

ut vas interdum non quit constare, nisi umor 555
destitit in dubio fluctu iactarier intus.

Praeterea ventus cum per loca subcava terrae
collectus parte ex una procumbit et urget
obnixus magnis speluncas viribus altas,
incumbit tellus quo venti prona premit vis. 500
tum supera terram quae sunt extructa domorum
ad caelumque magis quanto sunt edita quaeque,
inchnata tument in eandem prodita partem
protractaeque trabes inpendent ire paratae.
et metuunt magni naturam eredere mundi 565
exitiale aliquod tempus clademque manere,
cum videant tantam terrarum incumbere molem!
quod nisi respirent venti, vis nulla refrenet
res neque ab exitio possit reprehendere euntis.
nune quia respirant alternis Inque gravescunt 570
et quasi collecti redeunt ceduntque repulsi,
saeplus hane ob rem minitatur terra ruinas
quam facit; inclinatur enim retroque recellit
et recipit prolapsa suas in pondere sedes.
hac igitur ratione vacillant omnia tecta, 575
summa magis mediis, media imis, ima _perhilum.

Est haec eiusdem quoque magni causa tremoris,
ventus ubi atque animae subito vis maxima quaedam
aut extrinsecus aut ipsa tcllure coorta
in loca se cava terrai coniecit ibique 580
speluncas inter magnas fremit ante tumultu
versabundaque portatur, post incita cum vis

555 inter dum Lach. for inter. in terra Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. perhaps rightly.

563 Inclinata tument Ed. with Vat. 3276 for Inclinata minent: the tu was
absorbed by the preceding ta and then ment passed iuto minent: the Verona palimp-
sest of Lucan v 160 has consultamultu for consulta tumultu: comp. 1195 tenta mebat
of mss. for tenta tumebat, and v 1409 servare genus for servare recens. Inclinata
meant Lach. abeunt Bern. minant Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt.: see Prisc.
inst. vit1 29: I wrongly read minantur in small ed. micant Pius in text. Lamb.
retains minent. At the end of this verse A and Nicc. have a. a. q. 4. B has
aqueq. which Bern. praef. p. 111 thinks a mere repetition of the end of 562, A intro-
ducing a further corruption: but Nicc. proves that the archetype agreed with A,
not B. 568 venti, vis nulla Mar. Wak. for ventis nulla. 574 in pondere A
Nice. vulg. rightly. in pondera Β Turneb. Lach. The passages I quote in notes 2
will prove that Turneb. and Lach. are quite mistaken in supposing that the sing.

5.2 VI

exagitata foras erumpitur et simul altam
difindens terram magnum concinnat hiatum.
in Syria Sidone quod accidit et fuit Aegi 535
in Peloponneso, quas exitus hie animai
disturbat urbes et terrae motus obortus.
multaque praecterea ceciderunt moenia magnis
motibus in terris et multae per mare pessum
subsedere suis pariter cum civibus urbes. 590
quod nisi prorumpit, tamen impetus ipse animal
et fera vis venti per crebra foramina terrae
dispertitur ut horror et incutit inde tremorem;
frigus uti nostros penitus cum vemit in artus,
concutit invitos cogens tremere atque movere. 595
ancipiti trepidant igitur terrore per urbis,
tecta superne timent, metuunt inferne cavernas
terrai ne dissoluat natura repente,
neu distracta snum late dispandat hiatum
adque suis confusa velit complere ruinis. 600
proinde licet quamvis caelum terramque reantur
incorrupta fore aeternae mandata salut;
et tamen interdum praesens vis ipsa pericli
subdit et hune stimulum quadam de parte timoris,
ne pedibus raptim tellus subtracta feratur 605
in barathrum rerumque sequatur prodita summa
funditus et fiat mundi confusa ruina.
[Principio mare mirantur non reddere maius
naturam, quo sit tantus decursus aquarum,
omnia quo veniant ex omni flumina parte. 610
adde vagos imbris tempestatesque volantes,
omnia quae maria ac terras sparguntque rigantque;
adde suos fontis; tamen ad maris omnia summam

cannot be used in the same sense as the plur. 582 que added by Flor. 31
Camb. Pont. ete. 585 Syria. Tyria Lamb. etc. without cause. 586
quas Avance, for qua. 588 ceciderunt Mon. Ver. Ven. for cecideret. cecidere et
Flor. 31 Camb. 589 pessum Nicc. B corr. for possum. 600 Adque Lach.

for Idque. Imque Lamb. in the additions to ed. 3. 604 Subdit et hune A Flor. 31
Camb. ete. Subdita et hunc BA corr. Nicc. Subdit athuc Lach. Subditat hune
Mar. Junt. Lamb. etc. 605 subtracta Nice. for substructa. 608—638 are
proved by Lach. to be quite unconnected with what precedes or follows. Mar. Junt.
vulg. prefix this verse Nuue ratio reddenda augmen cur nesctat aequor. 609

vi 278

guttal vix instar erunt umus adaugmen;

quo minus est mirum mare non augescere magnum. 615
praecterea magnam sol partem detrahit aestu.

quippe videmus enim vestis umore madentis

exsiccare suis radiis ardentibu’ solem:

at pelage multa et late substrata videmus.

proinde licet quamvis ex uno quoque loco sol 620
umoris parvam delibet ab aequore partem ;

largiter in tanto spatio tamen auferet undis.

tum porro venti quoque magnam tollere partem

umoris possunt verrentes aequora, ventis

una nocte vias quoniam persaepe videmus 625
sicear) mollisque luti: conerescere crustas.

praeterea docui multum quoque tollere nubes

umorem magno conceptum ex aequore ponti

et passim toto terrarum spargere in orbi,

eum pluit in terris et venti nubila portant. 630
postremo quoniam raro cum corpore tellus

est, et coniunctast, oras maris undique cingens,

debet, ut in mare de terris venit umor aquai,

in terras itidem manare ex aequore salso;

percolatur enim virus retroque remanat 635
materies umoris et ad caput amnibus omnis

confluit, inde super terras redit agmine dulci

qua via secta semel liquido pede detulit undas.]

Nune ratio quae sit, per fauces montis ut Aetnae
expirent ignes interdum turbine tanto, 640
expediam. neque enim mediocri clade coorta
flammea tempestas Siculum dominata per agros
finitimis ad se convertit gentibus ora,

Naturam Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. first for Natura. 614 adaugmen. ad augmen
Nice. followed by all mss. and eds. before Lach. 616 magnam sol Pont. Junt.
for sol magnam. magnam partem sol Mar. 624 aequora, ventis Lach. for
aequora venti. aequora ponti Nicc. vulg. perhaps rightly, as the words are often
confused: comp. 1 276: and ventis is somewhat awkward. 629 orbi Mar. Junt.
for orbis. orbe Flor. 31 Camb. Avance. 632 maris B corr. Pont. Mar. Junt.
(not Flor. 31) for magis. 638 pede detulit A corr. for pede tulit. 641
mediocri clade coorta Is. Voss. in ms. notes for media grecia de coorta: a fine and
certain correction. media de glade Vat. 1954 Othob. media de clade two Vat. Pius
in notes, Nauger. Lamb. media quae clade Avance. dia de clade Fab. Enceladi
de clade Bentl. before he knew Vossius’ emendation. 642 Flammea Heins. in

M. 18

vai

bo
Na
ae

fumida cum caeli seintillare omnia templa
cernentes pavida complebant pectora cura,
quid moliretur rerum natura novarum.

Hisce tibi in rebus latest alteque videndum
et longe cunctas in partis dispiciendum,
ut reminiscaris sammam rerum esse profundam
et videas caelum summai totius unum
quam sit parvula pars et quam multesima constet,
nee tota pars, homo terrai quota totius unus,
quod bene propositum si plane contueare
ac videas plane, mirarl multa relinquas.
numquis enim nostrum miratur siquis in artus
aecepit calido febrim fervore coortam
aut alium quemvis morbi per membra dolorem ?
opturgeseit enim subito pes, arripit acer
saepe dolor dentes, oculos invadit in ipsos,
existit sacer ignis et urit corpore serpens
quameumque arripuit partim, repitque per artus,
nimirum quia sunt multarum semina rerum,
et satis haee tellus nobis caelumque mali fert,
unde queat vis Immensi procrescere morbi.
sic igitur [ΟἿ] caelo terraeque putandumst
ex infinito satis omnia suppeditare,
unde repente queat tellus coneussa moveri
perque mare ae terras rapidus pereurrere turbo,
ignis abundare Aetnaeus, flammescere caelum ;
id quoque enim fit et ardescunt caelestia templa,
et tempestates pluviae graviore coortu
sunt, ubi forte ita se tetulerunt semina aquarum.
‘at nimis est ingens incendi turbidus ardor.’
scilicet et fluvius quivis est maximus ei
qui non ante aliquem maiorem vidit, et ingens
arbor homoque videtur, et omnia de genere omni

ms. notes for Flummae. 648 dispiciendum Nicc. for despiciendum.

645

650

055

660

665

670

675

652

corrupted by Mar. Junt. Lamb. ete. 653 propositum B corr. Ver. Ven. Mar.
for propositus. propositum est Flor. 31 Camb. plane B corr. Flor. 31 Camb. Mon.
for plani. 663 nobis Mar. Junt. Lamb. ete. for morbi which has come from
664. ordi Lach. 674 quivis est Bentl. for qui visus. quivis ut Heins. in ms.
notes, and Is. Voss, in ms. notes. qui non est Lamb. est is added after ei by Flor.

al 75

maxima quae vidit quisque, haec ingentia fingit,
cum tamen omnia cum caelo terraque marique
ml sint ad summam summai totius omnem.

Nune tamen illa modis qubus inritata repente 680
flamma foras vastis Aetnae fornacibus effet,
expediam. primum totius subcava montis
est natura, fere silicum suffulta caveruis.
omnibus est porro m speluncis ventus et acr;
ventus enim fit, ubi est agitando percitus aer. 685
hic ubi perealuit calefecitque ommia circum
saxa furens, qua contingit, terramque, et ab ollis
excussit calidum flammis velocibus ignem,
tollit se ac rectis ita faucibus eicit alte.
fert itaque ardorem longe longeque favillam 690
differt et crassa volvit caligine fumum
extruditque simul mirando pondere saxa;
ne dubites quin haec animai turbida sit vis.
practerea magna ex parti mare montis ad cius
radices frangit fluctus aestumque resorbet. 695
ex hoe usque mari speluncac montis ad altas
perveniunt subter fauces. hac ire fatendumst
et penetrare mari penitus res cogit aperto
atque efllare foras ideoque extollere flammam
saxaque subiectare et arenae tollere nimbos. 700
in summo sunt vertice enim crateres, ut 105]
nominitant ; nos quod fauces perhibemus et ora.

Sunt aliquot quoque res quarum unam dicere causam
non satis est, verum pluris, unde una tamen sit;

31 Camb. one Vat. Lamb. 683 fere silicum A corr. Flor. 31 Camb. for feres
illi cum. 687 contingit Flor. 31 Brix. Mar. for contigit. 690 Fert itaque
Heins. in ms. notes and Lach. for Fert ttque. Fecitque Nicc. Vertitque Is. Voss.
in ms. notes. 695 resorbet Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat. Mar. for resolvet: a fine
correction. 697 see Camb. Journ. of phil. 1 p. 40, where I said that at least
one verse is here lost: in the smaller ed. I proposed a verse such as this, Fluctibus
admixtam vim venti; intrareque ab isto: which will serve to shew the general
meaning. Lach. violently reads penitus percocta in apertum for penitus res cogit
aperto. 701 vertice enim Turneb. advers. xx11 19, Is. Voss. in ms. notes, Bentl.
for verticeni. Turneb. also proposes and seems to prefer vertigent which Lamb.
ed. 3 adopts from him. vertice item Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. 702 quod. quas Pont.

18—2

276 VI

corpus ut exanimum siquod procul ipse iacere 705
conspicias hominis, fit ut omnis dicere causas
conveniat leti, dicatur ut illius una.
nam neque eum ferro nec frigore vincere possis
interlisse neque a morbo neque forte veneno,
verum aliquid genere esse ex hoc quod contigit ΟἹ 710
scimus. item in multis hoc rebus dicere habemus.

Nilus in aestatem crescit campisque redundat,
unicus in terris Aegypti totius amis.
is rigat Aegyptum medium per saepe calorem,
aut quia sunt aestate aquilones ostia contra, yas
anni tempore eo qui etesiae esse feruntur,
et contra fluvium flantes remorantur et undas
cogentes sursus replent coguntque manere.
nam dubio procul haec adverso flabra feruntur
flumine, quae gelidis ab stellis axis aguntur. 720
ille ex aestifera parti venit amnis ab austro,
inter nigra virum pereocto saccla colore
exoriens penitus media ab regione dici.
est quoque uti possit magnus congestus harenae
fluctibus adversis oppilare ostia contra,
eum mare permotum ventis ruit intus harenam ;
quo fit uti pacto liber minus exitus amni
et proclivis item fiat minus impetus undis.
fit quoque uti pluviae forsan magis ad caput el
tempore eo fiant, quod etesia flabra aquilonum 730
nubila coniciunt in eas tune omnia partis.
scilicet ad mediam regionem electa diel
cum convenerunt, ibi ad altos denique montis
contrusae nubes coguntur vique premuntur.

ST
NO
μι

forsitan Aethiopum penitus de montibus altis 735
Mar. Junt. Lamb. ete. wrongly : see Lach. 111 94. 705 tacere Flor. 31 Camb.
Brix. Mar. for iaceret. 708 nam neque Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. for namque.

710 Verum Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for Utrum. contigit et (eii) Is. Voss. in ms. notes
for contioitel A, contioite B, contioites Nicc. two Vat.: a certain correction. concio
dicat Flor. 31 two Vat. Ald. 1 Lamb. ed. 1 and 3. concio credat Camb. one Vat.
Mon. Junt. Lamb. ed. 2. 719 fabra Flor. 31 Camb. Ver. Ven. for flabro.

727 amnt Mar. Junt. for amnis. 729 et AB Nicc. all Vat. Brix. Ver. Ven. eius
Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. before Lach. 730 quod Mar. Junt.
rightly for quo, as tunc follows: but as Junt. writes it compendiously, no one before

Vi 277

erescat, Ὁ] in campos albas descendere ningues
tabificis subigit radits sol omnia lustrans.

Nune age, Averna tibi quac sint loca cumque lacusque
expediam, quali natura praedita constent.
principio quod Averna vocantur nomine, id ab re 740
inpositumst, quia sunt avibus contraria cunctis,
€ regione ea quod loca cum venere volantes,
remigi oblitae pennarum vela remittunt
praeccipitesque cadunt molli cervice profusac
in terram, si forte ita fert natura locorum,
aut in aquam, si forte lacus substratus Avernist.
is locus est Cumas aput, acri sulpure montes
oppleti calidis ubi fumant fontibus aucti.
est et Athenacis in moenibus, arcis in ipso
vertice, Palladis ad templum Tritonidis almae, 750
quo numquam pennis appellunt corpora raucae
cornices, non cum fumant altaria donis:
usque adeo fugitant non iras Palladis acris
pervigili causa, Graium ut cecinere poetac,
sed natura loci ope sufficit ipsa suapte. 755
in Syria quoque fertur item locus esse videri,
quadripedes quoque quo simul ac vestigia primum
intulerint, graviter vis cogat concidere ipsa,
manibus ut si sint divis mactata repente.
omnia quae natural ratione geruntur, 760

NI]
ΟΣ
μι

Lach. adopted it. 736 descendere Lamb. for decedere. 740 quod. quo Lach.: I
now think him wrong. quod..., nomenid Flor. 31 Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. before Wak.
nomen aornis Gervas. Tilleberiensis: see Lach. 743 Remigit Mar. Junt., Remigi
oblitae Lach. for Remigio oblitae. 746 substratus Brix. Avanc. Nauger., subiratus
(substratus) Ver. Ven. for subiratus. Avernist Ed., Averno’st Lamb., for Averni. Lach.
inserts est before si forte; but the passage he quotes in support is not more in point
than the one he cites in favour of aut sex in 1v 303 (327), the metre there ruling
the order of the words. 747 Is B. His A Nice, acri sulpure Salmas. Heins. in
ms, notes, Is. Voss. in ms. notes, Bentl. for ecri suiper: the readings of older editors
are too absurd to mention. montes B, montis A Nicc. which is probably what Lucr.
wrote, For montes...aucti Heins. suggests olentes...agrt. 749 Est et. Est ut
Lach. intolerant of et for etiam. 755 ope suficit Ed. for opus efficit: a transpo-
sition of only two letters: comp. 111 374. vi ibus officit Lach.: a harsh and inad-
missible elision: see L. Mueller de re metr. p. 284. loci hoc opus Avanc. Lamb.
suapte. sua vi Lamb. 759 si stint divis mactata. st fit divis mactatw’ Lach.:
an awkward and uncalled-for change: see iv 934. fit seems hardly Latin, the

278 VI

et quibus effant causis apparet origo ;

1anua ne forte his Orci regionibus esse

eredatur, post hinc animas Acheruntis in oras

ducere forte deos manis inferne reamur,

naribus alipedes ut cervi saepe putantur 765

ducere de latebris serpentia saecla ferarum.

quod procul a vera quam sit ratione repulsum

percipe; nam de re nunc ipsa diccre conor.
Principio hoc dico, quod dixi saepe quoque ante,

in terra culusque modi rerum esse figuras ;

multa, cibo quae sunt, vitaha, multaque, morbos

incutere et mortem quae possint adcclerare.

et magis esse aliis alias animantibus aptas

res ad vitai rationem ostendimus ante

propter dissimilem naturam dissimilisque 775

texturas inter 5056 primasque figuras.

multa meant inimica per auris, multa per ipsas

insinuant naris infesta atque aspera iactu,

nec sunt multa parum tactu vitanda neque autem

aspectu fugienda saporeque tristia quae sint. 780
Deinde videre licet quam multae sint homini res

acriter infesto sensu spureaeque gravesque ;

arboribus primum certis gravis umbra tributa

usque adeo, capitis faciant ut saepe dolores,

siquis eas supter iacuit prostratus in herbis. 785

est etiam magnis Heliconis montibus arbos

NI
es}
O

structure of the sentence calling for a subjunctive. 761 efiant causts Lach. for ὁ
fiant causis: perhaps ecfiant. e causis fiant Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat. Mar. vulg.
rightly perhaps. 762 ne forte his Ed. for ne poteis. ne potis A corr. Nicc.:
perhaps ἐξ should be retained. puteis Turneb. Puteis Lach. i.e. Puteolanis: a
quite unexampled form, and not I think suited to the context. ne potius Flor. 31
Camb. 2 Vat. Mar. etc.: hence Lamb. ne his Orci potius. ne posita hits Wak.

763 post hinc. posta, hinc Mar. Junt. Lamb. etc. 104 inferne Lamb. for
inferna. 768 nam de re nunc ipsa B. dere om. A: hence omitted or trans-
posed in later mss. namque ipsa de re vulg. 771 cibo quae sunt Wak. first for
cibo eque sunt. homini quae sunt Lamb. etc. 777 auris Mar. (acc. to Victor.
but not in ms.) Ald. 1 Junt. for auras. 778 aspera iactu Ed. for aspera tactu:
iacere, adiectus are specially said of smell, as 11 846 τν 673: comp. also m 1047.
Bentl. defends tactu, perhaps rightly. aspera adactu Lach.: but adactu implies a
violent thrust or effort, as of a weapon, a tooth. odore Lamb. ed. 2 and 3.

780 tristia Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. Ver. Ven. for tristitia. 788 ideo terris Mar.

val 270

floris odore hominem taetro consueta neeare.

scilicet haec ideo terris ex omnia surgunt,

multa modis multis multarum semina rerum

quod perimixta gerit tellus discretaque tradit. 790
nocturnumque recens extinetum lumen ubi acri

nidore offendit nares, consopit ibidem,

coneidere et spumas qui morbo mittere suevit.

castoreoque gravi mulier sopita recumbit

et mamibus nitidum teneris opus eftluit ei, 795
tempore eo si odoratast quo menstrua solvit.

multaque praeterea languentia membra per artus

solvunt atque animam labefactant sedibus intus.

denique si calidis etiam cunctare lavabris

plenior et laveris, solio ferventis aquai Soo
quam facile in medio fit uti des saepe ruinas!
earbonumque gravis vis atque odor insinuatur

quam facile in cerebrum, nisi aquam praccepimus ante!
at cum membra domus percepit fervidu’, nervis

tum fit odor viri plagae mactabilis instar. S05
nonne vides etiam terra quoque sulpur in ipsa

gignier et taetro conerescere odore bitumen ;

denique ubi argenti venas aurique secuntur,

terrai penitus scrutantes abdita ferro,

qualis expiret Scaptensula subter odores ? 810
quidve mali fit ut exhalent aurata metalla!

quas hominum reddunt facies qualisque colores!

Ald, 1 Junt. for indeo tris. 789 is rightly joined by Camb. Lamb. Gif. Wak.
with 790. Creech Lach. etc. connect it with 788. 791 acri Lamb. ed. 2 first
for acris, 793 et spumas Madvig in Henrichsen de fragm. Gottorp. p. 37 for et

pumos: spumas Lamb. found in marg. of cod. Memmian. Lach. puts this verse
after 801 and reads et spumam ut perversely: older corrections are unworthy of
notice. 798 labefactant Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. Ver. Ven. for labefaciant.

7199 cunctare Lach. for cunctere. 800 et laveris, solio Lach. for efflueris solio.
et frueris solio Madv.1.1.: the passage is very doubtful. 803 aquam Flor. 31
Camb. Pont. Mar. Junt. for aqua. 804 membra domus Vat. 3276 Brix. Pius in
notes, Gronov. Lach. for membra domnus. domin’ Nice. dominus Ver. Ven. Nauger.
donus Flor, 31 Camb. two Vat. membra domans Mar. Junt. Is. Voss. in ms. notes,
Madv. 1.1. membra hominis Lamb. fervidw’, nervis Ed. ( fervida, nervis Wak.):
the πὶ of nervis was written over the line and wrongly attached to domus: hence dom-
nus. fervidior vis Lach. for fervida servis A Nicc. fervida fervis B: fervida
febris Lamb. Is. Voss. in ms. notes, Madv. 805 viri Pius in notes, Lach. for vini.

806 ipsa Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. for ipso. 808 argenti Flor. 31 Camb. Mon.

280 VI

nonne vides audisve perire in tempore parvo

quam soleant et quam vital copia desit,

quos opere in tali cohibet vis magna necessis ? 815
hos igitur tellus omnis exaestuat aestus

expiratque foras in apertum promptaque caell.

Sic et Averna loca alitibus summittere debent
mortiferam vim, de terra quae surgit in auras,
ut spatium cacli quadam de parte venenct ; 820
quo simul ac primum pennis delata sit ales,
impediatur 1bi cacco correpta veneno,
ut cadat e regione loci, qua derigit aestus,
quo cum conruit, hic eadem vis illius aestus
reliquias vitae membris ex omnibus aufert. 825
quippe etenim primo quasi quendam conciet aestum ;
posterius fit uti, cum 1am cecidere venent
in fontis 1psos, 1bi sit quoque vita vomenda
propterea quod magna mali fit copia circum.

Fit quoque ut interdum vis haec atque aestus Averni
aera, qui inter avis cumquest terramque locatus, $31
discutiat, prope uti locus hic linquatur inanis.
cuius ubi e regione loci venere volantes,
claudicat extemplo pinnarum nisus inanis
et conamen utrimque alarum proditur omne. 835
hic ubi nixari nequeunt insistereque alis,
scilicct 1n terram delabi pondere cogit
natura, et vacuum prope iam per inane iacentes
dispergunt animas per caulas corporis omnis.

*
frigidior porro in puteis aestate fit umor, 840

Pont. for argento. 813 audisve Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. for audire. 815
necessis Lach. for necessest. 817 apertum B. aperta A Nicc. vulg. before Lach.
apertaque Flor. 31. 818 et. ea Lach, ever intolerant of et for etiam. alitibus
Flor. 81 Camb. Mar. for malitbus. 829 fit. sit Junt, Lamb. vulg.: a sole-
cism. 832 hic Mon. p. τὰ. Lach. for hine. linquatur Flor. 31 Camb. Ver. Ven.
Mar. for linguitur. 840 clearly something is wanting to connect this verse with
what precedes. Lach. has proved that a new leaf, the 142nd, of the archetype
began here: in all probability then one leaf had dropped out in this place. Lach.
inserts four fragments, Non mihi si linguae centum sint oraque centum, Aerea voz.
Mensibw’ frigus. Cameraeque caminis. Ne oblimet. The first certainly appears
Lucretian: where it came in the poem, cannot be said; the rest are very doubt-
ful. 840 Que is prefixed to Frigidior in A, uae (i.e. quae) in B, Cur by

Val 281

rarescit quia terra calore et semina siquae
forte vaporis habet, propere dimittit im auras.
quo magis est igitur tellus effeta calore,
fit quoque frigidior qui in terrast abditus umor.
frigore cum premitur porro omnis terra coitque 845
et quasi concrescit, fit scilicet ut coeundo
exprimat in puteos siquem gerit ipsa calorem.
Esse apud Hammonis fanum fons luce diurna
frigidus et calidus nocturno tempore fertur.
hune homines fontem nimis admirantur et acri 850
sole putant supter terras ferveseere raptim,
nox ubi terribili terras caligine texit.
quod nimis a verast longe ratione remotum.
quippe ubi sol nudum contractans corpus aquai
non quwierit calidum supera de reddere parte, 855
cum superunl lumen tanto fervore fruatur,
qui queat hic supter tam crasso corpore terram
percoquere umorem et calido satiare vapore ?
praesertim cum vix possit per saepta domorum
insinuare suum radiis ardentibus aestum. 360
quae ratiost igitur? nimirum terra magis quod
rara tepet circum fontem quam cetera tellus
multaque sunt ignis prope scmina corpus aqua.
hoc ubi rorferis terram nox obruit umbris,
extemplo penmitus frigescit terra coitque. 865
hac ratione fit ut, tamquam compressa manu sit,
exprimat in fontem quae semina cumque habet ignis,
quae calidum faciunt aqiiae tactum atque saporem.
inde ubi 50] radiis terram dimovit obortus

Niece. 841 Rarescit Lamb. for Arescit. semina Flor. 31 Camb. for semi. δἱ
quae Avane, at end of Catullus for sigua which he kept in Ald. 1 as did all editors
before Lach. 812 habet, propere Nice. Camb. Mon. Ver. Ven. vulg. for habet
proprie B Flor. 31, propriae A. proprii Bern. whom I followed in small ed. for-
getting that Nicc., 1.6. Poggio’s ms. in all likelihood, had propere. 816 ut
coeundo Lamb. for in coeundo. in quo eundo Nice. 851 raptim Lamb. for
partim. 857 supter Pont., subter Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for super. 858 satiare
Vat. 1954 Othob. Pius in notes, Turneb. advers. xxv1 13 for soclare. sotiare Camb.
Avane. soldare Nice. sociare Flor. 31 Mar. Junt. donare Bern. 862 Rara
Lamb. Turneb. adv. xxv1 13 for Para. tepet Lach. for tenet. 864 umbris Mar.
(ap. Victor., not in ms.), Avance. at end of Catull., Junt. for undis. 865 penitus
Lach. for sonttus. subtus Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. solito Mar, 868 agiiae Lach.

282 wall

et rarefecit calido gliscente vapore, 870
rursus in antiquas redeunt primordia sedes
ignis et in terram cedit calor omnis aquai.
frigidus hane ob rem fit fons in luce diurna.
praeterea solis radiis iactatur aquai
umor et in lucem tremulo rarescit ab aestu ; 875
propterea fit nti quae semina cumque habet ignis
dimittat; quasi saepe gelum, quod continet in se,
mittit et exolvit glaciem nodosque relaxat.
Frigzdus est etiam fons, supra quem sita saepe
stuppa iacit flammam concepto protinus igni, 880
taedaque consimili ratione accensa per undas
conlucet, quocumque natans impellitur auris.
nimirum quia sunt in aqua permulta vaporis
semina de terraque necessest funditus ipsa
ignis corpora per totum consurgere fontem 885
et simul exspirare foras exireque in auras,
non ita multa tamen, calidus queat ut fier fons,
propterea dispersa foras erumpere cogit
vis per aquam subito sursuinque ea conciliari.
quod genus endo marist Aradi fons, dulcis aqua 890
qui scatit et salsas circum se dimovet undas;
et multis aliis praebet regionibus aequor
utilitatem opportunam sitientibu’ nautis,
quod dulcis inter salsas intervomit undas.
sic igitur per eum possunt erumpere fontem 895
et scatere illa foras, in stuppam semina quae cum

after Bede for laticis: Lamb. too notices it in notes, saporem Lamb. for vaporem:
a necessary change, though Bede also has vaporem. 870 gliscente Wak. for
miscente, ‘eleganter et vere’ says Lach. 877 Dimittat Camb. for Demittat.

878 nodosque Vat. 3276 Mon. (not Flor. 31) Pont. Ald. 1 Candidus at end of Junt.
for nobosque. novosque A corr. venasque Flor. 31 Camb. 3 Vat. Mar. Junt.

879 Frigidus Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. Ver. Ven. for frigus. 887 Non tta multa Is.
Voss. in ms. notes for Non ita muita: though Haverc. knew of this, neither he nor
any editor before Lach. adopted it. Non tam vita Nice. Non tam multa Pont. Non
tam viva vulg. 888 Propterea Lach. for Praeterea. 890 marist Aradi fons
Bern, Lach. for maris parat fons: a certain correction, as A and B have each this
heading ‘de fonte aradi in mare’. mari Aradio fons Is. Voss. in ms. notes. mari
spirat fons Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. etc. 889 conciliart Lamb. for conciliare.

892 praebet Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. Junt. for praeter. 894 dulcis Flor. 31 Camb.
Ver. Ven. for dulcit. 896 quae Ven. (que mss. Brix. Ver.) rightly retained by
N. P. Howard who corrects old punctuation. quo Lamb. vulgo Lach.

VI 283

conveninnt aut in taedai corpore adhaecrent,

ardescunt facile extemplo, quia multa quoque in se

semina habent ignis stuppae taedaeque latentis.

nonne vides etiam, nocturna ad lumina lnum 900

nuper ubi extinctum admoveas, accendier ante

quam tetigit flammam, taedamque pari ratione ?

multaque praetcrea prius ipso tacta vapore

eminus ardescunt quam: comminus imbuat ignis.

hoc igitur fierl quoque in illo fonte putandumst. 905
Quod superest, agere incipiam quo foedere fiat

naturae, lapis hic ut ferrum ducere possit,

quem Magneta vocant patrio de nomine (ταὶ,

Magnetum quia fit patriis in finibus ortus.

hune homines lapidem mirantur; quippe catenain gIO

saepe ex anellis reddit pendentibus ex se.

quinque etenim hcet interdum pluresque videre

ordine demissos levibus iactarier auris,

unus ubi ex uno dependet supter adhaerens

ex alioque alius lapidis vim vinclaque noscit : QI5

usque adeo permananter vis pervolat eius.
Hoe genus in rebus firmandumst multa prius quam

ipsius rei rationem reddere possis,

et nimium longis ambagibus est adeundum ;

quo magis attentas auris animumque reposco. 920
Principio omnibus ab rebus, quascumque videmus,

perpetuo fluere ac mitti spargique necessest

corpora quae feriant oculos visumque lacessant.

perpetuoque fluunt certis ab rebus odores ;

frigus ut a fluviis, calor ab sole, aestus ab undis 925

aequoris exesor moerorum litora propter.

nec varii cessant sonitus manare per auras.

897 aut in tedai corpore Is. Voss. in ms. notes for aut indeda corpora: in tedai Pont.
also. in teda cum corpora Mar. 8. τὰ. Ald. 1 Junt. 898 guia Flor. 31 Camb.
Mar. for qui. 899 latentis Bern. for tenentes. tepentis Lach. 907 lapis
B corr. Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar. for laps. 908 Quem B corr. Flor. 31 Camb.
Mar. for Quam. 909 fit. sit Niece. Flor. 31 Mon. vulg. ‘parum Latine’ says
Lach.: but it is I think defensible, as giving their motive, not the poet’s inference :
comp. 111 100 Harmoniam Grai quam dicunt, quod faciat nos. ortus. ortu Lach.as
11 387. 912 Quinque B corr. Flor. 31 Mar. for Qui neque. 913 demissos
Lamb. first for demisso. 916 permananter Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. for permanater.
pervolat Turneb. adv. xxv1 13, Bentl. for pervalet. (925 ut. it Kannen-

284 VI

denique in os salsi venit umor saepe saporis,
cum mare versamur propter, dilutaque contra
934 cum tuimnr misceri absinthia, tangit amaror. 930
usque adeo ommibus ab rebus res quaeque fuenter
930 fertur et in cunctas dimittitur undique partis
nee mora nec requies interdatur ulla fluendi,
perpetuo quoniam sentimus, et omnia semper
cernere odorari licet et sentire sonare. 935
936 Nune omnis repetam quam raro corpore sint res
commemorare; quod in primo quoque carmine claret.
quippe etenim, quamquam multas hoc pertinet ad res
noscere, cum primis hanc ad rem protinus ipsam,
qua de disserere adgredior, firmare necessest 940
nil esse in promptu nisi mixtum corpus 128).
principio fit ut in speluncis saxa superne
sudent umore et guttis manantibu’ stillent.
manat item nobis e toto corpore sudor,
crescit barba pilique per omnia membra, per artus. 045
diditur in venas cibus omnis, auget alitque
corporis extremas quoque partis unguiculesque.
frigus item transire per aes caliduinque vaporem
sentimus, sentimus item transire per aurum
atque per argentum, cum pocula plena tenemus. 950
denique per dissaepta domorum saxea voces
pervolitant, permanat odor frigusque vaposque
ignis, qui ferri quoque vim penetrare suévit
denique qua circum Galli lorica coercet.
956 et, tempestate in terra caeloque coorta, 955
955 morbida visque simul cum extrinsecus insinuatur,
in caelum terrasque remotae iura facessunt,

giesser in Philologus 1v supplem. B p. 510.] 935 again om. by Lach.: see
Iv 229, 937 claret Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. for clare. 941 mixtum corpus
Brix. (not Flor. 31) Pont. Mar. for corpus mixtum. 942 superne Lach. for
superna. 954 Galli Lach. for caeli. coli Nicc. colli Brix. Ver. Ven. Mar.
Avance. Nauger. Wak. corpus Mar. al.em. Junt. Lamb. ed. 1 and 2. corii Flor. 31
Camb. 3 Vat. Lamb. ed. 3. 955 956 I have transposed: comp. 1098 foll.: Lach.
awkwardly puts it after 947: Bern. keeps it in its place and reads £ tempestate in...
coortast...remotas ture: but remotae clearly belongs to tempestate. 955 tempestate
in Lach. for tempestatem. tempestates...coortae Avance. followed by Nauger. Lamh.
etc. 957 iure B Vienna frag. A corr. Flor. 31 Camb. all Vat. Pont. in re Nice.

VI 28:

quandoquidem mil est nisi raro corporl’ nexu.
Huc accedit uti non omnia, quae iaciuntur
corpora cumque ab rebus, codem praedita sensu 960
atque eodem pacto rebus sint omnibus apta.
principio terram sol excoquit et facit are,
at glaciem dissolvit ct altis montibus altas
extructasgue nives radiis tabescere cogit.
denique cera liquefit im eius posta vapore. 965
ignis item liquidum facit aes aurumque resolvit,
at coria et carnem trahit et conducit in unum.
umor aquae porro ferrum condurat ab 1gni,
at coria et carnem mollit durata calore.
barbigeras oleaster co iuvat usque capellas, 970
efiuat ambrosius quasi vero, et nectare tinctus;
qua nil est homini quod amariu’ frondeat esca.
demique amaracinum fugitat sus et timet omne
ungentum; nam saetigeris subus acre vencnumst,
quod nos interdum tamquam recreare videtur. 975
at contra nobis caenum taeterrima cum sit
spurcities, eadem subus haec iucunda videtur,
insatiabiliter toti ut volvantur ibidem.
Hoc etiam superest, ipsa quam dicere de re
adgredior quod dicendum prius esse videtur. 980
multa foramina cum varus sint reddita rebus,
dissimili inter se natura praedita debent
esse et habere suam naturam quacque viasque.
quippe etenim varil scnsus animantibus imsunt,
quorum quisque suam proprie rem percipit in se; 985
nam penetrare alio sonitus alioque saporem

which is the same thing. iurae A p. m. caused by remotae, or as Lach. says because
the archetype had both ture and ixra which he reads and I now read: see notes 2.

958 raro corpori’? nexu Lach. for raro corpore nexum. 962 sol Flor. 31
Camb. Mar. etc. for quo. 964 que added by Flor. 31 Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt.
extructas ningueis Avanc. at end of Catull. alte Extructas ningues Nauger.

965 liquefit. liquescit Vat. 610 Urbin. Ver. Ven. Ald. 1 Junt. (not Mar.) Lamb.
‘liquescit. s’ Heins. in ms. notes: but on this cod. Modii see introduction p. 24.

971 ambrosius Ed. for ambrosias. ambrosiae quasi vere et nectari’ linctus Lach.

elegantly, perhaps rightly. 972 Qua...amariw’ frondeat esca Lach. for Qua...
marius fronde ac exscet A, extet B Vienn. fragm. Nice.: amarius Flor. 31 Camb.
two Vat. Mar. 973 amaracinum Mar. Junt. for maracinun. SHE)
tucunda Camb. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. Gif. for ciunda A, inunda B. tocunda Flor. 31

286 art

cernimus e sucis, alio nidoris odores.

991 praeterea manare aliud per saxa videtur, 990
atque aliud lignis, aliud transire per aurum,
argentoque foras aliud vitroque meare.
nam fluere hac species, illac calor ire videtur,

995 atque altis aliut citius transmittere cadem.
scilicet id fierl cogit natura viarum 995
multimodis varians, ut paulo ostendimus ante,

990 propter dissimilem naturam textaque rerum.

998 Quapropter, bene ubi haec confirmata atque locata
omnia constiterint nobis praeposta parata,
quod superest, facile hine ratio reddetur et omnis 1000
causa patefiet quae ferri pelliciat vim.
principio fluere e lapide hoc permulta necessest
semina sive aestum qui discutit aera plagis,
inter qui lapidem ferrumque est cumque locatus.
hoe ubi inanitur spatium multusque vacefit 1005
in medio locus, extemplo primordia ferri
in vacuum prolapsa cadunt coniuncta, fit utque
anulus ipse sequatur eatque ita corpore toto.
nec res ulla magis primoribus ex elementis
indupedita suis arte conexa cohacret ΙΟΙΟ
quem validi ferri natura et frigidus horror.
quo minus est mirum, quod dico, ibus ex elementis
corpora si nequeunt e ferro plura coorta
In vacuum ferri, quin anulus ipse sequatur ;
quod facit, et sequitur, donec pervenit ad ipsum 1015
iam lapidem caecisque in eo compagibus haesit,
hoc fit idem cunctas in partis, unde vacefit
cumque locus, sive e transverso sive superne

two Vat. munda Nice. ves munda Lamb. 986 987 alto, alioque, alio.
alia, aliaque, alia Lamb. 988 989=995 996 (996 997). 991 lignis
Wak. Lach. for ignis. tignis Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. per ligna Lamb.

997 (990) first placed here by Lamb. not Wak. 1001 pelliciat vim Flor. 31
Camb. Mar. for peliciatum B, perliceatum A. 1006 ferri Flor. 31 Camb. Pont.
Mar. for ferre. 1007 fit utque Mar. Nauger. for fit ut qui. 1009 ex added
by B corr. Flor. 31 Pont. Mar. tune Camb. 1011 natura et Wak. for
naturae, 1012 quod dico, ibus ex elementis Ed. for quod dicitur ex elementis.
quo ducitur Lach. which I do not understand. quod paulo dizimus ante Lamb.
wildly. quod ducitur, [ex elementis] Bern. 1013 e ferro B Camb. Avane.

VI 287

corpora continuo in vacuum vicina feruntur ;

quippe agitantur enim plagis aliunde nec ipsa 1020

sponte sna sursum possunt consurgere in auras.

huc accedit item (quare queat id magis esse,

δος quoque res adinmento motuque iuvatur)

quod, simul a fronte est anelli rarior aer

factus inanitusque locus magis ac vacuatus, 1025
1033 continuo fit uti qui post est cumque locatus
1026 acer a tergo quasi provehat atque propellat.

semper enim circumpositus res verberat aer ;

sed tali fit uti propellat tempore ferrum,

parte quod ex tna spatium vacat et capit in se. 1030
1030 hic, tibi quem memoro, per crebra foramina ferri

parvas ad partis subtiliter insinuatus

trudit et inpellit, quasi navem velaqnue ventus.
1034 denique res omnes debent in corpore habcre

aera, quandoquidem raro sunt corpore et aer 1035

omnibus est rebus circumdatus adpositusque.

hic igitur, penitus qui in ferrost abditus aer,

sollicito motu semper iactatur eoque

verberat anellum dubio procul et ciet intus

scilicet: ille codem fertur quo praecipitavit 1040

iam semel et partem in vacuam conamina sumpsit.

Fit quoque ut a lapide hoc ferri natura recedat

interdum, fugere atque sequi consueta vicissim.

exultare etiam Samothracia ferrea vidi

et ramenta simul ferri furere intus ahenis 1045

in scaphiis, lapis hic Magnes cum subditus esset:

usque adeo fugere ab saxo gestire videtur.

te ferro A. te ferre Nice. whence referre Brix. Ver. Ven. de ferro Flor. 31 Mar.
Junt. vulg. before Lach, 1018 e Flor. 31 Camb. for et. ex Mon. Ver. Ven.
1020 plagis Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Mar. for plagit. 1022 1023 not a letter is
to be changed: only the stopping is to be mended. item. wtei Lach. iuvatur.
iuvetur Lach.; Wak. has been misled by a blunder of Havere. 1025 magis
Camb. Ver. Ven. Mar. for magnis. magis locus Flor. 31. 1026 (1033) first
placed here in Ald. 1 and Junt. not by Pont. or Mar. 1027 Aer a tergo Mar.
Ald. 1 Junt. for Hrat ergo. 1032 Parvas. Privas Gif. Primas Lamb.
ed. 3. 1033 ventus Pius for ventis. 1040 ille Lach. for illo B Vienn.
frag.; om, A Nicc. Camb. etc. atque Flor. 31 Mar. Junt. vulg. isque Wak.
con). 1047 ab saxo Lach. for a saxo. 1059 Et Lach. for At BA corr.

288 VI

aere interposito discordia tanta creatur
propterea quia nimirum prius aestus ubi aeris
praecepit ferrique vias possedit apertas, "1050
posterior lapidis venit aestus et omnia plena
invenit in ferro neque habet qua tranet ut ante.
cogitur offensare igitur pulsareque fluctu
ferrea texta suo; quo pacto respuit ab se
atque per aes agitat, sine eo quod saepe resorbet. 1055
illud in his rebus mirari mitte, quod aestus
non valet e lapide hoc alias impellere item res.
pondere enim fretae partim stant: quod genus aurum ;
et partim raro quia sunt cum corpore, ut aestus
pervolet intactus, nequeunt inpellier usquam ; 1060
lignea materies m quo genere esse videtur.
interutrasque igitur ferri natura locata
aeris ubi accepit quaedam corpuscula, tum fit,
inpellant ut eam Magnesia flumine saxa.
Nec tamen haec ita sunt aliarum rerum aliena, 1065
ut mihi multa parum genere ex hoc suppeditentur
quae memorare queam inter se singlariter apta.
saxa vides primum sola colescere calce.
glutine materies taurino lungitur uno,
ut vitio venae tabularum saepius hiscant 1070
quam laxare queant compages taurea vincla.
vitigeni latices aqtiai fontibus audent
misceri, cum pix nequeat gravis et leve olivom.
purpureusque colos conchyli iungitur uno
corpore cum lanae, dirimi qui non queat usquam, 1075
non si Neptuni fluctu renovare operam des,
non, mare si totum velit eluere omnibus undis.

AdAp.m. Ac Niece. Flor. 31 Camb. Mon. vulg. 1062 Interutrasque. Interu-
traque Lach. 1064 eam Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for eum. flumine Nicc. Flor. 31 all
Vat. Brix. Ver. Ven. for flumina. lumina saxi Wak. 1067 singlariter Flor.

31 Pont. Avanc. Nauger. vulg. for stngulariter: comp. 1088 coplata AB p.m.
copulata corr. inter singillariter Lach.: a most unrhythmical verse. apta Flor. 31
Camb. etc. for aptam. 1068 vides Pont. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. for vide. colescere
Lach. for coolescere. coalescere Nicc. Flor. 31 3 Vat. Mon. 1069 uno Lach. for
ana, as in 1074: but Mar. Junt. Lamb. etc. there read una: uno is not certain.
1072 aqiiai. in aquai Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. vulg. wrongly: comp. 552 and 868.
1077 eluere B corr. Vienn. frag. Mar. for eiwere B, evuvere A Nice. 1078 non

Vi 289

denique non auro res aurum copulat una
aerique wes plumbo fit uti iungatur ab albo?
cetera iam quam multa licet reperire! quid ergo ? 1080
nec tibi tam longis opus est ambagibus usquam,
nec me tam multam hic operam consumere par est,
sed breviter paucis praestat comprendere multa.
quorum ita texturae ceciderunt mutua contra,
ut cava conveniant plems hace illius illa 1085
huiusque inter se, nmetura haec optima constat.
est etiam, quasi ut anellis hamisque plicata
inter se quaedam possint coplata tener ;
quod magis in lapide hoc fier ferroque videtur.
Nunc ratio quae sit morbis aut unde repente 1090
mortiferam possit cladem conflare coorta
morbida vis hominum generi pecudumque catervis,
expediam. primum muliarum semina rerum
esse supra docul quae sint vitalia nobis,
et contra quae sint morbo mortique necessest 1095
multa volare. ea cum casu sunt forte coorta
et perturbarunt caeclum, fit morbidus aer.
atque ea vis omnis morborum pestilitasque
aut extrinsecus ut nubes nebulaeque superne
per caelum veniunt, aut ipsa saepe coortae 1100
de terra surgunt, ubi putorem umida nactast
intempestivis pluvisque et solibus icta.
nonne vides etiam caeli novitate et aquarum
temptari procul a patria quicumque domoque
adveniunt ideo quia longe discrepitant res ? 1105
nam quid Brittanni caelum differre putamus,
et quod in Aegypto est qua mundi claudicat axis,
quidve quod in Ponto est differre, et Gadibus atque

auro res Faber em. for non res auro B, res auro A Nice. 1079 Aerique aes Lamb.
excellently for Aeraque. 1083 praestat B Avance. Bentl. restat A Nicc. vulg.
1089 fieri Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. etc. for ferri. 1090 to 1191, 1.6.

two leaves, are wanting in cod. Victor. or Moun.: the readings of ‘Marul.’ given to
these vss. I have taken from Victorius’ copy of Ven. spoken of in the introduc-
tion. 1091 cladem B. corr. Ald. 1 Junt. for cradem. 1099 extrinsecius
B Ald. 1 Junt. intrinsecus A Nice. 1100 coortae Lach. for coorta: but Iam
not sure it is necessary. 1101 putorem. putrorem Nauger. Lamb. ete.

1106 Brittanni Ed. for Brittannis. Britannum Lamb. 1109 colore Flor, 31

M. 19

290 VI

usque ad nigra virum percocto saecla colore ?
quae cum quattuor inter se diversa videmus 1110
quattuor a ventis et caeli partibus esse,
tum color et facies hominum distare videntur
largiter et morbi generatim saecla tenere.
est elephas morbus qui propter flumina Nil
gignitur Aegypto in media neque praeterea usquam. I115
Atthide temptantur gressus oculique in Achaeis
finibus. inde alis alius locus est inimicus
partibus ac membris: varius concinnat id aer.
proinde ubi se caelum quod nobis forte alienum
commovet atque aer inimicus serpere coepit, 1120
ut nebula ac nubes paulatim repit et omne
qua graditur conturbat et immutare coactat;
fit quoque ut, in nostrum cum venit denique caelum,
corrumpat reddatque sui simile atque alienum.
haec igitur subito clades nova pestilitasque 1125
aut in aquas cadit aut fruges persidit in ipsas
aut alios hominum pastus pecudumque cibatus,
aut etiam suspensa manet vis aere in ipso
et, cum spirantes mixtas hinc ducimus auras,
illa quoque in corpus pariter sorbere necessest. 1130
consimili ratione venit bubus quoque saepe
pestilitas et iam pigris balantibus aegror.
nec refert utrum nos in loca deveniamus
nobis adversa et caeli mutemus amictum,
an caelum nobis ultro natura coruptum 1135
deferat aut aliquid quo non consuevimus uti,
quod nos adventu possit temptare recenti.
Haec ratio quondam morborum et mortifer aestus

Vat. 640 Urbin. Ald. 1 Junt. for calore: so 722. percoctaque saecla calore Vat.
3276 Brix. Nauger. Lamb. 1115 Aegypto Flor. 31 Pont. Junt. for Aegypta.
Aegypti Nice. Ver. Ven.: hence Aegypti in medio Avance. 1121 Ut Pont. Ald. 1
Junt. for Ve. 1122 graditur conturbat Flor. 31 Camb. Brix. Pont. for graditus
conturbas. Quadragitas graditus conturbas Nicc. Ver. Ven. 1124 reddatque
Flor. 31 Camb. Marul. for reddetque. 1132 balantibus Flor. 31 Marul. for
calantibus. talaribus Nice. old eds. 1135 witro Avane. for vitro. intro Nice.
vitio Flor. 31 Camb. coruptum Flor. 31 Lamb. ed. 1, Wak. corumptum AB:
corruptun Niece. alienum Bentl. coortum Lach. inimicum Io. Colombinus ap.
Lamb. cruentum joint emend. of Lamb, Turneb, and Auratus. 1138 mortifer

VI 201

finibus in Cecropis funestos reddidit agros

vastavitque vias, exhausit civibus urbem. 140
ham penitus veniens Aegypti finibus ortus,

aera permensus multum camposque natantis,

incubuit tandem populo Pandionis omnel,

inde catervatim morbo mortiqne dabantur,

principio caput incensum fervore gerebant 1145
et duplhcis oculos suffusa luce rubentes.

sudabant etiam fauces intrinsecus atrac

sanguine et ulceribus vocis via saepta coibat

atque animi interpres manabat lingua cruore

debilitata malis, motu gravis, aspera tactu. 1150
inde ubi per fauces pectus complerat et ipsum

morbida vis in cor macstum confluxerat aegris,

omnia tum vero vital claustra lababant.

spiritus ore foras taetrum volvebat odorem,

rancida quo perolent protecta cadavera ritu. 1155
atque animi prorsum tum vires totius, omne

languebat corpus Icti 1am limine in 1080.
intolerabilibusque malis crat anxius angor

adsidue comes et gemitu commixta querella.

singultusque frequens noctem per saepe diemque 1160
corripere adsidue nervos et membra coactans

dissoluebat eos, defessos ante, fatigans.

nec nimio culquam posses ardore tueri

corporis in summo summam fervescere partem,

sed potius tepidum manibus proponere tactum 1165
et simul ulceribus quasi inustis omne rubere

corpus, ut est per membra sacer dum diditur ignis.
intima pars hominum vero flagrabat ad ossa,

aestus Macrob. sat. v1 2 7, Pont. Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. for mortifer ae: the last letters
having dropped out. mortifer aer Lamb. in notes. mortiferai Camb. morti’ ferai
Lach. who is then driven to read in 1141 morbus for ortus : orcus Avance.

1139 in Cecropis Macrob. 1.1. Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. Junt. for in Cecropit. in
Cecropiis A corr. Niece. Finibu’ Cecropiis Lamb. 1143 omnei Lach. omni
Marul. Avance. for omnem A Nice. omne B. omnes Unde Junt., omnes Inde Brix,
Nauger. Lamb. etc. 1147 atrae. atro Vat. 640 Urbin. Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb.
artae mss. of Macrob. v1 2 9. 1156 tum added by Wak. after prorsum. Flor. 31
Ver. Ven. vulg. add et before omne, perhaps rightly. 1165 potius Marul, Ald. 1
Junt. for totius. 1167 dum. cum A corr. Nice. vulg. before Lach.

292 VI

flagrabat stomacho flamma ut fornacibus intus.
nil adeo posses cuiquam leve tenveque membris 1170
vertere in utilitatem, at ventum et frigora semper.
in fluvios partim gelidos ardentia morbo
membra dabant nudum iacientes corpus in undas,
1178 multi praecipites lymphis putealibus alte
1174 inciderunt ipso venientes ore patente : 1175
insedabiliter sitis arida, corpora inersans,
aequabat multum parvis umoribus imbrem.
nec requies erat ulla mali: defessa 1acebant
1179 corpora. mussabat tacito medicina timore,
quippe patentia cum totiens ardentia morbis 1180
lumina versarent oculorum expertia somno.
multaque praeterea mortis tum signa dabantur,
perturbata animi mens in macrore metuque,
triste supercilium, furiosus voltus et acer,
sollicitae porro plenaeque sonoribus aures, 1185
creber spiritus aut ingens raroque coortus,
sudorisque madens per collum splendidus umor,
tenvia sputa minuta, croci contacta colore
salsaque, per fauces raucas vix edita tussi.
in manibus vero nervi trahere et tremere artus 1190
a pedibusque minutatim succedere frigus
non dubitabat. item ad supremum denique tempus
conpressae nares, nasi primoris acumen
tenve, cavati oculi, cava tempora, frigida pellis
duraque, in ore trucei rictuin, frons tenta tumebat. 1195

1171 Vertere in utilitatem Lamb. for verteret utilitatem: but he reads also posset
and suggests quicquam in 1170 without cause. at ventum Lach. for ad ventum
which the older editors keep and connect with what follows: Lucr. prob. wrote ad
for ut. frigora Flor, 31 Camb. Marul. for frigore. 1174 (1178) brought here
first by Nauger.: placed after 1171 by Marul. Junt. lymphis Flor. 31 Camb. Marul.
for nymphis. 1176 mersans A Niece. inerrans B. messans Vienn. frag. acc. to
Rhein. mus. ἢ. f. xv p. 409. inurens Bern.: but clearly B’s reading is a mere
clerical error. 1178 mali mss. of Macrob. vi 2 13, Brix. for mari. 1180 ar-
dentia morbis. ac nuntia mortis Lach.: a fine, but not I think necessary emenda-
tion. 1186 spiritus Macrob. Flor. 31 Camb. Pont. for spiritum. 1187 wmor.
humor mss. of Macrob. vi 2 11 for wmum. 1189 raucas mss. of Μίδου. Pont.
Avane. for rauca. tussi Marul. Junt. for tusse. tussis mss. of Maer. 1195 in
ore trucei Ed. for inoretiacet B Vienn. frag. inhoretiacet A. inhorret iacet Nicc.:
the -et is the common corruption of the old termination -ei; comp. 16 σοφοὶ for

VI 293

nee nimio rigidi post artus morte iacebant.

octavoque fere candenti lumine solis

aut etiam nona reddebant lampade vitam.

quorum siquis 1061 vitarat funera leti,

ulceribus tactris et nigra proluvie alvi 1200
posterius tamen hunc tabes letumque manebat,

aut etiam multus capitis cum saepe dolore

corruptus sanguis expletis naribus ibat :

huc hominis totae vires corpusque fluebat.

profluvium porro qui taetri sanguinis acre 1205
exierat, tamen in nervos huic morbus et artus

ibat et in partis genitalis corporis ipsas.

et graviter partim metuentes limina leti

vivebant ferro privati parte virili,

et manibus sine nonnulli pedibusque manebant I210
In vita tamen, et perdebant lumina partim:

usque adeo mortis metus his incesserat acer.

atque etiam quosdam cepere oblivia rerum

cunctarum, neque se possent cognoscere ut ipsi.

multaque humi cum inhumata iacerent corpora supra
corporibus, tamen alituum genus atque ferarum 1216
aut procul apsiliebat, ut acrem exeiret odorem,

aut, ubi gustarat, languebat morte propinqua.

nec tamen omnino temere illis solibus ulla

comparebat avis, nec tristia saecla ferarum 1220

cogei and 1199; sor 84 mss. Triviat, 11 636 Armat et. rictum Lamb. for rectum.
Duratusque horret rictus Vat. 3276. inhorrescens rictum Lach. after Rutgersius.
inhorrebat rictum Lamb. in ore tacens rictu Nonius, tenta tumebat Heins. in ms.
notes and Lach. for tenta mebat. tecta meabat Nice. tenta meabat Flor. 31 Camb.
2 Vat. Mon. tenta manebat Nonius B corr. Vat. 3276. 1196 rigidi Lach. for
rigida. post artus. post strati Lamb. prostrati Pont. Junt. 1199 ibei Ed.
for ut est: ibei became first iuet, then ut est: see ἢ, to 1195. viz Lach. without
force. 1200 Ulceribus Lamb. after Thucydides for Viceribus: i and 2 confused
as in 500 other places: so 1271 Viceribus, Visceribus A corr. Nice. vulg. here as
there. Wak. in both places argues for visceribus; but A and B 1166 had Et simul
viceribus ; 1148 Sanguine et viceribus ; v 995 super vicerat tetra, viscera A corr. ;
ιν 1068 Vicus enim, Ulcus A corr.: thus in every place where the word occurs in
Luer. our sole original authority substituted 7 for 2: this may serve to shew on
what sandy foundations Wak. builds, when he maintains iacere coniectum umorem
against conlectum, and fifty suchlike cases. 1205 qut Lamb. for cul.

1212 his Mon. Brix. Junt. for iis. is Flor. 31 Camb. incesserat Lamb. for
incusserat. 1217 exeiret Lach., exiret Brix. for exciret, 1219 solibus.

204 VI

exeibant silvis. languebant pleraque morbo
et moriebantur. cum primis fida canum vis
strata vis animan) ponebat in omnibus aegre ;
extorquebat enim vitam vis morbida membris.
[incomitata rapi certabant funera vasta. | 1225
nec ratio remedi communis certa dabatur ;
nam quod ali dederat vitalis aeris auras
volvere in ore licere et caeli templa tuer,
hoc aliis erat exitio letumque parabat.
illud in his rebus miserandum magnopere unum 1230
aerumnabile erat, quod ubi se quisque videbat
implicitum morbo, morti damnatus ut esset,
deficiens animo maesto cum corde iacebat,
funera respectans animam amittebat ibidem.
quippe etenim nullo cessabant tempore apisci 1235
ex 8115 alios avidi contagia morbi,
1245 lanigeras tamquam pecudes et bucera saecla.
1237 idque vel in primis cumulabat funere funus
ham quicumque suos fugitabant visere ad aegros,
vitai nimium cupidos mortisque timentis 1240
1240 poenibat paulo post turpi morte malaque,
desertos, opis expertis, incuria mactans.
qui fuerant autem praesto, contagibus ibant
atque labore, pudor quem tum cogebat obire
blandague lassorum vox mixta voce querellae. 1245
1246 optimus hoe leti genus ergo quisyue subibat.

sedibus Macrob. v1 2 14, Brix. Pont. Junt. 1220 nee tristia Macrob. |. 1, Brix.
Pont. Avance. for nectia. nec fortia Flor. 31 Camb. 2 Vat. Mar. Junt. nec noctibu’
Lamb, Pont. proposes also agrestia; and Mar. in marg. Ven. inertia. nec noxia
Is. Voss. in ms. notes, Heins. in ms. notes, who also proposes nec inertia. 1221
Exeibant Lach. for Ezichbant A, Exibant B, Exiebant Nice. 1225 in my small ed.
I placed before 1235: I still think that the poet’s words would thereby be rendered
more consecutive; but I now see that 1235 should not be severed from 1234, Luer.
having misapprehended a sentence of Thucydides: I have therefore now left 1225
in its place, as an imperfect fragment: see notes 2. 1234 amittebat B rightly.
imittebat A. mittebat Nicc. whence much error. 1235 apisci Flor. 31 Camb.
Brix. Pont. Mar. for apiscit. 1237 (1245) placed here by Bentl. after Thucyd.:
Mar. Junt. Lamb. ete. put it after 1242 (1241). 1239 visere Flor. 31 Camb.
for utsere. 1241 Poenibat Turneb. ap. Lamb. for Poenibus at (i.e. Poenib. at)
B, Poenibus et A Nice. etc.: comp. v 1071. 1242 incuria Flor. 31, in curia

VI 295

inque aliis alium, populum sepelire suorum
certantes: lacrimis lassi luctuque redibant ;
inde bonam partem in lectum maerore dabantur.
nec poterat quisquam reperiri, quem neque morbus_ 1250
nec mors nec luctus temptaret tempore tall.

Praeterea 1am pastor ct armentarius omnis
et robustus item curvi moderator aratri
languebat, penitusque casa contrusa lacebanb
corpora paupertate et morbo dedita mort. 1255
exanimis pueris super exanimata parentum
corpora nonnumquam posses retroque videre
matribus et patribus natos super cdere vitam.
nec minimam partem ex agris 18. macror in urbem
confluxit, languens quem contulit agricolarum 1260
copia conveniens ex omni morbida parte.
omnia conplebant loca tectaque ; quo magis aestus
confertos ita acervatim mors accumulabat.
multa siti protracta viam per proque voluta
corpora silanos ad aquarum strata 1acebant 1265
interclusa anima nimia ab dulcedine aquarum,
multaque per populi passim loca prompta viasque
languida semanimo cum corpore membra videres
horrida paedore et pannis cooperta perire
corporis inluvie, pelli super ossibus una, 1270
ulceribus taetris prope iam sordique sepulta.
omnia denique sancta deum delubra replerat

Brix. Ver. Ven. for incura. 1247 one or more verses are evidently lost here, or
the passage was left in an unfinished state. 1245 in lectum Mar. Junt. for
iniectun.: in letum Mar, Ὁ. τὰ. in Mon. and Victorii Ven. 1250 morbus Flor. 31
Camb. Mon. for morbo. 1259 ex agris is maeror Ed. for ex agris maeroris. is
was absorbed by agris; then maeroris was written to fill up the verse. 1260 Con-
fluxit, languens. Confluxit labes Lach.: a violent alteration. 1262 conplebant.
complebat Junt. not Pont. or Mar., complebant Lamb. for condiebant. condebant
A corr. Nice. aestus. astu Lach. aestus however agrees so entirely with the words
of Thucydides, that I think a verse has fallen out such as quo magis aestus Conficic-
bat evs cet. aestu Mar. Junt. Bern. 1264 protracta Lach. for prostrata: Wak.
reads structa for strata in 1265. 1265 iacebant Ver. Ven. for tacebant. tace-
bant Nice. with ὁ written over t: hence, while Flor. 31 Camb. etc. keep tacebant,
Ver. Ven. which usually adhere to the older text of Nicc., have the corrected read-
ing. 1271 Ulceribus Lamb. first for Viceribus. Visceribus A corr. Nice. Flor.

296 VI

corporibus mors exanimis onerataque passim

cuncta cadaveribus caelestum templa manebant,
hospitibus loca quae complerant aedituentes. 1275
nec iam religio divom nec numina magni

pendebantur enim: praesens dolor exsuperabat.

nec mos ille sepulturae remanebat in urbe,

quo pius hic populus semper consuerat humari ;
perturbatus enim totus trepidabat, et unus 1280
quisque suum pro re praesenti maestus humabat.
multaque res subita et paupertas horrida suasit ;

namque suos consanguineos aliena rogorum

insuper extructa ingenti clamore locabant

subdebantque faces, multo cum sanguine saepe 1285
rixantes potius quam corpora desererentur.

31 Camb. all Vat.: Lach. separates 1270 from the context by []. 1274 manebant
Camb. Brix. vulg. for manebat A, manebit B. tenebat Lach. 1279 Quo pius
Is. Voss. in ms. notes, Wak. Lach. Hue pius A Nice. Camb. 2 Vat. Brix. Ver. Ven.
Quo prius B Vienn. frag. Lamb, Ut prius Flor. 31 two Vat. Avane. at end of Catull.
Creech. Ut pius one Vat. Mar. Ald. 1 Junt. ‘Lucretii ingenium parum cogno-
verunt qui praeoptant prius’ says Lach.: yet the ols πρότερον ἐχρῶντο of Thuc, 11 52
speaks strongly in favour of B and Lamb.: comp. Aen. rv 464 piorum Med., priorum
Vat. Pal. ete. humari. humare N. P. Howard, perhaps rightly. 1280 trepi-
dabat B. repedabat A Nicc. Flor. 31 Camb. two Vat. Mon. etc. 1281 praesenti
added by Ed. conpostum Lach. cousortem Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. before, Junt.
Lamb. ete. after pro re. cognatum Avanc. 1282 res subita et Camb. Vat. 1136
and 1954 Othob. for subita et A, subita fit B. ves subitae et Lach. vis subita et
Flor. 31 Vat. 640 Urbin. Mar, Ald. 1 Junt. Lamb. mors subita et Bern.
1285 faces Flor. 31 Camb. Mar. for fauces.

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12.xn-33-

im GLUCKRETI Ctr!
DE RERUM NATURA

LIBRI SEX

VOLUME Ii

T. LUCKETI CARL
DE RERUM NATURA
LIBRI Six

WITH NOTES AND A TRANSLATION

BY

H. A. J. MUNEO

FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE

FOURTH EDITION FINALLY REVISED

VOLUME II: EXPLANATORY NOTES

LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON BELL AND CO.
1900

“ΜΙ LeCRE ΠῚ CARI
DE RERUM NATURA
LIBRI ΠΧ.

EDITED BY

H. A. J. MUNRO

FORMERLY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE

FOURTH EDITION

LONDON
GEORGE BELL AND SONS
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON BELL AND CO.
1900

First Edition, 1861. Second Edition, 1866, Third Edition, 1873.
Fourth Revised Edition, 1836. Reprinted, 1803.
1900

LUCRETIUS.

NOTES II
LXPLAINING AND ILLUSTRATING THE POEM

JEROME, in his additions to the Eusebian chronicle, under the year of
Abraham 1923=Olymp. 171 3=U.C. 660 or B.C. 94 has these words
Titus Lucretius poeta nascitur. postea amatorro poculo in furorem versus
cum aliquot libros per intervalla insaniae conscribsisset quos postea Cicero
emendavit, propria se manu interfecit anno aetatis xu. Donatus in
his life of Virgil writes thus according to Reifferscheid Suetonii reliq.
p. 55, initia aetatis Cremonae egit | Vergilius| usque ad virilem togam,
quan. XV anno natali suo accepit isdem ills consulibus iterum duo-
bus quibus erat natus, evenitque ut eo ipso die Lucretius poeta decederet.
Lucretius died then on the ides of October U.C. 699 in the seeond
consulship of Pompey and Crassus ; and Jerome has misdated the year
of his birth by three or four years. Schoene’s careful critical edition of
the chronicle, founded on excellent manuscripts, enables us now to
speak with confidence of Jerome’s testimony. Two of the best of them
assign the birth of Lucretius to the year of Abraham 1922 instead of
1923. In either case Jerome is wrong by a few years, as in many other
instances; and we have not the key to explain the error. It appears to
me as certain as such a point can well be, that Lucretius was born
in the latter part of B.C. 99, or else in the early months of 98, as
is assumed by Usener in the Rhenish Museum, vol. xxi p. 442 and
vol. xx p. 678; since in either case he would be in his 44th year on
the ides of October 55, U.C. 699. Now no one who has read what so
many scholars have written on the question, Joseph Scaliger, Ritschl
parergon p. 609—638, Moimmsen Abh. saechs. Ges. 1 p. 669—693,
Neifferscheid 1. 1. p. 363 —435, will doubt that Jerome’s additions to
the chronicle are servilely copied from the lost work of Suetonius de
viris illustribus, nor feel much less coufidence that Donatus’ account
comes also from the saime source. These are the sole circumstances

m. 1]. ]

2 INTRODUCTION

recorded of his life; nor is anything whatever known about his family:
indeed the only other instance I have been able to find of the cognomen
Carus attached to the name of Lucretius is a very doubtful one occurring
in Mommsen’s inscr. reg. Neapol. Lat. 1653 ‘ Beneventi in aedibus
archiepiscopi’. But Prof. Sellar well remarks that literary distinction
at this time was almost confined to the higher classes ; and we need not
infer from the rarity of the cognomen that he did not belong to an old
family. In this age the cognomen was often varied even in the same
family: the father of the contemporary poet and orator C. Licinius
Calvus is always called Licinius Macer; nay Calvus himself is once so
styled by Cicero ad Q. fratrem τι 41. Lucretius therefore may well
have belonged to the high patrician gens of the Lucretii Tricipitini
whose glories were chiefly linked with the early history of the common-
wealth and were doubtless in great measure legendary, but not the less
valued perhaps on that account. Though Lucius Publius and Spurius
are more common among the Tricipitini, and a Hostus is named by Val.
Maximus, yet a T. Lucretius was consul with P. Valerius in 246, the
second year of the commonwealth, and again in 250 with the same
colleague; Titus too was the name of the father and grandfather of
L. Lucretius Tricipitinus who was consul and triumphed over the Aequi
and Volsci in 292. Flavus appears in the fasti consulares as a cogno-
men of these Tricipitini. Ofella, Gallus, Trio are attached to other
Lucretii, probably plebeians, but sufficiently illustrious. As Suetonius
took great pains in searching out the best original authorities for all his
statements, the facts mentioned above, even if somewhat coloured, must
be accepted as true in the main, as Lachinann observes, p. 63; the more
so that in February of the year 700 Cicero writes to his brother Quin-
tus 11 11 the well-known sentence Lucretia poemata ut scribis ita sunt
cet. This is the only occasion on which he ever mentions the poet’s
name, and it proves that four months after the death of Lucretius he
and his brother Quintus had read the poem which, as we saw in the
introduction to notes 1, could not have been published in the author’s
lifetime. Now this seems too short a time for the Ciceros to have read
and to be writing about the work, if neither of them had had anything
to do with preparing it for publication. But to which of the two
brothers does Jerome refer? in Latin or English when Cicero or Cwsar
is mentioned, if there is nothing else to determine who is spoken of, the
orator or the dictator is naturally implied; and Jerome in a dozen of his
additions to the Eusebian chronicle thus denotes Marcus. But both
Lachmann and Bernays decide that Quintus must be meant: ‘in re nota’
says the former ‘nihil opus fuit ut Ciceronis praenomen poneret, cum
nemo ignoraret Quintum intellegendum esse’. But why it should be a
res nota to Jerome and his contemporaries or even to Suetonius I cannot
see. Had Jerome found Quintus in his original, he must have added it,

TO NOTES II 3

nor would Suetonius himself have omitted it. Nor can 1 perceive the
least internal probability in favour of Quintus, who in those very
months must have been thinking more of the art of war than the art of
poetry; for in the summer of 700 he was fighting as Czsar’s legate in
Gaul and Britain. And why should not Marcus be the editor? he does
not appear to have been very actively employed during those months ;
and moreover he was one of those busy men who always find time for
any fresh work they are ealled upon to do. It may have been a dying
request of the poet’s; for it is more than likely from what he says
of Memmius that he would look on Cicero with admiration and esteem
him as the saviour of his country. Cicero’s virtues and abilities were
just of the sort to excite the love and wonder of a retired student, who
is more apt in practice to overrate than undervalue those who are
engaged in active life, whatever his speculative sentiments may be. And
here we are not left solely to conjecture: the many imitations we find in
Lucretius of the few hundred extant lines of Cicero’s Aratea prove, little
as it might have been expected, that he looked upon this translation as
one of his poetical models, Cicero, though he set small store on Epicu-
rus and his system, was on terms of intimate friendship with the lead-
ing epicureans both Greek and Roman: to one of them, Philodemus as
it now appears from the Hereulanean fragments recently published, we
know he was greatly indebted in his de natura deorum. And if Lucre-
tius were quite unknown to him, a word from Atticus or even from
Memmius would have made him undertake what would seem so slight a
task to a man of his laborious and energetic habits. The poem must
have been given to the world exactly as it was left by the author, with
nothing added or taken from it to all appearance. If Cicero then was
editor, he probably put it into the hands of some of his own amanuenses
or entrusted it to the large copying establishment of Atticus; and he
may have spent only a few hours in looking over it or hearing it read to
him : his name rather than his time was probably wanted by the friends
of Lucretius. All this would of course be the idlest guess-work, if it
were not for the express statement of Jerome, that is of Suetonius, that
he was editor ; a stateinent which is in some measure confirmed by the
younger Pliny, epist. πὶ 15, who thus writes to his friend Proculus,
Petis ut libellos tuos in secessu legam examinemque an editione sint dignt,
adhibes preces, adlegas exemplum,; rogas etiam ut aliquid subsecivi
temporis studiis meis subtraham, winpertiam tuis. adicis M. Tullinn
mira benignitate poctarum ingenia fovisse, The exemplum in question
may well have been the poem of Lucretius: Cicero in truth may have
stood in much the same relation to our poem that Augustus did to the
Aeneid, patron more than actual editor. Such a function might be a
compliment either to the author, as in tlie case of Lucretius and that
mentioned by Pliny; or to the editor: comp. Probus’ life of Persius

ae

4 INTRODUCTION

‘leviter retractavit {Persii liibrum] Cornutus et Caesio Basso, petenti
ut 1051 cederet, tradidit edendum’. Bassus was Persius’ earliest friend :
‘amicos habuit a prima adulescentia Caesium Bassum poetam cet.’
Professor Sellar in his Roman poets of the republic p. 203, though not
inclined to admit the editorship of Cicero, yet argues that Jerome must
be speaking of Marcus. A brilliant critic in Macmillan’s magazine,
no. 67 p. 52, calls in question this tradition and finds it difficult to get
over the fact that Lucretius is dismissed by Cicero in a dozen cold
words. If however the whole circumstances of the case are examined,
this difficulty will I believe wholly or in great measure disappear.
These dozen words occur in a hurried note to his brother of less than a
dozen lines; it is the only note addressed to Quintus during the whole
and more than the whole interval between the death of Lucretius and
the publication of his poem. The only other letters written by him
during those months are a few formal dispatches to officials on public
business, with the exception of one brief hurried note to Atticus written
in November from his Tusculan, to which he had retired for a few days’
relaxation. In this note he gives half a dozen words to his own de
oratore which he tells Atticus is now fit for publication and may at
once be transcribed by his copyists. He did not therefore write to
Atticus or others about Lucretius, because he was in Rome, seeing Atti-
cus daily and, if Lucretius’ poem was then in his hands, discussing
doubtless with him and others its merits and condition. I find in
Cicero no such anxiety, as this writer finds, about the phrases of any
friend’s essay. ‘The expression ‘inhibere remos’ occurred in his own
academics: he had rashly allowed Atticus to substitute it in the copies
already made for his own ‘sustinere remos’, When he found out the
true meaning of that nautical expression, he writes in the greatest hurry
and trepidation to try and prevent the solecism going forth to the world,
especially to the archcritic Varro to whom the work was dedicated. The
mere mention then of Lucretius, slight as it is, would seem to indicate of
itself some relation between him and the orator. As remarked on 11
1092, it is not Cicero’s custom to quote from contemporaries, numerous
as his citations are from the older poets and himself. Had he written
on poetry, doubtless Lucretius would have had a prominent place in 1;
but even where in his rhetorical works he criticises so fully the orators
of the day, he abstains from quoting their words. In all his writings
the name of Catullus does not once appear, though his poems deal so
much with the topics and names of the day most interesting to Cicero ;
notwithstanding his brilliant compliment to the orator which must have
been thoroughly felt, his agreement with him in politics, his lampoons
on Caesar and the Caesarians; though they both in different ways
suffered so grievously from Clodia or Lesbia the terrible ‘Clytaemnestra
quadrantaria’, the Medea of the Palatine. It has been shewn in our

TO NOTES I 5

notes that more than once in his philosophical works he must refer
to Lucretius. Had the poet been alive when the de finibus or the
de natura was written, he might have taken the place of Torquatus or
Velleius.

However this may be, it is certain enough that the poem was given
to the world early in the year 700, and in the unfinished state in which
it was left by the author: indeed I hardly like to say how strong my
suspicions, even my convictions are, that many of the most manifest
blunders in the poem as we now have it appeared in the very first edition
of it whether from design or inadvertency: probably both; for later in this
very year Cicero writes to jus brother in Britain, 111 6 6, that he despairs
of procuring for him accurate copies of Latin writers, ita mendose et
seribuntur et veneunt. It is not easy in any other way to explain the
agreement of Macrobius and Nonius with the archetype of all existing
manuscripts in some indisputable corruptions. The story of the poet’s
madness has been examined by Prof. Sellar 1. 1. p. 200. Whether there
is any truth in it or not, it cannot be doubted that it was already current
in Suetonius’ time; yet few will deny ‘that it would be strange if so
remarkable a poem had been written in the lucid intervals of insanity’,
This poem was designed to be a complete exposition of the physical
system of Epicurus, not for the sake of the system itself, but in order to
free the minds of men from the two greatest of al] ills, fear of death and
fear of the gods, by explaining to them the true nature of things. So
far he followed in the steps of his master who with the same end in
view composed among many other works one entitled περὶ φύσεως in 37
books, of which some wretchedly scanty and incomplete fragments have
been published in the Herculanean volumes. How much Lucretius was
indebted to this more important work may be gathered from the letters
of Epicurus preserved in the tenth book of Diogenes Laertius, which
give a brief epitome of his system and have been so largely used in this
commentary. The poet’s veneration for his teacher would constrain him
to borrow from him his matter; his manner and style are altogether differ-
ent. To Lucretius the truth of his philosophy was all-important: to this
the graces of his poetry were made altogether subordinate. To us on the
other hand the truth or falsehood of his system is of exceedingly little
concern except in so far as it is thereby rendered a better or worse
velnicle for conveying the beauties of his language and the graces of his
poetical conceptions.

Is then the epicurean system well or ill adapted to these purposes ?
As a poet in that age could scarcely be the inventor of a new system of
philosophy, Lucretius could hardly help adopting some one of those
which were then in vogue ; if not the epicurean, then the academical or
peripatetical or stoical. To construct a poem out of either of the first
two with its barren logomachies, wire-drawn distinctions without a

6 INTRODUCTION

ditterence, would have truly been to twist a rope out of sand: of course
I am speaking of these two systems as they were in the days of Cicero
and Lucretius ; though much the same might be said of them in the age
of their first propounders, Well then the stoical? I unhesitatingly assert
that for all purposes of poetry both its physical and ethical doctrines are
incomparably inferior to those of Epicurus. Read the de natura deorum ;
compare their one wretched world, their monotonous fire, their rotund
and rotatory god, their method of destroying and creating anew their
world, with the system of nature unfolded by Lucretius, grand and
majestical in its general outline, with some strangely suggestive antici-
pations of the latest marvels of physical science. Then look at their sterile
wisdom and still more barren virtue with their repudiation of all that con-
stitutes the soul of poetry. Lucretius on the other hand can preach up
virtue and temperance and wisdom and sober reason with as loud a voice
as any of your stoics; and then what inexhaustible resources does he leave
himself in his alma Venus and dux vitae dia voluptas! Are examples
wanted? then contrast the varied graces and exuberant beauty of Virgil,
when he is pleased to assume the garb of an epicurean, with the leaden
dulness and tedious obscurity of the stoic Manilius; or compare the rich
humour and winning ways and ease of a Horace with the hardness and
thinness and forced wit of a Persius. Al] this 1t may be said is in the
men, not their systems. Yes, but the proper choice of a subject is half
the battle. And yet the picturesque English historian speaks of the epi-
curean as the meanest and silliest of all systems; and one German critic
after another sees fit to denounce it as beneath contempt. In this as in
many other points the poet has received more justice at the hands of
his latest English critic, and from the brilliant rhetoric of Martha in
his Lucrece. Lessing in his essay to prove that Pope because a poet
could not be a metaphysician says ‘if I am asked whether I know
Lucretius, whether I know that his poetry contains the system of
Epicurus, I would confidently answer, Lucretius and the like are verse-
makers not poets’; and again ‘the poet speaks with Epicurus, when he
would extol pleasure, and with the porch, when he would praise virtue’.
But this 15 what Lucretius can and does do: virtue at all events he
can praise on the broad grounds accepted by the general feeling of the
world, if he is unable to adopt the narrow and intolerant views of his
adversaries.

Lucretius possessed indeed in as high a degree as any Latin poet
two qualities which a poet can ill dispense with, the power of vividly
conceiving and of expressing his conceptions in words. This has enabled
him to master the great outlines of the epicurean universe of things, and
by a succession of striking images and comparisons drawn from the
world of things which was going on before the eyes of him and his
readers to impress this outline on their minds. The two first books

TO NOTES II 7

appear to be finished and to have received almost the last touches of the
author with the exception perhaps of certain portions of the second,
pointed out in their several places. The greater part of these books is
devoted to a very complete and systematical account of the natures and
properties which belong to the two great constituents of the universe,
atoms and void. Given to him this universe in working order there is
much that is striking, much even that may be true, much at all events
that Newton accepted, in this description; something too in which he
was in advance even of the age of Newton. We of course care, not for
its scientific value or truth, but for its poetical grandeur and efficacy
upon our imaginations; and in these respects we are most amply satisfied.
The least interesting portions of these books are perhaps the episodes in
which the rival systems of Heraclitus Empedocles and Anaxagoras are
examined and refuted. They are closely connected with the general
subject and the poet is much in earnest, but, as was indeed to be
expected and as is pointed out in the proper place, he could only criticise
them from his own point of view and starting from his own principles.
The third book is likewise tolerably finished ; and in no portion of his
work does he more fully display his power of sustained and systematical
reasoning. Here too, if his premisses are granted, his arguments are
striking and effective, and carried through with the energy of a fanatical
conviction. The poetry and pathos and earnest satire of the last 260
verses are of a very high order. The fourth book is in a much less complete
condition than those which precede. Yet in the first part of it, in which
the epicurean theory of images is expounded, he wrestles with its
gigantic difficulties and often overcomes them with singular power energy
and controversial address, And in truth the most obvious objections to
this doctrine of images apply almost as strongly to the Newtonian theory
of the enission of light which in spite of them so long maintained its
ground. The later sections of the book, which explain the operations
of the other senses, the way in which the mind and the will are excited,
the theories of food, walking, sleep and the like, are more sketchy and
unfinished, though they often shew acute observation. The concluding
two hundred verses are very peculiar and display a satirical vein as
powerful and much more subtle than that of Juvenal. The fifth book is
also unequal: some few lines, pointed out in their place, are almost
unworthy of the poet and seem to have been written down to fill up a
gap until he found time to change them for better. The portions too in
which he describes the movements of the sun and moon and stars will
not afford any great gratification. But more than half the book, namely
416—508 and 771 to the end, are in his noblest manner. Nothing in
Latin poetry surpasses, if it even equals these verses, in grandeur sub-
limity and varied beauty: occasionally too some fine touches of earnest
satire are met with: in these passages, as well as in those mentioned

ὃ INTRODUCTION

above, he nobly maintains the reputation claimed for his countrymen in
that style of writing. The sixth book is unequal like the fifth: the
beginning as far as 95 is very unsatisfactory and confused, as has been
pointed out in the notes. Then follow some hundred verses in which
the nature and working of thunder and lightning, the formation of
clouds rain and the like are described. This portion is most carefully
elaborated. There is not much room for the highest virtues of poetry ;
but still great qualities are here brought into play, quickness of observa-
tion and power of describing what is observed, vivacity of narrative, fine
perception of analogy and much ingenuity of speculation: the language
is simple, terse, direct and telling. Most of these merits are displayed
in greater or less measure even in the flattest and most prosaic portions
of the poem; but the verses here spoken of are not of this number.
Quite recently I was glad to find the opinion I had long entertained of
this section of the poem confirmed by the greatest of German critics in
Riemer’s Mittheilungen ueber Goethe 11 p. 645; and this is not the only
place in which Goethe expresses the most unbounded admiration for our
poet. What follows is not so satisfactory: Lucretius has to include a
great variety of questions 1n a very limited space. These seem to be
selected sometimes at hap-hazard: nearly 200 lines are given to the
magnet, lively verses enough and very ingenious, but out of all propor-
tion to the subject-matter. The description of the plague of Athens
concludes the book: it is manifestly unfinished ; and though it contains
much noble poetry, it suffers from the unavoidable comparison with the
austere beauty and simple grandeur of its original, which the poet has
not always understood and from which he has sometimes departed with-
out good cause. He has shewn himself here both too much and too
little of a physician: he is too technical for the poet, too inaccurate for
the philosopher.

In style and language Lucretius has manifestly adopted a some-
what archaic tone, differing more or less from that of his extant con-
temporaries. This has been occasioned mainly by his admiration for
Ennius and Naevius and the old tragic poets Pacuvius and Accius: their
extant fragments prove how carefully he had studied them. In Greek
literature too his tastes seem to have carried him to the older and more
illustrious writers. In this as in so many other respects he appears to
have stood quite aloof from the prevailing fashions of his day; for the
great mass of contemporary poets, among them even Catullus at all
events in his heroic and elegiac poems, chose to form their style after
Euphorion of Chalcis and the affected Alexandrine school of poets, Calli-
machus and the rest, whose influence extended far into the Augustan
age, though they wrote in what was to themselves really a dead language.
It is owing probably in great measure to his admiration for Lucretius
that Virgil and thereby Latin poetry were saved from falling even more

TO NOTES II 9

than they did under this baneful influence. Epicurus of course Lucretius
would study for other purposes than those of style, in which he would
have found him but a sorry master; but the Greek writers still wholly
or partly extant, whom, to judge by his imitations of them, he most
loved and admired, were Homer Euripides Empedocles Thucydides and
Hippocrates. Doubtless too he had carefully studied the old philoso-
phers Democritus Anaxagoras and Heraclitus, but mainly for their
philosophy. Plato he would seem to have known something of froin
more than one passage of his poem. His illustrious contemporary Cicero
had like him an intense esteem for Ennius, a profound contempt for the
‘cantores Euphorionis’ who presuined to despise Ennius. Many years
before Lucretius wrote his poem Cicero in boyhood had translated the
works of Aratus. This translation of which large fragments are pre-
served shews much spirit and vivacity of language, though its poetical
merits cannot be mentioned beside those of Lucretius. Yet the latter
strangely enough, moved it may be by his general admiration for the
man, had made this youthful production one of his models of style, as
may be demonstrated, not by one or two, but by twenty manifest imita-
tions of the few hundred lines still existing. In poetical diction and
metrical skill Lucretins has surpassed not only this boyish essay, but
doubtless their common master Ennius as well; for the first inventor is
naturally left behind by his followers. Yet Lucretius undoubtedly
wished it to be known that the latter was his master and model in Latin
poetry. Free from all jealousy and empty pretension, he took every
opportunity of acknowledging his obligations to those to whom he felt
indebted : first and foremost to Epicurus who shewed the path which
leads to truth and reason without which all other gifts were vain, and
after him to Democritus and the other early Greek philosophers. Em-
pedocles receives his homage partly as one of these, but mainly because
he gave him the best model of a philosophical poem. Ennius is extolled
at the beginning of his work as his master in Latin verse. Lucretius
thus to all appearance stood aloof from the swarm of contemporary poets
and left them to quarrel and fight among themselves, as even the best of
them seem to have been ready to do. The Augustan poets of the first
rank afford a rare and most pleasing example of brotherly harmony and
good feeling ; but if Catullus and Calvus had not died in early manhood,
there are many indications that they and their school would have come
into painful collision with Virgil and Horace and their partisans.
Notwithstanding the antique tinge which for poetical ends he has
given to his poem, the best judges have always looked upon it as one of
the purest models of the Latin idiom in the age of its greatest perfection.
Pitty vouchers might be cited for this; but the following will suflice :
Scaliger declares emphatically that there is no better writer than Lucre-
tius of the Latin language. Lambinus and Lachmann have scarcely

IO INTRODUCTION

been surpassed in modern times as Latin scholars and Latin writers, and
both moreover studied Lucretius with unwearied diligence: the former
who edited Plautus Cicero and Horace as well as Lucretius pronounces
him to be ‘omnium poetarum Latinorum qui hodie exstant et qui ad
nostram aetatem pervenerunt elegantissimus et purissimus idemque
gravissimus atque ornatissimus’; and in another place he tells Charles 1x
that the style of Cicero or Caesar is not purer than this poet’s: the latter
is never weary of extolling his ‘sermonis castitas’, his ‘lactea ubertas’
and the like. It is in the style and structure of his language that this
purity is observable: in single words he has by no means obeyed the
emphatic adjuration of his great contemporary to shun like a rock a new
and unusual term; but has taken a poet’s privilege to coin hundreds of
new words which have been pointed out where they occur and to intro-
duce not a few from the Greek. And here will be the place to make
some remarks on the poet’s own complaint of the poverty of his native
tongue. We may first assert as an indisputable fact that in his day the
living Latin for all the higher forms of composition both prose and verse
was a far nobler language than the hving Greek. Let not what is said
be misunderstood. During the long period of Grecian preeminence and
literary glory, from Homer to Demosthenes, all the manifold forms of
poetry and prose which were invented one after the other, were brought
to such an exquisite perfection, that their beauty of form and grace of
language were never afterwards rivalled by Latins or any other people.
But hardly had Demosthenes and Aristotle ceased to live, when that
Attic which had been gradually formed into such a noble instrument of
thought in the hands of Aristophanes Euripides Plato and the orators
and had superseded for general use all the other dialects, became at the.
same time the language of the civilised world and was stricken with a
mortal decay. It seems to have been too subtle and delicate for any but
its wonderful creators. The Alexandrine poets who imitated earlier
styles, and even the graceful Theocritus repeat parrot-like forms which
they do not understand, because their meaning had been lost for cen-
turies. If what is said of a Theocritus be thought presumptuous, there
is no question that it is true of prose writers. Epicurus who was born
in the same year as Menander writes a harsh jargon that does not
deserve to be called a style ; and others, of whose writings anything is
left entire or in fragments, historians and philosophers alike, Polybius
Chrysippus Philodemus, are little if at all better. When Cicero deigns
to translate any of their sentences, see what grace and life he instils into
their clumsily expressed thoughts! how satisfying to the ear and taste
are the periods of Livy when he is putting into Latin the heavy and un-
couth clauses of Polybius! This may explain what Cicero means, when
at one time he gives to Greek the preference over Latin, at another to
Latin over Greek: in reading Sophocles or Plato he would acknowledge

TO NOTES IJ bE

their unrivalled excellence ; in translating Panaetius or Philodemus he
would feel his own immeasurable superiority.

In three places Lucretius complains of the poverty of his native
tongue: 1136 he says in general terms that he is aware how dificult it
is to express in Latin verses the abstruse discoveries of the Greeks. But
could a Greek poet express them in Greek verses? could a Homer or
even a Euripides expound the theories of Aristotle or Chrysippus or
Epicurus more clearly than Lucretius? Surely not: in the second book
he has translated soine anapaests of Euripides that consummate master
of matured Attic, and there is no thought in them which he cannot ex-
press literally. Certainly in difficult questions Empedocles is more help-
less than Lucretius, though he had an epic diction to imitate which had
existed for centuries, The second passage is 1 830 foll. where he ob-
serves that the poverty of his native speech does not permit him to
express in Latin Anaxagoras’ homoeomeria, but the meaning he can
expound easily enough. And easily and lucidly enough he does explain
it: the less he or any other poet Latin or Greek or English has to do
with the word itself the better: it is not more poetical than entelechia
or homoeusia, or the τὸ ri ἦν εἶναι itself. The third passage is πὶ 218
foll. where he says that he would fain explain at greater length the way
in which the different substances which compose the soul are mixed and
work together, but the poverty of his native speech compels him to be
brief. Whether he is brief or not, he explains an intricate question as
clearly as any Greek writer in prose or verse would be likely todo. One
might more justly object to Lucretius that he has too much instead of
too little technical language for a poet. Whatever Greek writer Cicero
wishes to explain, he can find adequate Latin terms to express the
Greek, even if they are those of Plato or Aristotle: is it a new sense
given to a word in common use? he can always meet λόγος or εἶδος with
ratio or species: is ita newly coined word? his qua/itas 1s quite as good
as Plato’s ποιότης. Nay from the force of circumstances species qualitas
quantitas have had a much longer life and a far more extended applica-
tion than εἶδος ποιότης and ποσότης. Had Cicero chosen to apply the
prolific energy of his intellect to the task, he might have invented and
wecded to beautiful language as copious a terminology as was afterwards
devised by the united efforts of Tertullian and the other fathers, Aqui-
nas and the other schoolmen ; from which the most cultivated modern
languages derive the chief portion of that wealth in scientific terms
which enables them to claim in that respect a superiority over Latin.
But the language of Latin poetry would assuredly not have been im-
proved thereby. That however he, like Cicero, sometimes entertained a
more favourable opinion of his language and his art would appear from
such expressions as the twice recurring quod obscura de re tam lucida
pango Carmina, nusaeo contingens cuncta lepore.

12 INTRODUCTION

The Lucretian hexameter occupies an important place in the history
of Latin poetry, coming as it does between that of Ennius who invented
and that of Virgil who brought this metre to perfection. What Ennius
did in this matter is a curious study: he not only was the first to intro-
luce this new and strange form of verse into the language on which it
was to continue to exercise so great an influence ever after; but he laid
down for it laws of prosody differing in many essential points from those
observed by himself in his tragedies as well as by all the other tragic
and comic poets of his own and the following age. These laws, trans-
mitted from one generation to another, taught as a necessary part of a
liberal education and enforced on the writers of elegiac and lyrical as
well as of heroic verse, had no doubt a Jarge share in fixing for many
ceuturies the outward form and inner nature of the language, the
tendency of which, as of its cognate dialects Oscan Umbrian and the
like, was towards rapid change; though perhaps in the end they cansed
it to come down with a heavier crash, when at last the gulf between it
and the debased and degraded speech of the people became too immense.
The history of Attic and vulgar Greek is very similar. Complete how-
ever as Ennius’ system of quantity was, quite as complete as that of
Virgil, his rhythm from the nature of the case was somewhat rude and
uncouth ; he attempted to imitate the Greek structure of verse in points
where there appeared to be a natural incompatibility between it and the
Latin. There is not evidence to shew by what steps this rhythm was
gradually improved, until at length in the hands of Virgil it attained
that elaborate and complicated yet exquisite perfcction, which is utterly
different from the Homeric movement, and yet appears as well adapted
to the Latin forms of speech as the other is to the Ionic. We have
however sutlicient proof that Lucretius gave to the form of his verse as
well as to his language an antique colouring, as if he wished in this
respect too to break with his contemporaries and approach to the manner
of Ennius. He is however a far more finished master of versification
than Ennius, and his most striking violations of the laws of construction
habitually observed by his conteinporaries or immediate predecessors
often produce very fine and harmonious effects. That he is more archaic
in these respects than his age may be proved not only by a comparison
between him and Catullus, but by taking note of the laws of metre
observed by Cicero in his youthful hexameters, which he must therefore
have learnt from Ins teachers. Let us examine briefly some of the lead-
ing differences between the verse of Lucretius and that of Virgil and
certain other authors. In the Latin and Greek hexameter alike the
rhythm mainly depends on the caesura. The due observance of this
caesura together with a manifold variety in the flow of the verse forms
the great charm both of the Greek and the Latin heroic ; and examples
of its violation are exceedingly rare in Homer Lucretius and Virgil

TO NOTES II τ:

alike. But other rules observed with equal care by Virgil and Catullus
are repeatedly and intentionally neglected by Lucretius. Thus we find
in him hundreds of instances in which the first two feet are marked off
from the rest of the verse in the following unusual modes taken at
random from his six books: with two dactyls at the beginning Peligioni-
bus atque minis, Omnia denique sancta, Suscipiendaque curarit, Quippe
patentia cum, Vertice Palladis ad templum: with a spondee and dactyl
Ergo vivida vis, At primordia gignundis, Praetermittere et humanis,
Aut extrinsecus ut: more rarely a dactyl and spondee or two spondees,
but then a monosyllable must follow, Sive voluptas est, Non temere ulla
vt; Inmortali sunt, Nam cum malto sunt, Vis est, quarum nos: once
indeed with great boldness, but with singularly happy effect, 111 527
Lt membratim vitalem deperdere sensum. Instances of such rhythms in
Virgil may be counted on the fingers: he has Sctlicet omnibus est labor
inpendendus, Armentarius Afer, Sed tw desine velle, Spargens umida
mella, probably in imitation of Lucretius; and Per conubia nostra after
Catullus’ Sed conubia laeta, with him too a mere exceptional rhythm for
a peculiar effect. In Cicero’s early work the Aratea similar instances
are found, Verwm tempora sunt, Inclinatior atque; but they are rarer
than in Lucretius: in the 80 or 90 verses still remaining of his poem de
consulatu suo written about five years before the death of our poet
there is not a single example. In the middle of the verse too Lucretius
has many favourite movements, most of which are not unexampled in
Virgil Catullus or Cicero but are much less common, such as Quid
nequeat finita potestas, Detulit ex Llelicone perenni, Amnious inventuntur
aperto, Finita variare figurarum ratione, Omne genus perfusa colori-
bus, Pocula crebra unguenta, and a hundred such. Cicero has some
pretty verses in his prognostica which suggest the manner of Lucretius,
Vos quoque signa videtis, aquai dulcis alumnae, Cum clamore paratis
inanis fundere voces, Absurdoque sono fontis et stayna cretis...vocibus
instat, Vocibus instat et adsiduas iacit ore querellas: the latter passage
Lucretius v 298 has manifestly imitated. In the fifth and sixth feet of
the verse too, so important for the rhythm, the manner of Lucretius is
much more like that of Ennius and, in some points, of the Greeks, than
that of Virgil or Catullus or even Cicero: he delights to close the verse
with such words as principtorum materiat simplicitate, or vis anima,
saecla animantum, mente animoque, and does not even avoid such harsh
elisions as quandoquidem extat, perpetuo aevo, praeterea usquam. Now
in Virgil such endings as guadrupedantum ancipitemque, and in Catullus
such a one as egredientem are exceedingly uncommon. But these poets
make one striking exception in favour of Greek words and delight to
close a verse with hymenaeus Deiopea Thersilochumque and the lke:
a concession to Greek rhythm and a prettiness which Lucretius would
not care for. As for the other rhythms just mentioned, Virgil says

14 INTRODUCTION

magnam cui mentem animumgque and simul hoc animo hauri, in acknow-
ledgment probably of his obligations to Lucretius: they produce a strik-
ing effect in the Aeneid from their extreme rarity: Lucretius again does
not decline spondaic endings as naturai, aeternumque, et mortalis, sint
in motu; once even invents stint; but these are much rarer than such
endings as principiorum, and it is worthy of note that he abstains from
them altogether in the sixth book. On the contrary Catullus and Virgil
use them much more frequently than quadrupedantum egredientem and
the like: Catullus luxuriates in movements like these Nereides admt-
rantes, ac moenia Larisaea, fluctus salis adludebant, and Virgil and Ovid
often affect such terminations to a line as Jovis incrementum, Phrygia
agming circumspexit ; but more in Greek than in Latin words. This
however is no concession to ancient practice, but a modern prettiness
introduced by the school of Alexandrine imitators mentioned above: see
Cicero ad Att. vir 2 1 τέω belle nobis Flavit ab Epiro lenissimus onches-
mites. hune σπονδειάζοντα si cui voles τῶν νεωτέρων pro tuo vendita. Was
it scorn of such affectation that made Lucretius altogether avoid such
σπονδειάζοντες in his last book? Other forms of spondaic endings, bor-
rowed from the Greek and mostly applied to Greek words, are not
uncommon in Catullus Virgil and Ovid. They need not be mentioned
here, as they generally have something of learned artifice and recon-
dite elegance about them, quite alien to the nature of Lucretius. He
never puts more than two spondees together at the end of the line,
while the other three do not reject such rhythms as Nereidum matre
et Neptuno Aegaeo after the manner of the Greeks. Lucretius does
not avoid sometimes very harsh and prosaic endings such as constare:
id ita esse. When Virgil has such terminations of a verse as procumbit
humi bos, it is done for effect; Lucretius employs them sometimes for a
purpose, oftener without any. He is especially fond of elisions after the
fourth foot lke these, perdelivim esse videtur, permutato ordine solo,
minus oblato acriter iclu, nisi concilio ante coacto: in elisions generally
he is sometimes less, sometimes more violent than Virgil. One other
point is worth observing: Lucretius loves to have the fourth foot wholly
contained in one word and ending with that word: in the first 43 verses
of his poem, a highly elaborated passage, more than half the number have
movements like these, quae terras frugiferentis, not terras quae; exor-
tum lumina solis, tibt swavis daedala tellus, not suavis tibt; tibe rident
aequora ponti, diffuso lumine caelum, genitabilis aura favoni and so on.
This produces a grand and stately, but somewhat monotonous effect.
Catullus however carries it as far or even farther than Lucretius.
Virgil, though he often uses this flow and with much effect, avoids it as
a rule: he says Troiae qui primus, not qui T'roiae ; labentem caelo quae
ducitis annum, not quae caelo, as Lucretius would have done. It must
not be questioned that in the construction of single verses and still more

TO NOTES II 15

in the rhythmical movement which he impresses on a whole passage
Lucretius is a far less careful and skilled artist than Virgil. The effect
which his grandest passages produce is owing more to the vigour and
originality of the thought ancl the force and freshness of the expression
than to studied polish and elaboration.

One of the most marked peculiarities of the old Latin writers is their
extreme fondness for alliteration, assonance, repetition of the same or
similar words syllables and sounds, often brought together and combined
in the most complex fashion. In Latin, as in some other languages,
this usage was clearly transmitted from most ancient times, and is not
the invention of any one writer. Ennius and the serious poets use it
to produce a poetical effect ; Plautus and the comic poets employ it for
comic purposes: the following from the captivi, Quanta pernis pestis
ventret, quanta labes larido, Quanta sumini apsumedo, quanta callo cala-
mitas, Quanta landis lussitudo, quanta porcinartis, will furnish a good
example. Cicero does not despise such artifices even in prose; but none
scatters them about more prodigally than Lucretius both singly and in
manifold combination: they are to be counted in his poem by hundreds,
nay thousands, and many are noted in different parts of our commentary.
His alliterations comprise almost every letter of the alphabet: the more
effective letters such as i p v pronounced w are often used with striking
effect. The last sometimes expresses pity as its sound well fits it to do:
Viva videns vivo sepelirr viscera busto: comp. Virgil’s Neu patriae validas
am viscera vertite vires; and Cicero’s vivus, ut aiwunt, est et videns cum
victu ac vestitu suo publicatus: or force or violence, because the words
indicating such effects begin many of them with the letter: vivida vis
pervicit, venti vis verberat, ventorun validis viribus, Vel violenta viri vis,
quid volnera vellent: comp. Virgil’s Lit via vi, Livy’s v2 viam faciunt,
Lucilius’ Vis est vita, vides, vis cet.; Ennius’ vidi Priamo vi vitam
evitart; for effects of living shunning and the like are expressed by it
in Lucretius also. Often various letters are used in combination: the
following is a good instance of m p and v: parare Non potuit, pedibus
qui pontum per vada possent Transtre et magnros manibus divellere montis
Multtaque vivendo vitalia vincere saecla: comp. Ennius’ Alarsa manus,
Paeligna cohors, Vestina virum vis. Such combinations are common in
Virgil ; but occur by hundreds in Lucretius. Then he delights in bring-
ing together words compounded of the same preposition by themselves
or in union with other sorts of alliteration or assonance: offictum...officere
atque obstare, setunyi seque gregari, disturbans dissoluensque, retroque
repulsa reverti, condenso conciliatu, Hxos et exanguis, pertusum congesta
quast in vas Commoda perfluxere atque ingrata interiere: comp. Virgil’s
Insontem infaundo indicio and the like. Then he loves to bring together
the saine or like-sounding words or examples of oxymoron in conjunction
with other alliterations and assonances or by themselves: ommes omnia,

16 INTRODUCTION

omnibus omnino; tempore in omnt omnibus ornatum rebus ; again and
again Multa modis multis multarum rerum ; pueri circum puerum ; Nil
sint ad summam suminai totius omnem; Tactus enim tactus ; aurea dicta,
Aurea; sonitu sonanti, penitus penetrare, funditus fundamenti; casta
inceste, Innumerabilem enim numerum, Innumero numero, Immortalia
mortali, Mortalem vitam mors cum inmortalis ademit ; tempore iniquo
aequo animo: cet. cet. Virgil’s fondness for similar artifices is probably
in great measure derived from Lucretius. After Virgil’s time they
appear to be less frequent in Latin literature: people probably got tired
of them, as has happened in other literatures. This love of assonance in
all its shapes our poet indulges to such an extent, that his ear and taste
appear not unfrequently to have become blunted by satiety: often within
the compass of two or three lines he will use some of his favourite words,
such as ves ratio or corpora, three or four or five times, without there
being any point or force whatever in their repetition. The most glaring
examples are pointed out in their places. Many other modes of pro-
ducing effect might be noted in Lucretius, such as his habit of putting
together substantives without any copula: Prata lacus rivos segetes; Ossu
cruor venae calor umor viscera nervi; Aera solem ignem terras animalia
frugis; varios conexus pondera plagas Concursus motus; Concursus
motus ordo positura figurae ; Volneribus clamore fuga terrore tumultu :
but let the examples given suffice. In his alliterations and assonances as
well as in the rhythmical movements of his verse and the style and colour
generally which he imparts to his poem Lucretius seeks rather for the
most direct and obvious means of producing effect, than for the more
subtle and recondite arts of Virgil. His ornament therefore is apt
sometimes to be in excess, sometimes to be deficient; yet even the
plainest and most prosaic parts of his poem shew a sincerity of thought,
a force of reasoning and a racy idiomatic flavour of style which render
them less dull and uninteresting than the flatter portions of many more
carefully elaborated works.

Another point of resemblance between Lucretius and the older
writers must not be passed over unnoticed. The language seems once to
have claimed for itself, and with good reason, the same right of forming
compound words, as the Greek always retained. Thus in Lucretius
alone there are forty or fifty compounds like terriloquus horrisonus or
terrigene Troiugena cet., many of them ἅπαξ λεγόμενα, Such as stlvifragus
fluctifragus. Now these words are just as regularly and organically
formed as any in Greek: primiyenus seems as legitimate as πρωτόγονος,
terrigena as yyyerns. But by one of those mysterious laws of language
which have to be observed and not reasoned about, the classical language
soon began to limit this right of forming compounds, and Lucretius in
this respect too must be pronounced decidedly archaic. Virgil is already
much more niggardly in his use of compound words; and the tendency

TO NOTES II | 1,

of the language was more and more to discard them, until barbarous
writers like Tertullian forced it back in the opposite direction. Lu-
cretius in VI 129 uses perterricrepus: this word Cicero in one of his
latest works the orator, 164, quotes from an old poet and condemns for
‘asperitas’, as well as versutiloguus. Now these two adjectives are
formed quite regularly; and so are the repandirostrum incurvicervicum
of Pacuvius; but Quintilian, who in his instit. 1 6 65—70 states the
limits within which the Latin of his day might form compounds,
observes ‘cum κυρταύχενα mirati sumus, incurvicervicum vix a risu
defendimus’. See also Livy quoted in n. to v 839, The right of form-
ing compound nouns and verbs by prefixing the different prepositions
always remained in full force; and no one having his attention called to
this point can read a page of Cicero or Livy without feeling what an
influence over style and expression this usage of the language exercised,
an influence almost equally apparent in any page of an English or
French writer.

Standing as Lucretius did entirely aloof from what would most excite
the sympathies of his contemporaries, there is not much evidence to shew
what reception his poem met with from the great mass of his country-
men. It sufficiently appears however that he and Catullus were justly
esteemed the two greatest poets of theirage. Yet there can be no doubt
that his work came into the world at a time very unfavourable for the
fame of its author. He would take no part in the great movement then
in active progress which ended in producing the works of Virgil Horace
and Ovid and fixed once and for ever the Roman standard of poetical
taste. The splendour of their reputation threw into the shade that of
their greatest predecessors, Ennius Lucretius and even Catullus: they
obtained the unanimous suffrages of the best critics of the empire, at the
head of whom stood Quintilian. The reaction in favour of the older
literature seems to have been headed by unskilful and too zealous
leaders and thus to have exposed itself to the shafts of satire. The effect
which Dryden and Pope produced for soine generations on English poetry
gives but a faint notion of the sovereignty exercised by the Augustan
poets. And yet Lucretius had no slight influence on the poetry of
succeeding ages, although the first mention of his verses according to the
interpretation usually given is anything but complimentary. TI refer of
course to a sentence of Cicero written a few months after the poet’s
death and probably at the very time when his poem was first published.
At the end of a short letter to his brother Quintus, 0 11, written
early in 700, occurs this sentence as it is given in all mss. Luecretii
poemata ut scribis ita sunt multis luminibus ingenit multae tamen artis.
Nearly all editors are now agreed in writing ita sunt, non multis cet. ;
but sense alone must determine the right reading: to put non before
multae tumen artis is quite as easy an emendation. What then is

M, 11. 2

IS INTRODUCTION

Cicero’s meaning? we have not the criticism of Quintus which called
forth the remark to enlighten us. At this period when the νεώτεροι, as
Cicero calls them, were striving to bring the Alexandrine style into
fashion, there seems to have been almost a formal] antithesis between the
rude genius of Ennius and the modern art. It is not then impossible
that Quintus may so have expressed himself on this head, that Cicero
may mean to answer ‘yes, you are quite right in saying that Lucretius
has not only much of the native genius of Ennius, but also much of that
art which to judge by most of the poets of the day might seem incom-
patible with it’. Thus the mss. would be right and Cicero’s judgment
would satisfy us. Again to write either mzltae tamen etiam artis or
multae etiam artis is hardly, if at all a greater change than to insert non.
Lachmann however has no doubt that 202 must come before multis: he
says Cicero could not deny to Lucretius art: ‘quod in Marco sane miran-
dum esset, quippe qui elus artis qua Lucretius pollet ne minimam
quidem partem in carminibus suis adsecutus esset. contra idem cur pauca
ingenti lumina in Lucretii carmine animadverterit, non potest obscurum
esse: nam ei Ennius et Attius ea re igeniosz videbantur, quod oblec-
tando docerent et animis movendis corrigerent mores’. But every one
feels that ingenit lumina means here precisely what we mean by genius;
what Ovid means when he says of Ennius Lnnius ingenio maximus,
arte rudis, of Callimachus Quamvis ingenio non valet, arte valet, of
himself broken by calamity Nee tamen tngenium nobis respondet, ut
ante... Impetus ille sucer qui vatum pectora nutrit, Qui prius in nobis esse
solebat, abest; what Horace means by ingeni benigna vena; and Ingenium
eur sit, cut mens divintor; what Juvenal means whien he says of Demo-
sthenes and Cicero utrumque Largus et exundans leto dedit engenit fons.
As it would not be well then in Cicero to deny Lucretius ingenium, if
we must have a non, I should prefer to see it before multae. Why
Cicero should deny him art, may be explained in more ways than one:
he had a genuine love of Ennius and is indignant that the ‘cantores
Euphorionis’ should presume to despise him: he and Lucretius agreed
on taking him for their great poetical model. At the same time his own
Aratea must have been written thirty years or more before this letter,
and he may well have been so far converted by the almost unanimous
tendency of the poets of the day towards that style of diction and verse
which was gradually leading up to the works of Virgil and Horace, as to
deny Ennius and Lucretius much art. In that early work for instance
Cicero suppresses the final s of short syllables just as freely as Lucretius
does: in his orator written two or three years before his death he says
of this licence ‘iam subrusticum videtur, olim autem politius’, What
remains of their poetry, proves that both Augustus and Maecenas had
formed their style rather in the school of Catullus and Calvus than of
Virgil and Horace; yet doubtless they would have rated the art of the

᾿

TO NOTES II 19

latter more highly than that of the former. Or Quintus may have
dwelt on Lucretius’ philosophical qualities ; and Cicero who is continually
jeering at Epicurus for his want of art and scientific discipline, may
possibly include Lucretius in the same condemnation. However that
may be, if Cicero did deny him ingentwm, then did the great Roman
orator display less taste than the orator and philosopher of Arles
Favorinus two centuries later when, as Gellius 1 21 records, he spoke of
Lucretius as poctae ingenio et facundia praecellentis.—But I cannot help
suggesting, what I have long suspected, that the corruption does not lie
in the words cited above, but in those which follow. The short letter thus
concludes according tothe mss.: Lucretii poemata utscribis ita sunt multis
luminibus ingenii multae tamen artis sed cum veneris viruni te putabo si
Salusti1 Empedoclea legeris hominem non putabo. The sentence seems
to me clearly to require something to be joined with virum te putabo,
in order to contrast with st Salusti cet.: this now would be a very easy
correction, Lucretii poemata, ut scribis, ita sunt, multis luminibus
ingenll: multae tamen artis esse cum wmveneris, virum te putabo; si
Salustii Empedoclea legeris, hominem non putabo: it is manifest how
easily the es of esse might be absorbed in the is of artis; the in of
inveneris in the m of cum. Marcus would then mean to say: on a first
perusal you have rightly seen that there is much genius in the poem of
Lucretius. If when you have had time to study him, you discover much
of art as well, I shall think you a right worthy man; if you can get to
the end of Sallust’s Empedoclea, I shall not think you a human being at
all. This would give the proper antithesis between vir and homo; and
would strengthen the probability that Marcus was editor. Bergk conjec-
tures that some words have fallen out and that we are to read: Lucretii
poemata ut scribis ita sunt: multis luminibus ingenii, non multae tamen
artis, sed 8ὲ ad wmbilicum veneris, virum te putabo; si cet. This has
found favour with many; but I cannot approve of it. Whichever of the
two was editor, it would have been preposterous in the one to address
the other in this way; and how could Quintus have written in such
terms without having read the poem, a poem after all of 7000 verses?
Catullus, though it was published so short a time, scarcely a year
perhaps, before his death must I think have known it, when he wrote
his marriage of Peleus and Thetis, as he has there imitated it in more
places than one; from which I infer that this poem of Catullus was one
of his latest: on this point compare the passages brought together in the
note to 11 57. When the nature of things was published, Virgil was
fifteen years of age. At such an age therefore the style and manner of
Lucretius were able to impress themselves fully on the younger poet’s
susceptible mind; and perhaps the highest eulogy which has ever been
passed on the former is that constant imitation of his language and
thought which pervades Virgil’s works from one end to the other.
9__9

20 BOOK I NOTES II

Horace too and Ovid had carefully studied him: this commentary will
in some degree shew what they as well as Manilius owe to him, though
this last disciple is not worth much. Lucretius thus exercised indirectly
no slight influence on the whole future career of Latin poetry. To pass
to modern times, the Italian scholars of the fifteenth century, full of en-
thusiasm for everything classical, yet admired no Latin poet more than
Lucretius, Virgil alone excepted. The illustrious French scholars of the
sixteenth century, Lambinus Turnebus Scaliger, pronounced him one of

the greatest, if not the greatest of Roman poets. In the seventeenth,
the century of English erudition, he was of course well known to Milton
and has been often imitated by him in the Paradise Lost: he had the
fortune too to be entirely translated by one of the most accomplished
cavalier gentlemen and by the most accomplished of puritan ladies before
Dryden and Creech turned their thoughts to the same task. In more
recent times he has been perhaps less praised and read; yet in France
he has never been without enthusiastic admirers : it will be enough to
specify Voltaire in the last century; Villemain, Sainte-Beuve and Mar-
tha in the present. Among Germans Goethe never failed in sympathy
and admiration for Lucretius. In this country the most recent account
of the philosophy and poetry of Lucretius is at the same time the fullest
and most favourable and by far the best: I speak of that given by
Professor Sellar in the Roman poets of the republic.

BOOK J

1—43: the poet calls upon Venus, as mother of the Romans, author
of their being to all living creatures and sole mistress of nature, to help
him in writing on that theme; but first to constrain her lover Mars, the
lord of war, to grant peace to the Romans in order that he himself might
have ease of mind to write, and his friend Memmtuus leisure to read what
he wrote.

1 Aen. genetriz: her peculiar relation to the children of Aeneas is
placed in vivid contrast with that which she bears to the whole of
animate and inanimate nature. Lucr. may have had in his mind
Iknnius ann. 53 Venus et genetrix patris nostri. Ovid without doubt
refers to Lucr. both in trist. 11 261 Sumpserit, Aeneadum genetria ubr
prima: requiret, Aeneadwm genetrix unde sit alma Venus, and fasti Iv
90 foll. where the whole of our passage is brought under contribution :
comp. too Auson. epigr. 33 Aeneadum genetrix hic habito alma Venus,
[and Ephem. Epigraph. vol. 1 p. 265 (in a poetical dedication to
Venus Erycina by Apronius filius) Aeneadum alma parens.| genetrix

BOOK I NOTES II 21

AB rightly: so all the best mss. of Virgil and others, and cer-
tainly most inscriptions of the best ages: some of those which have
genitrix are now declared spurious; some I doubt not have been wrongly
copied. Aeneadum genetrix is scribbled on the outer wall of the basilica
of Pompeii: corp. inser. 1v 3072. Lamb. compares meretria meritus
with genetrix genitus: Lach. adds genetivus and obstetria institor, and
attributes the e to the following longz. Jt may be said that meretrix is
from a verb of the 2nd conj. and that mereto is repeatedly fourfll in old
inscriptions; that meritus therefore, not meretrix, has changed its vowel ;
that obstetrix too is intermediate between stator and institor: comp.
recépit accéderve and the like. This is true: but authority calls imperi-
ously for genetrix, and genetus genetor may once have been in use: see
the index of the new corpus inser. Lat. vol. 1 for numerous cases of 6 for
2 in the old language. hom. div. vol.: v1 94 Calliope, requies hominum
divomque voluptas.

2 Alma, an epithet he applies elsewhere to water, the earth, a nurse,
pleasure, Pallas ; but here it has manifestly a peculiar force with refer-
ence to all that follows in this fine address im which no word is thrown
away. alma Venus was not only familiar to poets, but seems to have
passed into the language of the people. I find on the basis Capitolina
reg. x11 an almae Veneris vicus; and the cosmographia Aethici p. 716
ed. A. Gronovius says of the island between Portus and Ostia vita autem
vernal tempore rosa vel ceteris floribus adimpletur ut prae nimietate sui
odoris et floris insula ipsa libanus almae Veneris nuncupeter. Macrob.
sat. 11 ὃ 3 Laevius etiam sic ait Venerem igitur almum adorans, Seu
femina isve mas est, Ita ut alma Noctiluca est. Plautus rudens 694 has
Venus alma; Apul. metam. Iv 30 the goddess in wrath says of herself
en rerum naturae prisca parens, en elementorum origo initialis, en orbis
totiusalma Venus. Empecocles termed her ζείδωρος : see Plutarch amat.
p-. 756 Ε.

2 8 and 6—9: thus early the poet calls attention to the three great
divisions of the world, to which he as well as other writers before and
after him so constantly revert that the thing passed into a common pro-
verb: mare terra caelum di vostram fidem, says Plaut. trin. 1070; Ita
mihi videntur omima, mare terra caelum, consequt Iam ut opprimar,
Amph. 1055; μέ nulla pars caelo mari terra, ut poetice loquar, praeter-
mussa sit, says Cic. de fin. v 9. Ovid fasti Iv 93 thus imitates Luer.
Luraque dat caelo terrae natahibus undis Perque suos tnitus continet onine
genus. Bentl. points out that Lucr. has himself imitated Eurip. Hipp.
449 φοιτᾷ δ᾽ av αἰθέρ᾽, ἔστι δ᾽ ἐν θαλασσίῳ κλύδωνι Κύπρις, πάντα δ᾽ ἐκ ταύ-
τῆς ἔφυ, and 120] Ποτᾶται δ᾽ ἐπὶ γαῖαν εὐάχητόν θ᾽ ᾿Αλμυρὸν ἐπὶ πόντον.
Θέλγει δ᾽ "Epws, ᾧ μαινομένᾳ κραδίᾳ πτανὸς ἐφορμάσῃ Xpvaodays, φύσιν
᾿Ορεσκόων σκυλάκων ἸΠελαγίων θ᾽ ὅσα τε γᾶ τρέφει, Τὰν ἅλιος αἰθομέναν
δέρκεται, ΓΑνδρας te’ συμπάντων δὲ Βασιληίδα τιμᾶν, Κύπρι, Τῶνδε μόνα

22 BOOK I NOTES II

κρατύνεις: the last clause is parallel with 21 Quae quoniam etc. But
both Eurip. and Lucr. seem indebted to the Homeric hymn 1v 1 ᾿Αφρο-
δίτης Κύπριδος ἥτε θεοῖσιν ἐπὶ γλυκὺν ἵμερον ὦρσε Kai τ᾿ ἐδαμάσσατο φῦλα
καταθνητών ἀνθρώπων Οἰωνούς τε διιπέτεας καὶ θηρία πάντα ᾿Ημὲν ὅσ᾽ ἤπει-
ρος πολλὰ τρέφει ἠδ᾽ ὅσα πόντος: the orphic hymn Lv 4 follows in the
same track, Πάντα γὰρ ἐκ σέθεν ἐστὶν ὑπεζεύξω δέ τε κόσμον᾽ Kai
κρατέεις τρισσῶν μοιρῶν, γεννᾷς δὲ τὰ πάντα ὍΟσσα τ᾽ ἐν οὐρανῷ ἐστὶ καὶ ἐν
γαΐῃ πολυκάρπῳ “Ev πόντου τε βυθῷ. 2 cael. lab. sig.: Aen. 111 515
Sidera...tacito labentia caelo; Ovid fasti 1 113 caelo labentia signa.
labentia well describes the smooth easy motion ‘ohne Hast doch ohne
Rast’: so 1v 444 signa videntur Labier adversum nimbos. Cic. Arat,
fracm. 3 said before Lucr. Cetera labuntur celert caelestia motu: Luer.
had attentively studied this translation, as we have said above and shall
often have occasion to repeat. 3 terras: Lucr. when speaking of the
earth as an extended surface or a solid mass uses the plur. of the accus.
and abl. oftener than the sing., the gen. not unfrequently, the nomin.

and dat. only once each I think, 11 1109 and v 630. Srugiferentis
appears to be a ἅπαξ λεγόμενον. 4 Concelebras rightly explained by

Wak. ‘uno tempore frequentas, permeas’: its first meaning seems to be
that of a multitude filling, crowding a place, as 11 344 variae volucres
laetantia quae loca aquarum Concelebrant...kt quae pervolgant nemora
avia pervolitantes, where Concelebrant and pervolgant might clearly
change places: comp. also Cic. de imp. Cn. Pomp. 61 At eam quoque
rem populus Romanus non modo vidit, sed omnium etiam studio visendam
et concelebrandam putavit: the goddess therefore fills at once with her
presence, pervolgat, earth and sea, and thus performs the part of a
multitude: this sense is therefore more poetical than, and also implies,

that of peopling. 5 lumina solis: in the nom. and acc. the plur.
is much oftener used than the sing. by Lucr. to express the daos ἠελίοιο:
it occurs more than once in Ovid. 6 Te, after the vocatives and

relatives of the first five vss., follows as in Hor. od. 1 35 4; Catull. 2 9:
but there 7 and 8 should be transposed and we should read Credo ut,
cum gravis acquiescet ardor, Sit solaciolum sur doloris. te... Adven-
tumque tuum: 12 te...twumque initum : this form of expression 1s singu-
larly stately. ¢ daedala well explained in Paulus Festi p. 68: dae-
dalam a varietate rerun. artificiorumque dictam esse apud Lucretium
terram, apud Ennum Minervam, apud Virgilium Circen, facile est in-
tellegere, cum Graece δαιδάλλειν significet variare. Lucr. applies it also
to nature and to the tongue, followed by a gen.; and in a pass. sense to
poems and to statues. 8 Summittit a favourite word of Lucr. in this
signification. rident here, as 11 559 ridet placidi pellacia ponti and v
1005 ridentibus undis, has simply the sense of nitet diffuso lumine in 9,
and ident in 111 22: there seems to be no reference to that plashing
ringing ripple so often seen on Greek and Italian seas in spring which

BOOK I. NOTES II 23

Aeschylus expresses by γέλασμα, and Aristot. probl. xx111 1 and 24 by
ἐπιγελᾶν: that is implied in the cachinni and cachinnat of Catullus and
Accius., 9 Placatumque: v1 48 Ventorum ex ira ut placentur ; so
Virg. tumida aequora placat and placataque venti Dant maria, the op-
posite of Horace’s tratum mare.

10 Nam cet. a poet’s logic: he assumes the sunshine and the
spring to follow on the advent of Venus, because when they do come,
all living things turn to thoughts of love: Jt ver et Venus et Veneris
praenuntius ante Pennatus graditur, species verna diet 1.6. species
veris: comp. 119 Per gentrs Italas hominum, and n. to 1 474; and
Iv 733 Cerbereasque canum facies: it means that aspect of day which
belongs to spring: Iv 137 mundi speciem violare serenam.

11 reserata: the sera being removed from the door of its prison. Ovid
fasti 11 453 et sex reserata diebus Carceris Aeolit 1anua laxa patet.
genitabelis used this once by Lucr. and with the active sense in which
genitalis is so often employed by him. Varro de ling. Lat. v 17 Aetheris
et terrae genitabile quaerere tempus, which is rightly given to Lucilius
though the mss. assign it to Lucr.: the word is also used actively by
Avienus and Arnobius. vi 805 mactabilis is qui mactat: so Virg.
penetrabile telum and frigus ; Ovid penetrabile telum and fulmen = quod
penetrat, in which sense Lucr. more than once has penetralis; in Horace
dissocrabilts = qui dissociat, in Plautus impetrabilis=qui impetrat, in
Plautus Cicero Livy Ovid Tacitus and Suetonius exitiabilis = exitialts ;
in Livy and Tacitus permitiabilis = permitialis; in Terence placabilius est
twice=aptius ad placandum, in Persius reparabilis=qui reparat, in
Ovid resonabilis=qui resonat: Val. Flaccus 1 782 exorabile carmen:
comp. in Horace illacrimabilem Plutona with iallacrimabiles urgentur.
terribilis=qui terret, horribilis=qui horretur. With gen. aura fav.
comp. Catul. 64 282 aura tepidi fecunda favoni, and Pliny nat. hist.
xvI 93 Hic est genitalis spiritus mundi a fovendo dictus, ut quidam
existimavere. 12 Aeriae: v 825 Aeriasque simul volucres; Manil. 1
237 Aeriaeque colunt volucres; Calpurn. x1 28 Lt genus aeriwm volueres.
primum: Virg. geor. 11 328 and Ov. fasti 1v 99 and Chaucer at beg. of
Canterbury tales all make the birds first feel the coming of spring: ‘So
priketh hem nature in hir corages’. 13 perculsae is literally
‘knocked down, struck to the ground’: see Forcellinus and Bentl. to
Hor. epod. 11 2: hence often ‘stunned, smitten through all the frame’
by a strong passion, as here by love, 261 by the rapture of a gratified
craving: comp. Plaut. trin. 242 Nam qui amat, quod amat, quom
extemplo eius saviis perculsus est, where perculsus is restored from the
Ambrosian, the other mss. having percussws, with which it is so often
confused,

14 ferae pecudes for ferae seems very doubtful: pecudes to be sure
is often used by the poets for animals generally, by Lucr. and others for

24 BOOK I NOTES II

shoals of fish; yet I find in no classical writer ferae pecudes for ferae ;
but again and again in Lucr. and others pecudes and jerae in formal
contrast. Wak. misquotes Martial, and besides him only quotes or mis-
quotes such writers as Hilary and Tertullian to support jerae pec.:
Forbiger refers to Varro de re rust. 111 5 and Colum. 1x 1, passages
which make strongly against him: by pecudes ferae Varro means tame
animals or pecudes found in a wild state, viz. sheep goats swine bulls
asses horses; Columella goats deer boars, which though wild may yet be
kept in herds on an estate. Again ferae is awkward, as tame beasts are
as much moved as wild: Ovid, fasti tv, where he is imitating Lucr.
speaks of tame brutes only; Virg. geor. 111 242 foll. of both tame and
wild, and it is of mares he says flumina tranant. Can ferae pec. mean
brutes made headstrong by passion? comp. Cat. 61 56 T'u fero wuveni
in manus Floridam ipse puellulam Dedis: much as Plaut. trin. 750
adulescenti...Indomito, pleno amoris ac licentiae: otherwise fere seems
highly prob. ‘generally’, ‘without exception’: so 11 370 Ad sua quisque
fere decurrunt ubera lactis; and 218 incerto tempore ferme ‘at quite an
uncertain time’, and 111 65 Turgis enim ferme contemptus ‘without excep-
tion’, v 242 Haec eadem ferme mortalia cernimus esse: comp. Virg.
Aen. 11 135 Zamque fere sicco subductae litore puppes, where I do not
understand the doubts of editors: Livy xii 3 4 cetera deforms turba...
praeda fere futura, si belli hostes meminissent. Yet Statius silv. 1 2 184
makes alma Venus say Alituwm pecudumque mihi durique ferarum Non
renwere greges cet. pab. laeta : here again, as throughout this
address, the epithet is at once poetical and idiomatic: pab. laet. occurs
6 or 7 times with armenta, arbusta, vineta: thus Virg. laetas segetes and
the like. But it was also a word of the people: see Cato and Varro in
Forcell. and comp. Cic. de orat. 111 155 laetas segetes etam rusticr dicunt:
and orator 81 where he repeats the same: Livy too17 4 has pabulo
laeto, xx1v 3 4 laeta pascua; Manil. 111 654 imitates Lucr. Tune pecu-
dum volucrumque genus per pabula lacta In Venerem partumque ruunt.
15 ita capta...Te sequitur...quo quamque ind. per.=ita quaeque capta
...Te 8. quo; or quo quamque ind. per., te sequitur: such constructions
are not uncommon in ποῦν: 170 Inde enascitur atque oras wn luminis
exit, Materies ubi inest cwiusque=quicque enasc....inde ubi eius mat.
inest. Not unlike is v 1110 divisere atque dedere Pro facie curusque
=cuique pro facie eius: like in principle are 1 152 Quod multa tn terris
frert caeloque tuentur Quorum operum causas nulla ratione videre Pos-
sunt; 289 γιέ, qua quicquid fluctibus obstat ; 695 Unde hie cognitus est
ipst quem nominat ignem; 1 133 e¢ in illam Transtulerunt, proprio
quae tum res nomine egebat; VI 313 ex illa quae tum res excipit ictum ;
896 scatere illa foras, in stuppam semina quae cum convenrunt cet.: with
these comp. Hor. sat. 1 4 2 Atque alii quorum comoedia prisca virorum
est; 10 16 Illi, seripta quibus comoedia prisca viris est; epod. 2 37

BOOK I NOTES II 25

malarum quas amor curas habet; [Ovid fasti v1 395, amended by
Mady. advers. 11 p. 108, and Livy there cited by him :] Juv. 111 91 716
sonat, quo mordetur gallina marito: again IV 560 neque wllam Internoscere
verborum sententia quae sit; 11 1143 Lure igitur pereunt, cum rarefacta
fluendo Sunt et cum externis succumbunt omnia plagis = omnia pereunt
cum cet.; 111 391 Usque adeo prius est in nobis multa ciendum, Quam
primordia sentiscant cet.; 836 In dubioque fuere utrorum ad regna
cadendum Omnibus humanis esset=In cd. fuere humani utrorum cet.;
Iv 50 Quor quast membranae, vel cortex nomenitandast, Quod speciem ac
formam similem gerit eius imago; Vv 853 habere cet.=habere utrumque
Mutua qui cet.; vi 266 Nec tanto possent venientes opprimere imbri...
St non extructis foret alte nubibus aether: 1.6. venientes nubes cet. :
503 Concipiwnt, i.e. nubila...Cum supera magnum mare venti nubila
portant; 1191 neque habere ubi corpora prima Consistant=habere corpora
ubi: quite similar is Ov. trist. 111 5 53, causelessly tampered with by
editors, Spes igitur superest facturum ut molliat ipse...poenam=facturum
ipsum ut molhat, Iv 387 Qua vehimur navi fertur is more usual and like
Liv. 113 eta quem primum egresst sunt locum, Trova vocatur: a constr.
not uncommon in the best authors: comp. also Iv 397 Lustantisque
procul cet. and n. there; and 11 22 foll. and n. there.

17 Denique, not in the sense it usually bears in Lucr. as a synonyme
of praeterea, porro, ‘again’ ‘once more’, introducing a new argument :
here it places the sentence in apposition with what precedes, summing
up and serving as a climax to what has been said: yes, in short, to sum
up all, you inspire love throughout the world and every portion of the
world. Comp. Ov. heroid. 11 21 Denique quisques erat castris vugulatus
Achivis; 4 84 Denique nostra ruvat lumina quidquid agis. Terence is
fond of this use: comp. eun. 40 denique Nullum est 1am dictum quod
non sit dictum prius; heaut. 69 denique Nullum remittis tempus neque te
respicis, where Cicero de fin. 1 3 inadvertently joins denzque with what
precedes: [I see that Umpfenbach reads Terence as Cicero does, yet
surely not rightly. So, I think, Cic. epist. (Caelius) vir 6 2 denique
invidiosum tribe sit, δὲ emanarit: ‘yes’ is the meaning here, but the
editors alter the word or note it as corrupt. So too Caes. Ὁ. Gall. v1
28 5 denique ex omni numero, summing up what precedes exactly as in
Lucr.] But in Luer. himself 1 464 Denegue Tyndaridem cet. and 471
Denique materies si rerum cet. the word has much the same force, intro-
ducing merely a confirmation of what precedes. Cicero and the best
writers often use it with this force in the same sentence with what it
sums up, as in the clause four times repeated by Lucr. jinzta potestas
denique cuique Quanam sit ratione : here denique does not, as it so often
does, merely add an item in the enumeration, but defines more fully what
precedes. The word means here much what adeo does in Virgil’s imita-
tion, geor. 111 242, rapacis is well explained by Ovid met. vi1t 550

26 BOOK I NOTES IJ

mec te committe rapacibus undis: Ferre trabes solidas obliquaque volvere
magno Murnmure saxa solent. vidi contermina ripae Cum gregibus
stabula alta trahi: Virgil also applies it to rivers, Seneca to a torrent,
Ennius (?) ann. 303, Ovid, Seneca to a sea-current ; [comp. also Sen.
Thy. 477 Siculi rapax...aestus unda. |] 18 Virg. geor. πὶ 209 Axti-
quasque domos avium. 19 zncutiens more usually applied to fear or
some other bad passion ; but 924 to love as here: comp. too Hor. epist.
114 22 Incutiunt urbis desiderium ; though there perhaps it is satirical :
Livy xxix 22 4 tantaque admiratio incussa. 20 generatim ‘kind by
kind’: of adverbs in -tim or -sem generally with this force there are
from twenty to thirty in Lucr. Bopp vergl. gram. 111 243 points out
that they are adverbial accusatives of lost abstract substantives: tractem
prop. ‘with drawing’, curstm ‘with running’, caesem ‘with cutting’,
confertim ‘with massing together’: see too Corssen Lat. Formenl. p. 281
foll. who enumerates more than 200 of them. saecla found in Luer.
only in the contracted form, and used by him some forty times in this
sense of races, generations of living creatures, men, wild beasts, even
inanimate things, as 111113: a sense peculiar to him with the exception
of a few imitators: he has it perhaps only once, 111 1090, or at most
3 times, see 1 202 and 11 948, in its ordinary meaning ; and those ὃ
cases may be looked upon as almost the same phrase. propagent a very
expressive metaphor recurring not unfrequently.

21 rer. nat.: see ἢ. to 25. 22 23 quicquam so AB always with
the best mss. and inscriptions: also quicque and quicquid in the sense
of quicque; but usually guidquid as a relative: see Lach. to v 264.
dias: can Lucr, by this word mean either ‘bright’ or ‘open’ according
to all its analogies in Latin Greek and as we are told Sanscrit? Pontanus
ap. Victor says ‘dias i. lucidas’. Lucr. uses the word only twice after
this, 11172 dia voluptas and v 1387 pastorum...otia dia: in the former
place the meaning ‘bright’ would be suitable ; in the latter that of ‘in
the open air’: comp. Varro de ling. Lat. v 66 ‘hoc idem magis ostendit
antiquius Iovis nomen ; nam olim Diovis et Dispiter dictus, id est dies
pater. a quo dei dicti qui inde, et dies et divum. unde sub divo dius
Fidius’, and so on: also vir 34 he quotes from Pacuvius (?) Caelitum
camilla, expectata advenis, salve hospita, and after explaining camillus
and camilla continues ‘hine casmilus nominatur Samothrece mysteriis
dius quidam administer dis magnis’: then too surely the name of the
mysterious dea dia, who had her attendant camilli, whether she were
Lellus, Ceres, Ops, Floru, Fauna or Diana, or all or none, had some con-
nexion with the bright open air; so also that of Diana. Virgil uses the
word only once, ΧΙ 657 dia Camilla, who 543 is also Casmilla and conse-
crated to Diana. = luminis oras, a favourite phrase by which he seems
to denote the line or border which divides light from darkness, being
from non-being; for he almost always uses orae in its proper sense, that

BOOK I NOTES II 27,

of an edge or coast or limiting line. The phrase is found twice in the
annals of Ennius; twice in Virgil, once in Valerius Flaccus, [and in
Arnob. 11 69 oras contingeret lunuinis|: Lucy. has also aetheris, terrarum,
Acheruntis oras. 24 scribendis versibus are of course datives: comp.
geor. 1 3 habendo pecori, and see Madvig emend. Liv. to 1x 9 where
he properly reads vilia haec capita luendae sponsioni feramis : ‘dativo
gerundivi in consilio significando admodum libere Livius utitur, ut 1 24
me gerendo bello ducem creavere, 111 ὃ his avertendis terroribus in triduum
Fervae indictae, 1X 26 14 dictatorem deligere exercendis quaestionibus,
et id genus alia’: comp. too Iv 43 10 non ducem scribendo exercitur
esse.

25 de rerum natura: this title he doubtless gave to his poem in
imitation of Epicurus’ great work περὶ φύσεως in 37 books, of which
some miserable and ill-deciphered fragments are published in the volu-
mina Herculanensia. The same title was given by Empedocles to his
chief poem in 3 books, which must in some degree have served Lucr. for
a model. [Thus Galen says de elem. sec. Hipp. 1 9 τὰ yap τῶν παλαιῶν
ἅπαντα περὶ φύσεως ἐπιγέγραπται, τὰ Μελίσσου, ta Παρμενίδου, τὰ
᾿Ἐμπεδοκλέους, ᾿Αλκμαίωνός τε καὶ Γοργίου καὶ Προδίκου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων
amavrwv.|] Macrobius sat. v1 5, § 2 and § 12, twice quotes Egnatius de
rerum natura: he preceded Virgil who imitates him, and can scarcely
have been later than Lucr. as he elides the final 8. What he means by
rerum natura will sufficiently appear in the course of the poem: they
are two of four words, corpus and ratio being the other two, which occur
with such curious frequency. Perhaps every one of the many meanings
which natura has in Cicero or natuve in English is found in Luer.
Sometimes it is an active force or agency, sometimes an inert mass ;
sometimes an abstract term ; sometimes, as 1 419, it seems synonymous
with the omne. es has with him many abstract meanings; but as a
physical term it signifies composite things in being in contradistinction
to the primordia or corpora prima out of which things are made: 1 420,
449, 504 are apparent rather than real exceptions: natura rerum 15
therefore coextensive with the summa rerum, comprehending the infinity
of worlds in being throughout the omne, and denoting sometimes this
summa itself, sometimes that universally pervading agency by which the
summa goes on. IV 385 naturam noscere rerum=causas cognoscere
rerum, natwra often meaning the inner nature and essence of things.
‘pangere figere, uncle plantae pangi dicuntur, cum in terram demittuntur;
inde etiam versus pangi vel figi in cera dicuntur’ Paulus Festi p. 212:
comp. Colum. x 251 ceu littera... Pangitur in cera docti mucrone magistre :
but Cicero, ad Att. 11 6 2, 14 2, uses the word in speaking of his own
prose. 26 Memmiadae a hybrid word formed on the analogy of,
though more regularly than Scipiadas, which latter word Lucr. Virgil
and Horace have all borrowed from Lucilius, unless Ennius employed it

28 BOOK I NOTES II

before him: Zzscolidarum and Apulidae are found in Lucilius, and
Luciliadas (2): Romulidae is common enough: L. Mueller de re metr. p.
389 gives a list of seven such formations from late writers: and he
observes that Dawnias in Horace and Appias in Ovid are not dissimilar.
27 Od. ὃ 725 Παντοίῃς ἀρετῇσι κεκασμένον ἐν Δαναοῖσι : Cic. epist. 111 10
10 guibus tlle me rebus non ornatum voluit amplissume ?, and pro Cornel.
frag. 2 Q. Metelli adulescentia ad summam laudem omnibus rebus ornata:
excellere being much the same as ad summam laudem; deimp. Cn. Pomp. 20
maximas Mithridatis copias omnrtbus rebus ornatas atque instructas fwisse.
29 and 32 moenera: this antique form Lucr. uses three times, as
well as moerorum twice, and poeniceus and poenibat: see also ἢ. to II
830 poenicers. moen. mil, and belli moen.: V 1308 in munere belli.
militiai: Lucr. employs this old form of the gen. very often in the case
of substantives, more rarely in that of adjectives: see ἢ. to 1152: a dat.
in -οὐ is quite unknown to him. 30 somta: Paterc. 11 89 sopitus
ubique armorum furor ; 125 haec ominia...soput ac sustuht. 81 trang.
pace: even in prose, Livy xxv 26 11 gui vel wn pace tranquilla bellum
excitare possent. 32 Mav. Arm.: Aen. 1x 717 Mars arnupotens. 3371
gr. se Rei.: Ter. Andr. 135 Tum illa, ut consuetum facrle amorem
cerneres, Reiecit se in eum. 34 Reicit or reiécit, never reiicit ; and so
of the other compounds of zacio: these are the only spellings known in
the best ages. cet, dev, vuln. am.: V 1321 volnere victos literally :
Virg. Aen. vill 394 varies the phrase: aeterno fatur devinctus amore.
culnus and cognate metaphors are frequently applied to love in Iv.
35 Atque ita susp.: Ov. met. 111 22 Atque ita respiciens. 67. cer. rep..
Cic. Arat. frag. vu has teretz cervice reflecum of Draco’s head: Aen.
vill 633 ¢tereti cervice reflecam of the she-wolf: Ov. met. x 558 of Venus
Tnque sin ruvenis posita cervice reclinis. teres is defined by Festus ‘in
longitudine rotundatum’, and Servius more than once gives a similar
explanation. Right, if a cylinder or pole be in question: so teretes
tramct and teres oliva in Virgil. It is connected with ¢ero and similar
Greek words, and seems to denote that the thing with which it is joined
is of the proper shape, neither too thick nor too thin: thus a 6768 cervia
is a neck that has the true outline of beauty, neither lean nor fleshy,
neither too long nor too short: so brachiolum teres in Catullus, teretes
surae and teres puer in Horace. Apul. florid. 15 p. 51 says of a beauti-
ful statue cervix suct plena, malae wberes, genae teretes, where the
epithets are nearly synonymous: comp. too Iv 58 the ¢eretis twnicas and
v 803 Folliculos teretis of the cicada, i.e. coats of equal and regular
thinness and fineness all over. Hence metaphorically aures teretes in
Luer. and Cic., oratio teres in Cic., ore teres in Persius, teres atque
rotundus in Horace. 36 Pascit, avidos, inhians: the simple direct-
ness of the terms has a singular force: comp. Tasso Ger. lib. xv1 19 £4
famelici sguardi avidamente In let pascendo: Spenser is full of imita-

BOOK I NOTES Il 29

tions, such as this Long fed his greedy eyes with the faire sight. pascere
oculos is a common phrase: 11 419 oculos qui pascere possunt: see n.
there. inhians in: the verb generally takes a dat. or acc.; but Cic.
Brut. 22 in te intuenti, 26 in quam cum untueor. Esdras 1 4 31 The
king gaped and gazed upon her with open mouth. 37 more emphatic
than the pendet ab ore of Virgil and Ovid: Petron. sat. 127 ex cuius
osculo pendes.

38 corpore sancto seems to belong both to recubantem and circumfusa.
39 circumf.: Livy vit 35 ὃ degressum eum...curcumfusi: the same
constr. asin Lucr.: Ov. met. τν 360 Ht nunc hac iuvenr, nue circumfun-
ditur illac, and x1v 585 colloque parentis Circumfusa sut: in both which
places it governs a dat., as in Pliny τι 161 circumfundi terrae undique
homines: comp. 87 the accus. virgineos circumdata comptus with vi 1036
the dat. rebus circumdatus adpositusque, which 15 the usual prose constr.
as Cic. in Catil. 111 2 Tectis ac moentbus subiectos prope tan. ignes circum-
datosque: but Livy vit 34 11 follows Luer.: ctrcumdare undique collem
armatis volunt. Virg. Aen. vii 406 has Coniugis infusus gremio of the
husband in the arms of Venus; Sen. Med. 946 infusos mihi Coniungite
artus. loquellas, also querella, and prob. luella: see Lach. to 111 1015,
who says the / is doubled after the long vowel, when a short one precedes
it: so also medella cet.; but suadela tutela and the like, when a long
vowel precedes the long vowel: a canon fully borne out by inscriptions
and the best mss.: if we may depend on their mss. Cicero and Persius
wrote cdmellus, Catullus phdsellus. 40 plac. pac.: νι 73 placida cum
pace: placida pace I find twice in the Aeneid, twice in Ovid, twice in
Seneca. incluta: Plautus Pers. 251 has Jovi incluto. 41 agere hoc:
here and 1v 969 Nos agere hoc autem et naturam quaerere rerum Lucr.
alludes to the famous sacrificial formula hoc age, so often adopted by
Latin writers: 1t seems to have struck Plutarch as a foreigner: he more
than once explains the OK ATE, as in Coriol. p. 225, προσέχειν τοῖς ἱεροῖς
καὶ μηδὲν ἔργον ἐμβαλεῖν μεταξὺ μηδὲ χρείαν ἀσχολίας, Lucr. could not,
sweet as it was to see from shore one’s neighbour struggling with the
sea, imitate the more than epicurean indifference of Sulla: see Sen. de
clem.112 2 Exterrito senatu ‘hoc agamus’ inguit ‘“P. C. seditioss pauculi
meo tussu occiduntur’: Juvenal, speaking of poetry, vir 20 Hoc agite, 48
Nos tamen hoc aginus. [42 comp. Manil. 1 795 e¢ Claudi magna
propago. | 43 desse: Cic. pro Sest. 101 Propugnatores autem ret-
publicue qui esse voluerunt, si leviores sunt, desciscunt ; sv tanudiores,
desunt; ad fam. v1 6 6 veritus sum deesse Pompeti saluti, cum ille
aliquando non defuisset meae; Caesar bell. Gall. v 33 2 Cotta...nulla in
re communi saluti deerat. Ou comparing these lines with many passages
in the Greek writers, it will be seen that the Roman here has been too
strong for the epicurean. desse, and 711 derrasse with one 6: see Vel.
Longus ap. Lach.: but m1 861 deerrarust,

30 BOOK I NOTES II

41—43: it seems to me that Lucr. was writing these lines towards
the close of 695 or four years before his death, when Caesar was consul
and had formed his coalition with Pompey. Memmius was then praetor
designatus, in fierce opposition to Caesar and at that time on the side of
the senate with Cicero and doubtless Lucretius. There was almost a
reign of terror: see Livy epit. 103 Leges agrariae a Caesare consule cum
magna contentione, vito senate et altero consule M. Libulo, latae sunt.
Hear what Cic. says, writing to his brother in that year, 12 15 Rempub-
licam funditus anrisimus...st qui antea aut alieniores fuerant aut langui-
diores, nunc horum regum odio se cum bonis coniungunt...praetores habe-
mus aomicissimes et acerrimos cives, Donutium Nigidiuns Memnium Len-
tulwm; bonos etiam alios, hos (sed hos Wesenb.) singulares. It could
scarcely have been later than 696, as in the spring of 697 Memmius
went as propraetor to Bithynia, with Catullus in his train: see Schwab.
Catull. 1 p. 158 [01]. He certainly did not return to Rome before 698,
and the year following Luer. died.

Gaius Memmius, son of Lucius, of the Galerian tribe, had, like the
rest of his family, no cognomen; although he has very generally received
one from the editors of Cicero having chosen to alter the correct reading
of mss. in Cie. ep. ad fam. x111 19 2 C. Maenius Gemellus to C. Memmius
Gem.: see Mommsen Roem. Muenzw. p. 597. He would appear to have
been a hard selfish unprincipled man, to judge from history and the
character given him by Catullus in lis 10th and 28th poems, which
form a curious comment on the ‘worth and sweet friendship’ which
Luer. found in him, deceived, as men of his temperament so often are,
by the specious qualities of a worldly man. But he was already dead
when Memmius so flagrantly disgraced himself in the matter of the
consulship, and went into exile, abandoned by Caesar to whose party he
had impudently gone over. His country found that ‘the general weal’
could easily enough dispense with his services. His contempt for Latin
letters which Cicero mentions would also seem to fit him but little for
patron to so genuine a Latin poet. Did Lucr. address Memmius as a
believer in Epicurus? or did he rather seek to convert him to that creed?
In either case his teaching was sadly thrown away: he called on Mem-
mius to look on Epicurus as a god: it appears from a curious letter, ad
fam. x11 1, written from Athens by Cicero to Memmius who had just
gone to Mytilene, that the latter had obtained from the Areopagus a
piece of ground on which stood some ruins of Epicurus’ house, and that
he wished to pull these down in order to build for himself. Though he
had now abandoned the design of building, he churlishly refused to give
up the property to Patro, at that time head of the school. Patro and
his sect looked on these ruins as a holy place; and Cicero out of love for
him and his predecessor Phaedrus and above all Atticus, begs Memmius,
as the ground is now of no use to him, to let them have it. ΑἹ]

BOOK I NOTES Jl 31

through the letter he expresses himself, and assumes that Memmius
feels, the greatest contempt for epicurean tenets; but he says he loves
Atticus as a brother, ‘non quo sit [Atticus] ex istis [epicureis]; est enim
omni liberali doctrina politissimus; sed valde diligit Patronem, valde
Phaedrum amavit’. And surely Lucr. too had much esteemed Patro,
much loved Phaedrus: Id cinerem aut manis credis curare sepultos !
Most readers of this opening address, like the one who of old placed
in the margin of the ms. the six lines from the 2nd book, must have been
struck by its curious contrast with the poet’s philosophical principles.
Bayle in his article on Lucr. n. 1 says it is most reasonable to call it a
‘jeu desprit’. Lucr. seeing that all poets invoked the muses at the
beginning of a great work, did not wish to be without a like ornament
and chose Venus as the clivinity most suitable to a natural philosopher;
in the same way he invokes Calliope v1 94. There is some plausibility
in this: Calliope we at once feel to be an ordinary personification of the
epic muse: and had Lucretius’ address to Venus had no more depth of
feeling in it than that to Calliope, or other poets’ invocations of the
muses, we should have accepted her as a simple impersonation of the
active energy of nature. But the intense earnestness of the language,
the words plain and simple in themselves, yet instinct with life and
passion, make us feel that there is more than this. If the poet began
with such an intention, his headstrong muse has got the better of his
philosophy, and constrained him to follow her guidance. This perhaps
is his best defence, if defence be needed: νουθετεῖται μὲν ὑπὸ τῶν πολλῶν
ws παρακινῶν ἐνθουσιάζων δὲ λέληθε τοὺς πολλούς. Montaigne, essais 111
5, has well perceived the characteristic features of this address. He
quotes the latter part of it and then compares it with a fine passage of
the Aeneid, vi11 387 foll.; and thus concludes ‘Quand je rumine ce
reicit, pascit, inhians, molli, fovet, medullas, labefacta, pendet, percurrit, et
cette noble etrcum/fusa mere du gentil infusus j’ay desdain de ces menués
pointes et allusions verbales qui nasquirent depuis’. How tame even
Spenser’s elegant paraphrase and Dryden’s translation are by the side of
the original. Lamb. cites with approbation P. Victorius who argues
from Plut. adv. Col. and Cic. de nat. deor. 1 45, that Epic. did not forbid
sacrifice and prayer to the gods; ‘habet enim’ says Velleius ‘ venera-
tionem iustam quidquid excellit’; but he adds that Lucr. prays here not
as a philosopher, but as a poet. The stoic Cleanthes’ hymn to Jupiter is
conceived in much the same spirit: he addresses the god as Ζεῦ φύσεως
ἀρχηγέ, Whom all mortals should address, "Ex σοῦ yap γένος ἐσμέν.
Many motives doubtless were acting at once on the poct’s mind.
Venus was symbol of the all-pervading living foree of nature; she was
legendary mother of the Romans: Mars ruled the first, she the second
month of spring and the year. Mars indeed in the old Italian mythology
was the youthful and beneficent god of plenty, father of the Latin races:

32 BOOK I NOTES II

‘cum hodieque’ says Macrob. sat. 1 12 8 ‘in sacris Martem patrem,
Venerem genetricem vocemus’, Why then does Lucr. desert the true
old conception of this god, one seemingly well-suited to his purpose, and
adopt the Greek legend? From the time of Ennius at least the Roman
poets good and bad alike borrowed the setting of their poetry from
Greece: the fauns and casmenae had yielded for ever before the muses of
Helicon. ‘Inmortalis mortalis si foret fas flere, Flerent divae Camenae
Naevium poetam’, Naevius wrote for his own epitaph: with Campanian
insolence, Gellius says; but well they might weep for him; for in him
their Homer died. Mars had now become an Ares, the destroying lord
of war. Again though Empedocles’ poem on nature was much shorter
than that of Lucr. and doubtless in many respects inferior, yet to some
extent it was to the latter what the Iliad and Odyssey were to Virgil,
his technical model. Among the recently discovered fragments of Em-
pedocles there is an address to Calliope which Lucr. prob. had in his
mind when he penned vi 94. Empedocles’ two great principles of love
and strife by whose alternate victory and defeat he personified the cease-
less round of nature had evidently a great influence on Lucr. Comp. now
the passages quoted by Sturz Emped. 240 sqq. Eustathius there tells us
that Empedocles made the union of Ares and Aphrodite the symbol of
his love, their release by Hephaestus the symbol of his hate: Heraclitus
in his allegories declares that Homer, in naming strife Ares and love
Aphrodite, confirmed the Σικελικὰ δόγματα or doctrine of Empedocles.
Long as this discussion is, I will call attention to another point:
observe 26 JJenmiadae nostro quem tu, dea, cet. and compare the coins
of the Memmii in Cohen’s médailles consul. and esp. Mommsen’s Roem.
Muenzw. p. 597: it will be seen that Venus crowned by Cupid appears
on the coins of this Memmius and apparently his elder brother Lucius,
We come to the flatterers of the Juli before we find so large a propor-
tion of the coins of any family with Venus on them. Martha in his
book on Lucr, published in 1869 (p. 61) ‘propose une explication nou-
velle’, and draws, I am glad to see, the same inf€rence from the coins of
the Memmii which I had clone, and so does H. Sauppe in the Philologus
for 1865, p. 182. Virgil, who is said to have taken it from the Punic
war of Naevius, tells us that the Memmii claimed descent from the Tro-
jan Mnestheus, Aen. x11 127 Mnestheus is called Assaraci genus. The
Memmii may have claimed Venus for ancestress, though Virgil reserved
that honour for the Julii. At all events she must have been held in
peculiar honour by them; and Lucr. may have wished to gratify his
patron, by making her his own patron lady. Cohen says p. 112 ‘Hercu-
les and Venus were the objects of the peculiar veneration of Sulla:
therefore we see the head of Hercules on nos, 49 and 50, and that of
Venus on 51’. Now Cohen mentions two other coins of the Memmii
which have a head of Hercules: and Mommsen p. 642 describes two

BOOK I NOTES II 33

struck by the son of our Memmius, one with a head of Ceres, in honour
of his father ; the other in honour of a remoter ancestor, with a Ceres
and the legend MEMMIUS’ AED‘ CERIALIA’ PREIMUS' FECIT. At the open-
ing of book v Ceres is spoken of and a long enumeration made of the
deeds of Hercules, which are shewn to be far inferior to those of
Epicurus. In the beg. of v1 the discovery of corn is recorded, but de-
clared to be of less importance than that of philosophy by Epicurus.
Did Lucr. mean to say ‘ You pride yourself, Memmius, on your family
connexion with Hercules and Ceres; but let me tell you you had better
learn to be proud of the philosopher’? Many of these motives may have
weighed with Lucr. and his poetical instinct carried him beyond his first
intention. Let me here refer to Prof. Sellar’s Roman poets of the re-
public p. 276 foll.

50—61 he calls on Memmiuus to attend, while he explains the nature
of the first elements of things. 50 Lach, has rightly seen, as I have
said in notes 1, that the interpolated verses have thrust out the protasis
of this sentence, in which Memmius must have been addressed ; unless
the Verona interpr. Verg. misquotes and refers to tv 912 tenuis aures
animungque sagacem, which is not probable: the omission of part of the
vy. in AB suggests a still greater disturbance. Quod superest is a
favourite expression of Lucr. for ‘to proceed to what remains’ ‘ more-
over’; and is often put in the middle of a sentence at the beg. of the
apodosis, as here: compare 11 39, 491, vi 1000, etc.: see also 11 546 and
tv 195, where it is in another part of the sentence: perhaps Aen. 1x 157
is likewise a case in point. vacuas auris is well illustrated by
Quintil. inst. x 1 32 Neque ila Sallustiana brevitas qua nihil apud
aures vacuas atqiue eruditas potest esse perfectius, apud occupatum vartis
cogitationibus vudicem et saeprus ineruditum captanda nobis est. Livy
XLII 14 2 praeoccupatis non auribus magis quam animis ab Eumene
reye, omnis et defensio et deprecatio legatorum respuebatur, where respue.
illustrates contempta relinguas of 53; χὴν 19 9 ts ad occupatas iam
aures sollicitatumque tam animun. cum venisset ; 31 6 tmplevere aures:
Plautus has vocivas auris; Horace vacuas auris. sagacem a favour-
ite epithet in Lucr. of animus and mens: the metaph. is froin the scent
of dogs, and is well illustrated in Forcell. where however de nat. deor.
should be de divin.

51 Sem. a curis: wisdom and happiness being unattainable without
ἀταραξία or perfect exemption from care and trouble. veram ad
rationem=Epicuri philosophiam: comp. Υ 9 vitae rationem invenit cane
quae Nunc appellatur sapientia: and τι 1023 Nune aninmum nobis adhibe
veram ad rationem. vatio is as common in Lucr. as it is in Cicero, and
has perhaps as many meanings: notice the word here and 54 and 59, the
sense in each case different: and comp. 128—130 ratio...qua fiunt ra-
tione...ratione sayact within three lines: the auctor ad Heren, rv 18 gives

M. ul. 3

34 BOOK I NOTES II

as an instance of faulty repetition nam cuius rationis ratio non extat, et
rationt ratio non est fidem habere. δὼ comp. Ciris 46 Accipe dona meo
multum vigilata labore, in which there is also a reference to 142 noctes
vigilare serenas. disposta, as 111 420 pergam disponere carmina: it has
the same sense as digerere. 54 de sum. cae. rat. as below 127 superis de
rebus habenda Nobis est ratio. 55 incipram rather attempt than simply
begin ; so 1v 29 Nunc agere incipram ; Ter. Andr. 493 quem tam aperte
fallere incipias dolis : see Conington to Aen. 11 13, who refers to Henry:
the two meanings however easily pass into one another: v1 432 Rumpere
quam coepit nubem; and so inceptum, coeptum.

55 foll. rerum primordia or primordia alone is here declared by Lucr.
to be his proper and distinctive term for the atoms or first elements of
things. Once, 1v 28, he resolves it into ordia prima ; sometimes he has
instead of it cunetarwm exordia rerwm. In the gen. dat. and abl. where
these words do not suit his verse, he uses principrorum and principits, in
the plur. only: 707 princtpiwm applies to those philosophers who had
only one first-beginning. principia he never employs, thus shewing that
primordia is his proper and distinctive term, and the other a mere sub-
stitute, which he need not therefore here mention: 11 313 primorum is
used for principiorum. ‘First-beginnings’ seems to me to give the pecu-
liar force of the term better than any other word I can hit upon: ἀρχαί,
τῶν ὄντων apxat and the like are the equivalents in Epicurus and others.
He goes on to enumerate several synonymes: materies i.q. ὕλη, corpora
genitalia or prima ; corpora alone or corpora rerum 15 more common and
used at least as often as primordia; he also has corpora materiat ; cor-
puscula too is not uncommon : semina rerum which he mentions here or
semina alone is frequent enough. σώματα, ἄτομα σώματα and the like in
Epicurus. Lucr. has no equivalent for ai ἄτομοι or ἄτομα σώματα. Cicero
uses corpuscula, atom, id est individua corpuscula, and individuum as a
subst. to express the atoms of Epicurus or Democritus. Lucr. does not
here mention elementa which is frequently found in his poem and an-
swers to one of the commonest Greek words στοιχεῖα, ὄγκοι, bulks or
magnitudes, often occurs in Epicurus, Sextus and others. None of the
above terms is employed by Lucr. in the sing. to denote one atom except
corpus once or twice: in fact he rarely needs the singular: figurae or
‘shapes’ is not unfrequent with him for his atoms, corresponding in this
sense to the εἶδος and ἰδέα of Democritus, who also has φύσις and the
strange δέν.

56 57 Unde=ex quibus, Quove=et in quae. Unde, Quove, Quae
all refer to primordia. Quove: 111 34 Quove ; but in the spurious repeti-
tion Iv 47 Quoque. v 71, 184 and 776 Quove: 168 and 176 are not in
point, as ve has there its proper force. v1 29 Quidve: 1164 Quaeque: V
185 Quidque. In the above cases the ve seems=que: comp. Wagn.
quaest. Virg. xxxv1 5, where it appears that Virgil’s usage is much the

BOOK I NOTES I ais

same. One might suppose that this use began from a wish not to con-
found the relative with quwisque: thus 11 34 Quoque modo possint res ex
his quaeque creart would have beenambiguous. As quicque, not guidque,
is the neut. of qguisque, there would be no objection to guidque which is
found in v 185; yet in 11 64 also AB Gott. etc. have Quaeque; and τν
634 and vi 533 quareve=quareque, which would not be ambiguous.
57 eadem is of course fem., perempta being synon. with res peremptas.
Lucr. has no objection to change to the neut.: 157 res quaeque, 158 quae-
que neut.; 111 424 Quatenus est unum inter se coniunctaque res est: see
ἢ. tom 184: this of course has no bearing on Wakefield’s absurd argu-
ment that 190 Crescentes= res crescentes. Lucr. like the older writers
generally, does not seem to have felt the ambiguity of perempta in the
neut. coming next to natura: comp. v 1414, 1416 and 1417, 58 gen.
corp. rebus seems = cor. quae sunt gen. rebus: see Conington to Aen. II
556, who there quotes Aen. x 135 Aut collo decus aut cupiti, and 203
Ipsa caput populis; and Madvig Lat. Gr. 241 3, where Tac. hist. 1 89
longo bello materia is not unlike this passage of Lucr. who thrice has
caput with a dat. for a river-head: see Lach. to v1 729. 60 swemus and
other parts of the verb are dissyll. or trisyll. indifferently in Lucr. ;
[Prop. 17 5 has conswemus. | usurpare: see Force. for instances from
Cicero of this use. 61 primis seems in appos. with dlis: illis, ut
primis: comp. Virg. ecl. v1 33 ut his exordia primis Omnia.

In order to apprehend the poet’s drift, which IT seem to myself to see
more clearly now than I formerly did, the whole of the verses from 50 to
135 must be kept in view at the same time. The loss before 50 of more
lines than one apparently has broken the connexion with what precedes.
Lucretius wislies at the outset to impress upon his readers that his pur-
pose in writing is not to gratify scientific curiosity, but to free man from
the two great obstacles to happiness and tranquillity of mind, fear of the
gods and fear of death. He begins then with saying that he will tell of
the true system of heaven and the gods. This promise he carries out in
a portion of the 5th and 6th books. In the rest of the paragraph he
says he will explain the nature of his first-beginnings: that explanation
fills the greater part of the first two books, and is dwelt upon here with
so much emphasis, because they forin the necessary groundwork of his
whole physical philosophy. In the next paragraph, 62—79, Epicurus is
glorified for having first proved the vanity of this fear of the gods; the
sinfulness of which fear is shewn in tlie following verses, 80—111, by a
vivid picture of the sacrifice of Iphigenia. And not only fear of the gods
must be banished, but also fear of death. This can be done by explain-
ing the real nature of the soul, and the true theory of images, which will
save us from being frightened by stories about hell, and of the return to
earth of the ghosts of the dead: vss. 102—135. These topics are dis-
cussed at length in the 3rd and 4th books. The motive tor the seemingly

~~ ὦ

Co al

36 BOOK I NOTES II

somewhat artificial arrangement of these introductory paragraphs will
now be understood ; through ignorance of which some recent scholars have
played sad havoc with the poem by vain and mischievous transpositions
and the like.

62—79: human life lay prostrate beneath religion, until a man of
Greece rose up, explained the true system of the universe, and trampled
on religion in turn. 62 ante oculos, plain for all to see: often used
by Lucr. in cognate meanings, as 342 and 984 (998) for what is
visible to sense: [Sen. rhet. controv. 1 1 16 stare ante oculos Yortuna
videbatur.| Β8 religione, with one J: so the best mss. of other authors
also: rellig. only once, v 114, in AB. 65 sawper often in Lucr. has
the sense of inseper or praeterea, never I think that of desuper : the
former may be its meaning here; though that would be weak; I
take it therefore as in 39 circwmfusa super ‘being above him’, and Aen.
1x 168 Haec super e vallo prospectant T'roes, ‘the Trojans being above
look forth ete.’: so here ‘standing over mortals being herself above’. Τ
doubt whether in Virgil it ever bears the sense of desuper: in Aen.
v 697 I take it to mean twsuper: yet there is no question that swuperne,
a favourite word with Lucr., sometimes has the force of deswper ; and
the two meanings are often not easy to discriminate. 66 Graius
homo, as Enn. ann. 183; and Virg. Aen. x 720 who imitates probably
both Ennius and Lucr.; Ennius twice uses in the same way Romanus
homo: Cic, ad Att. vit 3 10 geod homo Romanus Piraeea scripserim,
mon Piraeeum. toll. con. oc.: Livy vi 16 3 nec adversus dictatoriam
vim aut tribune plebis aut ipsa plebs attollere oculos aut hiscere audebant ;
Prop. 1 15 37 Ht contra magnum potes hos i.e. oculos attollere solem ?
(Sen.) Octav. 841 Contraque sanctos coniugis vultus meae Attollere
oculos. [mort. oc.: see Catull. 64 17 and Ellis there. | contra at
the end of this and the next verse are of course in intentional apposition,
as are primus and primum. 68 fama deum: see notes 1: so Livy
x 24 17 ad famam popult Romani pertinere; Aen. vil 731 Attollens
umero famamque et fata nepotum; Heyne and Conington seem to me
rightly to explain in the same way Aen. Iv 218 famamque fovenus
enanem: thus Epicurus proved the fama deum to be inanis, full of
sound signifying nothing. Indeed an epithet to fama would to my mind
impair, not increase the force of the expression. 70 Jnritat perf.: so
vi 087 Disturbat urbes, and v 396 swperat et which seems a certain conj.
of Lach.: in each case the -α is followed by a vowel; but on this point
see ἢ. to 111 1042 οὐδέ. arta always; so autumnus, but auctus and
the like: comp. quintus, Quintas, but Quinctius ; in the list of πρόξενοι
in Wescher and Foucart’s inscript. rec. ἃ Delphes no. 18 we find the
praenomen Koivros more than once, but 1. 112 Τίτος Κοίγκτιος of
Flamininus: yet in the new corp. inscr. Lat. 1008 Quinctus is once
found, [and Wilmanns’ ex. inscr. 879 has cos. quinct. (of the year

BOOK I NOTES II 37

725.)| and Plaut. trin. 524 A has qiuincto, merc. 66 Ba has quicto ;
but this spelling seems to have been quite obsolete in the time of Lucr.
though recalled by the affected antiquarian Fronto: the corp. inser. has
quinctilis and Quinctilius; the old ms. of the last five books of Livy
both Quenetilius and Quintilus Varus; comp. too fartus sartus setius
tortus indultus fultus. 71 {L. Mueller compares Lucil. xxx 1 Quoi
sua committunt mortali claustra Camenae.| cupiret: Enn. ann. 10 Ova
parire solet; 384 δὲ vivimw’ sive morimur; Ov. met. xiv 215 cupr-
dusque morire: from Plautus and Terence many similar forms might
be given.

73 Epic. is the subject of Processi¢ and peragravit. flame.
moen. mundi a noble expression which frequently recurs, to denote the
fiery orb of ether that forms the outer circuit of the world: its nature is
fully described in the fine passage v 457—470, ending with Omni« sic
avido complexu cetera saepsit, imitated in paradise lost 111 721 Zhe rest
an eircurt walls this wniverse: the use of ‘universe’ is of course quite
unepicurean. It may be a question whether mundi in this phrase means
the whole world, or is a synonyme, as it so often is, of caelwm or aether:
it certainly appears to have the latter meaning in v1 123, where capacis
well expresses the avidus complexus of ether: the former seems more
poetical and is confirmed by the imitation in Manilius 1151 Flammarum
vallo naturae moenia fecit, where naturae clearly denotes the whole world:
this constant imitator of and carper at Lucr. has also 486 moenta mandi
in a passage where he is trying to refute Epicurus and him. 74 an
emphatic oxymoron: he passed beyond this world and traversed in
thought the immeasurable universe: Cic. de fin. τι 102 must surely
have been thinking of this passage when he says haec non erant evus que
innumerabilis mundos infinitasque regiones quarum nulla esset ora, nulla
extremitas, mente peragravisset: see Madvig: and Hor. od. 1 28 5 anzmo-
gue rotundum Percurrisse polum morituro. mente animoqgue a mere
poetical tautology: 11 84 animum dico, mentem quam saepe vocamuts ;
and all through that book they are synonymes. [Cic. epist. x 5 2
perhaps differentiates the two: ut tota mente omnique anima impetu
wm rempublicam incumbas.| Lucr. more than once too uses mens anime,
as does Catullus after or before him. Virgil was probably thinking
of these words and this rhythm in Aen. vi 11 magnam cue mentem
animumque; though the expression is common in prose, and is found
in Cicero, Caesar, Livy and Tacitus. 75 Lamb. seems right in
comparing refert victor with Acn. 1v 93 laudem et spolia ampla refertis :
where refertis however is simply ‘carry home’, as Plaut. Poen. τν 2 25
domum haec ab aede Veneris refero vasa. At the same time it here
unites the common and cognate meaning of a messenger or the like
bringing back a report: the two senses I have tried to combine. The
end of this and the whole of the next two verses are repeated again in

38 BOOK I NOTES II

this book and in the 5th and 6th. 77 alte term. haer.: the metaphor
is of course from a stone pillar fixed in the ground as a boundary
between two properties: 11 1087 vitae depactus terminus alte; Aen. IV
614 hic terminus haeret : not unlike are Accius 481 Veter fatorum termi-
nus sic tusserat, and Hor. carm. saec. 26 stabilisque rerum Terminus.

78 pedibus subiecta: Livy xiv 31 3 obnoxios pedibus eorum subrecit ;
xxxvill 46 3 pedibus paene hostium aciem subiectt ; vill 9 5 super telum
subtectum pedibus stantem; Sen. epist. 94 56 pedibus aurum argentum-
que subiecit ; Suet. Calig. 26 veste detracta subiectaque militum pedabus.
Virg. geor. 11 490 Felix qui potuit rerun. cognoscere causas Atque metus
omnis et inexorabile fatum Subiecit pedibus streprtumque Acherontis avare
evidently alludes to this and some other passages, ΠῚ 37 Ht metus ille
foras praeceps Acheruntis agendus, 1072 Natwram primum studeat cognos-
cere rerum, and v 1185 quibus id fieret cognoscere causis. Formerly I
thought that perhaps Virgil referred to some ideal philosopher, such as
Eurip. fragm. inc. 101 Dind. paints, Ὄλβιος ὅστις τῆς ἱστορίας Ἔσχε
μάθησιν «.7.A. and that Lucretius and the magni docta dicta Stronis
might have prompted Virgil to think rather of Epicurus than of Lucr. him-
self. Conington, who in his first edition says ‘that Virgil clearly refers
specially to Lucretius’, in his second seems to come to much the same
conclusion as I had come to. But now, when I compare geor. 11 475—
482, in which Virgil expresses his longing to be the poet of science, with
490—492 Felix qui cet.; and then 483—489, in which he declares that,
if his genius is unequal to that, he will seek the country and its enjoy-
ments, with 493 494 Fortunatus et alle cet., I feel that by his Felix que
Virgil does mean a poet-philosopher, who can only be Lucretius. For
see my note at 11 449, where I shew at length how Virgil’s whole
mind, when he was writing his second georgic, must have been saturated
with the poetry of Lucretius. Sainte-Beuve in his étude sur Virgile,
p. 108, observes that Lucretius alone among Latin poets seems to have
been honoured by Virgil ‘comme un véritable ancien’, 79 comp.
Manil. 11 452 Laaequentque fidem caelo mortalia corda.

80—101 think it not sinful thus to spurn religion: nay rather
it is religion who is the mother of unholy deeds; such as the sacrifice of
Iphigenia by her own father. 80 Jllud in his rebus, a prosaic, but
very favourite phrase of Lucr. to denote some special point in the general
question. 80—83 comp. Epic. in Diog. Laert. x 123 ἀσεβὴς δ᾽ οὐχ ὁ
τοὺς τῶν πολλῶν θεοὺς ἀναιρῶν, ἀλλ᾽ ὃ Tas τῶν πολλῶν δόξας θεοῖς
προσάπτων. 82 indugredi; also indupedire and induperator are often
used by him ; indeptus and iacere indu for inicere once each; as well as
wndu manu and endo mari: in imitation I presume of Ennius: in the
remains of the latter indu governs the abl. endo the acc. The forms
appear to be epic, not occurring in the fragments of Ennius’ or other
tragedies: indaudire and indipiscor do occur in Plautus: the latter with

BOOK I NOTES Il 39

vnudigeo induo remained in use: Ribbeck scaen. Rom. frag. p, x11 quotes
other forms from the old glosses. quod contra: this expression is
found in Cic. Cato 84; Laelius 90; pro Quinctio 87: comp. too de fin.
v 76 quod autem fratri puto; 83 quod vestri non item. Here, and 221
Quod nunc...quia, 623 Quod quoniam ratio reclamat, and in quod utinam,
and the common quod si, guod nist, quod ni, the quod I now think is to
be explained as Ritschl after Bergk explains it, neue Plaut. Exc. p. 57;
as the old abl. with the sense of qua re, quam ob rem and the
like. When qudd or quo went out of use in such senses, the guod re-
mained stereotyped in these phrases, as a mere symbol not understood.
Buecheler, as Ritschl observes, well compares the quod circa of the lex
Repetund. 1. 13, the same as the quo circa of the later lex Iulia municip.
ll. 103, 118; the quocerca in fact of literature. I would thus explain
Livy xxxvu 43 12 nehel est, quod se ab Aetolis separent. illa emphatic
in a bad sense, as Iv 181 and 910 dle gruum clamor: 11 362 Fluminaque
illa in a good sense. 84 quo pacto, as 912. 86 prima vir. a harsh
expression, like Ov. am. 1 9 37 Swmma ducum Atrides: Statius perhaps
imitates Lucr. in silv. πὶ 3 197 tebe cuncta tuorum Parebunt, and v 1 79
qui cuncta suorum Novit: ta πρῶτα followed by a masc. gen. is common
enough in Greek ; [comp. Eur. H. F. last line τὰ μέγιστα φίλων ὀλέσαντες.
87 infula a flock of wool knotted regularly along a vitta or riband,
fastened by this riband round the head and hanging down pari parte
over each side of the head: worn by priests and victims, as often seen
on works of art: comp. Rich’s companion s.v.: also geor. 111 487, and
Ov. ex Ponto 11 2 74 Ambiat ut fulvas infula longa comas, Dumque
parat sacrum, dum velat tempora vitta, of Iphigenia about to sacrifice
Orestes and Pylades: she wears in Lucr. the infula of a victim instead
of the vittae of a bride, which would have better become the virgineos
comptus ; these words probably implying that her hair was arranged in
the sex crines for her expected marriage: Ov. fasti 11 557 Mec tibi, quae
cupidae matura videbere matri, Comat virgineas hasta recurva comas ; as
this custom was a marked feature of marriage: capiundas crines, Plaut.
most, 226. The constr. of οὖν. con. is like 38: see n. to 39. comptus,
that is compta coma, used by Afranius also according to Festus: in
111 845 it has quite a different sense. 88 the constr. is La utr. mal.,
part parte: part parte being almost an adv. in the sense of pariter:
v 674 Ht pariter mollem malis demittere barbam: Lucr. never cares to
avoid such ambiguities. 92 yenibus summ. lit. ‘let down by her
knees’: comp. Ov. met. Iv 340 genw subsuuisit: and vit 191 in dura
summisso poplite terra: Valer. Max. v1 8 4 ut se tremibunda Pindari
genibus summutterct, the constr. is quite different; though it is just
possible that genzbus in Lucr. also may be the knees of others : Sucton.
1 20 seque putri ad genwa summisit. petebat more graphic than the
perf. 93 in tale tem.: Lucr. is fond of this use of 77: 234 in 60 spatio:

40 BOOK I NOTES II

in tempore occurs more than 20 times ; it is found too in Cicero, Livy and
other prose writers: v 67 0O—672 twice certo tempore, once in certo tem-
pore; he says an puncto tempore, temporis in puncto, but purcto diet; in
partibus annt and partibus annt. 94 Lamb. compares Eurip. Iph. A.
1222 πρώτη σ᾽ ἐκάλεσα πατέρα καὶ σὺ παῖδ᾽ ἐμέ, which Lucr. imitates,
and not, as Blomfield thinks, Aesch. Agam. 214 (220): ‘comp. Aeschin.
Ctes. ὃ 77’ J. E. ΔΙ.

95—100 a highly elaborated passage: in the first part a studied
ambiguity in the terms which are common to marriage and sacrifice ; in
the last a studied contrast between the youth and innocence of the victim
and her cruel fate. 95 sublata like λαβεῖν ἀέρδην in Aesch. Agam.
220; alluding at the same time to the ceremony of taking the bride by
violence from the arms of her mother. virum the general term to indi-
cate at once the ministri and the virt who executed this formal rape.
tremib. expressing at once the trembling of the victim, and the fluttering
anxiety of the bride: tremibunda AB: see Lach.: so mss. of Aen. x 522,
of Valer. Max. vi 8 4. 96 deducta, said of the victim, is also a
proper term for escorting the bride to her husband, mzhi deductae fax
omen praetulit. In a very old elegiac epitaph found at Beneventum,
forming 1220 of the new corpus inscr. Lat. and 1623 of Mommsen’s
inscr. Neapol., a deceased wife says Nunc duta sun Dita longum mansura
per aevum, Deducta et fatal igne et aqua Styyia; Tac. ann. xiv 63, of
Octavia, huic primus nuptiarum dies loco funeris furt, deductae in
domum in qua nihil nist luctuosum haberet. soll. more sacr. the sacri-
fice of the sheep etc. in the most solemn form of marriage. 97 claro
hym. of which we have so brilliant a specimen in Catull. 61; the hyme-
neal being sung partly while she was 1n her own home, partly as she was
escorted thence to her husband’s house and partly while she was with
her husband. comitart pass. also in Ovid, who has comitat, comitare,
and more than once comitavit. 98 99 the position of the words is
very artificial: znceste, denoting the pollution of blood, is separated from
concideret in order to contrast better with custa and nub. tem. when all
occasion of pollution should be far away: maesta disjoined from hostia
and put between mactatu and parentis gains great additional force: then
notice mact. par.; the father who should give away the bride, is he who
rourders her; then too the place in the verse of hostia and maesta seems
intended to be parallel with that of Favtus and felix faustusque in the
foll.: casta inceste see n. to 11 1054 innwmero numero, and introduction
pp. 15, 16. 99 muctatu seems a ἅπαξ λεγόμενον. 100 Lxitus the
setting sail from Aulis: comp. Iv 398. 101 Zantum...malorum is
found in the Ciris 455 cited by Wak., as well as in v 227 Cuz tantum cet.
What did Luer. think of the fate of his own countrymen the Decii?—
In the above passage I find no trace of imitation of the Agamemnon,
unless the very doubtful one of λαβεῖν ἀέρδην in 95; but clear indications

BOOK I NOTES 1 41

here as elsewhere that Lucr. had carefully studied Euripides: 94 we saw
is almost a translation of a line of Τρ. Aul. Again with 98 99
comp. 1178 foll. of that play, ἀπώλεσέν σ᾽, ὦ τέκνον, ὁ φυτεύσας πατὴρ
Αὐτὸς κτανών, οὐκ ἄλλος οὐδ᾽ addy χερί, and 1315 ὦ δυστάλαιν᾽ ἐγώ...
φονεύομαι διόλλυμαι Σῴφαγαῖσιν ἀνοσίοισιν ἀνοσίου πατρός: and with 101
comp. 1334 μεγάλα παθεα κιτ.λ. where Helen takes the place of religion.
Again one of the most striking things in this description is the allusion
to the rites of marriage: now just after the passage last quoted Achilles,
to whom Iphigenia was betrothed, enters on the scene and offers to
rescue his bride from death.

102—145: you will yourself at times fall away from me, frightened
by vain tales of eternal punishment, which men adopt from ignorance of
the soul; about the nature of which there are many false theories: one
is that of transmigration adopted by Ennius: his hell being peopled only
by phantoms of the living. I must therefore in addition to what I have
already promised explain the true nature of the soul, as well as of those
idols which frighten us in sickness or sleep. The task is difficult; but
my love and admiration of you, Memmuius, encourage me to labour to
make these questions clear. 102 Tutemet or tutimet, a rare word
found also Iv 915 and in Ter. heaut.: the double suffix is curious; but
Luer. uses also tute apse. vatum the oldest name for poets, as we are
told by Varro and Enn. ann. 222, afterwards, as is well shewn by Luc.
Mueller de re metr. p. 65 foll., fell into complete contempt and was
discarded for poeta: this latter name is given to themselves by Naevius
Ennius Pacuvius, to Homer by Ennius; and is used in a good sense by
Cicero Lucr. and Catullus. Virgil and succeeding writers made vates
once more a name of honour and denoted by it an inspired bard, some-
thing higher than poeta, as Virg. ecl. 1x 34: the same again brought into
fashion the antiquated and despised camenwe or casmenae, even confound-
ing them with their rivals and conquerors the muses. With Lucr. here
and 109 it is a term of contempt to denote apparently singers of old
prophecies and denouncers of coming ills, like the Marcius of the 2nd
Punic war cited by Livy and Macrobius: comp. Horace’s annosa volw-
muna vatum: the epicurean Velleius in Cic. de nat. deor. 1 55 contemp-
tuously joins haruspices augures harioli vates coniectores: Enn. trag. 356
superstitiosi vates impudentesque arioli; Livy xxv 18 sacrificult ac vates
ceperant hominum mentes; ΧΧΧΙΧ 8 3 sacrificulus et vates; 16 8 sacrificu-
los vatesque; Sall. orat. Philip. 3 vatum carminibus. Zeuss gram. Celt.
Ip. 57 shews that the word is the same as the old Irish faith, Strabo
mentioning as the three highest classes among the Gauls βάρδοι τε καὶ
οὐάτεις καὶ δρυΐδαι, and explaining οὐάτεις to be ἱεροποιοὶ καὶ φυσιόλογοι.
103 terriloguis: lexicons give no other instance of the use of this word:
Virg. Aen. v 524 has terrifict cecinerunt carmina vates. The poet’s mis-
trust of Memmius here and in 332 is curious and would seem to confirm

42 BOOK I NOTES II

what has been said of the small respect which the latter shewed to Epi-
curus and epicureans. 104 jing. som.: Virg. ecl. γα 108 tpsz sabe
somnia fingunt. 105 vertere = evertere in Virg. Aen. 1 20 11 652 x 88:
also in Horace Ovid and perhaps Cicero, as shewn by Force. 106 tur-
bare: Wak. compares Aen. x1 400 omnia magno Ne cessa turbare metu.
107 Ft merito; nam: Ov. met. 1x 585 Et merito; quid enim cet. certam
jinem: finis is always fem. in Lucer.: the mss. 11 1116 have extremum
jfinem which Lach. rightly alters. 109 felig. often used by Lucr. in
the plur. for religious fears or scruples: he twice has religionum nodis
exsolvere, shewing that he felt redigzo to be connected with religare, as
does Cic. de domo 105 nisz etiam mauliebribus religionibus te implicuisses,
though elsewhere he derives it from relegere. Fick vergl. woerterb. p.
488 traces it to a root signifying ‘to care for’, ‘to trouble one’s self for’,
connecting it with ἀλέγω, ἄλγος, etc. (Homer Διὸς οὐκ adéywv): neec-lego

‘not to care for’. 110 restand: common enough in the poets for
resistendi: sec Fore.: Livy 1v 58 4 summa vi restare; [xxtt 45 9 nunc
paucis plures viz restatis. | 111 Lach. here and v 302 adds est omitted

in mss. because, he says, it cannot be omitted after the gerund, unless
an infin. esse or a compound of esse follow. I have followed him in
both places, but with hesitation, as Serv. to Aen. x1 230 quotes our
verse without est. Lucretius has at least a dozen instances of the ace.
after the gerund, instead of the participial constr.; [see Roby Gram. pt.
II p. Lxx11;| but the accus. is gen. a plur. except 111 626 eam facicundum
est, and 926 mortem putandumst: comp. Serv. 1. 1, where pacem
petendum is read on his authority and that of other grammarians
against the best mss.: Livy xLtu 5 6 the ancient and sole ms, has
ad spernendum pacem; but Gronov. and Madvig change it to spernen-
dam: the constr. is known to Cicero Cato 6 viam, quam nobis quoqgue
ingrediundum sit.

113 two theories of the origin of the soul; the true one that it is
born with the body, the false that it enters the body at the body’s birth:
114—116 three theories of the soul after death, first the true one that
when severed from the body, it dies with it; secondly the false one that
it enters Orcus; thirdly the equally false one that it migrates into some
other living creature: Ennius believed in the Pythagorean transmigra-
tion of souls, and therefore in the 2nd and false theory of the soul’s
origin and the 3rd and false one of its migration after death: ann. 10
Ova parire solet genw pinnis condecoratum, Non animam ; et post inde
vent divinitw pullis [psa anima. 114 dirempta refers of course to
visat and insinuet se, as well as to wntereat. 115 lacunas may mean
pools of water, as v 794, v1 552; or merely hollows, chasms, as apparently
v1 538, and Cic. Arat. 427 Imsula discessit disiectaque saxa revellens
Perculit et caecas lustravit luce lacunas. 116 pecudes alias seems
clearly a Grecism, like Herod. 1 216 θύουσί μιν καὶ ἄλλα πρόβατα ἅμα

BOOK I NOTES II 43

αὐτῷ, and Empedocles 141 Karsten ἀνθρωποί τε καὶ ἄλλων ἔθνεα θηρῶν:
ut 611 sensws alios with reference to animam; Plaut. Men. 839 hircus
alius; Aen. vi 411 alias animas; Livy vu 8 1 vulgus ahiud armatorum ;
x ὃ 4 in ceteris humanis; Tac. ann. ml 42 aliud vulgus obaeratorum
aut clientium; hist. 1v 56 ceterum velgus. wnstnuet a very favourite
word of Lucr. with inany constructions: either active as here with two
accus. one transit. the other governed by the zm (comp. haec animune
advertere); or with one accus.; or neut. with an accus. gov. of the in,
or neut, with per: often too passive; once, Iv 1030, followed by an accus. ;
elsewhere by a dat. as 113, or a prep. per or in. [It is used neut. by
Cic. epist. τν 13 6 tn tpsius consuetudinem...insinuabo. | 117 Ln.
noster: he is so called by his admirer Cicero, pro Archia 18 and 22. qua
primus cet. that is, who first brought to Latium the muses of Helicon
and introduced Greek metres and Greek principles of art: comp. ann.
221 seripsere alii rem Vorsibw quos olim Fauner vatesque canebant ; Cum
neque musarum scopulos quisguam superarat Nec dicte studiosus erat:
the mus. scop. being the rocks of Helicon. To this Porcius Licin.
refers ap. Gell. xvii 21 45 Poentco bello secundo musa pinnato gradw
Intulit se bellicosam in Romuli gentem feranm. The way in which Lucey.
speaks of Ennius here is striking, when we compare what Heraclit.
allege. Homer. c. 4 says of Epicurus: ἅπασαν ὁμοῦ ποιητικὴν ὥσπερ δέλεαρ
ἀφοσιούμενος: it would seem that an enthusiastic pupil must differ in
temperament from his master. 119 gentis Lt. hom. seems simply to
mean those races of men which are Italian, not unlike Iv 733 Cerbereas-
que canum facies; Hor. epod. 10 12 Graia victorum manus; but see n.
to 474; and comp. 10 spectes verna diet. clueret, a favourite archaism
of Lucr. =sometimes audio, sometimes simply sum. Ennius ann. 4, if
Vahlen is right, speaks even more proudly, Latos per populos terrasque
poemata nostra Clara cluebunt: but this reading is more than doubtful.
120 foll.: but though he holds this opinion, he yet moreover believes in
Acheron, teaching however that only bloodless idols of the dead dwell
there; one of which appeared to him in the shape of Homer. 120 Lisz
praet. tam. is somewhat prosaic. Acher. templa occurs also III 25,
and is found in Enn. trag. 107 Acherusia tenpla alta Orci. Lucr. is
very fond of the expression caeli templa with various epithets; he has also
caelestia and mundi templa: it is not uncommon in Ennius and others:
the phrase seems evidently adopted from the augural division of the
heaven into templa: hence it conveyed a stately solemn notion; and is
applied to Acheron; Plautus miles 413 has ti locis Neptuitis templisque
turbulentis: v 103 humanum in pectus tenplaque mentis; Iv 624 linguar
templa, where sce note.

122 body and soul do not hold together and reach this Acheron,
but only pale idols. permaneant seems especially said of the soul or body
continuing after death, like διαμένειν : comp. Sext. inp. adv, math. 1x

44 BOOK I NOTES II

72 καὶ καθ᾽ αὐτὰς δὲ διαμένουσιν [ai ψυχαί], καὶ οὐχ ὡς ἔλεγεν ὁ ᾿Επίκουρος
κιτιλ. and 73 εἰ οὖν διαμένουσιν at ψυχαί. Cic. Tuse. disp. 1 108 cera cir-
cumlitos condunt ut quam maxime permaneant druturna corpora: of the
soul more than once, as ib. 18 guz descedere animum censent, altt statim
dissipart, aliv diu permanere, aliz semper; 36 permanere animos arbi-
tramur consensu nationum omnium; ge im sede maneant cet.: below
he quotes a passage from an old tragedian, probably Ennius, to which
possibly Lucr. may here refer, Unde animae excitantur obscura umbra,
aperto ex ostio Altae Acheruntis, falso sanguine, mortuorum tmagines, as
it is read in Baiter and Halm’s ed.: Ennius may have got the word
himself from Epicharmus: frag. B 7 Lorenz ἄνω τὸ πνεῦμα διαμενεῖ κατ
οὐρανόν: Sen. epist. 57 7 has permanere; 76 25 manent in the same sense.
It may be said that with Ennius the soul did not dissolve: that is so;
but it went into another body and entirely changed its condition; and
Ennius no doubt thought of the dissolution of the old body and soul as
complete. With Quo perman. i.e. usque ad Acher. templa, Lach. com-
pares several passages: Ovid ars 11 120 Solus ad extremos permanet «lle
vogos is perhaps the most in point: comp. too Vitruv. 111 praef. 2 aeterna
memoria ad posteritatem sunt permanentes; Suet. Aug. 78 ad multam
noctem permanebuat. 123 Virg. has at least four imitations of this v.:
geor. 1 477 repeats the very words: comp. Homer’s βροτῶν εἴδωλα κα-
μόντων. 124 Ennius ann. 6 Visus Homerus adesse poeta is a fragm, of
this vision: Cicero more than once infers from these words that it was a
clream, not a real vision. — sem. flov.: Ov. met. vit 702 semper florentis
Hymetti; culex 407 semper florida tinus; Sen. Oed. 5382 Cupressus
virente semper...trunco; Ovid fasti 1v 519 semperque parens: Ter. Andr.
175 ert semper lenitas; [Livy ΤΠ 1 9 swos semper hostes, populi Romani
numquam amicos; Florus ὃ 2 (L. Mueller p. 29) Tam malum est audere
semper quam malum est semper pudor: comp. paene insila. | 125 the
tears were doubtless in regret for life: Aen. 11 271 Hector seems to
weep for his own wounds and the fall of Troy: comp. too 1], py 105.

126 expandere=v 54 rerum naturam pandere: itisarare word, 127 foll.
refer back to 54 foll.: we must not only rightly explain the system
ot heaven and the nature of the gods, in order to rid men of their fear
of them; but likewise the real nature of the soul and of those images
which are emitted from all things, that we may not dread eternal
punishment, or believe like Ennius that ghosts can come back to visit

the earth. 128 meatus, a favourite word of his: v 76 soles cursus
lunaeque meatus. 130 tem cum: tune cum AB; also 111 710, vi 250

both have tune before a consonant, but nowhere else: Lach. therefore,
as Flor. 31 Camb. before him, properly reads tum after the usage of
older writers: see also Wagner quaest. Virg. xxv 5: tune before a
consonant is common in Livy and the silver age. 132 Lt quae res
cet. as explained in the 4th book: res is the imugines or simulacra,

BOOK I NOTES II 45

‘images or idols’, εἴδωλα, which are shed from all things, not the
bloodless phantoms, which Ennius feigns to issue out of Acheron ;
and which terrify us when sick or asleep. The constr. of this verse is
shewn by Iv 33, which is the best comment on it, Atque eadem (simula-
era) nobis vigilantibus obvia mentes Terrificant atque in somnis, cunt
saepe figuras Contuimur nuras simulacraque luce carentum: it is well
explained by N. P. Howard, Journ. of philol. 1 p. 116, who observes that
somnoque sep. 18 a brachylogy for ‘et quae res, nobis somno sepultis
obvia, mentes nostras per somnum terrificet’: the ‘vigilantibus obvia’
only of course affect us when under the influence of disease. The em-
phatic repetition of these horrid visions seen in sickness might seem to
confirm what is related of the poet being subject to fits of delirium, or
disordering sickness of some sort. A curious comment on these vss. and
Jerome’s or Suetonius’ assertion that Lucr. was ‘amatorio poculo in
furore versus’ is furnished by the same Suetonius in what he says
of Caligula tv 50 ‘creclitur potionatus a Caesonia uxore amatorio quidem
medicamento, sed quod in furorem verterit. incitabatur insomnia
maxime; neque enim plus quam tribus nocturnis horis quiescebat, ac
ne iis quidem placida quiete, sed pavida miris rerum imaginibus’: comp.

Lucr. figuras Contuimur miras. 133 som. sep.: V 975 somnoque
sepultt: used by Ennius before and Virgil after him. 135 repeated Iv

734, but there quorwm begins the verse. Virg. Aen. x 641 has morte
obita and v 31 tellus...gremio complectitur ossa: Cicero also uses morte
obita. As he treats of the soul and these images so fully in 11 and ΙΓ,
it might seem that the motives he here assigns are too narrow; but hke
a true disciple of Epicurus he wishes to persuade his reader or himself
that he discusses these questions not for their scientific interest, but to
free man from vain fears of the gods and death, and to produce that
tranquillity of mind, without which happiness is not possible: he reite-
rates the same just below, 146—158.

186 Nec me animi fallit is found also 922 and v 97: Ter. eun. 274
ut falsus animi est: this use of anim is common after many verbs and
adjectives: pendere anime is in Cicero; Plautus trin. 454 has Satin tu es
sanus mentis aut animi tui, [and Epidic. 138 Desipiebam mentis, j
shewing the idiom is not confined to anim. Madvig emend. Liv.
p. 136 says ‘neque Cicero neque Livius neque quisquam post comicos
et Lucretium (apud quem est anime fallvt) genitivum illum adiunxit
nisi 115 verbis, quae dubitationem et sollicitudinem significant.’ 199 on
this and similar passages see what is said above p. 11 of this vol. eges-
tatem: Sen. epist. 58 1 quanta verborumn nobis paupertas, invmo egestas
sit cet.; Pliny epist. Iv 18 inopia ac potius, ut Lucretius art, egestate
patra sermonis. 141 amicitive, with reference probably to the
great importance Epicurus attached to the cultivation of suitable friend-
ships. sufferre laborem occurs in nn. ann. 405. 142. noctes serenas:

46 BOOK I NOTES II

comp. Virg. ecl. 1x 44 te pura solum sub nocte canentem: serenas seems
merely a poetical epithet. 143 demum: comp. 486 solido vincunt
ea corpore demum; Aen. 1 629 hac demum voluct consistere terra.
144 praepand. lum. Lamb. explains ‘dadovyetv, praeferre faceis: prae-
ferendo faceis lumen aperire. uno verbo Latino praelucere’; and comp.
v 657 auroram differt et lumina pandit; Cic. Arat. 40 hibernt prae-
pandens tenporis ortus.

146—158: this terror and darkness of mind must be dispelled by the
knowledge of nature; whose first principle is ‘nothing can be produced
from nothing by divine power’: from this truth all the rest will follow.
146 147 148: these verses are repeated in the 2nd 3rd and 6th books,
and form in fact the keystone of epicurean physics: the knowledge of
nature is desirable not for itself, but in order to overthrow ignorance and
superstition; Epic. says himself in his 10th κυρία δόξα ap. Diog. Laert. x
142 εἰ μηθὲν ἡμᾶς at περὶ τῶν μετεώρων ὑποψίαι ἡνώχλουν Kal ai περὶ θανάτου
μήποτε πρὸς ἡμᾶς ἐστι... οὐκ ἂν προσεδεόμεθα φυσιολογίας : Cic. de fin.
1 64 the epicurean Torquatus says Sic e physicis et fortitudo sumitur con-
tra mortis timorem et constantia contra metum religionis et sedatio anima
omnium rerum occultarum ignoratione sublata. 146 igetur: well then
to come to my subject, difficult as it is in Latin: and the ferrorem anima
tenebrasque refers to all he has said in 62—135. 147 luc. tela, though
connected by the disjunctive neque, are the radit solis: comp. 479 Non. .
constare neque esse. 148 species, the outward form and aspect: οἵ, 950
Naturam rerum qua constet compta figura: |comp. Manil. 135 et veneranda
Non species tantum sed et tpsa potentia verum,| ratio is the inner law
and principle after which nature develops itself, naturae ratio being a
translation of Epicurus’ φυσιολογία. 149 cuius i.e. naturae: it is
monosyll. alsoin Lucilius, and Virg. catal. 11 35 Von cuiws οὗ raptum, as
is evusin Cic. Arat. fragm. xIv Atque etus ipse manet: and this is the usual
scansion of cuius and ezus in the scenic poets. exordia sumet: Vv 331
neque pridem exordia cepit: Cicero has exordiwm ducat: the metaphor is
doubtless from beginning a web: see Fore. s.v. ordior and exordior: the
same metaph. is kept up in 418 wt repetam coeptum pertexere dictis, and
VI 42 enceptum pergan pertexere dictis: the auctor ad Heren. 11 42 quotes
from an old poet Nunc ego te ab summo iam detexam exordio: id. 11 11
principium sumetur aut a; τν 19 principia sumuntur; Aen. Iv 284 quae
prima exordia sumat; all of them perhaps pointing to the same metaphor.
150 so Diog. Laert. 1x 44 of Democritus, μηδὲν ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος γίνεσθαι.
Aristotle again and again declares this to be common to all physiologists:
πον, adds to the definition diinitus and just below divino namine, be-
cause this is the fruitful source of religious fears. See Tyndall, Fragments
of Science p. 91, ‘One fundamental thought pervades all these state-
ments, there is one tap root from which they all spring: this is the
ancient maxim that out of nothing nothing comes, that neither in the

BOOK I NOTES II 47

organic world nor in the inorganic is power produced without the expen-
cliture of other power’. nilo: nitisalways a monosyll. in Luer., lum
and nilo are always dissyll. as is proved by this, that in most cases they
must be, in all cases they may be of this quantity ; and in no case need
be dissyll. and trisyll. respectively. After the usual fashion of mss. A
and B with hardly an exception write nihil, nihilum, nihilo: see Lach-
mann’s precise note, who shews that Virgil in reality uses nihil only
twice as a dissyll. 151 contenet seems to be used as in Quint. 1 3 6
quosdam continet metus, quosdam debilitat; Livy xxx 20 5 quae pauca
mags metu quam fide continebauntur: Lexicons give other instances.
153 Quor. operum: see n. to 15. 156 (157) quod sequimur Bentl.
explains by τὸ ζητούμενον, τὸ ἀπορούμενον, as vi 808 ubi argenti venas
aurique secuntur: comp. Cic. ad Att. 111 16 st spes erit, Epirum ; sin
minus, Cyzicum aut aliud quid sequemur; x 18 2 Formias nunc sequi-
mur; x11 27 1 sequor celebritatem; Acn. Iv 361 Ltaltam non sponte sequor.
157 158 (158 155) et—et—explain quod sequimur: these two verses
therefore merely state in other words Widllam rem 6 nilo gignt divinitus.
158 (155) guaeque is neut.: comp. 57. opera sine divom is said per-
haps with reference to Accius 159 Nam non facile sine deum opera
humana propria sunt bona.

159—214: if things could arise from nothing, any animal might be
born any where, any fruit grow on any tree. but that every thing is
produced from a definite seed is proved in many ways: flowers corn fruits
come at stated seasons: again animals and plants require time to grow
up: the products of the earth want rain at stated times, animals food:
men are of a definite size, and never grow to a gigantic bulk: lastly the
fruits of the earth require cultivation, and do not improve spontaneously.
—From the nature of the case this is rather a full statement of what he
means by nothing coming from nothing, than a proof: his theory of fixed
unchangeable seecls of things or atoms he subsequently demonstrates with
great clearness and power: some of his arguments even Newton seems
not to have disdained to borrow. 159 almost a transl. of what Epic.
himself says in his letter to Herod. Diog. Laert. x 38, quoted by Lamb,
and others, οὐδὲν γίνεται ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος πᾶν yap ἐκ παντὸς eyiveT ἂν σπέρ-
patos γε οὐθὲν προσδεόμενον. 161 mare: this abl. is common in Ovid,
and is found in Plautus who puns on amare and a mare, and in both the
Varros: see Neuve Formenl. 1p. 233 and Priscian and Charisius quoted
there. Ovid has caeleste bimenstire and more than once rivale, Lucan
natale: comp. 1013 simplice and 11 635 pernice and n. there: see also the
instances given by Mommsen, Hermes 1 p. 466 §3: the antiquarian Fronto,
ad M. Caes. 111 13, recalls en mare. primum followed by no deinde or
other particle: v1 1068 Saxa vides prumun cet.: this form of expression
is common enough in Cicero and others; as Ter. Andr. 211; Virg. geor.
ur 384; Juv. 1 4: see too Madvig de fin. 1 17. 162 is squwamegerum

48 BOOK I NOTES II

nom. sing. or gen. plur.? for the former you have mortale, humanum
genus and the like; but Lucr. also says hominum genus cet. and else-
where he uses the word only as a subst., squamagerum pecudes occurring
twice: Lamb. marks it as a gen.: there is the same ambiguity in Aen.
ur 221 Caprigenumque pecus ; with which Macr. sat. v1 5 14 compares
caprigenum trita ungulis of Accius, and caprigeno pecort of Pacuvius ;
from whom Cic. prognost. fr. 6 borrows caprigent pecoris. Vv 1156 divom
genus humanumque shews how indifferently Lucr. uses both construc-
tions: 111 73 the gen. consanguinewm seems a harsher contraction than
squamigerum; or ΤΥ 586 genus ayricolum, or Aeneadum: see also n. to V
727 Chaldaeum. Cic. orator 155 156 quotes some harsh instances from
the old poets and then points out when use admits or requires the con-
traction: he allows himself, he says, to use either pro dewm or pro deorum;
but only triwm virum, sestertium, nummum, ‘quod in his consuetudo
varia non est, planeque duorum virorum iudicium aut trium virorum capi-
talium aut decem virorum stlitibus iudicandis dico numquam’. 163 arm.
at. al. pec. may be looked upon as one clause in appos. with gen. om.
ser. 166 Virg. geor. 11 109 Vee vero terrae ferre omnes omnia possunt :
the expression is prob. almost proverbial, like non omnia possumus omnes.
167 Quippe is here joined with 168 Qui: whi—cuique being a separate
clause: so 242 Quzppe belongs to quorum: ubt—corpore being a separate
clause: but 182 Quippe whi are of course connected: he never cares to
avoid such ambiguities of construction. 169 At nunc, very common
in Lucr. when he is passing from what is not to what is true; also 221
quod nunc, 675 Nunc igitur; 110 and v1 570 Nune, alone: nune, nunc
autem, nunc vero are thus used by Cicero; and nine is common in Livy.
170 171 for constr. comp. ἢ. to 15. inde ubi = ex eo, in quo. 171 ma-
teries and corpora prima are of course synon.; see n. to ὅδ foll.
172 common as quare is in Lucr., this is the only instance of hac re=
hanc ob rem: Cicero uses ea re; but we find hac vein Balbus ap. Cic. ad
Att. 1x 7 B 2; Balbus and Oppius ib. A 2; Mela 1 545; 11 09. sag
31; Sen. epist. 9 9 twice; Phaedr. 1v 10 4; Priap. 13 4. [See also
Cic. epist. vu 11 2 guibus hac re (‘on this account’, ‘for this purpose’)
ad intercessionem evocandam interpellantibus: see Madv. adv. cr. vol. 3
Ρ. 161 where the sentence is amended. | 173 secreta means distinct
and peculiar to each.

174 Cic. Tusc. disp. v 37 says neque est ullum quod non ita vigeat...
ut aut flores aut fruges fundut aut bacas ; the flores aut fruges fundat
answers precisely to rosam—frumenta—fundi; but then for vites you
would expect wvas to complete the parallel ; so that vites fund seems to
be said with a change of meaning and to=fundere se, i.e. fetus; comp.
301 Crescunt arbustu et fetus in tempore fundunt. 176 δὲ non...quia ;
as in 203, 11 746: 1v 1199 Se non...quod ; 111 406 St non omnimodis ;
πὶ 395 Sz non,...quod (relat.), 178 tempestates from the context im-

BOOK I NOTES II 49

plies the due seasons, as Lamb. rightly interprets: Cic. ad fam. xiv 4 5
si esset licitum per nautas, qui tempestatem praetermittere noluerunt ; XVI
1 2 et comites et tempestates et navem idoneam ut habeas, diligenter videbis:
for adsunt can hardly mean, as Wak. explains it, ‘are propitious’: a god
adest, stands by, and by that very act is praesens or propitious : again a
patron adest, πάρεστι, to advocate your cause: Livy xxv1 48 7 soczis C.
Laelius praefectus classis, legionariis M. Sempronius Tuditanus aderat:
but neither of these uses applies to tempestas: the praesentes Austri of

Hor. sat. 11 2 41 is ironical. 181 at. al. par. an.: Virg. was prob.
thinking of this expression and rhythm when he said geor. 11 149 atque
alvenis mensibus aestas, 183 concilio is one of his regular teclinical

words for the uniting of the atoms to form ares: the verb is used in the
same way. For the double abl. comp. Madv. Lat. gram. 278 a: he quotes
one clause of Cic. Brut. 315 with 3 abl. meo tudicio tota Asia illis tem-
poribus disertissinvus: the words there, as here, admitting no ambiguity:
1021, repeated v 419, has also three, neque consilio primordia rerum
Ordine se suo quaeque sagaci mente locarunt: ν 296 multa caligine taedae
Consimilt properant ratione ardore ministro Suppeditare; and γι 21 28:
Caes. bell. G. 1 24 5 ipst confertissima acre reiecto nostro equitatu
phalange facta...successerunt; Iv 34 1 quibus rebus perturbatis nostris
novitate pugnae tempore opportunissimo Caesar auxilium tulrt; vii 24 ὃ
eodemque tempore toto muro clamore sublato duabus portis ab utroque
latere turrium eruptio fiebat; [v1 81 1 hoe spatio magno...nwmero
effecto media nocte silentio ex custris egressi; bell. civ. 11 41 3 postero die
omnibus copiis magno circuttu difficili angustoque itinere Dyrrhachium
profectus est ;| Οἷς, ad Att. 1115 4 quo te non meo casu maximo dolore
esse affectum scio; 22 3 premor luctu desiderio omnium meorum ;
Q. Cic. comm. pet. 10 collwm gladio sua dextera secuerit. 185 ad
‘after’ or ‘upon’: vi 316 ad ictum; Cic. Verr. 1v 32 ad hospitum
adventum; ad fam. 11 5 3 ad meum adventum; Livy vi 27 9;
Ix 77; xx1 61 4; Tac. ann. 11 6 ad famam; Ov. met. 11 774 ima ad
suspiria; Sen. de benef. 1v 6 6 ad suryentem vam aetatem: see Gronov.
186 infantibw parvis: comp. Cic. orator 161 quod iam subrusticum vide-
twr, olim autem politins, eorum verborum, quorum eaedem erant postremae
duae litterae quae sunt in optumus, postremam litteram detrahebant, nisi
yocalis insequebatur. ita non erat ea offensio in versibus quam nune figi-
unt poetae novi. ita enim loquebamur qui est omnibu’ princeps now
omnibus princeps eé vita illa dignu’ locoque non dignus. This suppres-
sion of s is common in Lucr. and is not avoided by Cicero himself in his
verses: in all the older poets, Ennius Lucilius etc. it is of course very
frequent. Prob. Cic. includes Catullus among the poetae novi, though he
has one instance of the licence in the last v. of his poems, te dabv’ suppli-
cvum: our mss. with one doubtful exception always write the 8: Lamb.
first suppressed it: it is not at all certain that the ancients did not write

M. IL. 4.

50 BOOK I NOTES II

it; and perhaps Cicero means loquebamur to contrast with scribebamus.
Lucretius’ frequent employment of this archaism, after it had been gene-
rally dropt, may be one of the reasons which made Cicero deny him avs, if
indeed he did deny it him: see introduction p. 17 foll. 187 probably
he meant the rhythm to be an echo of the sense. arbusta: as arbores
cannot come into the verse, Lucr. always uses for it arbusta in the nom.
and acc.: but as arboribus is suitable enough and often used, in the only
instance of arbustis, ν 1378, the word has its ordinary meaning of plan-
tations of trees, 188 quando in the sense of guoniam or quandoqm-
dem and always governing an indic. is oftener employed by Lucretius
than in the temporal sense ; and is common in the older writers: Madyv.
de fin. v 21 and 67 allows it also in Cicero, With 188—190 comp. 1
707 Quorum nil fiert manifestum est, omnia quando Seminibus certis certa
genetrice creata Conservare genus crescentia posse videmus: that there is a
hiatus here such as I have suggested I feel certain, and I believe I have
given almost the words of the author: comp. too 180 Qatod si de nilo
ferent, subito exorerentur, Incerto spatio atque alienis partibus anne:
where the opposite is stated, paulatim contrasting with sxbito, tenpore
certo with Incerto spatio cet. How any critics should now maintain as
Wak. maintained, that the passage is complete as it stands and that cres-
centes=res crescentes 1 cannot understand: see ἢ. to 57. 191 grandes-
cere, used twice again by Lucr, and by Cic. prognost. fragm. 5.

192 Hue accedit wti, a prosaic but very common phrase in Luer.:
also ἢ. ac. item quod. 197 he several times repeats this comparison
of the elements of words with the elements of things, led to it doubt-
less by the common name. It is a favourite and natural artifice of his
to give colour to his arguments on abstruse matters by illustrations from
things visible or intelligible to all: to this we shall often have occa-
sion to draw attention. 200 per vada: the deep sea being but a ford
to them. 202 perhaps one of the 3 cases where saecla in Lucr, has
its ordinary sense; the other two being 111 948 and 1090: see n. to 20
saecla: so that vit. saecla will here mean the number of years over which
a life, probably a human life, extends: comp. Virgil’s imitation in geor.
1 295 Multa virum volvens durando saecula vincitt; and Aen. x1 160
vivendo vici mea fata: in all these cases the alliteration has influenced
the phrase. 207 Aervis...auras and aeriae aurae are very favourite
pleonasms for aer in Lucr. teneras: 11146 Aera per tenerum: the air
has the same epithet in Ennius Virgil and Ovid: it implies what is soft
yielding elastic: comp. Ov. trist. πὶ 8 7 tenera nostris cedente volatibus
aura and Cic. de or. 111 176 nihil est entm tam tenerum neque tame flexi-
bile neque quod tam facile sequatur quocumque ducas, quam oratio, where
it has the same force; as also orator 52: de nat. deor. 11 65 he translates
by aethera, Qui tenero terram circumiectu amplectitur the αἰθέρα, Kat γῆν
πέριξ ἔχονθ᾽ ὑγραῖς ἐν ἀγκάλαις of Euripides. 209 manibus is the abl.

BOOK I NOTES II 51

instr., by manual labour,=11 1165 manwum labores: Cic. de off. 11 13
sine hominum labore et manw; 14 sine hominum manu atque opera.

mel. red. fet.: comp. Cic. de orat. 11 131 quo meliores fetus possit et
grandiores edere (ager): reddere is regularly used in this sense. fetus
with one exception always in Lucr. means the produce of the earth or
trees. 210 videlicet has here the construction of videre licet : so 11 469
Scilicet esse globosa: the same constr. is found in Plautus, Terence, Sallust,
once in Cicero, ad Att. v 11 7, and in the antiquarians Fronto and
Gellius: on the other hand Lucr. 11 809 Scire licet. . putandum est, uses
scire licet for scilicet. 211 212 repeated with slight change v 210
211. cimus he uses only in these two places, cere being the com. form:
11 303 percié; v1 410 concit; τι 327 excrtur: he also has excitus. 213
214 if there were no first-beginnings, things might be much worse or
much better quite independently of our control.

215—264 : nothing can be reduced to nothing: things dissolve into
their first-beginnings: if this were not so, a thing might pass away ina
moment without any force: again how could all things, animate and
inanimate, be replenished? if nothing were imperishable, infinite time
past must have reduced all things to nothing: a mere touch would
destroy all things alike: rains pass away; but the earth which receives
them sends forth her produce; and from it all animals are nourished:
nothing therefore is utterly destroyed. 216 Epic. after what is quoted
at 159, continues καὶ εἰ ἐφθείρετο δὲ τὸ ἀφανιζόμενον εἰς TO μὴ ὄν, πάντ᾽
ἂν ἀπολώλει τὰ πράγματα, οὐκ ὄντων τῶν εἰς ἃ διελύετο. dissoluat:
as in 3 places, 1 559 πὶ 706 vi 446, this word must be of 4 syllables
from the necessity of the metre, Lucr. never ending a verse with 3
spondees, I have followed Lach. in so regarding it in those places also
where it might be a trisyll. as here for instance; though it is of course a
doubtful point. anteremat and 226 peremit: A and B, as all good mss.
of all good authors, invariably thus spell these words; as also neglego and
antellego. 217 Nam, 219 enzm: Lucr. does not at all avoid thus
using nam, enim; nam, nam; enim, enim, and the like in consecutive
sentences, as the Greeks use yap: occasionally we find them in three
successive clauses: 11 749 enim, 751 enim, 753 Nam; 11 754 enim,
756 enim, 757 entm; v 1 Nam, 13 enim, 14 Namque: thus Cicero ad
Att, 113 2 has nam—etenam—enim—nam in 4 consecutive short sen-
tences ; and xvi 6 2 enim—enim—enim in ὃ. 221 Quod nunc: see
n. to 82 quod contra: and comp. Varro de re rust. 111 3 8 guod nunc,
ut habeant multos apros ac capreas, complura iugera maceriis conclu-
dunt; Cic. de fin. 1 67. nunc: seen. to 169. aet. const.sem.: Madv.
Cic. de fin. 1v 19 says that Cic. never has the simple abl. after consto
but always ex: in Lucr. the former is very frequent ; more so than the
latter: he also employs both constructions with conststo. [He has
also Iv 1229 de semine constaé; see Draeger hist. synt. vol. 1 Ὁ. 516:

4—2

2 BOOK I NOTES II

comp. too n. to 1 420. | 222 Donec vis obtit=exactly 246 dum..
Vis obeat: donee and donique ‘until’ in Lucr. take an indic. with
the exception of 1v 997 Donec. .vedeant ; and this is the usual constr.
in the older writers: the word is scarcely found in Cicero, though
usque eo, donec..venimus has been pointed out to me in the Verr.
(2) 1 17: v 178 donee is ‘so long as’: in 11 950 I am inclined to
take so/vit to be a perfect, with a change of constr. in next v.: the
tense of the indic. will then always be the perf. except v 997 Donique
privarant, where the pluperf. seems to be an attraction of the prec.
iinperfects. For the usage of Tacitus, who employs the word very often,
see Woelfflin in the philologus vol. 27, p.127. 224 videri here has the
force of esse, which φαίνεσθαι so often has in Greek: 262 1t has its usual
sense of ‘to seem’, and 270 it is a simple passive of video: Lucr. uses
homonymes in this way again and again without its appearing to strike
him that there can be any ambiguity: we meet for instance in the same
or in contiguous vss. with corpora in its ordinary sense and in that of
atoms; as 11 714 multaque caects Corporibus fugiunt e corpore: res and

ratio are likewise found with quite different meanings. 227 lumina
vitae occurs again more than once; it is also used by Virgil. 228 Led-

ductt always has this quantity in Lucr. and generally this spelling in
AB: the same is true of reccidere which occurs thrice, redducere occur-
ring four times: the ancient and sole ms. of the last 5 books of Livy has
redducit, redducendi, redducturum, but reductum ; Plautus and Terence
always redduco, at least where the verse shews the quantity : comp.
reddo: but Menaech. 520 récident; whereas Ovid Propertius Juvenal
(Virgil does not use the word) have reccido; but most hexameter and
other poets reduco: the perf. reppult repperr rettulr reccrdi are of course
necessarily long. 230 agenuer is almost swt: comp. γι 613 Adde suos
fontis of the sea: Auson. Mosell. 65 sub ingenuis agitatae fontibus
herbae: Plaut. miles 632 unites sua sibt ingenwa indoles, i.e. nativa.
externa is the opposite of this, ‘which come from without’, adventicia :
comp. Cic. de nat. deor. 11 26 δες enim alle externus et adventicius haben-
dus est tepor, sed ex intimis maris partibus agitatione excitatus: Livy Iv
30 7 nec caelestes modo defuerunt aquae, sed terra quoque ingenito wmore
egens vic ad perennes suffecit amnes: where caclestes and ingenrto are
contrasted, as wgenuet and externa here: comp. too Juv. 111 20 nec inge-
nuum violarent marmora tofum, who was prob. thinking of Ov. met.
11 160 levibus tofis nativum duxerat arcum. Sense and context so
imperiously require mare to be the accus. after supped. that I now con-
cede it, my attention having been directed to Cic. in Catil. 11 25, sz
omissis his rebus quibus nos suppeditamur, eget tlle; which Halm ad 1.
says is the sole instance in Latin of this constr. and which is confirmed
by Arusianus Messius who quotes it in support of ‘suppeditor hac re’.
This constr. in Cicero and Lucr. may be an example of what was more

BOOK I NOTES II 53

common in the older Latin ; for Plautus, Terence etc. often have an accus.
for a dat. after endulgeo, inservio, parco, ignosco, etc. as te indulgebant,
unum mservire amantem: but probably 11 568 wnde omnia suppedi-
tantur ; 1167 via arvis suppeditaty is the same constr. longe: Livy
xxv 12 9 vomcamque quae gentium venit longe, from a carmen of Mar-
eius; Cic. ad Att. v 2 2 cwm Hortensius veniret..tanr longe; Mela 11 30
Strymon..amnis est longeque ortus; Aen. x 843 Adgnovit longe gemitum.
231 aeth. sid. pas.: comp. v 524, which mentions this as one of several
possible cases; though it seems rather stoical than epicurean: comp. too
Virg. Aen. 1 608 polus dum sideru pascet. 232 debet: this word Lucr.
employs with singular fondness in a very peculiar sense: to denote that
which follows either as a natural or a necessary consequence: he applies
it to all things alike, animate and inanimate: 1 1139 Omnia debet
enim.

233 consumpse: sumpse seems to occur in Naevius’ triphallus, fragm.
comic, 97: Lucr. 111 650 has abstraxe, v 1159 protraxe; Virgil truce,
Horace surrexe, Catullus prontisse ; many others, dive and the like, are
found in Plautus: coynosse remosse cresse in Lucr. are simpler contrac-
tions like nosse: 1 987 confluwet: comp. vixet extinxem in Virgil, erepse-
mus in Horace; the abundance of such forms in Plautus and Terence
and the general use of faxo ausim shew that they belonged to the lan-
guage of common life. dixti is found even in Cicero: see Madv. de fin.
11 10. diesque: see ἢ. to 557: the argument too of this v. is there
more fully enforced: comp. too Cic. pro Cael. 77 tam aetas omnia, iam
usus, am dies mitigarit ; Livy xxi1 39 12 meliores...nos tempus diesque

facit. 235 haec rerum summa i.e. the whole mundus: after his wont
he has just enumerated what goes on in the three portions, earth sea
heaven: on rerun. sununa see ἢ. to 1008. 240 indupedita of course

agrees with materies: comp. 244: Lamb. here errs as well as Wak.

241 Madv. Cic. de fin. 11 84 says that satis esset causa leti=letum satis
efliceret, and that the gen. lett makes a difference: [see too Draeger
hist. synt. 1 p. 416 § 3:] in the passage of Cicero Madv. and Baiter in
his new ed. read satis est tabi in te...praesidi for praesidium: auctor
ad Heren. at beg. vx satis otiwm studio suppeditare possumus, where
Madvig would read οὐδὲ; ad Att. x11 50 δὲ satis consilium quadam
de re haberem, where Lamb. reads covsilii: he also refers to Ovid met.
11 149 Portunamque dies habuit satis and Virg. Aen. xt 366 sat funera
fusi Vidimus. In all these passages satis appears to me to have much
the same force as in Lucr. ‘in sufficient measure’; as well as in Sen.
Here. Oet. 1829 reliquiae auailium dabunt: Erunt satis praesidia.
[242 mwla=nullae res: comp. Hor. ars 324 nullius; Ov. met. 1 17
nullt; xv 242 nullo.] 245 constant=sunt, as so often in Lucr. 249
corp. mat. another term for his first-beginnings. 250 pereunt: the
rains perish as rains; yet 262 haud penitus pereunt; but reappear in

54 BOOK I NOTES II

other shapes. Comp. Virg. geor. 11 325 Tum pater omnipotens fecundis
umbribus aether Coniugis in gremrum laetae descendit et omnis Magnus
alit magno commixtus corpore fetus; and Aesch. frag. of Danaid.”OpuBpos
δ᾽ ἀπ᾽ εὐνάεντος οὐρανοῦ πεσὼν Exvoe γαῖαν x.7.X. which Lucr. may have
had in view: see notes to parallel passage 11 991 foll. and v 318 foll.
From the Vedas to the pervigilium Veneris poets and philosophers love to
celebrate this union of ether and earth, ether as the father descending in
showers into the lap of mother earth. The notion naturally had birth in
warm climates, such as India, where the excessive heat at stated periods
seemed to bring the ether down in abundant rains which at once quick-
ened all things: hence the Agni of the Rig-Veda cooperating with the
mighty parents heaven and earth to shed abundant showers. This
notion too has induced Lucr. here and elsewhere, where he speaks of
aetheriae nubes and the like, to forget or suppress for a moment his calm
cloudless unsulhed ether, and confound it with this upper generator
of heat and rain: the semper innubilus aether of 111 seems in VI omnis in
umbrem vertier: other poets follow Lucr. and Virgil: Ov. met. 1 269
funduntur ab aethere nimbi; fasti 1 682 aetheria spargite semen aqua;
Ill 286 effusis aethera siccat aquis; Sen. Hipp. 674 omnis impulsus ruat
Aether et atris nubibus condat diem; Oed. 632 nee parum pluvio aethere
Satrata tellus; [Val. Flace.1 307 st nubila dumerit aether.| ‘La peinture
est renfermée dans un raisonnement’ says Martha, p. 282, of vv. 250—
264: his further remarks are eloquent and just.

252 nitidae fruges occurs five times: it seems to imply crops well-
kept and so flourishing and good-looking: Cic. Ver. 111 47 says Quos ego
campos antea collesque nitidissimos viridissimosque vidissem, hos ita vas-
tatos nune ac desertos videbam; Virg. geor. 1 153 interque nitentia
culta. fruges in Lucr. either signifies grain-crops alone or includes
leguminous products in contradistinction to fruits of trees ete. 253
Wakefield well observes that Virg. ecl. x 54 Arboribus: crescent illae,
cerescetis amores, imitates the language and rhythm of this verse, while
the sense is quite different. Compare also with 11 2, geor. 1158 magnum
altertus frustra spectabis acervum; with u 32 and v 1395, geor. 11 310
Praesertim st tempestas; with 11 408 e¢ mala tactu, geor. πὶ 416 aut
mala tactu; with 111 232 Tenuis entm quaedam...aura and the various
uses of perlabitur in Lucr., Aen. vil 646 Ad nos vix tenuis famae
perlabitur aura; with Iv 1065, geor. 1 114 Conlectum umorem; vi
458 with geor. m1 478 coorta est Tempestas: in each case the words
are the same, the meaning is altogether dissimilar: comp. also Aen.
x11 906 vacuum per tnane said of the air; though Lucr. once, u 116,
uses per inane himself in the same way. Such instances show
how strongly this poem must have impressed itself on Virgil’s
mind, 256 caneve=cantu resonare. Force. and his followers cite but
one instance at all similar, from the Aetna 297: comp. however Virg.

BOOK I NOTES II ἘΞ

geor. 11 328 resonant avibus virgulta canoris. With videmus canere
comp. Iv 598. 257 pingui: used asa subst. by Virg. geor. 111 124 denso
pingui: as well as catal. vir 4 Scholasticorum natio madens pingut: it
often occurs in Pliny nat. hist. 258 Corp. dep.: Bentl. says ‘scil. cum
parturiunt’: can he mean that corpora are the young of the cattle, as he
reads in 257 fetae? of course Lucr. means merely what Virg. Aen. VII
108 does, Corpora sub ramis deponunt, or Hor. od. 117 18 fesswm militia
latus Depone: Ov. met. 1300 ponunt sua corpora phocae. can. lac. wm.:
the two epithets are quite regular, as lac. wm.=simply lac or lactis umor,
and candens is an epith. ornans, as in γάλα λευκόν: comp. I 940 and Iv
20 suaviloquenti Carmine Pierio...Ht quasi musaeo dulci...melle; v 1194
O genus infelixn humanum; vi 387 fulgentia caelestia templa: and
Virgil’s toris genialibus altis, corpus exangue Hectoreum, sinusque crepan-
tis Carbaseos; Catullus’ lepidum novum libellum,; horridamque Thraciam
Propontida, trucemve Ponticum sinwm; Propertius’ pugnamque sinistram
Cannensem: comp. too 11 342 mutaeque natantes Squamigerum pecudes ;
and see n. to V 13 divina antiqua reperta, where the instances are some-
what different. Lucr. is fond of this periphrastic use of wmor: he has
umor aquae, aquar, aquarum, sudorts, some of them repeatedly: lacteus
umor occurs more than once in Ovid. 260 Artubus: this form is re-
tained by our mss. in four other places: once only, v 1077, we find artebus:
doubtless the w remained longer in this than in other words, to distin-
guish it from the dat. and abl. of ars: see Neue 1 p. 372—376 for the
statements of the old grammarians. 261 perculsa: seen. to1l3. 262
videntur i.e. perire. 263 alid Lucr. uses not unfrequently ; αὐ the dat.
sing. more than once, but alts never: Catullus has ald, and alts nom.
263 264 Luer. is fond of this doctrine that the death of one thing
is the birth of another and that the uniformity of nature is thereby
maintained. We shall have to say more at 11 70 of this theory as applied
to the universe of things: as here applied to this world of ours it is
hardly perhaps consistent with what is said 556, that the process of
cdlestruction is much quicker than that of construction. Elsewhere too
he argues at great length and with much earnestness that this world
is of quite recent formation, and again that it not only can but must and
will be destroyed in a moment of time. What becomes then of this un-
varying equality, at least thus unconditionally applied, nec ullam Rem
gignt cet.? πον. doubtless had in his thoughts the old dogma of the
physici, more than once asserted by Aristotle, as metaph. 11 2 p. 994 b
5 ἡ θατέρου φθορὰ θατέρου ἐστὶ γένεσις.

265—328: doubt not what I say of first-beginnings, because they are
not seen: many things in being you know by their effects, yet cannot see:
winds work mischief in sky, on earth and sea; yet are not secn: they act
by pressure just like rivers which are seen: smells heat cold sounds are not
seen ; yet have all bodysince they are in contact with sense : moisture leaves

56 BOOK I NOTES ΤΙ

clothes without being seen: metals stones wear away; things grow, and
decay, as rocks from seabrine; yet the process of growth and decay is
unseen in all. 265 Nunc age, a not unfrequent formula in Lucr. by
which he bids his reader to give heed, when he is passing to a new ques-
tion: it is used more than once in the same way by Virgil, and often by
Manilius: Cicero has age unc: comp. too Empedocles 248 Karsten Nov
o ay ὅπως.. «τῶνδε κλύε and 182 Ei δ᾽ aye, νῦν τοι ἐγὼ λέξω. and 101 ᾿Αλλ᾽
ἄγε μύθων κλῦθι, and 124. 270 videri=268 cerni: a sense common in
Lucr., not very unusual In Cicero; as de off. πὶ 38 ἐδὲ cum palam
eius anuli ad palmam converterat, a nullo videbatur, ipse autem onnra
videbat ; idem rursus videbatur, cum in locum anulum inverterat: ib. I
14 he translates the ἐναργές x.t.A. of Plato by δὲ oculis cerneretur ; de fin.
11 52 by st videretur: Caes. de bell. civ. πὶ 36 ὃ ut semul Domitianr
exercitus pulvis cernerctur et primi antecursores Scipronis viderentur.
271 portus: the wind beats against them and prevents all ingress to
ships; rendering them therefore more dangerous than the open sea.
This so careful an observer as Lucr. would doubtless understand, {Elgin
Courant, Dec. 22 1876: ‘the steamer Tyne entering Shields harbour
yesterday went ashore. All hands were lost... More shipping disasters
are reported from Shields. The steamship Blenheim of Hartlepool, in
entering the harbour, went against the end of the south pier and after-
wards broke in two. Afterwards the steamer New Cornwall of Barn-
staple, making for the harbour was overwhelmed by the sea and foundered,
all hands being lost’. | 272 rutt used 289 and 292 in same sense:
Plautus and Terence appear each to use it once and only once actively ;
Virgil more frequently. Virg. geor. 111 197 has arida differt Nubila.

274 montis supremos is found in Virg. geor. Iv 460. 275 Silvifragis:
305 jluctifrago: Lucr. seems the only classic who uses these words,
which are both active. perfurit Cum frem. saev. murm. a striking
tautology ; unless indeed, as 1 sometimes think, the pontws of mss. can
be defended, saevit—pontus being a clause apart and finishing the
comparison in a way so often followed by Virgil; as geor. 1. 334 Vune
nemora tingentt vento, nunc litora plangunt, which may indeed be a
reminiscence of Lucr.: comp. too Hor. epod. 13 2 nune mare, nunc
siluae Threicio Aquilone sonant. cum fremitu or fremitu, murmure
or cum murmure, all equally Latin: 1v 539 cwm summost clamore pro-
Jusus ; but νι 147 magno clamore trucidet ; 1284 ingenti clamore locabant:
Enn. ann. 477 Cum magno strepitu Voleanwm ventw vegebat; Plaut.
Amphitr. 244 maximo Cum clamore involant. 277 nunirum=ne
mirum=non mirum ace. to Donat. Ter. eun. 508 ‘solve mimirum [a
proof by the way that he wrote it as one word] et fac non est mirum...
nam 7% ne significat et ne non. ni pro ne Vergilius, laeti discrimine
parvo Ni teneant [and Lucr. he might have added: see ἢ. to 11 734]. ne
pro non Plautus, nevult inquit pro non vult’?: but as mirum ni, nist,

BOOK I NOTES II 57

nurum est ni, mira sunt ni have much the same force in Plautus,
Terence, Caecilius, etc., Ribbeck, Beitr. z. 1. v. d. Lat. partik. Ὁ. 17, is
prob. right in saying that xtmirum = nt or nist est merum: Caecil, 254
nomen virginis, nisi mirum est, deintegrabit. Lucr. is peculiarly fond of
this word: he generally employs it in drawing what he thinks a certain

conclusion from what precedes. corp. caeca, as 295: sometimes he
applies the phrase to his invisible first-beginnings ; as 328 Corporibus
caects = 1110 primordia caeca. 278 denique often thus added to the

last item in an enumeration without giving it any prominence over the
others ; as 435 Augniine vel grands vel parvo denique, τι 1081 ste monti-
vagum,..Sic hominiwm...sic denique mutas Squamagerum cet.; τν 783 δὲ
mare, sv terrast cordi, st denique caelum; v 434 Nec mare nec caelum nec
denique terra neque aer. 279 Verrunt, a favourite metaphor which he
uses five times. 280 Wee rat. alia...Et cum: 11 414 New svmili...cum
... Lt cum; 418 Neve...simile constare...qui...Ht qui; Iv 544 Nec simile
..Cum...Et validis...Cum; v 1073 non differre...ubi...Ht...Ht cum;
1081 alias...voces... Ht quom; 1 1092 Nec minus wle...e¢ alle: in most
of these cases the θέ of comparison is followed by ¢ or qu or a vowel:
see Haupt obs. crit. p. 36, who shews that Lucr. like Virgil never has
ac before ὁ g or qu with one exception, vi 440 simul ac gravidam, as
semul ut was not used by him: sew uc foll. by ὁ is the sole exception
to the rule in Catullus and Ovid: it is observed by Propertius: Livy
often neglects it. 281 foll.: there are three similes in the Iliad,
A 452, E 87, A 492, each of which, especially the two last, Lucr. may
here have had in his mind: ποταμῷ πλήθοντι ἐοικὼς Χειμάρρῳ oot ὦκα
ῥέων ἐκέδασσε γεφύρας" Tov δ᾽ ovr ap τε γέφυραι ἐεργμέναι ἰσχανόωσιν,
Our ἄρα ἕρκεα ἴσχει ἀλωάων ἐριθήλεων ᾿Ελθόντ᾽ ἐξαπίνης, ὅτ᾽ ἐπιβρίσῃ
Διὸς ὄμβρος and πλήθων ποταμὸς πεδίονδε κάτεισιν Χειμάρρους κατ᾽
ὄρεσφιν ὁπαζόμενος Διὸς ὄμβρῳ, ΠΙολλὰς δὲ δρῦς aladéas πολλὰς δέ τε
πεύκας Eodéperar. Virg. Aen. x11 523 εὐδὲ decursu rapido de montibus
altis cet. was thinking of 283; and so was Spenser, faerie queene
11 18 Like a great waterflood that tombling low From the high
mountains ete. 281 Lamb. joins mollzs with aquae, but I think the
usage of Lucr. requires it to agree rather with natura; as u 232
corpus aquae naturaque tenvis Aeris; V 148 Tenvis enim natura dewm ;
11 646 Omnis enim divom natura, where see note. natura aquae=sunply
agua; so natura anim, dewm, and the like again and again: so that the
relative may be referred to it, as well as to flumine. 284 coniciens is
used in its first meaning also v1 731 Vubila coniciunt in; and so coniec-
tus the particip. more than once. 287 Wolibus are of course the piers
of the bridges ; and grandia saxa in 289 are the stones of these and the
other parts of the bridges swept away by the flood. —valzdis cum viribus
occurs in Enn. ann. 301: Virg. Aen. v 368 has vastis cum viribus ; Cie.
Arat. 146 funestum magnis cum viribus amnem, which Lucr. may have

58 BOOK I NOTES II

had in mind: 195 Cicero writes validis viribus austrum without ewm.
νι 73 placida cum pace quretos, 279 ipse sua cum Mobilitate calescit are
like in principle; and v1 1233 maesto cum corde racebant: Cicero in his
Aratea quite revels in this use of ewm: in the few hundred lines which
remain I have counted 23 instances more or less similar to those quoted.
288 dat stragem: see n. to Iv 41. sub undis...volvit is found in Aen. I
100. 289 guicquid, with c, =quicque: it is an archaism not uncom-
mon in Lucr. who has unum, primum, summum quicquid: it is found in
Plautus, and is not unknown to Cicero: see Madvig de fin. v 24: nor to
Livy, as xxxviu1 17 13 in sua quicquid sede. For the constr. see note to
15: it=qua aliquid fluctibus obstat, id ruit amnis: comp. n. to 966
quem quisque locum possedit. With qua quicquid comp. ν 733 Qua fiert
guicquid posset ratione ; 111 787 and ν 131 whe quicquid : comp. too Aen.
vil 400 ἐο matres, audite, ἰδὲ quaeque, Latinae: Plaut. Bacch. 252 I
would read Jstius hominis whi fit quaeque (quaque mss. guomgque Lamb.
Ritschl Fleckeisen) mentio: Livy 1x 2315 qua potest quisque ; Sall. Iug.
445; 511 whi quemque periculum ceperat; 60 1 ubi quisque legatus aut
tribunus curabat ; [Cat. 56 2 and 3: Plaut. Amph. 1064 «δὲ quemque
hominem aspexero...optruncabo in aedibus; 1079 Ube quisque institerat,
concidit strepitu.; asin. 244 exobsecrabo ut quemque amicum videro. |

291 procumbit is used of the wind in same sense VI 558. 293 Virg.
Aen. vit 567 has torto vertice torrens, and Lucr. is purposely using
terms common to rivers and winds. vertice torto and rotanty turbine
seem to be the same thing; and the tautology is like that in 275. 296
moribus: Virg. geor. 1 51 Ventos et varium caelt praediscere morem ;
which Pliny χα! 206 thus expresses quippe Vergilio vubente praedisce
ventos ante omnia ac siderum mores. 297 aperto the opposite to
caecus.

300 tutmur: also tuantur twére are found in Lucr. and contuamur:
the older writers frequently form this verb and its compound ace. to this
conjug.: comp. cimus above. 801 Usur. oc.: Iv 975 sensibus usur-
pare. Plautus too has neque oculis neque pedibus neque oculis usurpart :
see Fore. 306 eaedem, eidem and eodem are found as dissyll. in Luer. :
adem (plur.) and asdem are always diss.; but eddem eandem eundem,
where the vowel is short by nature, are always trisyll.: eosdem easdem
do not occur in Lucr.: they might be either diss. or trisyll. dispansae:
dispessus is also used by Lucr. serescunt: this passage is quoted by
Nonius 175 ; and it seems to be the only known use of the word: serenus
is clearly connected with it and Nonius adds ‘inde Vergilius docte geor.
1[461] unde serenas Ventus agat nubes’, having just explained serescit by

siccatur. 307 wmor unidus wmecto and wmerus are rightly read in
ΑΒ. 311—314 comp. Ov. ars 1 473 Ferreus adsiduo consumetur
anulus usu. Interit adsidua vomer aduncus humo. 911 sols annis,

because the annus was inade by the revolution of thesun: Varro de ling.

BOOK I NOTES II 59

Lat. v1 8 ‘tempus a bruma ad brumam, dum sol redit, vocatur annus,
quod ut parvi circuli anuli, sic magni dicebantur circites ani, unde
annus’; but in Luer. the coming together of annis and Anulus is quite
accidental: v 644 Quae volvunt magnos in magnis orbibus annos, of stellar
years, 312 anulus, not an. habendo has not the same subject
as the sentence: so Virg. geor. 11 250 lentescit habendo ; Lucil. xxx 132
Muell. guod prosit habendo: comp. tv 1102 Nee satiare queunt spectando
corpora coram; 1068 Ulcus enim vivescit et inveterascit alendo; and
Virgil’s imitation, geor. UI 454 alitur vitiwm vivitque tegendo: Vv 1369
indulgendo blandeque colendo of the earth; Plaut. asin. 222 Dene salu-
tando consuescunt, compellando blanditer, Ausculando; Livy xxit 19 10
raptimque omnia ac praepropere agendo...nautica ministeria impediuntur ;
ΧΧΙΧ 2 1 ne glisceret prima neglegendo bellum; x~tu1 17 7 se daturum,
quod nec in dando nec datum ullo stgno deprendy posset ; vit1 11 1 prae-
ferendo; ντὶ 2 6 usurpando; Ter. Phorm. 1034 accusando: [see Kuehnast
Liv. syn. p. 20 21 and references, and Roby gramm. pt. 1 p. Lxr foll.]
313 Stilticid:: Lach. ina masterly note shews that when a long vowel is
followed by J, one ὦ is withdrawn when an ὁ follows, if this ὁ be not
merely the mark of a case, as villa villis: thus JJessalla Messalina ; mille
mila; villa vilicus; stilla stilicidium ; for stiria shews that the ὁ of
stilla is long. According to this rule Polio is right, and Servius
recognises both Polio and Pollio, and Πωλίων is the usual Greek form ;
but Roman usage seems to have declared for Pollio ; in the new corpus
inser, Lat. vol. 1 Pollio is found 6 times, Polio once; in Mommsen’s
inser. reg. Neapol. always Pollio; and so the mss. of Virgil; but Pal.
and Med. fail in the four places where his name occurs; Pollio too the
collated mss. of Horace; the Pith. of Juvenal vi 387 and vir 176 Polio,
1x 7 Pollio; the palimpsest of Fronto twice Polio. Augustus in his res
gestae has one striking violation of this law: he always writes millia
millibus milliens ; and one or other of these words occurs more than 20
times: he probably so spelt from some notion of consistency; conip. his
simus for swumus: milites militare etc. he spells in the usual way. While
in a fine consular inscription of U. C. 622, corp. inser. Lat. 1 551, we
have miliarios and twice meilia, ibid. 701 we find mllia, 1012 mallibus,
shewing that the rule was not then quite fixed. 314 occulte: Fore.
gives from Ovid an exactly similar use of the word. 315 strata ve.
Sax, =stratas saxo vias: strata having the epithet saxea shews that
Lucr. treated it almost as a subst.; even more harsh is vi 1283 aliena
rogorum extructa. He uses this constr. more freely than most of the
poets: see Conington to Aen. 1422: we had in 86 a very bold instance :
clausa domorum, extructa domorum, and with a gen. sing. vera vidi,
eaerula caeli, sublima caeli are some of many other examples. 316
port. pr.: Prof. Mayor refers me to Varro de ling. Lat. v 58 quas
Samothracia ante portas statuit duas virilis species aeneas, det magni: he

60 BOOK I NOTES II

also points out that, Cic. Verr. Iv 94, an ex aere stmulacrum of Hercules
in Agrigentum had its mouth and chin thus worn; and so Minuc.
Felix describes Caecilius as kissing the lips of Serapis. Apul. met, x1
17 speaks of the people kissing the vestegia of Isis’ silver statue, as
to-day in St Peter’s they kiss the toe of the bronze statue of St Peter.
It may be presumed then that the Romans used the right hand of their
statues, as Pliny says the Greeks used the chin. 318 the meaning is
by the touch of the great numbers who in passing kiss: the words
rather imply ‘of those who often kiss’: but it comes in the end to the
same thing. 321 praeclusit: this verb he uses v 373 in its literal
sense of shutting the door against. Prof. Conington and Mr N. P.
Howard have independently pointed out to me that this v. 15 quite sound
and requires only to be rightly understood: videndt is gen. after natura:
Conington compares Persius v 101 natura medendi. — specrem = visum:
comp. Iv 236, 242, v 707, 724: there indeed, as more than once in Vitru-
vius, it means ocwli visewm; here it means visum rerum externarum.

324 Cic. de nat. deor. 11 142 acies ipsa qua cernimus, quae pupula voca-
teen. contenta is well explained by τν 802 and 809. 325 is rightly
joined by Lamb. with what follows: Lach. wrongly connects it with what
precedes. 326 mare quae enpendent : comp. Ter. Phorm. 180 tanta te
inpendent mala; Lucilius quae ves me inpendet, where Festus p. 161 9
says meisfor mihi: Iv 568 non auris incidit ipsas ; where see note: so
v 608 accideve has an accus. [Comp. Lucil. xxv 51 pectus inrigarier. |
vesco: Ribbeck, Lat. Partik. p. 10, seems rightly to make vescus = ve
escus: it is he says both active and passive, ‘nibbling’ and ‘nibbled off’:
he who eats without appetite takes little bites; hence vescus=fastidiosus,
Paulus Festi p. 368, Gell. xv1 5 7, Nonius p. 186, Labb. gloss. vescus,
ὀλιγόσιτος, ὀλιγοδεής, προσκορής : hence in Lucr. it means ‘nibbling at
and slowly eating away the rocks’. Again it is passive in Virgil’s
vescum papaver and vescas salicum frondes; and thus we can easily
understand Afran. 315 At puer est vescis enbecillus viribus; Ovid fasti
1 446 vescaque parva vocant, Pliny ὙΠ 81 corpore vesco, and Paulus Festi
p. 879 ‘vescali male curati et graciles homines’. 327 possis=precisely
potest of 324: 11 763 possis, 850 Quoad licet ac possis; where I now see
Lach. to be wrong in reading potis es: see ἢ, to 11 41 Cum videas, and
Madv. Lat. gram. 370 for this use of the indefinite 2nd pers. sing. conj.
or potent.: the first ex. he quotes is like our passage in which 2160
possis = nec possumus: 1 515 Si non relinquas ; 11 4 quibus careas ; 36 st
tacteris ; 1090 st teneas; 220 tantum quod dicere possis; 763 and 768
possis 3 11 213 cernas; 370, 856, 960, 1024 possis; 1v 319 320 eredas,
recedas ; 325 nergas ; 572 cum videas, possis; 957 quem capras; 1070
foll. conturbes, cures, possis ; 1231 possis; v1 113 possis ; 168 videas ; 706
Conspicias ; 708 possis; 1163, 1170 and 1257 posses; 1268 and v 1332
videres, 3828 Corp. caec.: see n. to 277; and comp. Manil. 1 131

BOOK I NOTES II 61

Caecaque materies caelum perfecit et orbem, of the epicurean atoms.
gerit res: the metaphor is taken from the governinent of a state: res
geruntur, geri res and the like occur frequently in Lucr. always more or
less with the same force: comp. Cic. de nat. deor. 11 82 where the stoic
Balbus says nos cum dicimus natura constare administrarique mundum.
329—369: but there is void as well as body in things; else there
could be no motion, no birth, no growth: the hardest things can be
penetrated ; and therefore have void in them: again things of equal size
are not all of equal weight, only because one contains more or less void
than another. 329 the whole universe of things is not solid dense
body; there is also void in things. corporea natura=corpore, as animé
natura, mundi natura=animus, mundus, etc. stipata, a favourite
word to express what is close packed, pressed, rammed together: Wak.
well compares συμπιλεῖσθαι used in the same sense by Aristot. phys. 1v 9
near beg. 330 az rebus, things in being, things formed, in contradis-
tinction to the atoms: see ἢ. to 419: Persius’ parody 1 1 ὁ quantum est
um rebus inane shews Lucretius’ expression was in vulgar use: comp. also
Pers. 111 83 gignt De nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti. inane
his most general term for void, used as a subst.; the τὸ κενόν of the
Greeks: he also uses vacuum, vacuum inane, inane vacansque and the
like: spatiwm, omne quod est spatium, vacuum spatium, locus, locus ac
spatium and the like express space in its extension, wherein things are
and through which atoms move,=ywpa, τόπος: it is intactile or manet
intactum; avadys φύσις, as it is defined by Epicurus. 331 Quod cog-
nosse=a nomin. subst. as shewn by Wee sinzet: this use of the infin. is
common in Lucr. as πὶ 67, 354, 731, Iv 765, 836 foll. 843 foll. v 979,
1118, 1250, 1297 foll. 1379, 1406, 1407, νι 380, 415, 416: Lucr. also
uses the infin. for an accus. subst.: see n. to 418. 332 guaerere, as II
10 viam palantis quaerere vitae; and our ‘to be to seek’, 333 summa
rerum, properly the whole sum, universe of things, while haec rerwm
summa is this our single world, as explained in ἢ. to 235; comp. ἢ. to
1008 on rer. sum. 334: see notes 1: I cannot conceive this v. to be
genuine; it may have been interpolated by some one who did not see
that 335, as well as 331, referred back to 990. 336 officiwm, Officere:
one of his favourite plays on words, united with alliteration odstare..
omnt...Omnibus ; on which comp. what is said above p. 15: the words
are simple homonymes, as in Cic. pro Sex. Rose. 112 cur mihi te offers
ae meis commodis officio simulato officis et obstas, 340 swbl. caeli: see
n. to 315. sublima: Enn. trag. 5 seems to have sublimas, and Accius
sublimo and sublimd; Sall. frag. sublima nebula; Sen, Med. 1026 sub-
limi aetherts, and the antiquarian Apuleius met. τν 23 sublimis volatibus.
[So Lucil. virt 1 has gracila; see Mueller’s note.] Lucr. uses more than
once the adv. sabiime, but never the adj. swblimis: 1 845 sterila: τι
621 violents A Nice. violentis B; v 1231 violento A Nicc. violente B:

62 BOOK I NOTES II

en

ex animus imbecillus hilarus inermus are the only forms he uses, 341
mul. mod. nul. a favourite formula of his for the reasons mentioned in
Neto 590. 343 sollicito, an epithet he thrice gives to motus: Virgil
applies it to mare, Ovid to vatis: Lucr. uses the verb more than once in
similar senses. priv. car. seems very tautological: comp. 275 and
oe 845 whereas he assumes the inherent motion of his atoms as the
first requisite for the production of things. 346 solsdus is his technical
word for what is perfectly solid and impenetrable, that is his first-
beginnings ; in this sense no 7es can be solida; only apparently so: all
res or things in being are rarae, that is have a mixture of void in them.
349 flent: Virgil inlacrimat, Ovid lacrimavit ebur; for which Seneca
Thyestes 702 has flevit an templis ebur: but in Luer. of course there is
no secondary implying of real weeping. 352 totas agrees with arbores
implied in arbusta which, as is observed at 187, he always uses for the
former: quite similar is vi 188 Quam sint lata magis quam sursum
extructa, referring to nubibus; and on the other hand 215 eas, though
214 subila caeli is the immediate antecedent, not nubes: 757 quadrv-
pedes...ut si sint mactata: for which Lach. unskilfully reads fit mactatw’ ;
and not unlike is Iv 933 aeriis auris...eius, where see note. 355
rigidum seems to personify cold as if it were stiff like frost. 356
gua: 11 498 Qua quasi consuerunt ; 736 qua possint via nulla rwidetur ;
Virg. geor. 1 90 vias et, Spiramenta, qua; Aen. v 590 Afille viis, qua.
358 alias aliis...res rebus: he seeks by the collocation of the words to
increase the force of the antithesis: comp. 816 variis variae res rebus:
876 omnibus omnis Res... rebus; 11 1166 tempora temporibus praesentia
confert Praeteritis, and v1 1085 Ut cava conveniant plenis haec illius illa
Hurusque; Livy xxxix 16 4 nune alle vos singulti universos contionantes
timent. 360 ylomere; but glimerart glémerata glémeramen; and
Horace Ut vinosa glomus: Lach. gives many other instances of varying
quantity; thus Lucr. and Plautus cdturnices, Ovid and Juvenal edtur-
mices; Lucr. etc. viétus, Hor. viétis; Lucr. vdcillo and vaccillo: see ἢ.
to 11452; 11 504. 363 znarnis is of course the gen. of inane, as 365:
comp. 917 zane rerum which most editors causelessly alter: natura
enanis therefore is like natura animi, aquae ete. 367 Dedicat used by
Lucr. three times and always in this sense: comp. indicare: it is synon.,
with declarat in 365: Accius 78 te esse Alemaconis fratrem factis dedicat.
With these vv. comp. what Theophr. περὶ αἰσθησ. 61 says of Democritus,
βαρὺ μὲν οὖν καὶ κοῦφον τῷ μεγέθει διαιρεῖ Δημόκριτος in his ἄμικτα or
atoms. οὐ μὴν ἀλλ᾽ ἔν ye τοῖς μικτοῖς κουφότερον ἂν εἶναι τὸ πλέον ἔχον
κενόν, βαρύτερον δὲ τὸ ἔλαττον, and comp. the de caelo rv 2, 908 Lst
emphatic, ‘exists’.

370—397 : some falsely maintain that motion may take place thus:
a fish for example advances, because the water it displaces goes into the
space which it leaves. But without void how can water begin to give

BOOK I NOTES II 63

place, that the fish may begin to advance? Again two bodies in contact
start asunder: there must be void between the two at all events until the
air has filled this space: if you say the air condenses when the bodies are
together, I assert that air cannot so condense; and if it could, it could
not thus contract without void. 370 it is not easy to say whether
illud is nom. to possit or accus. after praecurrerve: whichever it be, the
other is understood. praecurrere: the metaph. is obvious: to run be-
fore a thing, and so meet it by anticipation. 372 squamigeris: 378
squamigert i.e. pisces: prob. also 162 Squamigerum: see ἢ. there; and
comp. the graphic pennipotentum for birds; and 887 lanigerae=oves.
377 falsa totewm=prorsus falsa, as N. P. Howard observes: so 111 686
totum contra; τὴ 1088 contra totum. This adverbial use of totus is very
common in idiomatic Latin, as in Cicero’s letters to Atticus: of very
many instances which I have collected take the following: 1x 2 A, 1]
repudiart se totum...putabit; 1x 10 3 alia res nune tota est; x 12 1
Reginus erat totus noster; xitt 21 3 est enim verbum totum nauticum ;
xv 1 2 totum me futurum suum ; Xvi 5 2 sie enim commutatus est totus ;
[Cic. epist. 111 9 at end megue totum et mea et meos commendatos
habebis; Vv 20 2 totum enim scribam meum tibi tradidi; vu 33 2 me
totum in litteras abdere; vit 4 2 totus (Caelius); vi1r 8 10 se totum
(Caelius); 1x 16 8 quam totam sustult; x1 29 2 totum te contulistz ;
xvi 12 6 κέ totum te susciperet; ad Q. fr. 11 10 (12) 3 totum me amplexa-
tur, 4 totum side aqua madidum redditwm esse; Sueton. Caes. 46 villam...
quia non tota ad animum et responderat, totam diruisse; Sen. rhet. suas. 11
17 totus Nerses meus ertt; controv. 1 7 16 latro totum se ab istis removit
coloribus.| omnis is used in the same way: see n. to τι 53: and nadlus
‘not at all’: Catul. 8 14 cum rogaberis nulla: [Livy xxtv 36 8 post-
quam ea nulla contigerat ; comp. vil 35 4 quae in discrimine fuerunt,
an ulla post hane diem essent:| Cic. ad Att. x1 17 1 consilium quod
capi nullum potest; 24 4 Philotimus...rullus vent; xv 22 ab armrisque
nullus discederet: so Lucr. himself 1 427 Si nullum foret: and often in
Plautus and Terence. 383 zit. movendr: initum motus occurs τὶ 269
111271: this use of t2ttus for wtiem seems peculiar to Lucr. 384 de
is explained ‘after’: perhaps it expresses ‘at once from a state of’:
Faber quotes Plaut. most. 697 Non bonust somnus de prandio and
Aen. 11 662 Lamque aderit multo Priami de sanguine Pyrrhus: comp.
also the phrase diem de die differre, and Cic. ad Att. x1r 3 1 velim
scire hodiene statim de auctione, et (aut) quo die venias: somewhat
like is v1 290 Quo de concussu. 385 cita=cito: Plaut. Amph. 111
Citus e cunis exrlit, 1127 pergunt ad cunas citi: for other instances
see Freund lex. s. v. 2. 386 possidat: is this a ἅπαξ Neyopevor?
lexicons give no other genuine instance of its use. 389 prim. quem.
Le. each part successively one after the other: comp. Cic. de invent. 1 33
ut et prima quaeque pars, ut exposita est in partitione, sic ordine transi-

64 BOOK I. NOTES II

gatur et omnibus explicatis peroratunt sit...et ad primam quamque parten
primum accessit et omnibus absolutis finem dicends fecit; auctor ad Heren.
1 37 wt identidem primos quosque locos imaginum renovandarum causa
animo pervagemus ; Livy Χαμ 32 7 cum tribunr militum, qui centuriones
essent, primum quemque citarent: and so V 291 primum iactum fulgoris
quemque perire: also 264 primum quicquid aquar, 284 primum quicquid
fulgoris, 304 primum quicquid flammarum, Lucretius loving the archaism
quicquid for quicque, as has been said above. 392 id fierr, 1.6. that
what has been described takes place, because the air is able to condense
itself, and so also to expand where necessary: the subj. shewing it was
the erroneous judgment of the thinker, as guza linquant in 383: Creech
argues that some vss. are lost here; but I cannot gather from his note
that he had any clear conception of how he meant the lacuna to be filled
up. Luer. is curt and elliptical because he would not I think have found
it easy to state fully what seemed to him an absurdity. The power of
the air in 392 to condense implied thereby the power of expanding; and
395 seems to me distinctly to prove that 392 contains the gist of the
argument: they assert that the air condenses, but it cannot condense
without vacuum: a vacuum is formed where it did not exist before, i.e.
between the two bodies which have separated: a vacuum is filled which
existed before, i.e. somewhere on the outer sides of the two bodies.
392 condenseat and 395 denserier: ΤΟΥ, appears only to know the 2nd
conjug.: see notes 1 to v 491. 396 sz itm posset: see ἢ. to 968.
397 trahere neut. as VI 1190 nervi trahere: see ἢ. to v1 595: perhaps in
our passage Lucr. means to imply the contraction would have taken
place without apparent cause. part. cond. in un. repeated 111 534 tpsam
se posse per artus Introsum trahere et partis conducere in unum: 1 650
conductis partibus: which seems to prove that trahere here = se trahere.

398—417: much more might I say; but a keen intellect can now by
itself pursue the question farther: if however you demur, I have such
store of arguments in reserve, that our life will come to an end sooner
than they. 398 Virg. ecl. 1x 56 Causando nostros in longum ducis
amores. 400 possum: Virg. geor. 1176 Possum multa tibt veterum
praecepta referre; Cic. pro Caelio 53 possum dicere...possum etiam tlla...
perquirere...possum omnes latebras suspicionum peragrare dicendo.. sed
haec...; pro Sestio 7 possum multa dicere εἶδ... sed... ; in Verr. (11) 1 125
possum sexcenta decreta perferre...verum...: the usage is very common,
analogous with that of poteram, potui, etc. in conditional sentences.
401 conradere is twice used in VI in its literal sense. 402 sagaci: see
n. to 50: the metaph. is kept up in vestigia ; and the expressions natu-
rally lead to the simile: comp. sagax nasum of Plautus, nare sagacz of
Ennius. 404 montivagae agrees with ferai, as shewn by 11 597 and
1081: Soph. Phil. 943 θῆρ᾽ ὀρειβάτην. 405 quietes: I find no other
instance of the word in this sense; but Cic. de off. 1 103 and Sall. Cat.

BOOK I NOTES II 65

15 use it in the plur. 406 wrstit. vestigia: so Virgil insiste viam,
wnsistere limen, [and Aen. x1 573 vestigia plantis Institerat;| and
Plaut. capt. 794 omnes itinera insistant sua: the constr. is common
enough ; for the quantity of ¢zstet. comp. Iv 975 destiterunt, ν 415
Constiterunt: he uses also desierwnt, exierunt, transtulerunt, dididerunt,
excterunt, occiderunt, deciderunt, inciderunt, prodiderunt; vi 4 dedé-
runt, v 474 and elsewhere fuérunt which, like Virgil’s twlérunt, shew
that the quantity does not arise from the mere necessity of the metre;
and moreover this shortening is not unknown to Plautus and Terence :
see Wagner, Ter. eun. 20. As we find potuérunt twice in Laberius ;
sumpsérunt in a popular v. ap. Suet. Caes. 80; and as ὄὅ is common in

Phaedrus, it must always have been a familiar pronunciation. 408
latebras, Cic. pro Caelio 53 omnes latebras suspicionum. 409 insinuare:
for syntax see n. to 116: v 73 the constr. is the same. 410 pigraris:
this rare verb occurs twice in the fragments of Accius. 411 de plano,

e plano, ex aeguo loco are opposed to pro tribunals or ex loco superiore:
Cicero several times uses ex aequo loco in this sense; and comp. Sueton.
111 33 2udicesque aut e plano aut 6 quaesitoris tribunalt...admonebat: Bris-
sonius de verb, signif. s. v. planus cites Paull. recep. sent. v 16 14 custo-
diae non solum pro tribunali sed et de plano audirr possunt: it implies
therefore an off-hand decision given anywhere in a simple case, in contra-
distinction to a more formal and deliberate judgment from the bench.
Lucr, means to say that he needs no time for consideration; so sure is he
of his case. corp. inscr. I 198, 65 and 66, we have twice οὐδὲ de plano
recte legz possitur ; ib. 206, 16 propositun habeto ud px lp; Orell. inser.
775 propont in publico unde de plano recte legr posset; Plin. paneg. 71
devexus quidem in planum et quasi unus ex gratulantibus. 412 4138:
comp. Prop. v (Iv) 1 59 exiguo quodcunque e pectore rivi Fluxerit. haus-
tus 6 font.: Hor. epist. 1 3 10 perhaps refers to Lucr.: Pindarict fontis
qui non expallurt haustus. e font. de pect. in one sentence: iv 694 Lx
alto quia vix emittitur ex re; νι 1012 ex elementis..e fervo and ἢ. there;
11 447 In quo iam genere in primis; 1v 97; vi 721: [so deductis...in
locupletissimas urbes in hiberna legionrbus. | 413 meo dite de pect. : this
use of the poss. pron. with an adj. seems an imitation of Ennius’ antique
manner, also imitated by Virgil, as two cum flumine sancto for instance:
see ἢ. to Iv 394 suo corpore claro. Comp. Hor. epist. 112 120 Vemens et
liquidus puroque simillimus amni Fundet opes Latiumque beabit divite
lingua; Hor. applying dives to the lingua, which is supplied by the pec-
tus; the heart being the seat of the intellect according to Lucr. and most
ancient philosophers: 731 Carmina quin etiam divini pectoris etus ;
V 1 pollentt pectore carmen Condere: comp. too Cie. de consul. suo 74
Fuderunt claras fecundi pectoris artis; Ov. trist. 11 7 (8) 43 ail non
mortale tenemus Pectoris exceptis ingentique bonis; v 12 2 Ne pereant
turpr pectora nostra situ=21 ingenium longa rubiyine laesum Torpet.

ΔῈ 11. 5

66 BOOK I. NOTES II

ditt: on the other hand v 1115 Divitioris: he nowhere else uses either
form. 414 tarda surely agrees with senectus: see n. to v 1414.
415 vit. cl.: this metaph. he twice repeats, 111 396 magis est animus vitai
elaustra coercens; V1 1153 vitat claustra lababant: comp. too Cicero’s
words cum ego claustra nobilitatis refregissem. The words imply those
bars and defences which have to be forced and broken open before body
and soul can be severed and life destroyed.

418—448: all nature then consists of body, and void in which body
moves: deny the existence of body, you take away the foundation on
which rests all reasoning about abstruse things: without void no motion
is possible as I have just shewn. There is no third nature distinct from
these two: if a thing can touch or be touched, it is of the class of body;
if it cannot, of void: neither sense nor reason can grasp any third class,
418 repet. pertexere: νι 936 repetam commemorare, the same constr.: in
both eases the inf. is for the accus. He uses the inf. for a subst. in the
nomin. often : see n. to 331 : sometimes for the accus. as Iv 245 internos-
cere curat; V 1186 perfugium sibr habebant omnia divis Tradere; νι 68
renuttis Dis indigna putare; 1227 quod ali dederat vitalis aeris auras
Volvere in ore licere et caelt templa tuert, where a second infin. depends
on the first used as an accus, subst.: vepet. then has precisely the force it
has Ovid met. 11 151 Propositum repetamus opus, and ars πὶ 747 Sed
repetamus opus: the metaph. in pertexere is obvious: VI 42 inceptum
pergum pertexere drctis. 419 For this ἐφέξει see Ussing to Plaut.
Amph, 207. It is more than once put by Lucr. in the apodosis
and has misled editors: τιν 199-204 s2, quae...Quid quae swnt igitur;
862—865 quae quia sunt...His wgitur rebus rarescit: in both which
passages Lach. has gone wrong; as the older editors have in the present
one: comp. also Iv 513—520 Denique ut...Sic igitur ratio; and v 260
Ergo. Sometimes too Lucr. places zgitur late in the sentence; 11 678,
where the partic.=a protasis, it is the 7th: vi 1246 ergo comes 5th,
11 569 ezaque Sth in the sentence, ιν 705 4th: v1 1277 enim is the 9th
word; 1 219 and vi 701 the 5th in the sentence; it often comes fourth
and third: not unlike is his carelessness with que and quoque; see n. to
11 1050. per se manifestly belongs to wé est, not to constitit with which
Lach, joins it: wt est has no force alone, and the assertion would contra-
dict Epicurus: comp. Cic. de nat. deor. 11 82 sunt autem qui omnia
naturae nomine appellant, ut Eprcurus qui ita dividit, omnrum quae sint
naturam esse corpora et mane quaeque his accidant ; in precise conform-
ity with which Lucr. says 445 tertia per se Nulla potest cet.: see too 422
440 and 459 Tempus item per se non est and 466 and 479: from all which
it is clear Lucr. does not deny that ‘accidents’ are, but denies that they
exist by themselves, per se. See too Epicurus’ own words in Diog. Laert.
X 68 οὐθ᾽ ὡς καθ᾽ ἑαυτάς εἰσι φύσεις [τὰ σχήματα K.7.A.] δοξαστέον, and
those cited at 445, which Lucr. almost translates,

BOOK 1 NOTES II 67

419 duabus In rebus: 449 duabus Rebus: 503 duarum rerum: Luer,
seems to depart here from his ordinary use of the word res which occurs
many hundred times in his poem. Elsewhere it has one of its numerous
abstract meanings; or denotes things in being opposed to the first-begin-
nings out of which things in being are formed. But here too it has
almost an abstract meaning, and denotes the general conception of body
and void; which he expresses sometimes by natura. 420 Constitit=
ἔστηκε, Stat, or constat, as often in Latin: 111 177 animus quali sit corpore
et unde Constiterit ; Seneca suasor. 1 2 ultra Libert patris tropaea con-
stitimus ; 9 illa demum est magna felicitas quae arbitrio suo constitit ;
Aen. 111 679 quales cum vertice celso Aervae quercus aut coniferae cyparisst
Constiterunt ; Ov. ars τὶ 478 Constiterant (=stabant) wno femina virque
loco; [Caes. bell. G. vir 3 1 and 42 5 que negotiandi causa ἰδὲ con-
stiterant; 49 3 «ἰδὲ constrterat, eventum pugnae expectabat;| Hor.
od. 1 9 Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte...geluque Flumina
constiterint acuto; Sen. Herc. Oet. 678 Patrioque puer constitit axe ;
Cic. ad fam. vi1 17 1 tam videris certa aliqua in sententia constitisse; ad
Att. vit 11 1 levatur enim omnis cura, cum aut constitit consilium aut
cogitando nihil explicatur: it 1s worth noting that Nonius p. 256 quotes
Cic. de fin. v 86 thus ‘omnis auctoritas philosophiae constitit in beata
vita comparanda’: Cicero’s mss. consistit; and the two words are synon.
Often as he uses the words, Lucr. never has in after consisto or consto,
except in this place: but lexicons give many instances of im after
consisto; and Caes. bel. civ. πὶ 89 3 and Nepos Attic. 14 3 have
constare in. See Draeger Inst. synt. 1 p. 515 ὃ 237. corpora has
here its most extended sense: comp. 483: it includes all corpus,
whether corpora prima or res: so Epic. himself in Plut. adv. Colot. 13
THY τῶν ὄντων φύσιν σώματα εἶναι καὶ κενόν. 422 comm. sensus: comp.
Epic. in Diog. Laert. x 39 τὰ σώματα ws ἔστιν αὐτὴ ἢ αἴσθησις
ἐπὶ πάντων μαρτυρεῖ, Kal ἣν ἀναγκαῖον τὸ ἄδηλον τῷ λογισμῷ TEKpal-
ρεσθαι: communis sensus here has much the same force as naturalis
sensus the sense given by nature to all sane men: Arist. met. 1 1 p. 981
Ὁ 13 εἰκὸς τὸν ὁποιανοῦν εὑρόντα τέχνην παρὰ τὰς κοινὰς αἰσθήσεις θαυμά-
ζεσθαι ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων. Cicero is fond of using it with the same
meaning, whether in the sing. as Lucr. and Epicurus 1. }.: pro Plane. 31
‘valeret, Inquam, communi sensu omnium et dulcissima commendatione
naturae’; de orat. 11 68 ‘in sensu hominum communi, in natura, in
moribus’: or in the plur. as Aristotle 1. 1: thus pro Cluent. 17 ‘hoc
quod in communibus hominum sensibus atque in ipsa natura positum
atque infixum est’; de orat. 111 195 ‘quod ea sunt in communibus infixa
sensibus nec earum rerum quemquam funditus natura esse voluit exper-
tem’; passages shewing how nearly Cicero connected it with nature.
But de orat. 1 12 ‘a vulgari genere orationis atque a consuetudine com-
munis sensus abhorrere’; pro Planc. 34 ‘communis ille sensus in aliis

5—2

68 BOOK I NOTES II

fortasse latuit cet.’, and in Horace Seneca Quintihan and Juvenal the
expression rather denotes ‘an acquired perception or feeling of the com-
mon duties and proprieties expected from each member of society ete.’
quoted from Sir W. Hamilton by Mayor to Juv. ν πὶ 73; though the two
senses sometimes run into one another. 423 cut, as N. P. Howard
says, depends on jides=cui fides adhibita: Livy πὶ 10 6 cuz ret priore
anno fides non fuerat ; Aen. 11169 δὲ prima fides pelago; Aetna 516 figu-
los huic esse fidem; Ov. her. 17 (18) 119 Siqua fides vero est; am. 112 38 In
verum falso crimine deme fidem. 426 foll.: Lucr. again closely follows
Epic. 1.1. 40 εἰ μὴ ἦν ὃ κενὸν καὶ χώραν καὶ ἀναφῆ φύσιν ὀνομάζομεν, οὐκ
ἂν εἶχε τὰ σώματα ὅπου ἦν οὐδὲ δι᾿ οὗ ἐκινεῖτο, καθάπερ φαίνεται κινοῦμενα.
427 sit nullum foret: see n. to 917. 429 supera: 370 foll.: which
shew Lamb. and others to be wrong in reading quaqzam in 428: 421
we have qua diversa moventur; but movert and meare are not the same;
and Lucr. manifestly refers to 378 Nam quo squamigert poterunt procedere
tandem, Ni spatium dederint latices? concedere porro Quo poterunt undae,
cet.: meare=procedere et concedere.

430—482: doubtless he dwells at such length and with such em-
phasis on this arguinent, because the stoics taught that all states qualities
virtues etc. were body: take among many passages what Chrysippus
says in Plut. de repugn. stoic. 43 p. 1053 F οὐδὲν ἄλλο τὰς ἕξεις πλὴν
ἀέρας εἶναι, φησίν᾽ ὑπὸ τούτων γὰρ συνέχεται τὰ σώματα᾽ καὶ τοῦ ποιὸν
ἕκαστον εἶναι τῶν ἕξει συνεχομένων αὐτὸς ὁ συνέχων ἀήρ ἐστιν, ὃν σκληρότητα
μὲν ἐν σιδήρῳ κιτιλ. and Sen. epist. 117 7 quod accidit αἰλοιυὶ, utrum extra
id cur accidit est, an in €0 cui accidit ? δὲ ineo est cur accidit, tum corpus
est quam illud cui accidit. nihil enim accidere sine tactu potest: quod
tangit, corpus est. si extra est, posteaquam acciderat, recessit. quod recessit,

motum habet. quod motum habet, corpus est. 432 Quod: see ἢ. to ΠΙ
94 animunt, mentem quanr. tert. numero: this redundant use of
numero is sufficiently illustrated by Fore. s.v. 435 Augmine, a word

often used by Lucr. and only by him and his constant imitator Arnobius:
so v1 614 adaugmen: momen too seems pecuhar to him and his imitators,
for momentum; he also uses fragmina more than once: glomeramen frus-
tramen vexamen clinamen too he alone of classical writers employs. dum
sté 1.6, dummodo sit. 436 Corp. num.: the lexicons cite from Cicero
and Caesar numerus vini, frumenti, olec and the hke; Livy also has
magnum frumentt numerum ; signatr argentr magnum numerum ; Cic.
pro Cluent. 87 joins numerus and summa, as here: cum ipsa pecunia...
numero ac summa sua...ostendat. sequetur: will go to make up the sum,
eaxplere summan. 437 «intactile, another ἅπαξ Aey. by which he trans-
lates the ἀναφής of Epicurus. 438 meantem, a favourite word of
Lucr. in its proper sense of passing to and fro. 439 vac. in. a striking
pleonasm often repeated; just below he has inane vacansque: 523
we find even spatiuwm vacuum inane. 440 fuciet quid used of

BOOK I NOTES II 69

course in the technical sense of the Greek ποιήσει τι: funge peculiar to
Lucer. both in the technical sense as here and £43, and in the common
sense, as 111 168 734 v 358, of πάσχειν. 441 ipsum on its part in
contrast to aliis agentibus. 442 erit, wt posswnt of mss. I now think
is right: see n. to τι 901 wt debent. [Comp. also τι 112 Cuius, ute
memoro, ret, and Plaut. Amph. cited there; also asin. 28 wt ipse
scibo te factam ut scias (=talia qualia ipse scibo); Ter. Phor. 224
Meministin, olim ut fuerit vestra oratio (=qualis fuerit); Juv. x11
46 nec turba deorum Talis wt est hodie; and perhaps Cic. pro Sex.
Rose. 33 atunt hominem, ut erat furrosus, respondisse, i.e. quo erat

furore: see Madv. gramm. 444 a anm. 4.] 443 Epic. in Diog.
Laert. x 67 τὸ κενὸν οὔτε ποιῆσαι οὔτε παθεῖν δύναται, ἀλλὰ κίνησιν
μόνον Ot ἑαυτοῦ τοῖς σώμασι παρόχεται. 445—450 comp. Epic. ibid.

40 παρὰ δὲ ταῦτα οὐθὲν ἐπινοηθῆναι δύναται οὔτε περιληπτῶς οὔτε ἀναλόγως
τοῖς περιληπτοῖς, ὡς τὰ καθ᾽ ὅλας φύσεις λαμβανόμενα καὶ μὴ ὡς τὰ
τούτων συμπτώματα ἢ συμβεβηκότα λεγόμενα : the τὰ κ. OA. φύσ. λαμ.-Ξ
omnis ut est per se natura οὗ 419; φύσεις being applied to body and void
alike by the school of Democritus and Epicurus. 447 448 might
be all expressed by ovr αἰσθητὸν ovre νοητόν. 448 apisct: so Iv 1235
apisct contagia, and v 808 terram radicibus apt. .

449. -482 : all other things are either inseparable properties or acci-
dents of matter or void: time also exists not by itself: from the things
that go on follows the feeling of past present and future: the actions done
at the siege of Troy for instance did not exist by themselves, but were
mere accidents of the men there or the places there: without body and
space nothing which there happened could have happened. 449 cluent
is almost the same as suzt, as often in Lucr.: ‘all things which have a
name, which exist’. contuncta and eventa appear to have been devised by
Lucr. himself to distinguish the two kinds of συμβεβηκότα or accidentia,
ὑπ καθ᾽ αὑτά or per se, and those not so: the editors after Lamb. quote a pass-
age of Porphyry and decide that coniwncta=oupBeBnxora, eventa=ouprte-
para, The truth is that in the passage quoted above from Epicurus, as
well as in 67, 68, 70, 71 of the same letter, συμβεβ. and συμπτ. are
synonymes, denoting either kind of accident; just as Aristotle uses
perpetually συμβεβηκός both for his καθ᾽ αὐτὸ συμβ. and for the μὴ καθ᾽
αὐτὸ : see last chap. of metaph. v; and Cicero in the passage quoted at 419
uses quaeque his accidant for both kinds. JI might cite many passages
from Sextus of the quite indifferent use of the two terms: adv. math. x
221 which bears directly on what follows, τούτων τῶν συμβεβηκότων τὰ
μέν ἐστιν ἀχώριστα τῶν ols συμβέβηκεν, Ta δὲ χωρίζεσθαι τούτων πέφυκεν.
ἀχώριστα μὲν οὖν ἐστὶ τῶν οἷς συμβέβηκεν ὥσπερ καὶ ἀντιτυπία μὲν τοῦ
σώματος, εἶξις δὲ τοῦ Kevov....(454 might have been forged from this
clause)...ovk ἀχώριστα δέ ἐστι τῶν οἷς συμβέβηκεν καθάπερ καὶ κίνησις
καὶ ὁ μονή: now comp. with this Diog. Laert. 67: Epicurus argues

70 BOOK I NOTES It

the soul is not immaterial, because then it could not ποιεῖν οὔτε πάσ-
xew: νῦν δ᾽ ἐναργῶς ἀμφότερα ταῦτα διαλαμβάνομεν περὶ τὴν ψυχὴν τὰ
συμπτώματα. Are συμπτώματα here coniuncta or are they not? I ask;
and yet the latest authorities such as Zeller and Ussing continue to
distinguish the two terms. Galen also again and again uses them as
synonymes ; as Method. Med. 1 8 ἕτερόν τι γένος εἴτε συμπτωμάτων εἴτε
συμβεβηκότων εἴθ᾽ ὅπως ἂν ἄλλως ἐθέλῃ τις ὀνομάζειν. [450 ea: for this
position in the sentence see Ussing to Plaut. Amph. 181.] 45] per-
mitialt: permities permitralis pernatrabilis are quite distinct in origin,
and differ perhaps in meaning from pernicies perniciosus: whether per-
nicialis or perniciabtlis exists I cannot say; but Conington, Virgil vol. 3
p. 223, is mistaken in supposing that I did not believe in the existence of
pernicies, perniciosus. There is overwhelming evidence however for per-
mities, etc.: they are found in the best mss. of Plautus, Livy, Tacitus;
in the palimpsest and two other of the best of Pliny xv 74: Nonius,
p. 153 and 218, assigns a permities to Plautus, Accius and Lucilius: in
Sen. Agam. 229 the permitiz of the Florentine attests permitiem: again
Donatus ars gramm. II, p. 392 Keil, says ‘per inmutationem litterae ut
ollt pro ili, syllabae ut pernuties pro pernicies’, attesting both the m and
t, as otherwise it would not be syllabae but litterae. permities seems to
imply ‘utter destruction’, ‘annihilation’: pernicies and perniciosus are
prob. connected with noceo: see Corssen 11 Ὁ. 422: we say perniciosae
leges; and in our passage ‘sine pernicioso Discidio’ would ill express
Lucretius’ meaning. See Fick verg]l. Woerterb. 1 p. 153, 3 mz etc. who
compares with various Sanscrit words μινύω μινύθω μείων, minus minuo
etc., and Corssen krit. Beitr. p. 266 foll.: permuitzes therefore will signify
‘a wasting away to nothing’: Fick 1. |. p. 470 ‘with the form -ty@ comp.
sanscr. 2-tyd ‘going’, lat. ex-iteum, in-itiumete.’ 452. seque gregare: 651
disque supatis : sounque merentes, tuque peditur, inque pedrtiete. inque tueri,
mque gravescunt, inque gredi; congue globata, conque gregantur, conque
putrescunt ; perque forare, perque volare, perque plicatis ; proque voluta,
praeterque meantum, praeter creditur ire, rareque facit, inter enim dectast,
enter enim fugit, inter quasi rupta, inter enim saepit, inter quast rumpere,
enter enin cursat, inter plaga currere ; circum tribus actis; esse sur quid-
dam super ; even inter quaecumque pretantur, and fucit are; though he
does not rival Ennius’ cere conminuit brum. 455—456 these nomina-
tives, which are out of the construction and = vocabula quae sunt ‘ser-
vitium etc.’ are curious: comp. Catull. 86 3 Totum alud ‘formosa’ nego ;
[Hor. od. 111 24 27 δὲ quaeret ‘pater urbium’ Srbscribi statuts; Prop. 1
18 31 resonent mtht ‘Cynthia’ silvae ; Sen. Herc. fur. 643 (647) poenas
dabit: Lentum est ‘dabit’: dat;] and perhaps Cic. de fin. 1 107
haec leviora ponam: poema,...signum, tabula, locus amoenus, ludi,
venatro, villa.

459 foll.: here too Lucr. is combating Chrysippus and the porch who

BOOK I NOTES II 71

taught that time was not only ἀσώματον, but also like void καθ᾽ αὐτό τι
νοούμενον πρᾶγμα : see Sextus 1.1, 218. With these vss. should be comp.
Epic. in Diog. Laert. x 72, or the fuller passage of Sextus 1. 1. 219
Ἐπίκουρος δὲ... τὸν χρόνον σύμπτωμα συμπτωμάτων εἶναι λέγει παρεπόμενον
ἡμέραις τε καὶ νυξὶ καὶ ὧραις καὶ πάθεσι καὶ ἀπαθείαις καὶ κινήσεσι καὶ
μοναῖς. πάντα γὰρ ταῦτα συμπτώματα ἐστι τισὶ συμβεβηκότα. Time
therefore is an accident of accidents: Lucr. treats the question with
reference to the accidents of body and void last mentioned by Sextus,
viz. states of motion and states of rest. Lucr. may well have been
thinking of the strange words of Chrysippus in the first book of his
φυσικὰ ζητήματα, quoted by Plutarch de comm. not. p. 1084 pb, οὐχ ἡ
μὲν νὺξ σῶμα ἐστιν, ἡ δ᾽ ἑσπέρα καὶ ὁ ὀρθρὸς καὶ τὸ μέσον τῆς νυκτὸς
σώματα οὐκ ἔστιν" οὐδὲ ἡ μὲν ἡμέρα σῶμά ἐστιν, οὐχὶ δὲ καὶ ἡ νουμηνία
σῶμα, καὶ ἡ δεκάτη καὶ πεντεκαιδεκάτη καὶ ἡ τριακάς, καὶ ὁ μὴν σῶμά
ἐστι, καὶ τὸ θέρος καὶ τὸ φθινόπωρον καὶ ὁ ἐνιαυτός. 461 porro is
the connecting particle, deinde belongs to sequatwr, as a connecting
particle is wanted: otherwise Plautus joins deinde porro and inde
porro. 464 and 471 Denique : see ἢ. to 17. 465 466 dicunt and
cogant plainly refer to Chrysippus and the stoics who, as we saw, taught
that accidents were bodily entities, time an immaterial entity : they doubt-
less therefore used the hymonymes esse, esse to prove that as for instance
the rape of Helen was, therefore the rape exists of itself, and the like:
comp. the plurals in 655, 657, 658, 659, 660, 665, 667 ; 782, 783; 1053,
1062, 1083, 1087; all of them aimed at the stoics. [On esse see Mill
Logic p. 86 125 etc. (3rd edition), and Hobbes etc. cited by Bisset
Essays p. 87 foll. | 466 haec the rape of Helen and the conquest of
Troy. 469 as usual, to make his argument more vivid, he has taken
a special case intelligible to all, the conquest of Troy. This illustration
he continues: Yewcris therefore takes the place of the generic Corporis
of 482, regtonibus of loct: notice too the quodeumque ertt actum of
a special past event, not agetur: he singles out TJ'evc7is here, because he
had singled out Trowiugenas gentis in 405: the Greeks in both cases
would have answered his purpose, had he so chosen. 471 he seems
here to pass from time, the accident of accidents, to the more general
question of 449, that of accidents generally. 473 conjlatus keeping
up the metaphor of a fire blown into flame. 474 Alex. Phrygio sub
pec.: 11501 Thessalico concharum tacta colore; v 24 Nemeacus magnus
hiatus Ille leonis: comp. Virgil’s Tyrrhenusque tubae clangor ; arma dei
Voleania ; Valgius’ Pylio profluxerit ore Nestoris ; Catullus’ iniuste regis
Gortynia tecta ; Horace’s pingwis Phrygiae Mygdonias opes [and Tyr-
rhena regum progenies ; Propertius’ eques Htrusco de sanguine regum] ;
Homer’s Γοργείην κεφαλὴν δεινοῖο πελώρου and Νεστορέῃ παρὰ νηὶ
Πυλοιγενέος βασιλῆος : perhaps too 119 gentis Italas hominum ; but see n.
there. — gliscens still keeping the same metaphor. 475 Clara seems

72 BOOK I NOTES II

a play on the two meanings of famous in story, and bright in reference
to the flames of war: comp. 639 Clarus ob obscuram linguam. 476
durateus, the ἵππου κόσμος Aovpatéov τὸν “Exes ἐποίησεν σὺν ᾿Αθήνῃ,
made more famous by the ‘timber’ horse of bronze in the acropolis, out
of which peeped Menestheus Teucer and the sons of Theseus, whence
Virg. Aen. 11 262 probably got his Acamas. JT'rotianis is of course
governed by clam: Lamb. Creech Wak. and others have strangely
blundered here. [‘Caes. Ὁ. ὁ. 11 32 8 nonne sibi clam vobis salutem fuga
petivit?: weiter kenne ich keine Beweisstelle fuer clam mit dem Ablat.’
Draeger hist, synt. 1 p. 621: but see also Fronto ad amic. 1 15 quod
clam ceteris esse veltm; auct. bell. Afr. 11 4 clam hostibus ; these four
instances seem indisputable. In Plautus Ritschl and Fleckeisen seem
to wish to expel the abl., perhaps rightly if Ritschl is correct with
regard to A. Butin merc. 809 (798 Uss.) all mss. have viro δὲ clam:
virum is a conj. Palam governing only abl., I had thought this con-
struction with clam more common than it 1s, and that the acc. was an
archaism.] ρραγέιν: Aesch. Agam. 791 ᾿Αργεῖον δάκος Ἵππου νεοσσός:
Eurip. Troad. 11 ᾿Εγκύμον᾽ ἵππον τευχέων : perhaps Lucr. was thinking
of Ennius’ gravidus armatis equus Suo qui partu perdat Pergama ardua :
Virgil’s uterumque armato milite complent is the same metaphor. 477
equos our mss. this once: ecus or ecum three times: eguus once, which

Lucr. would scarcely have written, but well equs. 479 constare and
esse are here perfectly synon. 480 cluere = esse. 481 Sed magis
[ita esse et ita cluere] wt. 482 see n. to 409.

483—502 : the first-beginnings are perfectly solid and indestructible :
sense suggests no notion of this solidity: reason can alone prove it. 483
484 translated from Epic. in Diog. Laert. x 40 τῶν σωμάτων τὰ μέν ἐστι συγ-
κρίσεις, τὰ δ᾽ ἐξ ὧν αἱ συγκρίσεις πεποίηνται. 483 corpora in its most general
sense, 85 420 nam corpora sunt et mane: and as already observed he always
uses the term quite indifferently for either corpora prima or ves. 484
concilio constant: seen.to 221. 488 Sed means, though other corpora
may, these may not. 486 Stinguere seems peculiar to Lucr. who uses
it several times, and his frequent model Cicero in his Aratea: it appears
synon. with extinguere and is used elsewhere by Lucr. for quenching
fire or thirst: the more common extingwere is used in the same way for
any kind of destruction. demum: however long the contest, they in
the end prevail: ἄτομα καὶ ἀμετάβλητα, says Epicurus himself 1. 1.: ‘the
mass of the molecule, and the other constants which define its properties,
are absolutely invariable ; the individual molecule can neither grow nor
decay, but remains unchanged amid all the changes of the bodies of
which it may form a constituent’ Prof. Maxwell, Introductory lecture
p. 21. 489: νι 228 Transit enim validum fulmen per saepta domorum,
Clamor ut ac voces: caeli fulmine occurs v 1244, 491 fero: this
epithet is applied by Ovid to zgnis more than once. 492 labef. implies

BOOK I NOTES II 73

the breaking up of the whole inner structure of a thing by some greater
force, esp. heat as here: 1v 697 tgni conlabefacta; Aen. v111 390 Intravit
calor et labefacta per ossa cucurrit. rigor: Virg. geor. 1 143 Tum ferri
vigor ; Manil. 11 780 ferrique rigor; Prudent. perist. x 702 aeris aut ferri
regor. 493 glacies, a bold but expressive metaphor to which I know
no exact parallel; but Mart. 149 12 says Salone, qui ferrum gelat.

494 penetrale: Virg. geor. 1 93 [and Mart. 1v 19 9] penetrabile frigus.

496 lymph. rore: 771 roremque liquoris; 777 cum rore; Iv 438 rorem
salis. 499 ades: adesse animo and animis are common in Cicero:
but as here, Ov. ex Ponto 111 3 2 ades, Dum tibi quae vidi refero; Plaut.
Men. 643 audi atque ades; merc. 568 ausculta atque ades; Sen. Hipp.
1175 Ades parumper.

503—550: where void is, body is not: these first bodies therefore
are solid and without void: things in being all contain pure void
enclosed by pure body: these first bodies then may continue, when
the things are broken up: and void we have shewn must exist; it
alternates then with body: these first bodies cannot be crushed split or
broken up from within; they are therefore eternal: without this eternal
matter all things would have come from nothing, and would have been
reduced to nothing: first-beginnings therefore are of solid singleness.

506 sibz appears to be added merely to increase the force of per se and
puram as in English we say ‘in and for itself’, ‘for and by itself’: 11
145 Idque sibi solum per se sapit ; 684 per se ἰδὲ vivere solam: per se 1s
often used by Luer. with this force: we have already had it eight times.
This being a cardinal point in Epicurus’ philosophy, the absolute dis-
tinctness of the atoms and void which alternate in everything in being,
he puts the statement of this doctrine in a variety of shapes. The
necessary result is the absolute hardness and impenetrability of his first-
beginnings; and it is the absence of this perfect fulness and solidity
in the elements of rival philosophers that he again and again most
strongly inveighs against. 507—509 quacumque, ea: Livy xxiv 2 10
quacum@ue, ea; and qua, ea again and again. 508 tenet se = locum
tenet, and tenet neut.: in Livy intra Appeninwm, loco, finibus, castris,
muris, moenibus se tenere and the like are very common. 511 genites
tm rebus, to express more distinctly what ἐγ vebus alone expresses.

515 solidwm in its technical sense of perfect impenetrability: see ἢ. to
1018 magnum, and iv 63 tenuis, velinquas: this verb in the sense of
conceding occurs not unfrequently in Lucr. as soon after, 658 and 743:
tor the infin. see n. to 111 40. 517 as tnane is so oft. a subst. in Luer.,
surely in. rer. for ‘the void of things in being’ is not harsher than 363
natura mnanis (gen.) and 365 plus esse...enanis. 520 vocaret: with
the old writers voco, vocwus, vocatio ete. were the common, if not the
only forms in use for vaco, ete.: Fleckeisen, Bergk, Buecheler Khen.
mus. ἢ. f. xu p. 583, Mommsen corp. inser, Lat. 1 p. 71, Ritschl have

74 BOOK I NOTES II

sufficiently shewn this; the Ambrosian in Plaut. trin. 11 has retained
vocivas, Ter. heaut. 90 the Bembine vocivom; the new corp. inser. four
times has vocatio, never vacatio; and an inscription of the age of Augustus
vocuam: the a does not appear in inscriptions before the age of Domitian:
Manil. 113 Hoc sub pace vacat (Gembl. vocat other mss, which means the
same) tantum: Jacob quite mistakes the meaning. 621 and 526 corp.
certa: certus in Lucr. Cicero and the best writers sometimes approaches
in meaning to qguidam, and our and the French certain; or rather to certus
quidam: corp. certa here=precisely 675 certissuma corpora quaedam :
comp. also 812 alimur nos Certis ab rebus, certis aliae atque aliae res;
and v1 783 Arboribus οογ 8. 523 the omne or omne quod est consists
of spatiwm or omne quod est spatium and corpora in its widest sense, as
shewn at length later in this book: see n. to 958: Wak. and others by
placing the comma after spatiwm utterly pervert the argument. 525
naviter is found in Cicero, Terence, Horace: Lucr. has also duriter, twice
largiter, often wniter and longiter: adverbs in -eter are very common in
the older writers. omne or omne quod est is nomin. to extat. 529
so 11 539 penitus penetrari; and vi 698. retext: 50 243 contextum for
their structure: one cannot tell whether reteai is gov. of posswnt or
queunt: Lachmann’s punctuation assumes the latter. 530 temptata
labare: 537 temptata labascit ; 11 967 dolore Temptart; v 345 cum res
tantis morbis tantisque periclis Temptarentur: teniptare is a proper term
for being assailed by disease. 531 supra paulo: he must refer to 485
foll., though it seems merely a part of the present argument. 532
conlidi.. frangi=dissolvi extrinsecus icta: findr sec.=penetrata retexi:
534 535 are exs. of 530. 533 nec findi wn bina secando, the expres-
sion which comes nearest to the technical Greek name ἀτομα or ἄτομοι, a
literal rendering of which Lucr. with poetical tact always avoids. 534
manabile, a word formed by him to express what 494 he called penetrale:
manare is a favourite word of his in similar senses. 536 Lucr. always
Says quo magis or quanto magis or, as once νἱ 460, guam quoque magis,
—tam magis: never quam m., tam in. 943 supra: 149 foll. 546
supremo tempore recurs 111 579. 547 reparandis: this verb is often
used by him in this poetical sense, to produce anew; as 550. With the
above section may well be compared the words of Epicurus himself 1. 1.
4] ταῦτα δ᾽ ἐστὶν ἄτομα καὶ ἀμετάβλητα, εἴπερ μὴ μέλλει πάντα εἰς TO μὴ ὃν
φθαρήσεσθαι, ἀλλ᾽ ἰσχύοντα ὑπομένειν ἐν ταῖς διαλύσεσι τῶν συγκρίσεων,
πλήρη τὴν φύσιν ὄντα καὶ οὐκ ἔχοντα ὅπη ἢ ὅπως διαλυθήσεται: Plut. de
plac. phil. 1 ὅ p. 877 D gives a good definition of the atoms: Newton
too would seem to have had Lucr. in mind when near the end of his
optics, ed. Horsley 1v 260, he wrote ‘it seems probable to me that God
in the beginning formed matter in solid massy hard impenetrable move-
able particles, of such sizes and figures and with such other properties
and in such proportion to space, as most conduced to the end for which

BOOK I NOTES IT 76

he formed them; and that these primitive particles being solids are
incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded of them, even
so very hard as never to wear or break to pieces’. Farther on he speaks
of ‘particles of matter of several sizes and figures and several proportions
to space, and perhaps of different densities and forces’, His particles
agree in every point with those of Lucr. except in the concluding words.
It appears from a most interesting discussion in Edleston’s correspon-
dence of Newton and Cotes p. 75 foll. that Cotes objected to one of the
corollaries of his principia, unless he altered the last clause just quoted
from his optics. Upon which Newton thanks him for explaining his
objection and adds a fourth corollary, St omnes omnium corporum parti-
culae solidae sint erusdem densitatis neque absque poris rarefiert possint,
vacuum datur, thus coming to a complete agreement with Lucr.
551—576: if these first bodies did not set a limit to the division of
things, nothing could come into being; for as things are destroyed more
quickly than theyare renewed, infinite time to come could not restore what
infinite time past had gone on breaking up: again with solid first bodies
the existence of soft things can be explained by help of void: with soft
first bodies the existence of hard things cannot be understood. 559
redacta used absolutely without zz or ad or some other prepos. is very
rare: comp. Ter. heaut. 945 etus animum...retundam, redigam, ut quo
se vertat nesciat; but both in Lucr. and Terence eo seems to be under-
stood out of the clause with wt: wsque eo, ut; as in Virg. ecl. 1x 2 vive
pervenimus, advena nostri...ut possessor agell: Diceret ; though Virgil’s
expression is shewn to be proverbial from Petron. sat. 77 sates vivus
pervenero: comp. too Caes. bell. Gall. 11 27 5 quae facilia ex difficillimis
animi magnitudo redegerat ; 1v 3 4 inulto humiliores infirmioresque rede-
gerunt. 554 a cer. tem.: 767 Alternis gugnuntur...tempore αὖ omne ;
Livy xxiv 46 4 imber ab nocte media coortus ; Ov. ex Ponto 1 3 79 quo
sit primum nobis a tempore cultus ; Hor. sat.16 94 A certis annis aevum
remeare peractum : comp. too expressions met with in Caesar again and
again, such as positis castris a milibus passuum xv: ab seems to mean
‘within a time’ or ‘distance’, ‘beginning from’, and to resemble the usage
illustrated at v1 968 ab ignz. 559 perv. ad auet.: comp. τι 1121 Hie
natura surs refrenat virrbus auctun and v 846. perv. ad or in ‘to
arrive at’: so Cicero pervadere in Ltuliam, iv awres and the like; but
pervadere animos ‘to pervade the minds’; and so Varro de ling. Lat. v1
14, cited by Lach., quotes Accius Pervade polum cet. and explains quare
quod est ‘pervade polum’ valet vade per polum. 957 foll.: comp. the
passage quoted from Newton in the next section. 997 the constr. is
nowise clear: the simplest course seems to be to suppose the clause a
double one, quod longa diet aetas, [hoc est] infinita aetas ant. temp.: comp.
233 Infinita aetas consumpse anteacta diesque; from which Faber con-
jectures here longa dies et : comp. too Enn. ann. 401 longingwa dies quod

76 BOOK I NOTES II

fecerit aetas. [558 Inf. aet. temp.: Prop. 14 7 formosi temporis aetas. |
559 Qwod: for position in sentence see ἢ. to v1 789. 560 velicuo:
this word, spelt sometimes reliquus, is always 4 syll. in Lucr. and the
older writers, who refused to unite the last two syll.: the first is only
lengthened by metrical necessity, as it is short in metres which admit
that quantity, and was never lengthened after it became a trisyll.
Many, Virgil Horace οἷο, avoid the word: see Lach. p. 305: if Manil.
π 734 be not admitted, Persius Silius Statius Juvenal first used it as a
trisyll.: comp. Υ 679 Conrsequé, the principle of which is the same.

564 comp. v 847 Nec potuere cupitum aetatis tangere florem. 566 cum
constant: yet 11 469 Sctlicet esse globosa tamen, cum squalida constent ;
which is the ordinary usage. [See Luebbert, ind. nach caus. u. adv.
guom p. 112 foll.; Autenrieth, guom p. 309 foll. ; and Ussing to Amph.
746.] Lamb. an excellent judge says ‘ne quis semidoctus putet repo-
nendum cum constent; illo enim modo potius loquebantur antiqui’: the
potius perhaps goes too far: yet Lucr. can use the indic. when, as here,
you can translate ‘when or while at the same time’: comp. 11 690 Cum
tamen...necesse est; and v1 130, which is essentially similar, and note
there: comp. too 1 29 Cum tamen...curant; 899 quae cum ita sunt
tamen ut; 111 363 praesertim cum...neguimus; 411 Cum cohabere nequit;
vi 140 cum tamen alta Arbusta...haurit, where Lamb. again remarks
‘cum iunxit cum indicativo, quod ΔΙ. Tullio et bonis scriptoribus
usitatuim est, tametsi secus existunet vulgus’: the tamen would seem to
nxike a difference, [expressing as it does the concession usually expressed
by the subjunctive and so keeping the indicative. | possit reddi=possit
ratio reddi; answering precisely to 572 Non poterit ratio reddv: comp.
11179 and v 197 aliisque ex rebus reddere multis with 111 258 quo pacto
...vigeant rationem reddere and tv 572 rationem reddere possis...quo pacto:
ur 354 adferet=rationem adferet: see Cicero quoted there. For the
involved constr. comp. n. to 111 843. 571 silices denote the hard blocks
of voleanic basalt with which the Romans paved their streets and roads:
γι 683 of Aetna stheum suffulta cavernis: with Livy and others sélice
sternere was the technical term for this paving. 572 funditus...funda-
menti, like pemtus penetrari, apparet aperte and the hike. In illustra-
tion of 565—576 hear what Newton says in his optics p. 251 ‘all bodies
seem to be composed of hard particles: for otherwise fluids would not
congeal...Even the rays of light seem to be hard bodies...and therefore
hardness may be reckoned the property of all uncompounded matter...
Now if compound bodies are so very hard as we find some of them to
be, and yet are very porous and consist of parts which are only laid
together, the simple particles which are void of pores and were never
yet divided must be much harder. For such hard particles being heaped
together can scarce touch one another in more than a few points, and
therefore must be separable by much less force than is requisite to

BOOK I NOTES I by

break a solid particle whose parts touch in all the space between them
without any pores or interstices to weaken their cohesion’.

077—598 : again we do see things in being: they must have had
first-beginnings: could then these first-beginnings, if soft, have withstood
the blows of infinite time? the persistency too of specific marks in
living creatures seems to prove an unchangeable matter at bottom.

578 quaeque sup. cor. rebus =superare cuique rei sua corpora : comp. 599
extremum quodque cucumen, and n. to τι 371. 079 superare = super-
esse, as 672 and 790 repeated 11 751; in each case in the infin.: lexicons
shew that the word has this sense in the best authors: [see Mayor to
Juv. xu 68.] 580 clweant again = sint. 582 Discrepat...potuisse :
I know no other instance of this constr.: but, as it has the meaning,
perhaps it takes the constr. of non convenit: comp. too Iv 1088 fiert..
repugnat, and ἢ. to Iv 766. 586 foed. nat. a favourite expression : so
π 254 fat foedera ; also foedere alone: so in Virgil foedera and foedere :
and Manil. 11 301 340 359 379. 587 sancitwm an almost unexampled
form; the instances quoted from Cicero are changed to sanctus in the
latest editions : in Pison. 90 Halm reads sancitum, though the mss. have
all sanctum: he refers to Diomedes p. 368 (370 Keil); but he only cites
our passage, and from Cassius Severus lege sancitum est. 088 guin
constant: in ed. 1 I followed Lach. who says ‘scribendum est constent.
nam Lucretius gun cum indicativo non lungit, nisi ut eam coniunc-
tionem quae est etiam adiciat, aut certe id pronomen quod prope idem
significat, id est zpse. hoc semel usus est in hbro 11799 Lumine quin ipso
mutatur’. But when the cases where quin is followed by etiam, or
where it introduces a dependent relative clause, as guid dubitas quin
and the like, are deducted, the remaining instances in Lucr. are too few
I think to let us infer that he would not here use the indic. which is
more emphatic and in accordance with the usage of the best writers,
Plautus for instance and Livy so far as my observation goes. The
passages of Lucr. which can well be brought into comparison are these,
1 1080, repeated 11 237, Quiz...pergat, and νι 321 Quan...veniat, in all
of which the preceding infinitive clause seems to make the subj. necessary ;
and 11 1079 Quen...siet where the preceding Hue accedit ut makes it
uncertain whether guin sitet is in apposition with or dependent upon
quae gignatur cet.: vi 32] indeed Quin...veniat both the above reasons
can apply. quan constant therefore is in apposition with Mee comamu-
tatur, quin being properly the interrogative quin 1.6. gui ne; used so
much by all writers with the 2nd pers. sing. and Ist pers. plur. gaiz is?
quin wus? and the like. Plautus has scores of examples like these,
trin. 932 Lubet audire nist molestunst.—Quin discupio dicere ; curc. 251
Palinure, quid stas? quin depromuntur mihi, Quae opus sunt. Precisely
similar to our passage are these, epidicus 11 3 1 Mudlwm est opinor ego
agrum in agro Attico Aeque feracem:...quin...Decutio argenti tantum

78 BOOK I NOTES Il

quantum mihi lubet; Men. 687 Neque edepol te defrudandi causa posco :
quin tibi Dico uxorem rescivisse ; mercator 215 non visus est [suspicari| :
Quin quicque, ut dicebam, mihi credebat ; Catull. 61 101 Non tuus...ver
...4 tuis teneris volet Secubare papillis,...quin...Inplicabitur un tuum
Complecnm ; [Cic. epist. 11 6 2 quin..te antea..decessurum fuisse ;
vill 2 1 (Caelius) quin ego. . obstupui et mahi visus sum captus esse; ad
Q. fr.1 3.10 quin illud maereo.| Of many instances in Livy take 1
29 8 nec sistt posse.. quin.. accendi magis discordiam quam sedart ; 1X
1619 nemo unus erat vir, quo magis innixa res Homana staret: quin
eum parem destinat cet.; 25 2 nec Capua ipsa crimine caruit; quin
Romam quoque..ventum est; xxii 41 4 Hannibal id damnum haud
aegerrime pati: quin potius credere; xxv 36 14 luctus ex morte eorum
non Romae maior quam per totam Hispaniam fuit: quin apud cives
partem doloris...publica trahebat clades ; xxx1 31 9 neque infitias tmus...
quin contra hoc et vos et omnes gentes scire volumus ; Xxxv 26 10 nihil ea
ves animum...imminuit: quin contra...afirmabat. I have noted four
instances in the speeches of Sallust’s Historiae. [So perhaps Plaut.
Amph. 629 [ta dis est placitum, voluptatem ut maeror comes consequatur,
Quin incommodi plus malique ilico adsit, boni si obtigit quid. | 589
variae, a favourite epithet of volucves, meaning the different species:
comp. v 825 volucres variantibu’ formis: so variae pecudes, gentes,
arbores, varit sonitus, colores, odores, mundi, conexus, varia tempora, ete.
593 revicta= simply victa: v 409 revictae = perhaps vicissim viectae.

594 foll. repeated from 75 foll. Hear again what Newton ]. 1. p. 260
says to illustrate this and the preceding section 557—564, ‘while the
particles continue entire, they may compose bodies of one and the same
nature and texture in all ages; but should they wear away or break in
pieces, the nature of things depending on them would be changed.
Water and earth composed of old worn particles and fragments of
particles would not be of the same nature and texture now with water
and earth composed of entire particles in the beginning. And therefore
that nature may be lasting, the changes of corporeal things are to be
placed only in the various separations and new associations and motions
of these permanent particles, compound bodies being apt to break not
in the midst of solid particles, but where those particles are laid together
and only touch in a few points’.

599—634: these first-beginnings have parts, but their parts are so
small as not to admit of existence separate from the atom: the atom
therefore has not been formed from a union of these parts, but they have
existed in it unchangeably from eternity: such parts then are but one
more proof that the first-beginnings are of everlasting singleness : again
without such ultimate least things, the smallest and largest thing will
alike consist of infinite parts, and thus will be equal: again if nature
went in division beyond the atom, such least things as these parts of the

BOOK I NOTES II 79

atom could not have the qualities which birth-giving matter must have,
weight, motion, power of striking and clashing and combining.—A
passage necessarily obscure, because dealing with one of those questions
which utterly elude the grasp of human reason. Epicurus building up
his dogmatic system and hating all scepticism on first principles, deter-
mined that his atoms should have size shape weight, in his own words
μέγεθος σχῆμα βάρος, and therefore extension. But if extension, then
parts; and how can that which has parts be indivisible? This is the
question which Lucr. here answers. That the atoms of Epicurus though
extremely small were finite and had parts, abundant proof was given in
Camb. journal of phil. 1 p. 28 foll. and 252 foll. Comp. Epicurus quoted
a page after this and Stob. 60]. 110 14 εἴρηται δὲ ἄτομος, οὐχ ὅτι ἐστὶν
ἐλαχίστη ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι οὐ δύναται τμηθῆναι, ἀπαθὴς οὖσα καὶ ἀμέτοχος κενοῦ:
Simplic. to Arist. phys. p. 216 a, a few lines from end, though he varies
in his testimony about Democritus, says of Epicurus ἀμερῆ μὲν οὐχ
ἡγεῖται, ἄτομα δὲ αὐτὰ διὰ τὴν ἀπάθειαν εἶναί φησι: see the journal
1. 1. for proof that Democritus and Leucippus held the same doctrine
which they probably derived from the pythagoreans. Doubtless the
epicureans long waged bitter war with the peripatetics who held the
infinite divisibility of things: see Alex. Aphrod. to Arist. met. p. 745 4
Bon. πολλὰς yap εὐθύνας δέδωκεν ἡ τὰ ἄτομα μεγέθη εἰσάγουσα δόξα, an
imitation of the περὶ ψυχῆς 14: one of the commonest terms with Epic.
for his atoms is ὄγκοι or bulks. Luer. therefore seeks to maintain at the
same time that cardinal point in the epicurean physics that atoms are
impenetrable and indestructible, and yet possessed of weight shape and
extension, and to shew how particles thus endowed are incapable of
further division: atoms have parts, but these parts are minima, the
ἐλάχιστα Of Epicurus, not able to exist alone, abiding therefore in the
atom from all eternity in unchangeable juxta-position.

599 eats. quodque cac.: see notes 1 for the probable nature of the
hiatus: the expression resembles therefore 578 quaeque...corpora rebus ;
see note there: so that the extr. quodque cacumen here exactly equals
the extremum cuiusque cacumen of 749, with which we have compared it
in the next page. 600 Corporis etc. is of course the atom : corpora
or corpora prima we have already found to be among his commonest
terms for his atoms: 483 Corpora sunt porro partim primordia rerum ;
and so Stobaeus |. 1. and Plut. de plac. phil. 1 3 p. 877 D say that
Epicurus defined tas ἀρχὰς τῶν ὄντων σώματα λόγῳ θεωρητά κ.οτιλ.:
corpus is thus used in the sing. in 606 natwram corporis, and 11 484
cutusvis in brevitate Corporis, and 490 toteus corporis etus: though our
present passage has been grievously misunderstood, the words added
would seem to preclude any doubt, as well as the tenour of the whole
passage: alius qu. n. 6. 8. lum nequeunt he says; and so 11 312 Omnis
enum longe nostris ab sensibus infra Primorum natura iacet ; quapropter

SO BOOK I NOTES II

ubi ipsa Cernere iam nequeas: the 2am implying that when you arrive
at the atom, it is already far below the ken of sense. Lucr. never tells
us what he conceived the magnitude of his atoms to be, and probably he
never tried to represent it to his own mind: perhaps, if he had known
them, he would have accepted the calculations of an eminent living
authority upon molecular physics, who decides that if a drop of water
were magnified to the size of our globe, the molecules composing it would
be magnified to sizes varying from the size of shot to the size of billiard-
balls. With this passage must be compared 749 foll. where he is blaming
those who refuse to admit a limit to the division of things, Cum videamus
id extremum cuiusque cacumen Esse quod ad sensus nostros minimum
esse videtur, Conicere ut possis ex hoc, quae cernere non quis EHxtremum
quod habent minimum consistere in illis: and with both passages Epi-
curus’ own words in Diog. Laert. x 58 τὸ τ᾽ ἐλάχιστον τὸ ἐν αἰσθήσει δεῖ
κατανοεῖν OTL οὔτε τοιοῦτόν ἐστιν οἷον TO Tas μεταβάσεις ἔχον OUTE πάν-
τως ἀνόμοιον, ἀλλ᾽ ἔχον μέν τινα κοινότητα τῶν μεταβάντων διάληψιν δὲ
μερῶν οὐκ ἔχον...ταὐύτῃ τῇ ἀναλογίᾳ νομιστέον καὶ τὸ ἐν τῇ ἀτόμῳ ἐλά-
χιστον κεχρῆσθαι. μικρότητι γὰρ ἐκεῖνο δῆλον ὡς διαφέρει τοῦ κατὰ τὴν
αἴσθησιν θεωρουμένου, ἀναλογίᾳ δὲ τῇ αὐτῇ κέχρηται: ἐπείπερ καὶ ὅτι
μέγεθος ἔχει ἡ ἄτομος κατὰ τὴν ἐνταῦθα ἀναλογίαν κατηγορήσαμεν, μικρόν
τι μόνον, μακρὸν ἐκβάλλοντες. Epicurus and Lucr. are each comparing
the ἐλάχιστον or minimum of an atom with the ἐλάχιστον or nuinimum
in a visible thing. What is the cacumen of Lucr. in 599 and 749?
Epicurus wrote περὶ τῆς ἐν τῇ ἀτόμῳ γωνίας, where he doubtless treated
of the present question: if then a visible thing has an angular form, the
τὸ ἐν αἰσθήσει ἐλάχιστον or cacumen seems to be the apex of the angle,
which before it vanishes, appears to sense to be without parts and the
least conceivable, and not to belong to what is on one side more than to
what is on its other side: if again the form be spherical, the cacwmen
would seem to be the outermost surface edge at any point, and so with
other shapes. The same analogy Epicurus and Lucr. hold to exist in the
extremely small, but yet extended atom: there seemed to them no reason
why a cacumen or minima pars should part off to one side more than
the other, and therefore it would remain in the atom in eternal equi-
poise. Epicurus in his intricate prose might have dwelt on this more
fully than Lucr. could do in his verse: the poet therefore seems tacitly to
assume it and to pass in medias res; and he was right in so doing. In
the visible thing however the cacumen seems to be a mininuem, in the
atom it 7s a minimum, so small that nothing can be smaller and exist.
From 11 483 foll. it would appear that three of these minimae partes
or cacumina were the fewest that could exist in an atom. 60] zd, the
cacumen of course: it has no parts, but is itself one of the parts of
the atom, having no conceivable existence apart from the atom, 602
moma: in Lue. this word, when it has a physical meaning, appears

9

BOOK I NOTES II SI

always to be, like Epicurus’ ἐλάχιστον, a technical term for the smallest
thing that can exist, or the smallest effect that can be produced; and in
this sense occurs ten or eleven times in the poem: so Cic. de fin. 1 20 ne
wllud quidem physici credere aliquid esse minimum, and v 78 ea nos mala

dicimus, sed extgua et paene minima. 604 alterius, of the atom.
apsum is emphatic, ‘in its very essence’, 605 ex ordine, having each
so existed without possible shifting of position. 608 unde seenis to

have in 60 1.6. vm corpore, in the atom, for its antecedent: [Hirt. Ὁ. Gall.
vil 14 5 acvemque eo loco constiturt unde tormento missa tela in hostium
cuneos conict possent; 35 1 unde (=ut inde) paulatim frumentum in
oppidum subportarent. | 609 Srnt wgetur: parts of this sort are only

a further proof that the atom is single and impenetrable. 611 not
like aes, formed from a union of such parts, but of everlasting single-
ness, because its parts cannot exist out of the atom. 612 Sed

magis=potius: so 481, 11 97, 428, 814, 869, 1086, 111 819, 982, v 1203.
613 cam, as 601: when you get to the atom, division stops: see n. to
11426. In illustration of the above argument of Lucr. I cannot refrain
from quoting out of many the following sentences of Henry More: im-
mortality of the soul, preface 3 ‘I have taken the boldness to assert
that matter consists of parts indiscerpible, understanding by indiscerpi-
ble parts particles that have indeed real extension, but so little that
they cannot have less and be anything at all, and therefore cannot be
actually divided:...the parts that constitute an indiscerpible particle are
real, but divisible only intellectually, it being of the very essence of
whatever is, to have parts or extension in some measure or other; for
to take away all extension is to reduce a thing only to a mathematical
point, which is nothing else but pure negation or nonentity’, Ibid.165
‘it is plain that one and the same thing, though intellectually divisible,
may yet be really indiscerpible. And indeed it is not only possible, but
it seems necessary that this should be true’.

615 and 621 parvisstma used apparently, because minimum is wanted
to denote an absolute least thing; the word recurs 111 199 and is quoted
by Nonius from Varro: with this and what follows comp. Epicurus
himself in Diog. Laert. x 43 οὐδὲ γάρ, φησὶν ἐνδοτέρω, εἰς ἄπειρον ἡ τομὴ
τυγχάνει, ἐπειδὴ ai ποιότητες μεταβάλλονται, εἰ μὴ μέλλει τις καὶ τοῖς μεγέ-
θεσιν ἁπλῶς εἰς ἄπειρον αὐτὰς ἐκβάλλειν. 617 pars=dimidia pars,
understood from the context: Livy xxx1 26 2 dimidia parte militum...
dimissa, cum parte ipse..consedit,..6 diviso deinde exercitu rex cum
parte,...cum parte; xxv 19 3 pars dimidia cives, pars socit; vu 4 4
cur non alter ab Latinis consul datur? ubi pars virium, ibi et tmperti
pars esto; [VI 27 6 quae indicatura sit demersam partem ᾧ parte civitatis:
see also n. to 11 200; Caes. Ὁ. Gall. vir 32 5 fore uti pars cum parte
cwwelatis confligat. | 618 praefiniet: prae seems to express the getting
before and so stopping: comp. p7aecludo and the like. 619 rerun sum-

et 11. 6

$2. BOOK I NOTES II

mam is almost a play on words: it means the universe of things, and at
the same time the largest thing conceivable in opposition to manimam.
escit is quoted by Gellius xx 1 25, nec escit for non erit and escunt by
Cicero, from the x11 tables: Enn, ann. 486 and Accius 266 have super-
escit; Paulus Festi p. 188 obescet. [ For esctt see Wordsworth’s Fragments
and Specimens p. 511.] 620 Nel ογὶέ ut dist. =nil distabit: comp.
πι 715 haut erit ut possint: so non est wt possis, est ut possit, est quoque
te possit, est ut perciprat, est ut videatur; non erat ut flert posset; V 715°
Est etiam quare possit: fit ut, fit ute are still more common: he ventures
to say vi 727 fit uti fiat and 729 fit wti fant. 622 each will alike
have infinite parts, and by the old paralogism would be equal, because
all infinites are equal: precisely thus the Indian atomist Kanadi
declared there would be no difference in size between a mustard
seed and a mountain, a gnat and an elephant, each alike containing
an infinity of particles: see Daubeny’s atomic theory p. 8: Henry
More too 1]. 1. argues ‘thus a grain of mustard seed would be as well
infinitely extended as the whole matter of the universe, and a thousandth
part of that grain as well as the grain itself’. Zeno the Eleatic by
like reasoning concluded that, if things were ‘many’, they would
be at once small and great; so small as to be without magnitude, so
large as to be infinite in magnitude. Bentley in his Boyle lectures
brandishes this weapon in the faces of the epicureans as Lucr. does
against the peripatetics. Newton in his 2nd letter to him admirably
refutes the fallacy, giving at the same time its clearest exposition. As
we shall again encounter this fallacy in Lucr. I will cite a few lines: ‘I
conceive the parallogism lies in the position that all infinites are equal.
The generality of mankind consider infinites no other ways then indetfi-
nitely; and in this sense they say all infinites are equal; though they
would speak more truly if they should say they are neither equal nor
unequal, nor have any certain difference or proportion one to another.
In this sense therefore no conclusion can be drawn from them about the
equality proportions or differences of things, and they that attempt to do
it usually fall into parallogisms. So when men argue against the infinite
clivisibility of magnitude by saying that if an inch may be divided into
an infinite number of parts, the sum of those parts will be an inch ; and
if a foot may be divided into an infinite number of parts, the sum of
those parts must be a foot ; and therefore since all infinites are equal,
those summs must be equal, that is an inch equal to a foot ; the falsness
of the conclusion shews an error in the premisses; and the error lies in
the position that all infinites are equal’. 623 Quod quoniam: see ἢ.
to 82 quod contra. 625 ea, the muwmae partes. vam, as 601 and
613: when you are come to them. 626 quae, the same minima.
627 Illa quoque, those atoms too, of which the minima are parts. esse
... futendum: on the omission of est comp. ἢ. to 111. 628 if nature

BOOK I NOTES II 83

had gone in division beyond the atom, even to these absolutely least
parts of the atom. 631 part. aucta=625 praedita part.: so πὶ 626
Quingue...sensibus auctam; Catullus 64 165 quae nullis sensibus auctae;
v 723 quaecumque est ignibus aucta. 632 habere belongs of course to
possunt, as well as debet; so that it is perhaps best taken as another
instance of that involved structure which 1 have illustrated at πὶ 843:
non possunt ea habere quae d.g.m.: comp. 648 649. ea quae, all which
properties the atoms have: they possess size shape weight, which enable
them, as we shall see, to move, to clash, and join together; none of which
functions those minimae partes destitute of all qualities, if existing alone
could perform. 633 conexus, conecto, conixus, conivere, conubium in
our mss. and all good mss. are always spelt with one 2: there is no
authority whatever for nn. 628—634 what Lucr. felt and meant to
express in these vss. might be illustrated by these words of Prof. Max-
well in his Theory of heat p. 285: ‘we do not assert that there is an
absolute limit to the divisibility of matter: what we assert is that after
we have divided a body into a certain finite number of constituent parts
called molecules, then any further division of these molecules will deprive
them of the properties which give rise to the phenomena observed in the
substance’.

635—644: to maintain therefore with Heraclitus and his followers
that fire is the element of all things is absurd.—Lwucr. having now estab-
lished his two great principles of an unchangeable matter and a void,
before he proceeds at 921 to explain by them the nature of things, first
in order to make their truth still more manifest, examines the elements
of Heraclitus Empedocles Anaxagoras and other philosophers and shews
their utter insufficiency. The foundation therefore being worthless, the
superstructure must fall to pieces: Principiis tamen in rerum fecere
ruinas et graviter magni magno cecicere ibi casu. Of all these men he
speaks with admiration or tolerance, except Heraclitus whom he assails
with a certain passion and violence. Now that the star of the old
Ephesian seems again in the ascendant, such an attack will not meet
with much sympathy; the motive however is plain enough: in him he
is combating the stoics, the bitter enemies of Epicurus, Heraclitus stand-
ing in the same relation to them that Democritus stands to Epicurus.
This will appear from the fact that it is only from 690 to 704 that he
addresses himself to Heraclitus; from 645 to 689 it is always ‘they’:
factant, cernunt, amittunt etc.; and by such indefinite plurals he else-
where denotes the stoics: see n. to 465. Indeed 643 644 seem to shew,
as we might expect, that he was not insensible to that style and those
sayings which sound so grandly even now in the few fragments that have
survived. One in the position of Lucr. could only see and criticise a
rival philosopher from his own point of view: even Aristotle is taxed
with thus dealing with Heraclitus. The πῦρ ἀείζωον φρόνιμον, the πάντα

0----

Lo

34 BOOK I NOTES II

οἰακίζων κεραυνός, the ignis sincerus et sine ullius materiae permixtione,
ut putat Heraclitus, would seem to Lucr. a mere outrage on nature and
reason ; and therefore he will have the herachitean and stoical fire to be
his own fire. The epicurean in Cic, de nat. 111 35 speaks to the stoic
Balbus in the same sense: omnia vestrt, Balbe, solent ad igneam vim
referre, Heraclitum, ut opinor, sequentes, quem ipsum non onnes interpre-
tantur wno modo; qui quoniam quid diceret intellegi noluit, omittamus:
vos autem ita dicitis, omnem vim esse rgnem cet. 635 Quapropter has
clear reference to what just precedes: simple fire as an element cannot
have the properties which birth-giving matter must have, conexus ponde-
ra ete.: this word alone would refute the monstrous corruptions, nz and
multis, which Lamb. and all subsequent editors introduce in 628 and 631.
638 dua has the double meaning of leader in war, and chief of a sect:
Hor. epist. 1 1 13 quo me duce, quo lare tuter; Quintil., inst. v 13 59
inter duos diversarum sectarum velut duces non mediocri contentione
quaesitun. 639 Clarus: a play on its double meaning, as 475 Clara
accendisset. Clarus ob obscuram: see p. 15; and comp. Lucan. 1 186
imago Clara per obscuram...noctem : for constr. comp. Hor. epist. 11 2 32
Clarus ob id factum; Mela 11 26 οὗ multa memorabilis est; Tac. ann, 111
75 ob id fama celebratior. ὁ σκοτεινός appears first in the de mundo 5
p. 396 b 20 attached to his name: Cic. de fin. 1 15 Heraclitus cogno-
mento qui σκοτεινός perhibetur, quia de natura nimis obscure memoravit ;
Sen. epist. 12 7 Heraclitus cui cognomen fectt orationss obscuritas: how
much the term was in vogue might appear from Livy xxi 39 ὃ Legate
ad Hannibalem missi, Heraclitus cui Scottno cognomen erat: which
must have been given in jest. [See Schuster in Acta soc. phil. Lips. 11
p. 355 B; and Tertull. de anima 2 (vol. τι p. 560 Oehler) Heracltus
alle tenebrosus: a more literal translation than obscurus. If the ‘de
mundo’ was later than Hannibal’s time, then the allusion in Livy
would be the oldest reference to the epithet. | 639 inanis, i.e.
Graios. 640 Quamde: Festus 5. v. quotes this passage and two
from Ennius: ann. 29 and 139. 641 stolidi: 1068 Sed vanus stolidis:
in both cases with reference to the maintainers of stoical doctrines: he
retorts upon them their own term of reproach. adm. am.: Hor.
epist. 11 2 58 mirantur amantque. 642 Inv. ver.: Ter. heaut. 372
has inversa verba, where the meaning is as uncertain as here: Quintil.
inst. vill 6 44 ἀλληγόρια, quam inversionem interpretuntur, aliud verbis
aliud sensu ostendit, etiam interim contrartum; and this sense admirably
suits the extant fragments of Heraclitus. Cic. de orat. 11 261 uses
emmutata oratio with this meaning, wnversio verborum with that of our
irony. The expression might apply too to words in a forced and
unnatural position, and therefore obscure. 644 fucata sonore seems
a very bold metaphor, worthy of Heraclitus.

645—689: how could simple fire produce such a variety of things?

BOOK I NOTES II 85

it is of no use to condense or rarefy fire, if it always remains fire : nay
they deny void without which even this condensing and rarefying is im-
possible. But if they say the fire is extinguished in the process, they
make things come from nothing. The truth is there are certain first
bodies which are not like fire or any thing in being, but which produce
fire and all other things alike by their varied shapes motions arrange-
ments collisions. 645 foll. Heracl. frag. 41 Schl. πυρὸς ἀνταμείβεται
πάντα καὶ πῦρ ἁπάντων, ὥσπερ χρυσοῦ χρήματα καὶ χρημάτων ypvoos: and
Themistius ap. Schleierm. p. 95 says in exact conformity with Lucr.
“HpakAeitos TO πῦρ οἴεται μόνον στοιχεῖον Kal ἐκ τούτου γεγονέναι TO πᾶν:
Brandis however Gesch. d. Entwick. d. Gr. Phil. p. 67 says that this
fire or warm cxhalation of Heraclitus is that for which all things are ex-
changed, as wares for gold; but it changes itself as little into the tlrngs,
as gold changes into these wares; and that later interpreters misappre-
hended bim. Grote too, Plato 1 p. 28, says ‘when we put together all
that remains from him, it appears that his main doctrine was not physi-
cal, but metaphysical or ontological: that the want of adequate general
terms induced him to clothe it in a multitude of symbolical illustrations,
among which fire was only one, though the most prominent and most
significant.’ However that be, Lucr. is here speaking of his followers,
espec. the stoics, as remarked above. 648 rarefiert and rarefaucere
always in Lucr. have δ: so vacéfit putréfactus expergéfactus, all more than
once: confervéfacit; patéfecit and patéfiet once, but oftener paté/.; so
caléfecit, cinéfactus ; liquéfit, but liquéfacta: so labéfactat etc. labéfactus,
tepéfactus, timéfactus, conlabéfactus, conlabcfiunt: facit are 15 uncertain:
the e was originally long, the Latins having had a strong tendency to
shorten final syllables. Ovid and Catullus, so far as they use such
words, have much the same varieties of quantity as Lucr.: Ritschl opuse.
11 p. 618—621 argues that Plautus always has ὅ when the prec. syll. is
short, as cdléfacio, 8 when that syll. is long, as putéfactt. 649 super
=insuper; as 111 672 901 v 763 vi 514: this sense is found in Virgil
Aen. 1 29 1171 vi 462, and [ think v 697 Implenturque super puppes,
and in Ovid met.1v 705 x11 206 Annuerat dederatque super, ne. Ussing
is right in making the constr. of this sentence to be ‘si partes ignis ean-
dem naturam, quam totus ignis habet, super haberent’: it is another
instance of that involution of words illustrated at 111 843: but I do not
take super haberent as he does; but simply as=‘etiam haberent’: comp.
758 quid a vero tam distet habebis. 653 variantia found also 111 318
seems to occur only in Lucr. and to be used for varietas for metrical
reasons: thus aegror for aegritudo, maximitas for magnitudo, pestilitas
for pestilentia, dispositura for dispositio, differitas for differentia, refuta-
tus for refutatio, emissus for emissio, commutatus for commutatio, opina-
tus for opinatio, formatura for conformatio, are confined to him, or to
him and his constant imitator Arnobius: saéias for satietas is more gene-

86 BOOK I NOTES II

ral, and impete for impetu; but Lucr. has also empetis and impetibus.
655 I know no other instance of ἐώ quoque used as here for ‘in that way
too’ or perhaps simply ‘again’: grod genus which is common in Lucr.
appears to be not unlike: zd occurs more than once in Plautus and
Terence with the sense of propterea: miles 1158, Amph. 909, eunuch.
1005. faciant ‘assume’: so 11 878 facit esse sur quiddam super and
Iv 825; also 11 485 fac enim, a common use. 658 fugitant with an
inf.: so τν 324 (299) fugttant vitantque tueri, and νι 1239. 659 viaz
belongs to Ardua also. 665 alia: tf they admitted void, they might
account for the condensation and rarefaction of fire. But this course
they preclude themselves from by denying the existence of void. If then
in some other way, which I do not comprehend, they believe fire can be
extinguished, then as fire is their sole element, and as it will thus be
annihilated, things will have to be created out of nothing. potesse 1s
found 11 225 and 1010: he also has potis est, potissit, and pote more than
once: see Lach. to v 880, and Fleckeisen krit. Miscellen p. 44—47, who
restores potisset three times in the orations of Cicero. 666 mutareque:
this annexing que to ὅ, which Virgil and Ovid appear wholly to avoid,
is very common in Lucr. as in the best prose writers. 667 reparcent
=simply parcent, as 593 revicta=victa: Plaut. truc. u 4 25 repercis
saviis=Vicissim parcis. 670 671 are thrice repeated in the poem,
Lucr. intending thereby to lay stress on the doctrine involved: see the
passage from Epicurus cited after 639. 670 quodcumque=si quod or
quoties aliquid: then hoc has reference to the whole of this clause, this
passing out of the fixed limits which held the thing in; it involves there-
fore the same doctrine as 76 so often repeated, jinita potestas denique
cuique Quanam sit ratione atque alte ternunus haerens: things have cer-
tain bounds within which they may range and continue what they are;
when this limit is passed, they die and pass into another condition. The
expression much resembles that of Epicharmus quoted by Diog: Laert.
1 11 ὃ δὲ μεταλλάσσει κατὰ φύσιν κοὐποκ᾽ ἐν ταὐτῷ μένει, ἕτερον εἴη κα
700 ἤδη τοῦ παρεξεστακότος, though the thought is different. 672 ali-
quit, quicquit, aliut are not unfrequently met with in our mss.: in A
oftener than B, once or twice in both: the ¢ has naturally been retained
where no ambiguity is occasioned, such as by at, quot for ad, quod.

675 Nune igitur: see ἢ, to 169. certiss. corp. qu.: see ἢ. to 521.
677 abitu aut aditu: comp. 457 where the contrary 15 asserted of mere
eventa. 680 dec. ab.=abitu of 677; alia adtr.=aditu ; and so 800
demptis paucis=abitu; paucis tributis=aditu. 681 ala is clearly
confirmed by the τινῶν δὲ καὶ προσόδους of Epic. quoted in the next page.
683 omnimodis often used by Lucr. as an adv.=omnibus modis: multimodis
too is used by Terence and him=multis modis: Cic. orator 153 saepe bre-
vitatis causa contrahebant ut ita dicerent multi’ modis, vas’ argenteis cet.;
so that ommnimodis seems formed by Lucr. on a false analogy: Plaut. trin.

BOOK I NOTES II 87

931 nimeum mirimodis mirabilts: there 1s no adj. omnemodus or multimo-
dus, any more than omnigenus; omnigenum in Virgil is for omnegenarum :
Lucr. uses omne genus like id genus, quod genus. 684 quaedam
corp. =certiss. cor. qu. of 675=corpora certa of 521; the atoms of course.
685 comp. 632—634. ordo positura figurae: these words, repeated I1
1021, come from Democritus: see Arist. metaph. vi 2 p. 1042 Ὁ 11]
Δημοκρίτῳ μὲν οὖν τρεῖς διαφορὰς ἔοικεν οἰομένῳ eivar’ TO μὲν yap ὑποκείμε-
νον σῶμα τὴν ὕλην ἕν καὶ ταὐτόν, διαφέρειν δὲ ἢ ῥυσμῷ ὅ ἐστι σχῆμα, ἢ τροπῇ
ὅ ἐστι θέσις, ἢ διαθιγῇ ὅ ἐστι τάξις. 686 mutatoque cet. 1.6. quaeque mut.
ord. cet. see n. to 718. 687 ἐσγιὶ sim.: IV 303 paulum simulata; Fore.
cites Aen. 111 349 and Cic. ad Att. 1x 8 for the same sense. [So nec
mt similat (=similis est) is found in Pompeian inser. ἢ. 1877.] 688
rev gen. and dat. forms in Lucr. either two long syll. or one: ré is
not found: so δὲ; but Ritschl notes that in the 7 places where ez occurs,
it is always the last foot of the verse: also fidéi not fidé. 689 advectu :
Iv 673 naris adiectus odoris Tangat; v 566 wqnes lumina possunt
Adicere: the ad implies the reaching the object aimed at. With the
whole argument of 665—689 should be compared Epicurus himself in
Diog. Laert. x 54, τὰς ἀτόμους νομιστέον μηδεμίαν ποιότητα τῶν φαινομένων
προσφέρεσθαι πλὴν σχήματος καὶ βάρους καὶ μεγέθους καὶ ὅσα ἐξ ἀνάγκης
σχήματι συμφυῆ ἐστί: ποιότης γὰρ πᾶσα μεταβάλλει, αἱ δ᾽ ἄτομοι οὐδὲν
μεταβάλλουσιν, ἐπειδήπερ δεῖ τι ὑπομένειν ἐν ταῖς διαλύσεσι τῶν συγκρί-
σεων στερεὸν καὶ ἀδιάλυτον, ὃ τὰς μεταβολὰς οὐκ εἰς τὸ μὴ ὃν ποιήσεται οὐδ᾽
ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος, ἀλλὰ κατὰ μεταθέσεις μὲν πολλῶν, τινῶν δὲ καὶ προσόδους
καὶ ἀφόδους. ὅθεν ἀναγκαῖον τὰ μὴ μετατιθέμενα ἄφθαρτα εἶναι καὶ τὴν τοῦ
μεταβάλλοντος φύσιν οὐκ ἔχοντα.

690—704: again why do the senses, as Heraclitus says, perceive fire
truly, but nothing else? one might just as well deny the reality of fire
and atlirm that of all other things. 690 ves, rem, rerun: see n. to
813. 692 perdelirum appears to be a ἅπαξ λεγόμ. 693 contra s. ab
s.: comp. auctor ad Heren. τι 9 conmunes loct sunt cum accusatores tum
defensoris ab testibus contra testes, abs quaestionibus contra quaestiones, wb
argumentis contra argumenta, ab rumoribus contra rumores ; Cic. de inv.
14 a mendacio contra verum stare; ad fam. 11 16 2 ad bellum quidem
gua convenit ? praesertim contra eum cur spero me satisfecisse, ab eo cur
tam satisfiert nullo modo potest ; Quintil. inst. vii 2 31 alii a propositione
accusatoris contraque loct oriuntur. [See too Draeger hist synt. vol. 1
p. 579 ὃ 3.] res contra repugnat is found in 111 353: and Cicero has
the same construction. 696 697 that Heraclitus taught that the
senses could not truly discern things, is certain: comp. Arist. metaph. 1
6 at beg. and the authorities quoted by Bernays heraclitea p. 30; and
the hippocratean 7. διαίτης as there emended by him, διὰ τούτων [τῶν
αἰσθήσεων] γνῶσις ἀνθρώποισιν ayvwoin: but in what sense Heraclitus
affirmed the senses could perceive fire truly, is far from clear: one would

88 BOOK I. NOTES II

have thought that the ξυνὸς λόγος alone could discern the πῦρ aeilwor,
and that the material fire was as delusive as other things. Surely
Lucr. cannot simply mean that, as Heraclitus held fire to be the sole
element of things and the only real existence, therefore when sense per-
ceived any other thing, it did not perceive it in its reality: when it
perceived fire, it perceived real existence; without his having any ex-
pression of Heraclitus to warrant such a conclusion. Did Heraclitus
teach that the everliving fire represented motion self-engendered which
in a thousand ways, in the human body and through the whole of nature,
produces heat or fire? comp. with this some theories of the origin of
caloric and the sun’s heat: all things else are phases of motion thwarted
and turned from its natural course; fire alone gives to sense some appre-
hension of this real fire and movement at the bottom of all things.

699 Quo ref.: comp. 424 Haut ert occultis de rebus quo referentes Con-
jirmare animi quicguam ratione queamus ; Hor. od. 111 6 6 Line omne
principium, huc refer exitum: it is a common meaning of the word in

Cicero. 700 gui=quo, and refers of course to guid: on the infalli-
bility of the senses, one of the foundations of Epicurus’ philosophy, see
ιν 478—521. 701—704 it is usual with Lucr. after going through

some important exposition and giving the more general and recondite
reasons, to finish by some short argument appealing simply to the com-
mon sense of men, or to what they see going on before their eyes: see
759—762, 915—920, 984 (998)—9s7 (1001). 703 relinguat: see n.
to 515, and 111 40.

705—733: for these reasons all err alike who affirm that any one of
the four so-called elements, fire air water earth, is the first beginning
of things; or any two of these; or all four, as Empedocles teaches, that
famous poet and philosopher of the famous island of Sicily. 705
Quapropter connects what follows with what just precedes precisely as in
635: the things formed out of such elements as fire air etc. are as much
elements as they are. 707 principium: see notes 1 to 894, 710
rerum naturas=simply ves: see ἢ. to 646. ~—vertier: Lucr. has nearly
forty of these infinitives, many of them more than once; but in every
case the antepenult is long, as is the rule with others who use them, the
exceptions being very rare, as decipier and egredzer in Plautus, acci-
per in Novius. 715 Ev igni, terra, atque anima, et imbri: Lucr. is
very irregular, compared with Cicero, in his use of copulae, mixing éf,
atqwe, ac, gue, in every sort of combination. Often too, as here, contrary
to Cicero’s usage sentences are partly ἀσύνδετα, partly connected by copu-
lae: comp. 11 511, 875, 1063, 1084—5, 1v 124, 229, 516—7, v 47, 1283
—d, 1353, etc.: [so ΔΙ. Marcellus ap. Cic. epist. 1v 11 1 amicorum, pro-
pinquorum ac necessariorum. | anima is used for the element of air
also v 236 Aurarumque leves animae; Enn. Epich. 3 Aqua terra anima
col, and Virg. ecl. v132; Enn. ann. 511 has spiriéus: Lucr. has also v 1230

BOOK I NOTES II 89

ventorum animas, V1 578 and 693 animai turbida vis, a sense not uncom-
mon in the poets: Accius 11 vela ventorum animae immitiere ; Aen. VIII
403 Qaantum ignes animaeque valent; Hor. od. tv 12 2 animae Thraciae;
Aetna 311. embrt for water recurs more than once in Lucr.: 784,
785, νι 149; Enn. ann. 511: Ennius Virgil and Ovid use it for sea-
water: Empedocles too 128, 216, 286 has ὄμβρος for water generally.
Arist. metaph. 13 p. 984 at beg. enumerates several of these philosophers
from Thales downwards ; much longer lists are given by Sextus pyrrh.
hypot. τπ 30 foll.; adv. math. 1x 360 foll. and x 310 foll., this last
passage occurring almost verbatim in the newly discovered work of
Hippol. ref. om. haer. x 6 foll. 716 quorwm appears to be governed
of cum primis, not est: comp. Cic. de orat. 11 224 sapiens homo cum
primis nostrae civitutis. 717 troq. terv. ovis, because it is the shape of
its coasts that renders its lands triangular: Fore. cites Horace Quintilian
Silius for this word applied to Sicily. gesstt = tulit, ‘produced’: so terra
gerit fruges, malos platant and the like: yet the notion may be ‘bore
in its womb’, as σι 790 semina...Quod permiata gerit tellus. 718
Quam, 720 Angustoque...a fin. cius: comp. 11 87 durissima quue
sint...neque quicquam a tergo tbus obstet ; 1v 962 Fé quo...studio...Aut
quibus wm rebus...Atque in ea ratione: this change from the relat. to the
demonstr. pron. is not unusual in Latin, though more common in
Greek ; [it is common in Livy ; see Kuehnast p. 58 59.) So Cic. orator
9 quum intuens in eaque defixws, and Brutus 258 omnes tum fere qui
nec extra urbem hanc vixerant nec eos aliqua barbaria domestica infus-
caverat: in many cases, perhaps in these passages of Cicero, the relat.
could not be repeated: comp. Madv. de fin. 1 42 quod tpsum nullam ad
aliam rem, ad id autem res referuntur omnes: Madvig opuse. 11 p. 177
and Conington to Virg. geor. 11 208 and Aen. vi 101 give other ex-
amples of clauses appended to relative ones in divers ways: comp. 154
Quorum operum...ac fiert cet.; 684 quorwm...686 mutatoque cet.; 848
foll. semilt quae praedita constant Natura...neque ab exitio res ulla refre-
nat; τι 140 a solis quae lumine cernere quimus Nec quibus id faciant
plagis apparet aperte; v 895 Quae neque jlorescunt...neque sunt eadem
wucunda: the simpler cases such as those quoted by Conington 1. l. where
the succeeding clauses are ‘in material, but not in formal connexion’ with
the relative clause, are exceedingly numerous in Lucr.: comp. 21 foll. 58
foll.: as indeed in all writers, the Latin idiom making them not easy to
avoid: [80 auct. bell. Afr. 64 1 quem Caesar ..dimiserat et postea se ad
Pompeium contulerat :| much harsher is Livy x 26 6 sunt, quibus ne haec
quidem certamina exponere satis fuerit, adiecerint cet. Ang. fretw
seems governed by rapidum, the sea is rendered rapid by the narrow-
ness of the channel: Livy xxvi11 30 6 deprensam rapido in freto, of the
straits of Gibraltar. Fretw: Gell. xt 21 15 quotes Cic. Verr. v 169
perangusto fretu divisa of this same strait: Charisius 1, p. 129 7 Iseil,

90 BOOK I NOTES II

quotes from Messalla angustiae fretus, from Cicero a Gaditano fretu,
from Augustus to Antonius /retu cess: Cic. pro Sestio 18 Halm restores
fretu from P1: Luer. vi 364 has fretus nom. 722 vasta Char. is found
in Catullus and Virgil: vusta implies that in which nothing lives. mz-
nantur...se coll.: Plaut. asin. 604 ab hac minatur sese abire; Pseud.
776 Interminatust leno.. Hum cras cruciatu maximo perbitere: [see
Ussing to asin. 439 597 and 604:] this use of the pres. infin. for the fut.
is found after many similar verbs, such as promitto, dico, nego, testor,
decerno, see Wagner Ter. index s. v. Infinitive: cerseo, see Drakenb.
Livy 115 1: spero, etc. as auctor ad Heren. 11 28 sperabat illus morte
se salutem sibt comparare ; Ter. eun. 520 sperat se a me avellere ; Caes.
ap. Cic. ad Att. 1x 13 A, cum in spem venero...aliquid me conficere : the
idiom occurs even in Cicero, as ad Att. 1 1 1 e0 ipso tempore quo tuum

puerum...proficisct Cincius dicebat. 723 foll. observe rersem, iterum,
TUrsum. 724 Faucibus: vi 70] crateres, ut ipst Nominitunt ; nos
quod fauuces perhibemus et ora. eruptos ignes: so V 598 erwmpere

lumen; vi 583 erumpitur ; Cic. Arat. 111 erumpit flatibus ignes; ad
Att. xv1 3.1 ne in me stomachum erumpant ; [(Caes. Ὁ. civ. 11 141 portis
se foras erumpunt: see here Kramer (Hofmann).] So Lucr. 1v 1115 se
erupit: prorumpitur is also found in Lucr. aterum ‘anew’ ‘once
more’, without any reference to the number of previous eruptions.

726 the constr. is quae, magna, videtur multis modis miranda. cum...

tamen videtur: see ἢ. to 566. 727 visenda used in this sense by Cic.
Verr. Iv 132 and 135. 728 Wak. cites Aen. 1 271 Longam multa vv

muniet Albam ; but the sense differs: manita is here metaphorical.

730 carwm means ‘precious’, τίμιον : comp. Livy xxxv 21] 16 omnia quae
hominibus sancta caraque sint ; xxt 60 9 omnibus fere carts redus...citra
Pyrenaeum relictis ; xx11 42 6 omnia cara in promptu relicta ; Sall. Tug.
100 3 perfugae minime cari; Nepos vit 11 6 ut, apud quoscumque esset,
rinceps poneretur habereturque carissimus ; [Caes. b. c. 111 59 3 nt prop-
ter virtutem non solum apud Caesarem in honore erant, sed etiam apud
exercitum cari habebantur; Ὁ. Alex. 60 nobilissimae carissumaeque pos-
sessiones Cordubensium ; Ὁ. Afr. 91 2 quo.. omnem pecuniam carisse-
masque res comportaverat Ὁ. Gall. v 33 6 quae quisque eorum carissima
haberet. | 731 pectoris the seat of the heart and intellect, and there-
fore of poetical genius: seen. to 413. With the rhythm of the v. comp.
Catul. 64 383 Carmina divino cecinerunt pectore Parcae. 732 it is
not easy to say whether vociferantur is neut. as 11 1050 res wpsaque per
se Vociferatur ; or act. as 11 14 ratio tua coepit vociferart Naturan
rerum: both constr. are found in Cicero too. 733 Lucr. may have
been thinking of what Empedocles says of himself 392 ἐγὼ δ᾽ ὕμμιν θεὸς
ἄμβροτος οὐκέτι θνητὸς πωλεῦμαι peta πᾶσι τετιμένος, ὥσπερ ἔοικε. He
no doubt looked upon Empedocles’ poem περὶ φύσεως as In some sense
his poetical model, and therefore thought he owed him a debt of grati-

BOOK I NOTES II ΟἹ

tude. With many differences there were also many points of resew-
blance between their two systems ; this especially that the first-beginnings
of each were imperishable, and that life and death were but the passing
to and fro of elements into things, and things into elements, All this
being considered, we may grant that his lofty panegyric is justified by
the large fragments we possess of Empedocles’ chief poem, nearly 400 out
of 2000 verses: yet the vocirferantns cet. stands in striking contrast to
Aristotle’s ἃ ψελλίζεται λέγων “Epredoxdjs: but that stern judge is refer-
ring to the imperfect utterance of the first philosophy yet in its infancy,
as may be seen a few pages later in the last chap. of metaph. 1; and we
learn from Diog. Laert. vit 57 that Aristotle recognised his poetical
genius, ἐν δὲ τῷ περὶ ποιητῶν φησιν ὅτι Kat Ὁμηρικὸς ὁ ᾿Εμπεδοκλῆς καὶ
δεινὸς περὶ τὴν φράσιν γέγονε, μεταφορικός T ὧν καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις τοῖς περὶ
ποιητικὴν ἐπιτεύγμασι χρώμενος.

734—762: he and the others have given responses truer than those
of Phoebus ; yet all alike have gone to wreck on the first-beginnings of
things; they deny a void in things, yet give them motion and leave
them soft and rare; and they set no limit to the division of things ; if
first-beginnings are soft, they were born and will die; all things there-
fore have come from and will return to nothing : again such elements are
hostile one to the other; and thus, like lightning clouds winds, will be
apt to fly asunder one from the other rather than combine. 784 tamen,
is repeated in 740. supra, 705 foll.: quos dixtmus, Thales Pherecy-
des Anaximenes, Diogenes of Apollonia, Hippasus Xenophanes Oenopi-
des, Hippo of Rhegium, Onomacritus, Idaeus of Himera, Archelaus and
the rest. 735 egregie from its place seems to go with multis: 1v 342
multis partibus hice est Mobilior multisque minutior ; Caes. de bel. civ. 111
84 numero multis partibus esset inferior: mul. part. is used with the same
force by Caesar ibid. 80; Caelius ap. Cic. ad fam. vit 9 3; Cicero him-
self ad fam. 1 2 2, de fin. 111 36; Suet. 1 68: Cicero uses omnibus parti-
bus with much the same force, which egregte muléis has here; see Macv.
de fin. 11 108. 737 adyto cordis of course with reference to the illus-
tration which follows: Ov. met. xv 145 angustae veserabo oracula men-
tis. 738 Lucr. was prob. thinking of Callim. in Del. 94 where Apollo
says Αλλ᾽ ἔμπης ἐρέω τι τορώτερον ἢ απὸ δάφνης. 739 Aristoph. Plut.
39 τί δῆτα Φοῖβος eAakev ἐκ τῶν στεμμάτων, taken with Eur. Or. 321
τρίποδος aro φάτιν, dv ὁ Φοῖβος ἔλακεν éXaxe and Iph. Taur. 951 ᾿Εντεῦθεν
αὐδὴν τρίποδος ἐκ χρυσοῦ λακών, exactly expresses the v. of Lucr. who
translates the oracular ἔλακεν by profatur. ‘tripodas laurosque sequi
Stat. Theb. vir 707; Ammian xxix 1 28 sqq.’ J. E. M. The Pythia,
when seated on the tripod appears to have been surrounded with garlands
of the bay-laurel ; the smell of which was supposed to increase the pro-
phetic afflatus, excited by the cold air which came out of the deep cleft:
they are the στέμματα of Aristophanes, the δάφνη of Callimachus, thre

92 ΒΟΟΚΓΡΊ NOTES IT

laurus of Lucr.: to them Pind. ol. vir 32 alludes in etudeos ἐξ ἀδύτου.
Hom. hymn. Apoll. Pyth. 215 Χρείων ἐκ δάφνης γυάλων ὑπὸ Παρνη-
σοῖο. There is much uncertainty with regard to the details of the Del-
phic tripod, as may be seen in Wieseler’s very diffuse dissertation
upon it. 738 739 recur v 11] 112: with the abl. tripodi Lach.
compares 11 416 Cilici, ur 132 Heliconz. 740 fec. ruinas : metaphor
from a building or other heavy body falling; perhaps from a carriage
breaking down ; Horace has the same expression: Lucr. uses more than
once the more common dare ruinas: see n. to Iv 41 discessum dederint :
Cic. de fin. 1 18 applies the same metaphor to Epicurus himself, tllae
Epicurt propriae ruinae; and 11 18 ruit in dicendo. 741 after
Homer’s κεῖτο μέγας peyadwort, which Virgil and Ovid imitate in
various ways, gravis graviterque ad terram concidit, ingentem atque in-
genti vulnere victum, magnum magno conamine and the like: Luer. him-
self τν 902 magnum magno molimine navem. abt is here very em-
phatic, and therefore its unusual position gives it additional force.

742 motus cet. the impossibility of which without void he has proved
at such length above 335—397: Einpedocles 63 thus denies void, Οὐδέ
τι τοῦ παντὸς κενεὸν πέλει οὐδὲ περισσόν : comp. too Arist. de gen. et corr.
18 where he elaborately criticises Emipedocles’ doctrine of πόροι and of
the motions and unions of things by means of these without void; and
shews that his πόροι must really mean much the same as the κενόν of
Leucippus, though Empedocles maintains a πλῆρες ; he concludes that
this system of πόροι is ἢ ψεῦδος ἢ μάταιον. 745 admiscent in corpus :
Pliny nat. hist. xxv1 104 has same constr. 747 pausam, a word
occurring six times in Lucr.; found also in Plautus Ennius Accius, and
again brought into use by Gellius Apuleius and other imitators of the
older writers. Jragori: Lucr. almost alone appears to use this word
in its literal sense, here and v 109 317; and perhaps in the two last
places the meaning is transitional: yet Sen. Here. Oet. 121 Nos non
flamma rapax, non fragor obruit. 748 nec provsum=et prorsum non,
omnino non: comp. 1005 Nee prorsum facere; 111 45 Nec prosum quic-
quam nostrae rationis egere; 1087 Nee prorsum...demimus hilum Tem-
pore de mortis; Cic. de fin. τὶ 17 non prorsus, inquit; de nat. deor. 111
21 nulio modo prorsus adsentior ; [Lael. 57 nulli prorsus adsentior : see
Mueller (Seyffert) p. 213:] Plaut. trin. 129 xullo modo Potest fieri
prosus: most. 307 Qui invident, numquam eorum quisquam ineideat
prosus commodis; asin. 236 .Vec quemquam interea alium admittat prosus ;
Ter. Andr. 435 nihil prorsus ; heaut. 894 nihil prorsum ; but 776 pror-
sum nihil, in same sense ; the antiquarian Apuleius has many instances :
met. 0m 1 150: 30; x 10; 1 Cic. acad. post. 27 speaking
of peripatetics and academics will illustrate Lucr. eaque etiam interire,
non in nihilum, sed in suas partes quae infinite secari ac dividt possint,
cum sit nihel omnino'in rerum natura minimum quod dividi nequeat :

BOOK I NOTES II 93

here is asserted of them exactly what Lucr. objects to, the cwm sit nihil
om. in rer. nat. minimum seeming a prose translation of 748; yet at the
same time is denied the inference that they pass away in nihilum, which
Lucr. below 756 maintains must follow. Enipedocles himself 77 and 81
strenuously denies the same, φύσις οὐδενός ἐστιν ἁπάντων Θνητῶν οὐδέ τις
οὐλομένου θανάτοιο τελευτή K.T.A. aN ἔκ τε μὴ ὄντος ἀμήχανόν ἐστι γενέσθαι
Τό τ᾽ ἐὸν ἐξόλλυσθαι ἀνήνυστον καὶ ἄπρηκτον : Lucr. therefore here as else-
where is refuting them from his own point of view. 749: see the full
explanation of this passage in n. to 999. 750 ad sensus nostros ap-
pears to be used simply for the dative: comp. Iv 1062 obversatur ad
auris; Prop. 1 18 29 quodcumgue meae possunt narrare querellae, Cogor
ad argutas dicere solus aves; Catul. 61 215 Dulce rideat ad patrem; Cie.
ad Att. vit 3 6 invidiosum ad bonos: thus we find, espec. in the older
writers, dare ad, promittere ad, restituere ad, etc. (Comp. too m1 830
Nil igitux mors est ad nos and u. there. | 151 quae cernere non
quis are of course the atoms; as 600 Corporis ul. q. n. cernere sensus
Tam nequeunt. 754 quae nos nativa vid. Esse et mortal cum c.: yes
but Empedocles saw them to be as immortal as the atoms of Epicurus :
comp. 178 Atta δὲ θνήτ᾽ ἐφύοντο τὰ πρὶν μάθον ἀθάνατ᾽ εἶναι: they are
θνητά when in things, ἀθάνατα by themselves. 755 [1886 et mort. cum
corp. with same force as simple abl.: so 347 esse...raro cum corpore; 174
non exanimo cum corpore; V 352 quia sunt solido cum corpore; 364
solido cum corpore mundi Naturast ; 904 triplecr cum corpore; νι 439
lento cum corpore nubem; 631 raro cum corpore tellus Hst; 1059 raro
quia sunt cum corpore: 11 201 quaecumague maygis cum pondere magno
Asperaque inveniuntur, cum has the same force; and tv 1126 grandes
viridis cum luce zmaragdi; v 864 canwm fido cum pectore corda; v1 5
virum tali cum corde repertum ; 75 placido cum pectore adibrs. utqui
of mss. is to be retained here, and in 11 17, and is to be read in m1 428
and 111 738, as shewn by N. P. Howard in Journ. of philol. 1 p. 118---
121: in my last edition I had already given wé qu in 111 738, and had
intended to give it in the last two places, before I received Mr Howarcl’s
letter. But he is right I think in attaching the quiz enclitically to μέ:
the gue is an affirmative particle and has the same force as in atqui:
‘yes that’ or the like: see espec. Fleckeisen krit. Miscellen p. 23—33,
who shews from Plautus that que often has this force in hercle qua,
edepol qui, ecastor qui, at pol qui: and in guippe qu, in places where quz
cannot be a relative: and in utgue (ué qui he writes it), from the same
passages of Plautus that Mr Howard has cited; such as trin. 637 An τα
est sapere, utqui beneficium @ benevolente repudies; capt. 553; asin. 505.
It is probable that this gui lurks in other corrupt passages: thus in the
letter of Balbus, an unpolished writer, Cic. ad Att. vir 15 A 2, I un-
hesitatingly propose ram ium tanti fucio, utqui [gui mss. ut Lamb. etc. |
non Caesurem magis diligan; which would resemble Plaut. Bacch. 283

94 BOOK I NOTES II

Adeon me fuisse fungum, utqur illi crederem. This gut prob. soon became
obsolete, except in atqui. {Comp. also Cic. de nat. deor. 11 143 Swainson,
and the first sentence of his epistles, tanta enim magnitudo est tuorum
erga me meritorum utgri (so mss.), wt tu nisi perfecta re de me non con-
quiesti, ego...putem: here wt=quoniam, quia, as Vv 3 1 et, ut sunt leves ab
eiusmodi homine, a me despiciuntur ; x11 69 2 οὐδὲ wt etus modestiam
cognovi, gravis tibi nulla in re erit; 8 3 ut ego alli uni plurimum
debeo ; xv1 6 2 ut ego euntem Patras neminem praetermitto; Virg. Aen.
ΧΙ 488 Huic Messapus, wtr laeva duo forte gerebat Lenta cet.; Hasta
volans, ut forte...constiterant. | 756 see n. to 748: 756 and 757 are
almost a rep. of 673 674. 758 iam belongs to habebis: comp. 649,
and see ἢ. to vi 176. habebis: 111 831 mortalis habetur; Virg. 60]. 11
2 nee quid speruret habebat; Ter. Andr. 498 Teneo quid erret et quid
agam habeo: this sense is common in Cicero, as ad Att. 112 4 quid
praeterea ad te scribam non habeo. 759—762: see n. to 701—704,
and 984 (998) foll.: he here too concludes a discussion with a short
argument addressed to the common sense or the eyesight of his
reaclers. 759 veneno: Wak. and Lach. quote Varro de re rust. 12 18
quaelam enim pecudes culturae sunt inimicae ac veneno, 761 coacta
seems to have somewhat the same sense here, as v1 274 cogit, 464
cogunt, 718 cogentes, 511 Copia nimborum turba marore coacta; but
I know no exact parallel. 762 frulm. wnbr. vent. representing three
of the four elements.

763—781: things too might just as well be their elements, since
things by turns come from them and pass into them: but if you say
that these elements remain unchanged in things, then nothing can be
produced from them, since in everything they will shew their own seve-
ral natures: first-beginnings must have no properties that sense can
apprehend. 766 i.e. res, ill. prim. dici retroque p. 767 Alt. grgn.:
the ever-recurring μίξις τε διαλλαξίς τε μιγέντων. 769 ab: seen. to
04. 7171 rvorem lig.: see n. to 496. 774 Non an. res, non res ex.
c. cor,: only here and in ΠῚ 573 he uses animans in the nomin, and
as an adj. [now ez. c. cor. might perhaps be compared with Livy ΠῚ
D7 9 non runiores modo sed emeritis etiam stipendiis...praesto fuere; XXI
62 5 multis locis hominum specie procul candida veste visos. | 775 foll.
much resemble his criticism of Anaxagoras below 880—896, and 11
915 foll. 778—781 are fully explained 11 T30—885, where it is
shewn that atoms have no sensible properties. 778 oportet is perhaps
ὃ μείωσις, as difficile est, hawt facile est, etc.: see n. to πὶ 361; and Livy
vil 35 6 sopitum oportet fallatis, immo necesse est. 779 cland. caec.
are joined 11 128 motus..clandestinos caecosque. 781 proprie esse
is to exist by itself with its own peculiar properties and functions
undisturbed by anything alien: v1 985 quisque [sensus suam proprie
rem perciprt un 86.

BOOK I NOTES II Q5

782—802: again they suppose these elements to pass into each other
in this ceaseless round, fire air water earth water air fire: but first-begin-
nings cannot thus change; they must be eternal, and of such a nature
that when some go away, others join, and the rest change their order,
those which made fire may now make air or anything else.—It is possible
enough that Lucr. viewing Heraclitus through the glosses of the stoics,
may have been thinking among other theories cf his ὁδὸς ἄνω κάτω: but
no one will now attribute to the Ephesian this interchange of the four
elements: by the vague ‘they’ Lucr. no doubt points mainly at the
stoics ; whose champion says in Cic. de nat. deor. 11 84 cum quatiuor
sit genera corporum, vicissitudine corum mundi continuata natura est.
nan ex terra aqua, ex agua oritur aer, ex aere acther ; deinde retrorsum
vrcissim ex aethere aer, inde aqua, ex aqua terra infima. sic naturis
is, ex quibus omnia constant, sursus deorsus ultro citro commeantibus
mundt partium coniunctio contenetur: and comp. ib. πὶ 31. Martian.
Cap. νι 738 p. 592 Kopp ex informe materie (their amowos ὕλη) primus
ignis, ex rgnr aer, ex aere aqua, ex aqua terra; item fit adscensio et ex
terra agqwa est, ex agua aer, ex aere ignis, ex rgni wm cet.: with 787 788
too comp. Emped. 122: for him also Lucr. must partially include: ἀλλ᾽
avr ἔστιν ταῦτα δι’ ἀλλήλων δὲ θέοντα Τίγνεται ἄλλοθεν ἄλλα διηνεκὲς
αἰὲν ὁμοῖα : which are repeated with some difference 136 197, 782
repetunt a: thus used without an object by the auctor ad Heren. 115 ne
ab wliamo repetamus; Cic. pro Archia 1 inde usque repetens; de orat. 191
cum repeteret usque a Corace nescio quo et Tisia; Aen. 1 372 8ὲ prima
repetens ab origine pergam. 783 auras Aeris: 801 aeris auras: see n.
to 207. 784 wmbrem.. imbri: see ἢ. to 715. 787 inter se mutare:
comp. V1 456 haec comprendunt inter se: this is the regular Latin idiom:
thus Cicero has inter se amare, colere, diligere, verert, consalutare, adspr-
cere; and similarly Plautus, Caesar, Nepos, Livy, Tacitus, etc. [Caesar
has several times wter se cohortati. | 788 sidera mundi, imitated by
Virgil who has also astra mundi, lumina mundi: mundi here, as
often in Lucr. and others,=caeli: Catul. 64 206 concusst(que micantia
sidera mundus. 790 791 the same in meaning as 672 673, though
the expression is varied; while 792 793 are exactly repeated from
670 671, where see note. 794 quae i.e, the so-called four elements.
795 Jn comm. ven. seems to resemble the very common phrases venire
en discrimen, periculum, odium, contemptionem, consuetudinem and the
hke: commutatum, a ἅπαξ Aeyou. =commutationem: see ἢ, to 653. 796
ew the four elements: ex altis quae etc. such other primordia as cannot
change. 797 tabi: Lucr. is fond of this dativus ethicus as they
call it: this very line occurs four times: comp. also 733 Nulla tiba
ex wllis potertt res esse creata; 918 tibi pereunt primordia rerum;
11 500 Jam tabi cet.; 1038 Quam ἐϊδὲ iam nemo cet.; 111 197 μέ ab
summo tbe difilwat altus acervus; 279 Ste tibi noninis cet.; Iv 511

96 BOOK I NOTES II

Tila tibi est igitur ; 875 tibi anhela sitis; v 200 terra tibt lbatur; 294
nocturna tibi; S05 Tum tibi terra dedit; 1209 Negqnuae forte deum
nobis cet.; 111 992 Tityos nobis hic est. 798 Quin potius.. constituas?
most writers would here prefer the indic.; but comp. Plaut. epid. πὶ 4
19 Quin tu alium quaeras cur centones sarciast Cic. de rep. vi 14
(somn. Seip. 111) guin tu aspicias ad te veimentem Paulum patremt—so
all mss., rightly, I think; but Halm reads aspicis, That his atoms do
thus work he will abundantly shew in the second book; and indeed it is
reiterated in the next paragraphs 817—-829, 902-920. 802 sic=et
sic, and couples this line with what precedes.

803—829: but, you will say, all these four elements are necessary for
the production of things: true; and without meat and drink life cannot
continue: the reason is the same in both cases: many first-beginnings are
common to many things; and the same by various mixtures motions and
the like may produce the most different things ; just as the same letters
go to quite different words. 809 foll. you see the earth out of which,
the air into which all things grow; the rain and sun by which they
grow. 805 indulget gives full play to: so Virgil indulge ordinibus,
hospitio; and Livy indulyere ardori nulitum. 806 tabe nimborum
appears to have much the force of v1 521 2tmbi rigantes: the nimbi melt
into water: comp. the metaph. v1 514—516: but perhaps it is better to
make tabe refer to the trees: the force of the ¢mbz seems to make them
dissolve into water; comp. Aen. 1 173 sale tabentis artus: 111 19 the
nimbi are the actual rain-storms shed from the 22bi/a. tabé: this line
is quoted by Priscian inst. vir 72 for the @ of tabe: comp. 111 734 con-
tagé: C. Ἐς W. Mueller Plaut. pros. p. 15—18 throws great doubt on é of
the abl. of the 3rd deel. in Plautus. 808 possint is potential: so 11
989 queant; V 210 si non cumus, nequeant ; 768 st fulget..., cur nequeat ;
τι 922 Scilicet ut nequeant, where Lach. after Bentl. reads nequeunt.
animantis: this is one of 14 cases in which -is has been retained by me
in the nom. plur. after Lach. on the authority of both A and B: the
other cases occur in 11 577, 955, 1155, 1v 452, 1203, 1221, v 216, 494,
§24, 525, 1072, vi 221, 936: see Lach. p. 56 and introduction vol. 1 Ὁ. 36:
among these 14 examples we find indifferently participles adjectives and
substantives: and this quite agrees with all other testimony on the sub-
ject. 809 here begins the poet’s answer: yes, and meat and drink
feed the body; yet the body’s first-beginnings are not meat and drink.
cibus aridus, as 864: tener wmor occurs in Virg. geor. 11 331. 813
certis: seen. to 521. ab joined with things is not uncommon in Lucr.:
lit 020,429, 5222567, v 358. 813—816 notice res 5 times repeated
in three vss. and the antithetical and alliterative form of the whole sen-
tence; and comp. 893—897 where 7es likewise occurs 5 times: also 690
691 ves, rem, rerum; IV 42 43 rerum, rebus, rerum, and many such like:
assonances and alliterations of all kinds seem to possess for Lucr. an

BOOK I NOTES II 97

irresistible attraction : such repetitions of ves are common in Cicero and
Caesar. [Comp. Plaut. Epid. 113 Js est amicus qui in re dubia re vuvat
ubt rest opus.| ratio is nearly as great a favourite as res: 1 128—130 ratio,
ratione, ratione, and in different senses. corpus, corpora too are used
with like frequency: see also note to 875, where however the instances
are to our taste more faulty. 814 foll. give his own doctrine so often
repeated, 817 foll. repeated with slight change 908 foll. and 11 760
foll. 819 dent motus here and in the four repetitions means, impart
motion to others; 11 311 dat motus is ‘moves itself’: comp. dare ruinam
and the like, and n. to Iv 41. 823 foll. this illustration occurs
several times in the poem, as 197 and 912 foll.: the 24 letters of the
alphabet can form an enormous number of permutations; how many
more then these primordia, the different shapes of which are so many
times more numerous than those letters, while the number of atoms of
each shape is infinite, as shewn in the 2nd book? Arist. de gen. et corr.
1 2 in illustrating precisely the same doctrine of Democritus and Leucip-
pus, adds p. 315 Ὁ 14 ἐκ τῶν αὐτῶν yap τραγῳδία καὶ κωμῳδία γραμμά-
των. 826 sonitu sonanti, a mere poetical assonance, like anaius angor,
penitus penetrari, fera ferri, apparet aperte, don domitos, semine semrnio-
que, fera saecla ferarum, misero misere, Nec validas valeant: comp. Aen.
Il 53 cavae cavernae.

830—874: the homoeomeria of Anaxagoras is equally erroneous:
all simple substances he supposes to consist of infinitely small particles of
the same nature as the thing: bone of minute bones, gold of grains of
gold, earth of little earths, and so on: he denies too void and any limit
to the division of things, like those above mentioned: such first-begin-
nings as these cannot resist destruction ; so that things would return to
nothing. Again, as food increases the body, the parts of the body are
formed of things different in kind: or if you say all food has particles
like the parts of the body contained in it, then meat and drink consist
of particles different in kind: the same dilemma will apply to what grows
out of the earth, to flame latent in wood, and the like.—That Lucr. had
much sympathy with Anaxagoras will be seen at 11 991 foll. where he
translates from Euripides and adapts to his own purpose a passage
founded upon Anaxagoras’ system. There were also other points of con-
tact: Anaxagoras held, as did Epicurus, that the sum of matter in the
universe was always the same, and that nothing could pass into nothing.
Though Luer. 847 foll. tries to shew that Anaxagoras’ principles lead to
a different conclusion, he says, frag. 22 Schaub. (17 Schorn), in words
that Epicurus might have adopted, τὸ γίνεσθαι καὶ ἀπόλλυσθαι οὐκ ὀρθῶς
νομίζουσιν οἱ Ἕλληνες" οὐδὲν γὰρ χρῆμα γίνεται οὐδ᾽ ἀπόλλυται, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπ᾽
ἐόντων χρημάτων συμμίσγεταί τε καὶ ἀποκρίνεται. The many points of
difference Lucr. himself clearly shews: see also the editor’s note 21 to
Archer Butler’s lectures on ancient philos. 1 p. 322. His refutation of

ἮΝ τ΄ 7

98 BOOK I NOTES II

Anaxagoras much resembles even in language his argument against
Empedocles ; though Aristotle from his different point of view is fond
of contrasting the two. 832 pats. serm. eg.: see above p. 11: and n. to
139: these words are quoted by Pliny epist. Iv 18.

834 homoeomerian: the word is not found in the few extant frag-
ments of Anaxagoras, but Lucr. distinctly here states that he did use it ;
as well as Plut. de plac. phil. 1 3, ὁμοιομερείας αὐτὰς ἐκάλεσε, and Simpli-
cius to whom we owe so many of the scanty fragments. Lucr. seems to
denote by the term the relation which existed between the things in be-
ing and the particles like in kind, of which they were composed; azretpa,
as Anaxagoras says in frag. 1, καὶ πλῆθος καὶ σμικρότητα : these he him-
self names σπέρματα or χρήματα, Aristotle τὰ ὁμοιομερῆ στοιχεῖα, ἀόρατα
ὁμοιομερῆ, and the like: the later Greeks call them ὁμοιομερεῖαι in the
plur. probably from some misconception. Often as Aristotle uses the
adjective, he never employs the substantive, and Lucr. was hitherto the
oldest authority for the latter; but now I am glad to say I can trace it
back to Epicurus: see frag. 6 of the 28th book of the περὶ φύσεως, Gom-
perz Zeitschr. f. Oesterr. Gymn. vol. 18 p. 212, τό ye [στοιχεῖον] ἤδη τὴν
ὁμοιομέρειαν τῷ φαινομένῳ κεκτημένον. Epic. here, as Gomperz explains,
seems to be combating the Timaeus of Plato; but he uses it exactly in
the sense I had supposed Lucr. and Anaxag. to have used it, ‘the ele-
ment possessing similarity of parts with the thing in being’. As he and
his school were so well acquainted with Anaxagoras, I do not doubt that
he got the word from the latter’s writings, and that Lucr. had it from
them and from Epic. ; though Schleiermacher, Zeller and many other
Germans refuse the term to Anaxagoras himself. 835 fol]. most of
the examples here given are found in Aristotle Simplicius and others, so
that they were doubtless employed by Anaxagoras himself; but to shew
the difficulty of knowing in the absence of their writings what these
early philosophers taught, while Lucr. includes, as we might expect, earth
and fire among the simple bodies formed of their ὁμοιομερῆ, Aristotle
more than once distinctly states that, while bone, flesh, etc. were simple,
earth and fire were σύνθετα and mixed acc. to Anaxag. in contrast to
Empedocles with whom of course they were elements; and again in
metaph. 1 3, unless you are to force his words, as Bonitz does, he flatly
contradicts himself and agrees with Lucr. Again we have no evidence
to shew how Anaxag. supposed these mixed bodies to be formed, and
Lucr. seems in what follows to feel perplexed; or how he conceived
organised things, such as the bodily organs, to be formed, which Arist.
de caelo 111 4, p. 302 Ὁ 24, distinctly states he did not form of ὁμοιομερῆ.
835 836 pauxillis, minutis, to express what Anaxagoras taught were
infinite in smallness. 837, 853, 860 sanguen is found thrice in Ennius,
twice in Accius, andin Petron. 59. 837 viscus, viscera, occur very often
in Lucr. and always I believe denote the whole of the flesh and soft sub-

BOOK I NOTES II 99

stance between the skin and bones: viscus, viscerts, and twice viscere are
found in Luer. 839 aurz: see notes 1: not only Simplicius there
cited, but also Philoponus and Laertius use this illustration : which no
doubt comes from Anaxagoras himself. 841 Lgnibus ex: 11 731 albis
ex alba, 791 sed vars ex, 11 375, 839, 858 and v 949 quibus e; v1 788
terris ex omnia surgunt ; Iv 804 siquae ad: as Cic. de nat. 11 10 quos ad:
597 Haec loca per; v 770 loca..inimica per exit; 1264 viam per: VI
747 Cumas aput, 940 Qua de are more usual. Lucr. is fond of this
order, adj. prepos. and then a word intervening between it and the subst. :
11 10 twisque ex, inclute, chartis; τν 829 validis ex apta lacertis: with
these comp. Virg. 60]. v1 19 ipsis ex vinewla sertis: v1 714 medium per
saepe calorem; 855 supera de reddere parte; 1202 capitis cum saepe
dolore; τὺ 472 sua in staturt vestigia ; 111 421 uno sub iungas nomine ;
v 869 suo sine pabula parta labore: comp. too Ov. trist. τν 4 74; ex
Pontos 2 150; 1v 10 2; 14 15; German. 373: vi 1160 noctem per saepe
diemque is of the same nature. 843 ulla parte, parte wulla, multis par-
tebus and the like are common in Livy and others without any preposi-
tion, as well as with: why refuse the same liberty to Lucr.? Livy x 14 10
ubi nulla ex parte hostem loco moveri vidit; 16 nec parte ulla pelli aut
perrumpt poturt. 844 so he himself in terms repugnant to an epicu-
rean, frag. 5 (15) οὔτε τοῦ σμικροῦ γέ ἐστι τό ye ἐλάχιστον, ἀλλ᾽ ἔλασσον
αἰεί, τὸ γὰρ ἐὸν οὐκ ἔστι τομῇ οὐκ εἶναι κιτιλ.: τομῇ Zeller for τὸ μή.
846 21/2, Empedocles and the rest: see 734 foll. 848 (δὲ prom. sunt,
sim. etc.: Anaxagoras gives to his particles, frag. 3 Schorn, χροιᾶς καὶ
ἡδονάς, colour and taste ; while Lucr. in 11 takes such pains to prove that
his atoms can have no secondary qualities: again frag. 16 Anaxagoras
says that as there can be no minimum, his particles cannot exist alone, ἀλλ᾽
ὅκως περὶ ἀρχήν, καὶ νῦν πάντα ὁμοῦ : to Lucr. an absurdity, who will only

reason from his own premisses. 850 neque [685] refrenat : see n. to
718. 851 oppressu may be added to the words enumerated in n. to
653. 852 sub dent.: faucibus is a more common metaphor: Lamb.

quotes Arnob. 11 32 non esse animas longe ab hiatibus mortis et faucibus
constitutas ; but Lucr. agrees better with our use of ‘jaws of death’: join
‘in oppressu valido sub ipsis leti dentibus’. 859—866 a dilemma:
food supports the body: are the particles ὁμοιομερῇ with the food? then
veins, blood etc. consist of what is not opovopepés with it: or if you say
that every kind of food has in it whatever the body has, bone vein blood,
then will meat and drink consist of particles not ὁμοιομερῆ with them :
again the poet’s own premisses assumed. Plut. de plac. phil. 1 3 proves
what effective use Anaxagoras must have made of the fact of food nourish-
ing at once all the parts of the body, so ditferent from each other and
from the food itself. 863 omnzno, to complete the list, go through all
the parts specified. 864 cibas om. including all nourishment, drink
as well as meat, et aridus cibus et liquor: wpse means ‘as well as dry

7i—?2

100 BOOK I NOTES II

food’; it=etiam. 865 alienigenis is the opposite to ὁμοιομερῆξς.Ό. 866
sanie: Celsus v 26 20 est entm quaedam sanies quae vel ἰχώρ, vel μελίκηρα
nominatur : ἰχώρ is a hippocratean word and is often used by Aristotle
for the serous part of blood, as here by Celsus: now comp. Arist. part.
anim. 1 1, p. 487 ὦ 1, ἔστι δὲ τῶν ὁμοιομερῶν τὰ μέν... τὰ δέ... ὑγρὰ μὲν
οἷον αἷμα ἰχώρ... ξηρὰ δὲ καὶ στερεὰ οἷον νεῦρον. ὀστοῦν etc.: here we
have the ossibus, nervis, sanie, sanguine of Lucr. enumerated: comp. too
Heraclit. letters 5, p. 501, 27 Bern., ὃ δοκεῖ τοῖς ἄλλοις ζῆν ἐν φλέγμασι
καὶ χολῇ καὶ ἰχῶρι καὶ αἵματι, vevpots καὶ ὀστοῖς Kal σάρκεσι πεπι-
λημένον. 867—874 a similar dilemma, which the lost vss, render
obscure: trees and the like grow out of the earth; therefore the earth
consists not of ὁμοιομερῆ, but of minute trees and the like: flame smoke
ash are latent in wood; therefore wood consists of minute flames etc. not
of ὁμοιομερῆ : again trees when above ground are fed out of the earth: if
the earth consists of ὁμοιομερῆ, then trees are fed and increased by things
not ὁμοιομερῆ ; and similarly of the flames which are seen to be fed by
wood. 870 Zransfer: Cic. de off. 1 51 quod ab Ennio positum in una
re transferrt in multas potest ; Sen. epist. 65 3 quod de universo dicebam,
ad haec transfer.

875—896: Anaxagoras tries to extricate himself by assuming that
everything is latent in everything ; but that that only is perceived, of
which the like particles are most numerous and most prominent: a
manifest fallacy; for then corn, grass, water, clods, wood would shew
when reduced to small fractions traces of blood, milk, fire, ete. i.e. por-
tions of things fed by or produced from them respectively : the truth is
that the seeds of things have no qualities like to those of things in
being. 875 latit.: comp. Cic. de fin. 11 107 st tuam dicerem, latebram
haberes; [Sen. rhet. controv. praefat. 1 1 21 apsa enim actio multas latebras
habet.| Notice latitandi and 877 latitare in two different senses with
nothing in common. Lucr. like the old Latin writers generally, loves
as we have said assonance alliteration antithesis and the like so dearly,
that often the use of a word seems to suggest to him a repetition of it,
without any point whatever, and therefore to our taste faulty: see n. to
813—816 ; and comp. 893 docet res, Scire licet non esse an rebus cet. ; 976
exempta fine with 978 finique locet se and 979 non est a fine profectum ;
975 effuyium praecludit with 983 Effugium...prolatet ; τὶ 714 caecis Cor-
poribus fugiunt e corpore; 1018 discrepitant res: Ste ipsis in rebus ; ΠῚ
364 Lumina luminibus ; 379 Corpora ..in corpore ; 451 validis quassa-
tum est viribus aevi Corpus et obtusis ceciderunt viribus artus ; v1 718
Cogentes sursus replent coguntque manere and the like. 879 almost
repeated 1v 97 In promptu quoniam est in prima fronte locata: in both
cases in promptu is not connected with docata: comp. the other examples
of its use in Lucr. Cicero ete. | 875—879 this which Lucr. declares to
be a sorry subterfuge, was in fact the very corner-stone of Anaxagoras’

BOOK I NOTES 1 IOI

physics. His particles were infinite in number and smallness; from the
necessity of the case everything was mixed with everything, except only
his vovs: his vovs, see fr. 6 (7), was mixed up with nothing, because if
mixed up with anything, then it must have been mixed up with every-
thing: but ἐν παντὶ παντὸς μοῖρα ἔνεστι πλὴν νόου, and again παντάπασι
δὲ οὐδὲν ἀποκρίνεται οὐδὲ διακρίνεται τὸ ἕτερον ἀπὸ τοῦ ἑτέρον πλὴν νόον...
ἀλλ᾽ ὁτέων πλεῖστα ἔνι, ταῦτα ἐνδηλότατα ἕν ἕκαστόν ἐστι καὶ ἦν: that is
each individual thing is what it is by having in it the greatest number
of ὁμοιομερῇ στοιχεῖα, particles like to it in kind. The full and able ex-
position of Aristotle, phys. 1 4, is well worth comparing with Lucr. and
Anaxagoras himself. 880 a v. occurring four times in almost the same
words. 882 rob. saxv: 11 449 durt robora ferri; Virg. geor. 1 162
grave robur αγαΐγὰ: Lucr. perhaps got it from Pacuvius 11, where for
the ms. fruges frendo sola sacsic probore, read Fruges frendo sola saxsi
sic protritas robore. 883 aliquid i.e. eorum quae: Plaut. Men. 192 quam
quisquam qui impetrant; Virg. ecl. 11 71 aliquid..quorum indiget wsus,
but there the gen. makes it much less harsh; as 11 583 Wil esse,..quo-
yum natura: comp. VI 814 vitaz copra desit 1.e. 115 Quos cet.; Aen. x1 172
Magna tropaea ferunt quos dat cet. where Wagner gives several other
instances from Virgil: the idiom is found in prose; Valer, Max. 11 10 1
me de aliqua re, quae in his relatae erant, videretur dubitasse ; Livy xu 2
2 nec quicquam eos, quae..agerentur, fallebat. 885 (884) lapidt is
abl.: so 1111 de parti, τι 520 mucroni, v1 66 rationi: see n. to 978 find.
Comp. Plautus asin. 31 οὐδὲ lapis lapidem terit, in a different sense. The
transposition of these two vss. renders the language and argument quite
perspicuous without altering a letter of the mss.: Just as blood, etc.
should be seen in the corn which we eat; so should blood, etc. be seen
in the grass which animals eat; milk, etc. in the waters which sheep
drink ; ash, smoke, fire in the wood which is burned. 887 the constr.
Lach. explains thus, dulces gattas mittere tales quali oves sunt ubere lactis:
ubere is briefly said for sapore wheris: comp. Prop. 1 2 21 facies aderat
nulls obnoxia gemmis, Qualis Apelleis est*color in tabulis. lanigerae :
comp. balantes, squamigert and pennipotentes, likewise used absolutely.
ub. lac.; so 11 370 and Tibullus μόνα lactis; Lamb, quotes from Varro
mammam lactis, (Comp. Eur. Phoen. 1526 ματρὸς ἐμᾶς διδύμοισι
γάλακτος παρὰ μαστοῖς.] 895 896 very like 814 815, expressing the
epicurean doctrine of primordia against Anaxagoras as there against
Empedocles, 895 multimodis: see ἢ. to 683 omnimodis.

897—920: but you say trees often take fire by rubbing against each
other: true, but for all that fire is not in them; else it would burst forth
at any moment: the fact is fire and firs have many first-beginnings
in common, just as the words have letters in common; but the two
things, as the two words, are yet quite distinct. In this way if you
think a thing cannot be, unless its first-beginnings are of a like nature,

IO2 BOOK I NOTES II

then you must give to these human feelings, in order that they may
make a man.—This passage in meaning and in language greatly re-
sembles 803—829: the reason is plain: the particles of Anaxagoras
seemed to Lucr. liable to the same objections as the four elements of
Empedocles, each giving to his elements those secondary qualities which
only belong to things in being. 900 flam. fore: editors comp. πυρὸς
ἄνθος of Homer and Aeschylus, and τν 450 lucernarum florentia lu-
mina flammis. 902 sem. ardoris, which yet have none whatever of
the properties of fire. 904 facta, fully made, opposed of course to the
semina, which might in other circumstances form water or anything else:
comp. Tib. (Lygdam.) m1 1 12 hittera facta; Cic. acad. pr. 11 2 fuctus
imperator ; Brutus 30 facta quodammodo oratio; ad Att. 11 24 3 qui
tlluc factus tnstitutusque venisset ; Pliny paneg. 20 adeo nthil aut certe
parum intererat inter imperatorem factum et futurum; Ov. ars 111 233
neque ad illa licet populo nisi facta venire; [Mart. 1 26 3 Lam te rem
factam, Bithynice, eredis habere.| 907 paulo ante 1.6, 817 foll. where
the language is almost the same: see notes there. 912 agnes et
lignum: because here fire coming from wood is the question; in 820
caelum mare terras cet. because there it is the four elements that is
the subject examined. 915—920 here again he closes a long discus-
sion with a short argument appealing to common sense to shew to what
absurdities such premisses might lead: see 701 foll. 759 foll. 984 (998)
foll. 918 tibv: see n. to 797. 920 comp. Aen. x1 90. 919
920 comp. 1 976 Sctlicet et risu tremulo concussa cachinnant Ht lacrimes
spargunt rorantibus ora genasque: in each case he pushes the argument
to what he deems the last absurdity, that of endowing first-beginnings
with human feelings. And, if a tree cannot produce fire without having
fires latent, why should a man be able to laugh or ery, if he have not in
him laughing and crying elements? Mr Poste of Oriel in a valuable
communication to me points out that I did Lucretius injustice in
making him put this argument into Anaxagoras’ mouth: ‘ Lucr.’ he
says ‘does not charge Anaxag. with being bound to hold that all
ἀνομοιομερῇ Were composed of similar parts: such a charge would not
be true: he only says that in the ἀνομοιομερῇ Anaxag. concedes the
principle that a thing may be composed of ingredients unlike itself,
and asks why then shall we not believe that the miscalled ὁμοιομερῇ
are actually so composed’, Aristotle, as Mr Poste observes, in the
part. anim. 1 1, p. 647a, 2—14, makes the sensories ὁμοιομερῆ, and
prob. therefore Anaxag. did the same. However so far as I know
there is no evidence as to what Anaxag. did hold on this point: but
comp. 11 973—990.

᾿ς 921—950: listen now: inspired by the muses I enter on an untrod-
den path to cull a wreath yet worn by none: I am going to burst the
bonds of religion; and clear up a dark subject by lucid verses, verses

¢

BOOK I NOTES II IC3

oerlaid with the honey of the muses, in order to beguile my readers
to their own profit, even as the rim of the cup is smeared with honey to
entice children to drink the bitter but wholesome draught of wormwood.
—The poet has hitherto explained the nature of his two great principles
of void and atoms, and shewn the insufficiency of those of rival teachers:
he now, before proceeding to apply these two principles to explaining the
system of the universe and of this world of ours, calls attention to his
theme in this lofty exordium. 922 an. fal.: see n. to 136. 923
comp. Aen. 1x 197 magno laudum percussus amore. 924 incussit
am.: 80.19 wcutiens blandum per pectora amorem; Virg. geor. 11 476
ingents percussus amore i.e. Musaruni. 926—950 repeated 1v 1—25,
except the last 4 words. 926 foll. there are many well-known imita-
tions of these vss.: by Virg. geor. πὶ 10 foll. joined with 291 foll.; Hor.
sat. 11 4 84; epist. 1 19 21 foll.; Manil. 1 4—6; and others. 926
comp. ‘Antipater Thess. ep. 24 1. 5, 11 p. 115, τὰν azpurtov καὶ ἀνέμβα-
tov ἀτραπὸν aAXous’ J. E. Δ]. 927 wntegros hitherto untasted by
any one, with perhaps the notion of unsullied: Hor. od. 126 6 0 quae
Jontibus integris Gaudes ; Nemesianus cyneg. 11, in his imitation, intacto
premimus vestigia musco. [On Horace here and Lucr. see Herz in
Hermes vii p. 262 n. 8, Luc. Mueller compares Lucil. xxx 2 Quantuin
haurive animus Musarum ec fontibu’ gestit. | 930 vel. tem.; IV 587
Pinea semifert capitis velamina ; Ovid ex Ponto πὶ 2 75 dum velat
tempora vitta; Aen. V 72 velat materna tempora myrto. 932 Relig.
mod.: seen. to 109. 933 obse. lucida: see ἢ. to 639 Clarus ob
obscuram: Cic. de nat. deor. 1 58 Cotta says to the epicurean Velleius
audico tamen de re obscura atque difficillima a te dictum esse dilucide.

934 contingens, 9388 contingunt and 947 contingere: Lamb. here and
elsewhere rightly makes this word a compound of tango: v1 1188 ογοοὶ
contacta colore: so Ov. met. 11 123 and xiv 607 contigit ; Sen. Hipp. 714
contactus. continctus is not found in Lucr.; Virg. geor. 111 403 and 448
contingunt is probably the same form. 935 non ab nulla rat. means
of course with very great reason: it seems best to understand ab in
a sense derived from that illustrated in ἢ. to 693 contra sensus ab
sensibus : stare, pugnare ab=stare, pugnare cum; comp. the common use
of stare ab Romanis in Livy who says quae pars cum Romanis stabat
with the same meaning: non ab nulla ratione then will mean non cum
nulla vat. or non contra rationem; comp. Mart. 11 30 5 Cum ratione
licet dicas te vivere summa, Quod vivis, nulla cum ratione facis: so that
it = Cicero’s non sine ratione esse; and may be more precisely illustrated
by Cic. de off. 1 7 omnis enim quae a ratione suscipitur de aliqua re
enstitutio ; 1). Brutus ap. Cic. ad fam. x1 10 1 tu enim a certo sensu et
vero iudicas de nobis; Balbus ap. Cic. ad Att. 1x 7 B 3 allud certe scio
me ab singulari amore ac benevolentia...tibi scribere: comp. too Livy x
316 ab ultima iam dimicantibus spe. Nay possibly it may resemble

104 BOOK I NOTES II

Cic. ad Att. x 11 3 non sunt ab obsequio nostro, i.e. the technical a
Platone, ab Isocrate esse; Zeno et qui ab eo sunt, etc. See too Draeger
hist. synt. 1 p. 579 § 4. 936 taetra denotes esp. what is nauseous to
taste or smell. 936 foll. are quoted by Quintilian and Jerome: comp.
Seneca suas. 7 near beg. decipere vos coyar, veluti salutarem pueris
daturus potionem absinthiati pocult; and Auson. epist. 17. 940 tenus
with a gen. seems not to be found in Cicero’s prose: his correspondent
Caelius employs it, as well as Livy, Quintilian, ete. 941 dec. non cap.
in form resembles Enn. ann. 360 Nee cum capta capi cet. imitated
in Aen. vil 295 Vum capti potuere capi cet. but the sense differs: it is
rightly explained perhaps by Turneb. adv. vi 14 ‘tractum esse videtur
a feris avibus piscibus; nam fovea pedica nassa area esca decipiuntur
atque capiuntur, in damnumque et incommodum incidunt: non tamen
pueri cet.’: [comp. Antony and Cleop. v 2 40 who are in this Relieved, but
not betrayed;| Tasso Ger. lib. 13 # dal? inganno suo vita riceve: Fair-
fax reproduces better the point of Lucr.: Zhey drinke deceivd and so
deceivd they live. Aen. τν 330 Non equidem omnino capta ac deserta
viderer, capta is much stronger than decepta would be; and Livy xxv
19 11 gutbus artibus ad id locorum iostri et duces et exercitus capti
forent ; Οἷς. ad Att. 1v 6 2 oppressus et cuptus. 944 Tristior=amarior:
IV 125 tristia centaurea; 634 quod triste et amarumst; v1 780 saporeque
tristia quae sint ; Virg. geor. 111 448 triste amurca; Livy xu 40 3 sicut
medict, cum salutis causa tristiora remedia adhibent. quibus=lis, a
quibus, by attraction: Lucr. does not use the dative of the agent after
the passive. [On this dative see Draeger hist. synt. 1 p. 395—398:
Cicero and others have more instances than I had supposed, but generally
in the case of pronouns mzhi, nobis, quibus etc. Perhaps Lucr. was led
to put the dative here by the fact that the sentence contains an is,
quibus. Comp. Catullus’ Pro guo mihi sunt magna bella pugnata. |

945 suav. Pierto..musaeo dulc?: see n. to 258. 949 dum perspicis is
the idiomatic mood and tense: Ter. eun. 206 expectabo, dum venit; from
whom I have noted several other instances as well as from Cicero,
Seneca and others, as Virg. ecl. 1x 23 dum redeo.. pasce capellas; Pliny
epist. 1 15 5 ut miht omnia libera servarem, dum Mauricus venit;
[Caelius ap. Cic. epist. vir 16 3 dum..scitur, expecta. | 950 compta:
π| 258 quo pacto inter sese mixta quibusque Compta modis vigeant; Iv
27 quibus 6 rebus cum corpore compta vigeret; and 111 845 qui comptu
coniugiogue Corporis atque animae consistimus uniter apti: N. Ῥ,
Howard compares glossarium vetus " συγκείμενος comptus, compositus’,
and Arnob. Iv 37 ab eius comptu et permixtione sunt absoluti; and
Lach. to 11 1061 maintains with reason that the coemptio in marriage is
the same as Lucretius’ comptu coniugiogie, the sense of buying being a
confusion of later times; for with compsi comptum, coemt coemptum,
comp. denpsi demptum and diremi diremptum, sumpsi and suremi ap.

BOOK I NOTES II 105

Festum, prompst promptum and redemi redemptum: with compta fig.
comp. 11 814 quali magis apta figura.

951—957: I have proved the existence of indestructible atoms and
of void or space: are these atoms infinite in number? is this space infi-
nite in extent ? 955 Sew: for this use of a single sew=vel, comp. vi
1003 sve aestum, and 11019; and see C. F. W. Mueller ueb. sive p. 21.
957 profundun in Lucr. means unfathomably deep, and hence is almost
synon. with ammensus: comp. his use of solidus, plenus, celer, magnus
and the like in ἢ. to Iv 63.

958—987: well then the universe is bounded on no side; for then it
must have an end or outside; in which case there must be something
beyond it, which may be seen to bound it; but there can be nothing
outside the universe, which is therefore boundless on all sides. Again
say for the moment space is finite: go now to its verge and fling a jave-
lin: will it go in the direction you throw it, or will it be stopped by
something? if there is something beyond to stop it, that something is in
the universe; if it goes on, it has not started from the end of space:
therefore you will be always in the universe, wherever you fling it.
Lastly whatever you see, is bounded by and into something different ;
earth by sea, sea by earth and the like; but what is there outside to
bound the universe?—Lucr. has had great injustice done him here by the
misapprehension of his editors and others who strangely take omne quod
est, omne quod est spatiwm, rerum summa to be all synonymes: a right
explanation of 968 si cam.. constituatur, and the transposition which I
have made of 984 (998)—987 (1001) will I believe make his argument
quite clear: he is going to shew that space is infinite and matter infinite :
the former he proves 988 (984)—1007, the latter 1OOS—1051 ; but first
for the sake of completeness he states in our present section that the
universe or omne or τὸ πᾶν is intinite. There can of course properly
speaking be no proof of this as Lucr. has wisely seen: it must from the
nature of the case be shewn by a series of identical propositions, call
them as you please definitions postulates or axioms: these propositions
however are most clearly put by him, when he is rightly interpreted.
958 quod est is added to Omme, as in 523: so 969 Onine quod est spa-
tiwm: it equals τὸ ov, which Sen. epist. 58 7 apologises for having so to
translate: ‘cogor verbum pro vocabulo ponere ; sed ita necesse est ponam
quod est’. τὸ πᾶν is Epicurus’ term: Lucer. calls it also summa omnis,
summa summar totius omnis, summa summarum and sometimes omnia.
nul, reg.vr.: take whichever of the roads through the universe you please,
at no point in any of them will you reach its bound: comp. 11 260 and
293 Nee regione loci ceria. [igitur: regularly used in transitions; see
Hand πὶ p. 195, and lexic. Quintil. sub verb.] 959 extremum is the
ἄκρον of Epicurus. 961 wt vid. i.e. ita ut videatur illud, quo longius
noster sensus non sequatur ; so that any one standing at this point sees

106 BOOK I NOTES II

where the thing ends and something else begins: haec sensus nat.=simply
hic sensus: see n. to 11 646. 962 sequatur: Aen. vill 592 oculisque
secuntur Pulveream nubem. 964 the ergo follows from 959 namque
cet. The above is almost a translation of Epicurus in Diog. x 41 τὸ πᾶν
ἀπειρον éoTt’ TO yap πεπερασμένον ἄκρον exer’ τὸ δ᾽ ἄκρον παρ᾽ ἕτερόν
τι θεωρεῖται. ὦστε οὐκ ἔχον ἄκρον πέρας οὐκ ἔχει, πέρας δ᾽ οὐκ ἔχον
ἄπειρον ἂν εἴη καὶ οὐ πεπερασμένον : comp. too Cic. de div. 11 103 videsne
Epicurum ..quemadmodum, quod in natura rerum omne esse dicimus,
id infinitum esse conclusertt ? quod finitum est inquit habet extremum.
quis hoc non dederit ? quod autem habet extremum, id cernitur ex alio
extrinsecus. hoc quoque est concedendum. ‘at quod omne est, id non
cernitur ex alio extrinsecus, ne hoc quidem negari potest. nihil igitur
cum habeat extremum, infinitum sit necesse est. 966 quene qu. ἐ, p.:
289 ruit qua quicquid fluctibus obstat: see note: Iv 179 Ln quem quae-
que locum diverso numine tendunt ; Cic. de orat.1 130 ut, in quo quisque
artyficio excelleret, is in suo genere Loscius diceretur; Livy 1v 4 10 in
quam cuique feminae convenrisset denim; 48 10 ut quos quisque posset..
pellicerent ; ΧΧΧΙΧ 16 13 quo quisque loco positus erit, quod imperabitur
impigre praestare ; [Caes. Ὁ. civ. 1 76 4 edicunt, penes quem quisque sit
Caesaris miles, ut producantur ; Ὁ. Gall. πὶ 4 2 ut quaeque pars castro-
rum nudata defensoribus preni videbatur, eo oceurrere. | 967 I am
not clear whether guisqgue or locus is subject of relinguit, I believe the
former is.

968 s¢ cam must be noted: when thus used, usually as here with a
pres. subj., but not always, it means granting for the moment such or
such for the sake of argument, yet that which is affirmed will still follow,
or that which is denied will still not follow: the reasoning therefore is,
granting for the moment space to be finite, yet none the less the general
conclusion will be true that the omne is infinite ; 1t therefore introduces
another proof of this fact ; and has nothing to do with proving space to
be infinite : the demonstration of that begins at 988 (984): comp. 111 540
sit tam libeat concedere falsum Et dare... Mortalem tamen cet.; v 195
Quod st iam rerun tgnorem primordia quae sint, Hoc tamen cet.: also
1 396 with imperf. Nec, si iam posset, sine inant posset ; and τι 974 with
indic. Principiis st iam est sensus tribuendus, and 111 766 quod st tam fit,
Jateare necessest ; and 843 si iam nostro sentit cet.: see also 1v 1171 Sed
tamen esto 1am: the force of the expression is well seen in Caes. de bell.
civ. 11 31 5 guod st iam, inquit, haec explorata habeanus, quae de exerci-
tus ahenatione dicuntur, quae quidem ego aut omnino falsa aut certe
ninora opinione esse confido, quanto cet. For this use of st tam and a
similar one of wt 7am in Cicero and others and tam ut in Livy and Caesar
see Madv. de fin. 1v 66. 969 procurrat is technical: Livy xxxiv 39 3
non modo ad emittenda cum procursu, quo plurimum concitantur tela,
spatium habebat, sed; xxvii 14 3 ab neutra parte procursum telumve

BOOK I NOTES II 107

Lissum. 970 Ultimus is added to give force and point to extr. oras:
it appears to be proleptic; he runs forward to the outmost edge, so as
then to be standing on its farthest point : comp. Cic. de nat, deor. 154 δὲ
enmensam et tinterninatam in omnis partis magnitudinem reytonum vice-
retis, In quam 86 tniciens animus...peregrinatur ut nullam tamen oram
ultimi videat, in qua possit insistere ; de fin. 1 17 nec ultimum nec extre-
mum; 29 extremum et uliimum; 116 wd extremum, id ultimum ; [in Verr.
v 166 apud honines in extremis atque ultimis gentibus positos ;| Caes. de
bell. civ. 14 3 decurvitur ad allud extremum atque ultimum senutus con-
sultum. 971 comp. Aen. 1150 validis ingentem virebus hastam...Con-
torsit. 976 exempta fine: 1007 Finibus exemptis; so Ovid exenpto,
dempto, posito fine. 977 probeat: 11 864 probet: praebere and debere,
for which we find praehibeo and sometimes dehibeo in the best mss. of
Plautus, are analogous. probeat officiatque: 973 prohibere obstareque,
and above officere atque obstare ; pugnet et obstet; also τὶ 784, 786 and
794 officiunt obstantque, inpediunt prohibentque, contra pugnet et obstet :
his constant mmitator Arnob. 11 11 has officiant nihil nihilque inpediant
quominus. 978 fini is ‘in the mark’ or ‘limit’ aimed at: Lucr. has
many such ablatives, collt tusse obi bili sordi pelli, as well as nave igi
embri and even labi; mucrone ration parts lapidi: and with 976 fine,
978 fini, 979 fine comp. Iv 232 luce, 235 ἐμοὶ: in Greek words he has
these ablatives in 2, tripodi Cilica Heliconr, as noted above: for abl. in ὁ
in other writers see Neuer p. 213 foll. 979 in either case it has not
started from the limit of the ome: in the furmer case body has stopped
it, and this body must be in the universe ; in the latter space has afforded
it room to flyon. Notice jinis thrice within three lines in three senses :
observe too effugium in 975 and 984 with different meanings; and see ἢ.
to 875. 980 sequar: so 11983 Quippe sequar: I will follow up, press
the argument. oras extr. the outer edge of the omune. 981 here too
the use of fiat in one sense seems actually to suggest to him et uti in
a different sense ; so strangely does he love such assonances ; and in ad-
dition to what has been said here and to 875, obs. in 983 Hffugiwmaue
Jfugae. 983 prolatet is to enlarge the bounds, and thus ever to give
room for further flight. Bentl. in 970 for Ultimus proposed Nuniius
without necessity ; but he rightly saw, as Wak. observes, that this illus-
tration was suggested to Lucr. by the Roman mode of declaring war: in
the words of Livy 1 32 12 fiert solitum ut fetialis hastam...ad fines eorum
ferret...hastam in fines eorum emittebat: comp. also Servius to Aen. Ix
53, who after explaining this custom adds ‘ Varro in Caleno ita ait duces,
cum primum hostilem agrum introitum ierant, ominis causa prius hastam
In eum agrum mittebant ut castris locum caperent’, But you cannot go
out of the omne to fling a spear into a neighbour’s bounds. A similar
dilemma is said to have been used by Archytas to prove the infinity of
body: go to the extremity of heaven and try to put out your hand or

1038 BOOK I NOTES II

staff: you can or cannot: and so on. In very similar language too
Locke essay 11 13 21 seeks to prove space infinite: he asks ‘whether if
god placed a man at the extremity of corporeal beings, he could not
stretch his hand beyond his body: if he could, then he would put
his arm where there was before space without body...if he could not
stretch out his hand, it must be because of some external hindrance
...and then I ask whether that which hinders his hand from moving
onwards be substance or accident, something or nothing’.

984 (998)—987 (1001): he concludes his argument on the omne
with a short statement taken from what comes under the sight of all:
comp. what is said above on 701 foll. 759 foll. 915 foll.: comp. also 1
471—477, 11 367—369, v 506—508, 556—563, 646—649. That these
vss. should be placed here admits I think of no question: they utterly
destroy the sequence of the reasoning, where they come in mss. Fora
probable explanation of why they got out of place see vol. 1 p. 29: ignor-
ance of the different stages of the argument would suggest that Postremo
must follow Praeterea of 988; and therefore the first editor would not
unnaturally give to this addition of the poet’s the place it has in all mss.
All finite things bound and are bounded by something discontinuous and
distinct in kind: comp. the stoic Cleomedes de meteor. 1 6 at end πᾶν
τὸ πεπερασμένον εἰς ETEPOYEVES περατοῦται καὶ ὅ ἐστιν ἕτερον τοῦ πεπερασμέ-
νου. οἷον εὐθὺς ἐν τοῖς ὅλοις ὁ ἀὴρ περατούμενος εἰς ἑτερογενῆ καταλήγει,
τόν τε αἰθέρα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ K.T.A, 984 ante oculos: see n. to 02,

988 (984)—-1007 : but space or void is likewise infinite; else matter
during past eternity must have sunk in a mass to the bottom, and no-
thing could exist: but as space is infinite on all hands, there is no lowest
point to which first-beginnings can tend: they have boundless room to
move in for ever.—Having shewn the ommne to be infinite, he now pro-
ceeds to decide one of the two questions mooted above 953 foll. and to
prove space to he infinite. 988 swnimart totius 15 another name for
the onze. 991 conjluxet: seen. to 233. 992 sub cael tegnne
recurs 11 663 and v 1016, after Cic. Arat. 47 lato swb tegmine caelv.
992 ger, 999 geruntur: seen, to 328: the metaph. is of course the same ;
though I find a foreign critic can mistake what I thought plain terms.
996 At nunc: seen. to 169. 999 in ads. motw: so 11 297 quo nunc in
motu; 309 cum rerum prinordia sint in motu ; but τν 392 et adsiduo sunt
omnia motu. 1000 znferna 1 have no doubt is what Lucr. wrote: to
Luer, and Epic. their conception of atoms implied, as we shall see in 11,
their racing through space in parallel right lines in one direction. This
inherent motion both Epic. and Lucr. conceived as a motion downwards
with reference to our world: comp. in fact what he has said a few lines
before ; and see the acute remarks in the N. British Review p. 222,
‘gravitation in its apparent action seemed to shew a universal tendency
in one direction; this then he claimed as an inherent property of his

BOOK I NOTES II 109

atoms: a claim no broader than the claim made by Newton...and at first
sight much more conceivable: at first sight only, for indeed atoms
pouring onward, as imagined by our author, could be no source of power.
Motion in mechanics has no meaning except as denoting a change of
relative position : all atoms moving, as Lucretius fancied, at one speed
and in parallel lines would relatively to one another have been in perfect
rest... Lucr. unconsciously assumed the world as his basis by which to
measure direction and velocity’. When by the artifice spoken of, 11 216
foll., atoms were enabled to clash and combine, both Epicurus and Luer.
conceived the rising up of atoms in a direction more or less contrary to
the only natural motion as that which enabled things to come into being
and remain in being, and rendered possible the existence and mainte-
nance of the swmma rerwm. It is utterly vain for Lach. to attempt to
controvert this: comp. the words of Epic. quoted in p. 111, τὰ ὑπερείδον-
τα καὶ στέλλοντα κατὰ τὰς ἀντικοπάς, of which Lucretius’ inf. supp. cet. is
the paraphrase; comp. too 1035 foll. I ani compelled to be thus diffuse
owing to the strange way in which Lucretius’ words and my own have
been misunderstood. Of course from the nature of the case Lucretius’
conception of inferna, ‘from beneath’, implied every kind of motion up-
wards, whether perpendicularly or obliquely upwards, all of which would
have more or less of a sustaining power in opposition to the inherent
downward tendency. Take once more Epicurus’ own words 1. 1. 61,
where he is speaking of his atoms moving freely, when nothing impedes,
οὔθ᾽ ἡ ἄνω οὐθ᾽ ἡ εἰς τὸ πλάγιον διὰ τῶν κρούσεων φορὰ οὔθ᾽ ἡ κάτω διὰ τῶν
ἰδίων βαρῶν. 1001 and 1036 Lx enfinito i.e. spatio; as v 367 Ex in-
finito quae possint forte coorta; 408 Ex infinito sunt corpora plura coorta;
414 Ha infinito fuerat quaecumque coorta: but 11025 Ba wmfimto=Ex
inf. tempore; which in the similar passages v 188 and 423 is expressed,
Ex infinito iam tempore percita plagis: so indifferent is Luer. to such
ambicuities. Lx infinito appearsfrom 1036 Lx inf. suboriri, and vi 666
Ex injinito...suppeditare, to depend on suppeditantur, but perhaps it re-
fers to cifa as well. cita has its full participial force, as also 11 85 cum
cita saepe and Iv 546 regio cita: so Hor. epod. 9 20 Puppes sinastror-
sum citae. 1002 profundi is here a subst. as often in Lucr.: so na-
tura, habenas, summam profundi: but he only thus uses it in the gen.
Sing. 1004 repeated v 1216. 1005 restat wre: V 227 Cur tantum

..restet transire malorum; Hor. epist. 1 6 27 Ire tamen restat, Numa
quo devenit; [Val. Flacc. 1 457 tibi...restat deprendere patris Relliquias.|
meando goes with facere. 1006 copia 1.6. spatii. Comp. with this
and 996, Cic. de nat. deor. 154 in hac igitur inmensitate latitudinum
longitudinum altitudinum infinita vis innumerabilium volitat atomorum
cet. where the wnjinita vis is very Lucretian. 1006 1007 notice here
the poetical redundancy of expression, which with him has also a philo-
sophical import.

110 BOOK I NOTES Il

1008. 1051: and the sum of things and matter too are infinite: the
other question proposed above: for space being infinite, if matter were
finite, then nothing in being could exist one moment: this world for
example and all its parts would dissolve into their atoms; or rather
could never have existed; for it is only by an infinite supply of matter
that this earth and heaven can be maintained: the mutual clashings of
atoms might keep this world, or any other world, supplied for a time;
but only for a time: nay without infinite matter even these clashings
could not go on. 1008 rerum summa: seen. to 235, and 333. summa
is with Lucr. a very indefinite term: we have seen that swmma omnis,
summa summai totius onnis, summa summarunt and the like are all
synonymes of the omne or universe: summa /oci is the infinite void or
space: as then ves is his proper term for things in being, summa rerwm
denotes the whole suin of things in being, the whole number numberless
of worlds in being throughout infinite space, even as haec rerum summa
means this world of ours: and this is its regular and usual meaning, as
502 Unde omnis rerum nunc constet summa creata, and 11530 Ex infinito
summam rerum usque tenere. But then as this summa rerum is infinite,
and as the first-beginnings, out of which it comes and into which it passes
back, are also intinite, and as worlds somewhere in the universe are
always rising into being and perishing, and thus the relations between
the ves and the primordia are constantly changing; the infinity of res and
that of primordia got mixed together so inextricably, that sometimes, as
in our present passage, swmma rerum means the whole infinite sum of
matter, both things in being and atoms out of which they come: some-
times, as 1 334, sununa rerum is as Vague as its cognate natura rerum ;
see also n. to 619. Once, v1 606, as the context fixes the meaning, he
ventures to use rerum summa for haec rerum summa or hic mundus ;
while 649 it has again its most extensive sense. 1009 Ne possit,
tenet: Livy xxiv 19 7 Jurcellus...tenuit ne irrito incepto abiretur: also
π| 29 8; 1v 30 16; vu ὃ 5; xxxvi1 51 3; Ovid met. vir 146; (Sen.
epist. 103 4 non teneo ne noceant, sed ne fallant: (teneo ne Schultess:
te ne mss.);] so with ut, Livy xxvi1 45 13; 11 24 2 obtinuit ut. 1012
Aut [ita ut] alterutrum eorum i.e. aut inane aut corpus, si alterwm
ie. aut corpus aut inane, non ¢terminet illud alterum, Simplice natura,
1.6, solum, puteat tamen, i.e. etiamsi alterum desinat, inmoderatum. The
text 1s quite sound here, excepting of course the lacuna; though some
recent critics have pulled it strangely to pieces. Aut etiam: Iv 315
aut etiam quod cet.; 935 aut corio sunt Aut etiam conchis aut callo aut
cortice tectae; V 399 and 701 Aut etiam quia; Ov. ex Ponto m1 4 1]
Nos, quibus vngenium longi minuere labores, Aut etiam nullum forsitan
ante fuit: comp. Iv 356 Sive etiam. [For aut etiam comp. Cic. epist.
1916 quod de r/lo acceperant aut etiam suspicabantur ; τν 13 ὃ aut etiam
sontibus; x1 6 2 aut ita haberi senatum, ut.., aut etiam, 8st..., me

BOOK I NOTES II Did

non adesse; ad Q. fr. 1 1 8 aut etiam; 11 38; 13 1 aut etiam ne
te videre noluerim; 14 1; τι 15 (16) 1 αὖ aequis vero aut etiam ὦ
propensis in hanc partem: for sive etiam see Cic. ad Ὁ. fr. 11 4 ac resistas
sive etiam..occurras: for vel etiam epist. xu1 1 4 vel,..vel etiam.|
nest...camen: Hand and others deny that nist can=si non: but comp.
Luecr. vi 591 Quod nisi prorumpit, tamen cet.; Plaut. truc. 1 7 12
hoc adsimile est quasi de fluvio qui aquam derivat sibi: Nisi derivetur,
tamen ons ea aqua abeat in mare: in both places nisz tamen is
used precisely as here: Tac. ann. 11 54 ac nisi provinciarum copiae...
subvenerint, nostra nos scilicet nemora nostraeque villae tuebuntur ; Livy
ΧΧΙ 41 15 nec est altus ab tergo exercitus qui, nist nos vincimus, hosti
obsistat; Ov. remed. 245 Quod nist firmata (=si non firmata) pro-
peraris mente reverti; espec. trist. 18 31 Quid, nist comwvictu causisque
valentibus essem, Temporis et longi vinctus amore tibi? Quid, nisi tot
lusus et tot mea seria nosses, Tot nossem lusus seriaque ipsa tua? Quid, si
duntaxat Romae tibt cognitus essem?; Mart. x 73 7 A te missa venit:
possem nist munus amare, Marce, tuum, possem nomen amare meum;
[Sen. rhet. controv. 1 1 7 at nisi impetravero ut boni fratres sint,
ampetrabo ne malt patres sint; and just as Lucr., Cic. epist. m1 12 3
nist 1am tune omnia negotia cum summa tua dignitate diligentisseme
confecissem,...tamen hac mihi affinitate nuntiata non marore equidem
studio, sed acrius, apertius, significantius dignitatem tuam defendissem. |
alterum: for the elision see ἢ. to 111 904. 1013 Stmplice will hardly
be found elsewhere, semplict being the common form: duplice, triplice,
septemplice are equally rare: see n. to 1 635 pernice. enmoderatum :
Cic. de nat. deor. 11 65 translates the ἄπειρον αἰθέρα of Euripides by
inmoderatum aethera. On the lacuna see notes 1 and transl. 1014
templa: see ἢ. to 120. 1015 divum cor. san. existing in the inter-
mundia. 1018 magnum per inane, which occurs four times between
this v. and 11 109, is adopted by Virg. ecl. v1 31: 111108 magnum is an
epithet of omne: the word thus applied acquires a poetical intensity of
meaning; as solidus profundus celer and the like: see n. to Iv 63 tenwis.
Of this and the preceding sections Epic. Diog. x 41 gives a good sum-
mary, καὶ μὴν καὶ τῷ πλήθει τῶν σωμάτων ἀπειρόν ἐστι τὸ πᾶν Kal TO με-
γέθει τοῦ κενοῦ᾽ εἴτε γὰρ ἦν τὸ κενὸν ἄπειρον τὰ δὲ σώματα ὡρισμένα, οὐδαμοῦ
dv ἔμενε τὰ σώματα, ἀλλ᾽ ἐφέρετο κατὰ τὸ ἄπειρον κενὸν διεσπαρμένα, οὐκ
ἔχοντα τὰ ὑπερείδοντα καὶ στέλλοντα κατὰ τὰς ἀντικοπάς᾽ εἴτε τὸ κενὸν ἣν
ὠρισμένον, οὐκ ἂν εἶχε τὰ ἀπειρα σώματα ὅπου ἂν ἔστη: Of this passage and
the one cited to 964 Lucretius’ argument in 958—1051 is an accurate
expansion, The last words would alone prove 984—987 (998—1001) to
be an unmeaning interruption of the argument where they come in mss.
1019 Sive ad pot.=Sive acdeo, or Seu potius; but the pleonasm adds empha-
sis: comp. 111 949 Atque etiam potius; 1v 356 Sive etiam potius: Luci-
lius has sive adeo, Cicero once sive adeo, once sive etiam; [Caesar Ὁ. c.

PZ BOOK [I NOTES II

127 2 sive etiam quod ; 11 27 2 sive etiam auribus Vari servinnt;| auctor
ad Heren. 1v 55 atque adeo multo potius: see C. Ε΄, W. Mueller ueb.
sive Ὁ. 24.

1021—1027 are repeated with some changes v +19—429 and 187—
194, It is mere blind chance, not providence, that has arranged out of
the atoms this world and other worlds; therefore these atoms never
could have thus combined, unless there was an infinite supply. 1021
for these three abls. see n. to 183. 1022 suo monosy]. here and v
490: so 111 1025 sis oculis after Ennius; who, ann. 278, has suos a
monos.; as is the abl. wzeis in corp. inser. 1 38; the old titulus Mummi-
anus ib, 542 has in one v. Visum animo suo perfecit tua pace rogans te ;
though twa pace may be for tudém pacém; but such a syniz. is rare in
hexameters, frequent in dramatic poetry: even Sen. Agam. 250 has
suapte dissyl. and Troad. 191 mdnibus mets debrtos. 1024 mautata
refers of course only to change of place, as 911 eadem paulo inter se
matata; 913 Inter se paulo mutatis sunt elementis; 681 mutarique ordine
quaedam: comp. Plaut. Amph. 274 Neque se luna quoquam mutat ; Ov.
trist. v 2 73 Linc ego dum muter; [Livy v 46 11 nec wniussw popule
mutari finibus posset nec nisi dictator dictus cet. Nonius p. 351 4
mutare, transferre: Lucilius lib. xxv1.. mutes aliquo tecum... | 1025
Lu inf. i.e. tempore: comp. v 188 and 423 and ἢ. to 1001; and also
Aen. 1x 63 collecta fatiyut edendi Ex longo rabies. percita a favourite
word in this sense. 1026 Omne genus: Lucr. is very fond of this
idiom, common in the best writers: quod genus also occurs often ; and
vi 917 Hoc genus in rebus: an adj. omatyenus is unknown to him; see
n. to 683. motus and coetus are of course acc. plur. 1027 disposi-
turas: 500 192; seen. to 653: it appears to be peculiar to Lucr.

1028 partly recurs v 191. 1029 magnos annos: v 644 Quae volvunt
magnos in magnis mensibus annos. There is no doubt an allusion,
perhaps sarcastic, to the stoical theories of the magnus annus, or cycle:
in each of these great years the world went through precisely the same
changes from its first formation to its ecpyrosis. Stob. eclog. 1 264
tells us that Heraclitus reckoned this year at 18,000, Diogenes the
stoic at 365 times 18,000 solar years. The poet then means to say, this
world, though its term of existence is nothing compared with the eternity
of the universe, yet in its present form outlives many of your great
years. 1031 [avid. mare: Hor. od. 1 28 18.] jluminis undis is the
stream of water belonging to each ammnis: see Fore. and Aen. 11 305
vapidus montano flumine torrens, which he cites: comp. 1v 1036 Flumi-
nis ingentis fluctus ; [Catul. 64 282 quos propter fluminis undas Aura
parit flores. | 1033 summissa, if from Lucr., has I now think the
sense common in Caesar and Livy: summittere subsidia, auxilia, praesidia
and the like; and indicates a supply sent up when needed: amissa
reparare in tempore quaeque: comp. too Hor. od. Iv 4 63 Monstrunwe

BOOK I NOTES II 113

submisere Colchr Maius ; sat. 11 4 43 Vinea submittit capreas non semper
edules, 1034 vavant=durent by a poetical licence: see n. to v 538:
a stoic or peripatetic could here use it literally; but to the philosopher
Luer. these things are rather an example, as he says v 125, of what is
vitalt motu sensuque remotwm. 1036 see n. to 1000. 1037 guaeque
is accus. agreeing with amissa. 1088 foll. comp. 11 1122 foll. 1039
am. cor.: so 810 amisso 1am corpore; Iv 535 Nec te fallit ttem quid
corporis auferat: this use of corpus in the sense of ‘losing flesh’, and
facere ‘gaining flesh’ is found in Cicero: see lexicons: I have noted
from Ovid four instances, of which am. 1 6 5 Longus amor tales corpus
tenuavit in usus Aptaque subducto corpore membra dedit, is curious:
[see too Mart. lib. spect. 7 6 Ingue omni nusquam corpore corpus erat.]
1041 aversa viai, a grecism to which I know no exact parallel: Horace’s
sceleris purus, operum solutis are somewhat like: and Wak. aptly com-
pares too his abstineto trarum calidaeque rixae and desine querellarum,
which stand almost or quite alone. [But Aen. x 441 desistere pugnae:
comp. too Horace’s laborum decipitur, regnavit popularum, and neque
alle Seposite crceris nec longae invidit avenae.| Enn. ann. 209 viai seems
to depend not on jlexere but quo. 1042 swum. omn. quaec., the whole
of any sum of matter gathered together, such as our summa or mundus
here spoken of. 1044 Cudere, an expressive metaphor with plaga or
ictus, to give the force of Epicurus’ ἀντικοπή, the counter-stroke which
makes the atom change its course and enables it to combine: these vss.
illustrate the inferna supp. of 1000: the plagae or collisions enable
atoms to change their directions, so that enough may come up in all
directions from beneath to keep any summea in being; but yet these
plagae could not suffice without an infinite store of matter to supply
them in number sufficient. 1045 queatur: 111 1010 potestur: these
or other forms are common enough in the old writers; as quitur quitast
nequitur nequitum poteratur possitur; but can only be used when
followed by an infin. pass.; as in the case of coeptus, desitus sum.

1049 comp. 1036. 1050 Lt tamen: iv 811 Et tamen in rebus; v 768
Et tamen ipsa suo cet.; 1177 Et tamen omnino quod cet.; 1096 δὲ
ramosa tamen cum cet.; 1125 Ht tamen e summo cet.; v1 603 Lt tamen
interdum, etc.: the force of the particles is ‘and putting this or other
considerations out of the way, even then’, or ‘and yet after all’, or the
like: see ἢ. to v 1177.

1052—1082: do not believe with some that all things tend to a
centre, and therefore the world keeps together without external force,
and things and animals beneath the earth cannot tumble into the sky
any more than we can fly up to it: that our day is their night, their day
our night: this is sheer folly: there is no centre in infinity, and, if there
were, things would not be attracted any more than repelled by it: void
everywhere alike yields to all body alike.—It is the stoics doubtless

M. II. ὃ

[14 BOOK [I NOTES II

whom Lucr. here mainly attacks, though the peripatetics and some others
held a similar doctrine: they taught that there was but one finite world
surrounded by an infinite void ; and that the world was upheld in the
way which Lucr. so clearly explains here, by things pressing to the
centre: the earth resting icoxpatws in the words of Zeno in Stob. ecl. 1
19 4, at about the centre of the κόσμος, in the same way that the whole
finite κόσμος remains fast in the infinite void. Had Epicurus, while
retaining his conceptions of infinite space and matter and innumerable
worlds and systems, seen fit to adopt this stvical doctrine of things
tending to a centre, and so to make his atoms rush from all sides of space
alike towards a centre, he might have anticipated the doctrine of uni-
versal gravity: see what is said at 1 251 foll. But Lucr. is right in
rejecting the absurd reasons which the stoics gave for things pressing
to the centre of one finite world in the midst of infinite void, and he
well exposes here, 1083—1113, and τι 184—215, their inconsistency in

making some things seek, others fly from the centre. 1052 fuge with
an infin. is found in Virgil Horace Ovid and Tibullus: Lucr. has an infin.
after fugito too more than once: see n. to 658. 1053 quod dicunt=

id quod dicunt, or ut dicunt: so guod dico, 1080 sua gued natura petit, 11
369 quod natura reposcit, and the like: Lach. seems to me only to involve
the constr. 1055 actebus ext. of atoms: see 1042 and 1050. 1056
the stoic in Cic. de nat. deor. 11 115 says omnes partes etus undique
medium locum capessentes nituntur aequaliter cet. and Zeno himself in
Stob. ecl. 1. 1. πάντα τὰ μέρη τοῦ κόσμου ἐπὶ τὸ μέσον τοῦ κόσμου THY hopav
ἔχειν, μάλιστα δὲ τὰ βάρος ἔχοντα. 1057 is parenthetical: Lach. rightly
compares the form of expr. in Iv 366 Aera δὲ credis privatum lumine
posse Indugredi: comp. also 11 603 neque posse in terra sistere terram ;
and Pliny 11 162 ste terrae, arcentibus cunctis, nist in se locus non est.

1058 1059 Lach. and some older editors join these with 1057: this may
be right, but I prefer to connect them with 1056: Z¢[fuge credere] quae
pond. sunt cet. sunt: comp. τι 226 feruntur; v 630 abest, propinguat :
in the first two cases we might easily read sint and ferantur; but I
make no change, because the best writers often mix such indicative
clauses with the orat. obl.: Caes. bell. Gall. v 11 4 Labieno scrabet ut
quam plurinas posset iis legiontbus, quae sunt apud eum, naves instituat;
and Sall. Iug. 54 1 hortatur ad cetera, quae levia sunt, parem animum
gerant, much resemble our passage: [Caes. b. civ. 187 1 as gui amiserant
restituatur, where see Kramer’s note. | 1059 retro posta: if two men
are feet to feet, the one is supposed to be reversed or turned upside down,
just as your shadow in the water looks to be: Cic. acad. pr. 11 123 gui
adversis vestigiis stent contra nostra vestigia, quos ἀντίποδας vocatis. 1060
unquestionably is joined with what precedes: see notes 1: Lach. here
labours in vain: Lucian Demon. 22 gives just the same illustration, φυσικόν
τινα περὶ τῶν ἀντιπόδων διαλεγόμενον ἀναστήσας Kal ἐπὶ φρέαρ ἀγαγὼν καὶ

BOOK I NOTES 1 1

δείξας αὐτῷ τὴν ἐν τῷ ὕδατι σκιὰν ἤρετο τοιούτους apa τοὺς ἀντίποδας εἶναι
λέγεις 5

1061 if there is here any anacol. at all, it is very slight and natural :
fuge credere, on which what precedes depends, is so distant, that he
prefers to go on with another verb Contendunt. suppa: Festus quotes
Lucilius for this word; and Accius 575 has suppa (imper.): it=supinus.
1062 foll. comp. Pliny 11 161 allo, i.e. vulgo, quaerente cur non decidant
contra sitt, tamquam non ratio praesto sit ut nos non decidere mirentur
alle. 1065 Ltd the people there, easily inferred from what precedes:
yet it is possible that L/h, as Lamb. suggests, is the adv.: a, well-known
form: but the pronoun contrasts better with nos: Virg. geor. 1 250
Nosque whi primus equis oriens adflavit anhelis, [llc (MPR, Probus:
Iilis Seneca) sera rubens accendit himina vesper, there is a similar doubt.
1066 the subject changes, e¢ [illos contendunt] dividere. tempora caeli
are of course the seasons of the year; as vi 362 cum caels tempora con-
stant; and as anni tempora and annorwim tempora are often used by him:
with them it is midsummer, when with us it is midwinter, and therefore
their nights are always equal to our days. 1087 diebus 1.6. nostris,
is a harsh ellipse. agitare=agere, a sense common in prose too: Cie.
Verr. 11 154 dies fests agitantur. 1068 stolidis, the stoics: see ἢ. to
641. 1073 the mutilated sentence makes it impossible to tell whether
longe goes with alia or a lost infin. at end of the verse. 1075 per non
medium: so τι 990 ex non sensibus; 932 a non sensu: comp. Horace’s non
sutor, Sallust’s omnia non serva, Cicero’s non corpus, Quintilian’s non
exordio, non voce, non orator: [comp. Ov. met. 1v 187 aligquts de dis non
tristebus. | 1076 Aeg. pond. more fully expressed 11 239 Aegue ponde-
vmobus non aequis; comp. Epic. in Diog. Laert. x 43 παρεχομένου τοῦ
κενοῦ THY ἵξιν ὁμοίαν Kal TH κουφοτάτῃ καὶ TH βαρυτάτῃ τὸν αἰῶνα, where
ἴξιν should surely be εἶξιν: comp. Sextus adv. math. x 223 διὰ τὴν εἶξιν
φέρεται de αὐτοῦ, i.e. ἡ ἄτομος. 1077 qwisquam locus: 11 857 Nec...
saporem denque quemquam ; 111 234 Nec calor est quisquam ; 875 quem-
quam sibi sensum wm morte futurum; iv 689 haud quisquam...eorum ;
Valer. Flaccus vii 272 irae quisqwam modus; Caelius ap. Cic. ad fam.
ΠῚ 17 2 nec homo nec ordo quisquam; Plaut. Men. 447 Numguam
quicquam facivinis fect; most. 607 neque ego taetriorem beluanr...quem-
quam; Suet. Caes. 59 quoguam incepto; Manil. 11 841 cardine quoquam;
Tac. dial. 29 nec cuiquam serio ministerio; [Sen. de brev. vitae 9 1 init.
potesine quisquan sensus hominum eorum dict que prudentiam iactant
cet.: dico mss. dict Frid. Schultess in commentat. in hon. Β΄, Buech.
Herm. Useneri a soc. phil. Bonn.; Prop. v 7 13 nec cuiquam melior
sperande puellae.| With appellatives it is common enough, quisguam
parens, civis, homo, discipulus, cocus, amator, vir, puer, heros, iuvenis,
mulier, virgo, anus, amica. But Cicero too can not only say cuiquam
ordini and cuiquam genere honinum; but also ad Att. v 10 4 ne rumor

S—?

116 BOOK I NOTES II

quidem quisquam ; ad fam. πὶ 10 6 cuiquam legationi. 1079 1080
almost repeated 11 236 237. 1079 subsistere: Plaut. epid. 11 77
nist suffulcis firmiter, Non potes subsistere.

1083—1113: again they teach that while earth and water tend to
the centre, air and fire fly from it, and that the earth sends up food to
the tree-tops: they thus contradict themselves: the truth is that the
whole of this doctrine is alike false ; for, space being infinite, if matter
were finite, the world and all that is in it would in a moment dissolve
into their first-beginnings: if on any one side matter fails, the door of
destruction is opened to all alike.—Zeno 1. 1. thus teaches, οὐ πάντως δὲ
σῶμα βάρος ἔχειν, GAN aBapy εἶναι ἀέρα καὶ rip’ γίγνεσθαι δὲ Kal ταῦτα πως
ἐπὶ τὸ τῆς ὅλης σφαίρας τοῦ κόσμου μέσον, τὴν δὲ σύστασιν πρὸς τὴν περι-
φέρειαν αὐτοῦ ποιεῖσθαι x.7.X.; this exactly agrees with what Lucr.
affirms of them; who in 11 184—215 clearly and well refutes the theory.
1085 in this v. and the lost one the two conditions of water seem to
have been expressed, when it tumbles in rain from the sky, and when it
is kept together as it were by the earth’s substance in the form of the
sea and rivers, 1089 tremere, tremulus, tremor, are all used by him
to express the bickering of the stars or of fires. 1090 cae. caer.
recurs VI 96: he has caerula mundi, the same thing; and caerula alone:
Ennius before him cava caerula and caerula caeli templa. puser:
231 unde aether sidera pascit; ν 524 Quo cuiusque cibus vocat... lammea
per caelum pascentis corpora passim. 1091 se iba: the elision of a
long monosyl. before a short vowel is confirmed within narrow limits:
see Haupt obs. crit. p. 17 who cites from Lucr. 1 136, 922, v 97 Nee me
animi; 11 6 Quod te imitari; τν 1188 te animo; 1234 Quod si im eo:
but these are all easy elisions and frequent even in Ovid. Lach. adds 11
574 In se antmam, which is a false reading, as well as 1 874 quae alient-
genis, V1 755 vi ibus, two mere conjectures of his own which both violate
the laws of elision: see Luc. Mueller cle re metr. p. 284. 1094—1101
see notes 1: it is clear that in the lost vss. the clause nzsz cet. had to be
completed; then an apodcosis to guoniam cet. must have come, shewing
that these people were not only wrong, but inconsistent: then a new
sentence must have followed, declaring that space being infinite, as even
the stoics admitted, matter as proved above must be infinite likewise, Ve
cet. 1102 volucrt a natural metaphor: ιν 205 voluera levitate; v1 173
volucri lumine: Shakespeare has the volant speed of flame. moen.
mundi: see n. to 73: the ether being outside would go first, then heaven
and air, then earth and all in it would follow and be commingled in
the ruins of heaven. 1105 penetr. templa, the innermost quarters, Le.
farthest removed from us: it means therefore that the whole heaven
would tumble in on earth and be mixed in wild ruin: Virgil has éecéis,
and adytis penetralibus, and penetrali in sede; Seneca penetrales deos ;
Cicero and Catullus have penetrales focos : elsewhere in Luer. penetralis

BOOK I NOTES II εἰ

=qui penetrat. 1107 verwm here seems to be everything in and on
the earth; so that the atoms of these ves and of heaven are mixed up
with those omnis terrae. 1108 Corpora, i.e. prima, solventes: vi 235
soluens differt primordia vini: dissolving the union of the atoms; the
word more commonly signifies breaking up the thing itself: Lucan n
290 cum ruat arduus aether, Terra labet, mixto coewntis pondere mundi.
1109 Plaut. rud. 1287 de bonis quod restat reliquiarum; [Cic. epist.
ΧΙ 4 1 reliquiarum nihil fuisset. | 1111 pare reeurs 111 611, 1v 515,
Υ 511, 721, vi 694, 721; inser. Lat. 1 206 25 and 27 in partei: 198
D1 parte: the accus. partim is found v1 88, 384 and 661; for these
forms in other authors see Neue 1 p. 205 and 241: the adv. partim
is really this acceus.; see n. to 20. 1112 ranwa lett recurs Vv 373;
and is adopted by Virgil and Ovid, and after them by Statius Val.
Flaccus and Arnobius more than once: 11 67 lett portas cunctarier
ante; Ovid trist. 11 2 30 has also meique Interitus clausas esse vetate
Jores, having said a few lines above éotiens nostri pulsata sepuleri Ianua:
which illustrates the expression. In this the poets have idealised the
solid stone doors of their tombs: comp. the Orci traditus thensauro of
Naevius in his epitaph; and what Eucharis in the corp. inser. 1009 says
of her own and the surrounding tombs: Heus ocwlo errante quei aspicis
lett domus.

1114—1117: master fully what has been said, and the whole of
nature will soon be revealed to you. 1114 see notes 1: sez pernosces:
NOSCO, noscere, pernoscere is the usage of Lucr. not novi, nosse: sei pernes-
ces has been strangely objected to, because Lucr. should have said pernoris,
as if this usage of the simple for the perf. future were not common in
the best writers: Hor. od. 1 131 Quod si me lyricis vatibus inseres, Sub-
Ami feriam sidera vertice; Ov. ars 1469 Si non accipiet scriptum inlec-
tumque remrttet, Lecturam spera; [fasti 111 351 certe credemur, ait, st
verba sequetur Exitus.| Often the two tenses are used together: Virg.
geor. 1 155—157; Mart. 1v 86 6 δὲ te pectore, si tenebit ore...St dam-
navertt; Sen. Thyest. 634 (δὲ stetertt animus, st metu corpus rigens
Remittet artus; Cic. ad Att. x11 28 1 St igitur tu lum conveneris...et, st
quid ita conficies, cet. Madvig opusc. 11 80 says ‘futurum simplex
quam tenui discrimine ab exacto in tali coniunctione interdum distet
etiam apud bonos prosae orationis scriptores, nemo ignorat’; and then he
proceeds to shew how strangely in the Lex Rubria, inser. Lat. 1 205,
written a few years after the death of Lucr., the two futures are mixed
together without any difference of time, and cites Livy xxxv 3517. [So
Plaut. Cas. 1 4 28 Si sors autem decolassit, gladium faciam culeitam
Lumgue incumbam ; but capt. 496 St ea decolabit, redibo huc ad senem
ad cenam asperam. Very like Lucr. is Cic. epist. vi 2 3 quae vis
unset in his paucis verbis...si attendes, quod facis, profecto etiam sine
mews litteris intelleges te aliquid habere cet.; and vil 19 quamquam

118 BOOK II NOTES II

tu, si attente leges, si saepius, per te omni consequere ut certe intel-
legas. | par. op.=parva opera or labore: Hor. epist. 1 7 ὃ has
opella forensis: no other example of the word is quoted; later writers
have operula.

BOOk IL,

1—61: sweet though it be to see from a place of safety the storm-
tost sailor or the battling soldier, far sweeter is it from the heights of
philosophy to look down on men lost in error and struggling for power
and wealth: what blindness not to see how little is wanted to rid us of
pain and bring us every innocent pleasure ; often merely fresh air and
fine weather, not palaces nor banquets! can purple cure a fever? It is
not wealth or birth or power, no nor armies and navies that can free us
from fear of religion and death, and all the cares of life: reason alone can
deliver us from all such empty terrors. Land 5 Suave; so nec nirum
more than once, as well as the indeclinable pote, with which other
writers too so often omit the verb subst. and which, to judge from the
det qui potes (δυνατοί) of Varro, had the force of a neuter: these neuter
adjectives are rare exceptions, the usage of Lucr., as of the older writers
generally, being not to omit the subst. verb, except in some standing
formule of speech, among which these instances in Lucr. may be
reckoned: see Ritschl opusc. 11 608—618; but see too Ribbeck trag.
fragm. 2 ed. p. XXI. mart is the abl.: obs. magno and 2 magnum, and
27 “ὃ auroque aurataque, and 48 49 metus metwunt, and 54—59 tenebris
tenebris tenebris tenebras. [mari magno occurs more than once in
Ennius, and mare magnum in Luci}. xxx 72.] 1 comp. Archippus
Mein. com. Gr. frag. 11 p. 727 Ὡς ηδὺ τὴν θάλατταν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ὁρᾶν,
Ὦ μῆήτέρ, ἐστι μὴ πλέοντα μηδαμῶς ; and Cic. ad Att. 1 7 2 Nune vero
cum cogar exire de navi, non abiectis sed ereptis gubernaculis, cupto isto-
rum naufragia ex terra intueri ; cupro, ut ait tuus amicus Sophocles, kav
ὑπὸ στέγῃ Πυκνῆς ἀκούειν Wexados evdovon φρενί: comp. the whole frag.
from the tympanistae, esp. τοῦ γῆς ἐπιψαύσαντα, which further illustrates
Lucr.: it appears therefore to be a common proverb, the hardness of
which he tries to soften by the explanation of 3: Hor. epist. 1 11 10
Neptunum procul e terra spectare furentem. 2 comp. ἢ. to 1 253,
3 Prop. 110 3 O noctem meminisse mihi tucunda voluptas; Aetna 251
divina est animi ac cucunda voluptas. 4 quibus mals careas =ea
mala quibus careas: careas=caremus: see ἢ, to 41 foll. and to 1 327,
and comp. 36 Jacteris. 7 foll. often imitated, as ciris 14 δὲ me iam
summa sapientia pangeret arce...Unde hominum errores longe lateque

BOOK Il NOTES II [19

per orbem Despicere atque humales possem contemnere curas; Ovid met.
xv 147 iuvat ire per alta Astra... Palantesque animos passim ac rationis
egentes Despectare procul cet.; Stat. silv. 11 2 131 celsa tu mentis ab arce
Despicis errantes. 8 doctrina sap. is governed by munita ; munita
has at once its literal meaning, as in arx munita, and the common
metaphorical one, as in Cic. de div. 1 45 sapientia munitum pectus : the
somewhat involved sentence gives an awkwardness to the epithets;
since even in prose serena templa, edita, doctrina samentum munita
would be natural enough. lLucr. may well have been thinking of
Aristoph. clouds 1034 Ὦ καλλίπυργον σοφίαν κλεινοτάτην ἐπασκών, for it
is a play he would have been likely to enjoy, and I find other points of
resemblance: comp. 11 1100 foll. and vi 387—422 with clouds 395—
402; and νι 124—131 with clouds 404—407; and 1v 131—142 with
clouds 346 foll. 9—13 L. Mueller compares Lucil. 1. inc. 15—21 of
his ed. 9 Despicere here, as in ciris and Statius, to look down with
scorn upon: see notes | to 1v 418 Dispicere. 10 wam quaerere, un-
able to find it, because they reject Epicurus who, v1 26 foll., pointed
out the true summum bonun, atque viam monstrarit, tramite parvo Qua

possemus ad 1d recto contendere cursu. 1213 WNoctes...opes repeated
i11 62, 13 Ad s. emerg. opes: v 698 emergere ad ortus; Paterc. 11 65
ὧν quod tam emersissent fastiyiwm. rer. potiri, and 50 and 111 1027

rerun potentes appear to be most general expressions for supreme power
of any sort: see Force. 5. potiri, whose first example is Cleanthes solem
dominart et rerum potiri putat; and comp. Cic. in Cat. 11 19 domena-
tionem tamen expectant, rerum potrre volunt.

16 hoc aevt quode.=omne hoc aevum: (Ov. her. 3 142 hoe animae;]
Aen. 1 73 quodcwmque hoc regni; Stat. silv. v 3 213 decus hoe quod-
cumque lyrae: so Catull. 1 8 quidquid hoc lbelle. nonne videre : this
infin. of indignation is quoted by Donatus to Ter. Phor. 11 1 2 Nec meum
_ imperium ac, mitto imperium: non simultatem meam Revererr saltem:
see Lach. who abundantly illustrates it from Cicero and others: add
Livy 1x 11 12 haec ludibria religionum non pudere in lucem proferre et
vie puerrs dignas ambages senes ac consulares fallendae fider exquirere !
the idiom is very common, though this is said to be the only ex. in
Livy. 17 latrare: Eun. ann. 570 animus cum pectore latrat, and
Paulus Festi latrare Ennius pro poscere posuit; Hor. sat. 11 2 17 cum
sale panis Latrantem stomachum bene lencet. utqur: seen. to 1 7959.
18 mente fruatur Iuc. sensu: comp. Cic. de fin. πὶ 37 quis est...que
nulla animo adficiatur voluptate; and see n. to 1 183: naturam=the
whole nature of man, of which corp. nat. of 20 is one part; and the
natura of 23 again takes up the nat. of 17: to illustrate the sense and
the asyndeton of 17—19 comp. Sen. epist. 66 45 apud Epicurum duo
bona sunt ex quibus summum itllud beatumque componitur, ut corpus
sine dolore sit, animus sine perturbatione. 17—19 thus Epicurus

120 BOOK II NOTES II

himself after much more to the same purpose says to Menoeceus, Diog.
x 131, that the pleasure which is his end is τὸ μήτ᾽ ἀλγεῖν κατὰ σῶμα
μήτε ταράττεσθαι κατὰ ψυχήν. 20 ad nat....opus: νι 365 opus fabri-
canda ad fulmina: a constr. common in Cicero and others. 21 quae
d. cumque αἰ. seems epexegetical of pauca: ‘but few things are needed,
such and such only as free it from pain’; with this use of guaecumque
comp. vi 85 qua de causa cumque Serantur ; 738 Averna tibi quae sint
loca cumque lacusque Expediam; Prop. 110 19 Cynthia me docuit sem-
per quaecumague petenda Quaeque cavenda forent. So Philodemus vol.
Hercul. 1x col. 12 φιλοσόφῳ δ᾽ ἐστὶ πλούτου puxpov’ ὃ παρεδώκαμεν ἀκο-
λούθως τοῖς καθηγεμόσιν ἐν τοῖς περὶ πλούτον λόγοις. 22 foll. are made
clear by right punctuation: uti is concessive, as Lamb. saw, though
otherwise mistaking the meaning of the passage: the subjects to possint
are the golden statues, the house, the gilded ceilings, etc. of 24 foll.:
granted that these refinements can supply at times many exquisite
delights, yet nature in their absence can be satisfied often with the sim-
plest enjoyments. Deliczas has thus its proper force, exactly as in Vv
1450 delicias quoque vitae funditus omnis, Carmina picturas, et daedala
signa polire. The poet could well enjoy these refinements, but could also
do without them. interdum: its position is emphatic and in the manner
of Lucr.: v 602 Nonne vides etiam quam late parvus aquai Prata riget
fons interdum ; 1125 Et tamen 6 summo, quasi fulmen, deicit ictos Lvi-
dia interdum cet. 22 substernere appears to have much the same force
as the simple sternere: the sub perhaps has the meaning it sometimes has
in subministrare and submittere, of a successive or continued supply.

23 neque here means simply non, a sense which neque and nec so
often had in archaic Latin, and which is not uncommon in classical: so
v1 1214 neque se possent cognoscere ut 1psi; 111 730 At neque cur faciant
ipsae quareve laborent Dicere suppeditat: so Iv 1217 neque utrum: see n.
there: and v 839 nec utrum. The best account I know of this usage is
Ribbeck’s, Lat. part. p. 2426: we find in the twelve tables nec escit
three times, and quod nec manifestum erit: comp. too res nee mancipi: it
is common enough in Plautus, as trin. 282 where the palimpsest has
neque ullum. [Zeitschr. f. Oest. Gymn. xxvii p. 829 ‘nec...ist einfach die
alte Negation=ne, non: Plaut. Bacch. 1 2 11; ιν 4 83; Asin. 1 ὃ;
11 4 65; Pseud. tv 6 23; Poen. 11 1 13; Most. 1 3 83 u. da Lorenz;
Cure. 1 1 21; Bacch. πὶ 2 64: Curt. x 6 20’.] Comp. Lucil. 1 12
(Mueller) nec st Carneaden ipsum Orew remittat, [and perhaps v1 33
Quem neque Lucanis oriund: montibw’ taurt Ducere protelo validis cervi-
cibw’ possent;| Catull. 64 83 Funera Cecropiae nec funera; 30 4 Nec
facta impia—placent, a passage often misunderstood; ciris 239 quod
nec seit Adrastea; 269 nec ullo vulnere. Ribbeck says there are
undoubted examples in Livy, Ovid, Quintilian, Tacitus, Suetonius,
Juvenal, Florus, Justin: add to his instances from Ovid, trist. 1v 1 65;

BOOK II NOTES Il 121

ex Ponto 1 1 19: and Mart. 1v 86 5: Virg. ecl. 1x 6 quod nec vortat
bene. [Caes. Ὁ. civ. 158 3 has neque dum=nondum.| We have in Lucr.
neque opinantem: so necopinus neglego negotium; and nescro neguteo ;
and névis névolt nevelles neparcunt, allin Plautus: Cic. orator 154 nequere
pro non quire...nolle pro non velle.. dicimus ; 157 non scrre quidem bar-
barum vam videtur, nescire dulcrus. 24 foll. after Odys. 7 100 Xpv-
σειοι δ᾽ ἄρα κοῦροι ἐυδμήτων ἐπὶ βωμῶν Ἕστασαν αἰθομένας δαΐδας μετὰ
χερσὶν ἔχοντες, Φαίνοντες νύκτας κατὰ δώματα δαιτυμόνεσσιν: it is possible
that these vss. of Homer may have suggested the fashion to wealthy Ro-
mans. 27 fulgét: v 1049 sctrét antmoque is the only other instance
of this licence in Lucr. which is much more frequent in Virgil: there is
no analogy between this practice and the lengthening of such syllables in
Ennius: with him they were really long, and in thesis as well as arsis,
uter essét induperator and the like: in Lucr. and Virgil the lengthening
is a mere licence permitted in the arsis alone. 28 why an editor
should object to aurata in Lucr. because auro occurs in 27 I do not com-
prehend: see ἢ. to 1 magno and magnum: the gilding the lacunaria was
a necessity with the Romans; the custom is spoken of by Virgil Horace
Tibullus Propertius Ovid Lucan Seneca Statius, Val. Flaccus, the Antho-
logia, Livy Pliny Apuleius Prudentius: [comp. esp. Luc. Phars. x 112
laqueataque tecta ferebant Divitias, crassumque trabes absconderat aurum. |
It is specially recorded that Pollio did not gild the ceiling of the
public library which he built, to spare the eyes of readers. The awro
of 27 may refer to walls furniture and plate: comp. Livy xii 20 9
magnificum templum, non laqueatum auro tantum, sed parretibus totrs
lammina inauratum. The imitation of our passage in the culex 61
foll. St non Assyrio cet. has 62 st nitor auri Sub laqueare domus,
shewing that the writer found awrata in Lucr.: the general tone of
these vss. is also imitated by Virg. geor. 11 461 δὲ non ingentem foribus
domus alta superbis cet. 29—33 almost repeated v 1392—1396.
29 Cum tamen cet.: comp. 690 cum tamen inter se versus ac verba
necessest Confiteare cet.; 111 645 cum mens tamen...non quit; vi 140
cum tamen...haurtt: Aen. 1x 513 cum tamen omnes Ferre vuvat subter
densa testudine casus; x 509 Cum tamen ingentis Rutulorum linquis
acervos. {Perhaps the tamen expressing the concession implied in the
usual subjunctive, tended to preserve this indic. so usual in the
older writers.]| The sequence of the whole sentence is this, Si non
sunt....Nec...Nec..., cum tamen...curant: the cum refers to natura
requirit; the tamen refers to the δὲ non: nature wants no more,
when they thus simply enjoy themselves none the less although they
have none of these luxuries. With 29—33 comp. culex 67 at pectore
puro Saepe super tenero prosternit gramine corpus, Florida cum tellus
gemmantes picta per herbas Vere notat dulce distincta coloribus arva: the
picta is nearer the pingebat of v 1396; and v 461 and other passages are

122 ΒΟΟΚ II NOTES II

likewise here imitated. 30 Prop. aq. riv. is also found in the culex
388 and Virg. ecl. νπὶ 87; and sub. ram. arb. altae in Aen. vi 108;
comp. too Tib.1 1 27 sub umbra Arboris ad rivos praetereuntis aquae.
34 Lamb. compares Hor. epist. 1 2 48 Aegroto domini deduaxit corpore
JSebres, where deduxit is the active of decedunt. 35 text. pict.: Cic.
Verr. Iv 1 nego ullam picturam neque in tabula neque wn textili fuisse
guin cet.; Aen. 1 483 Fert picturatas auri subtemine vestes... Textilibus-
que onerat donis; Ael. Lampridius Heliog. 27 ita ut de acu aut de textili

prctura exhiberetur. 36 Jlacteris...cubandum est: the potent. because
in the 2nd pers. sing.: see ἢ. to 41 Cum videas, and to 1327 possis; and
comp. Plaut. Men. 103 Standumst in lecto siquid de summo petas. pleb.

νυν 1429 Dum plebera tamen sit quae defendere possit; Prop. 111 (11) 25
45 nlebeto sandycis amictu.
39 Quod superest: see ἢ. to 1 50. putandum: seen. tor 111.

40 St non forte...effugiwnt—nisi forte eff. canyr is the campus
Martius: Horace has campus 8 times in this sense, Cic., epist. vi
30 1, in campo: Caesar after his consulship remained with his army
for three months before Rome and was bitterly attacked by Memmius:
does Lucr. here allude to Caesar ? 41, and below, Fervere... Fervere
applied here to the persons and things causing the crowd and bustle:
by Varro Virgil and others, see Forc., to the places or things filled
with the crowd or bustle, fervere omnia prratis, Leucaten, litora, fora
Litibus, and Lucr. himself tv 608 Omnia, 1.6. loca, quae circum fervunt :
with fervere classem comp. Accius 482 classis adit occluditur Vervit,
Fervére: so Virgil: the older form; comp. Lucilius’ Fervit aqua et
fervet; fervit nunc, fervet ad annwm, which seems strange to Quintil.
16 8: Luer. 1.1. fervunt: so v 1095 fulgére; and fulgit, ‘it lightens’,
more than once; yet Lucr. also knows the 2nd conjugation: see ἢ.
to v1 160 and 213. 41 foll. cum videas, statuas, cum videas: for
this use of the pres. potent. or con}. 2nd pers. sing. comp. ἢ. to 1 327.
Lucr. has 11 849 cum anstituas; Π| 854 cum respicias; IV 572 cum
wideas, possis: Cicero too, orator 225, cum aut arguas aut refellas ; Sen.
epist. 75 4 qzi, et cum videas illum et cum audias, idem est: Lucr. 11

70 has δὲ videas; v 100 ube adportes; v1 901 ubi admoveas: 11 35 58}
tacterts; 1000 sz teneas; 111 948 sv pergas, si numquam sis moriturus ;
Iv 1070 st non conturbes. 41 Aen. v 674 belli simulacra ciebat; 585
pugnaeque cient simulacra; Livy xu 6 5 divisas bifariam duas actes con-
currere ad simulacrum pugnae; who also has simezlacrum and simulacra
navalis pugnae more than once; and simulacrum decurrentis exercitus.
42 the subsidia being in support in the rear; the cavalry on each flank.
43 comp. Plaut. Bacch. 941 hoc insunt im equo milites Armati atque
animats probe. 4446 Lamb. cites Varro ap. Nonium p. 379 Non jit
thesauris, non auro pectw’ solutum, Non demunt animis curas ac religiones
Persarum montes, non atria divit?’ Crassi. 51 fulgorem ab auro: not

BOOK Il NOTES U eee

unlike is Livy vii 29 13 wngente ardore militum a vulnerum ira: see
Μίδαν. emend. Liv. p. 170, who cites xxiv 30 1 tanto ardore imilitem αὖ
wa: comp. too xLi1 62 3 ferocia ab re bene gesta; {[xxvi1 15 4 aestus
ὦ meridiano sole; xxiit 34 7 litterae quoque ab Hannibale ad Philippum
enventae: see Kuehnast p. 54 55 n. 34. So Mart. x 6 5 longusque
a Caesare pulvis; Hor. od. 1v 4 14 fulvae matris ab ubere Iam lacte
depulsum;| Ter. Andr. 156 ab illo inturia; Plaut. Bacch. 528 a me
nuntiws; also Turnus ab Aricia, pastor ab Amphryso, nostris ab
evuibus agnus, a fontibus undae, ab Andria ancilla and the like:
Val. Flaccus v 242 expands Lucr. tum falso fusus ab auro Currere
per summi fulgor laquearia tecti: ex is used in the same way 1 1086
magnasque e montibus undas; Caes. de bell. civ. 111 106 2 vulneribus
ec proeiis; Livy xxv 36 14 luctus ex morte eorum; xxxvul 55 4
legationes ex Asia; Tac. ann. 1 35 cicatrices ex vulneribus: and so de
v1 386, de caelo fulminis ictus. 02 purpurear: 111 689 gelidai; 1v 537
migrat: he elsewhere avoids this archaism in adjectives, frequent as it is
in substantives. 93 haec rat. pot.: v 42 Quae loca vitandi plerumque
est nostra potestas: haec potestas, i.e. of conquering religion and the fears
of death. omnis=omnino: see n. to 1 377 on totus: comp. Cic. ad Att.
ΧΥ 20 2 haec omnis culpa BHrutt; x11 49 1 Caesaris, propingui eius,
omnis potestas esset; 11 5 1 eret quaedam nostra potestas; xiv 13 B 5
quae tua potestas est; xv1 16 15 praesertim cum tota potestas evus rev tua
sit, ut cet.; [Livy x 38 8 ὧν loco circa omit contecto: see Kuehnast
p. 56.] 04 laboret, a favourite word occurring some ten times in
this sense. tenebris: this word occurs 4 times in as many vss., twice
in the metaphorical sense he is so fond of: 15 Qualibus i tenebris vitae.
55—61 recur 111 87—93, vi 35—41: the three last came 1 146—148:
see notes there. 95—56 quoted by Seneca epist. 110 6, who adds
quid ergo? non omni puero stultiores sumus qua in luce tumemus? sed fal-
sum est, Lucreti, non timemus in luce, omnia nobis fecrnius tenebras: but
this is precisely what Lucr. says 54 Omnis cum in tenebris cet.: we make
of the light of day thick darkness. Comp. Plato Phaedo 77 E tows ἔνι
τις καὶ ἐν ἡμῖν παῖς, ὅστις τὰ τοιαῦτα φοβεῖται: with 5d5—61 L. Mueller
compares Lucil. xv 5—10.

62—79: and now I will explain the motion of atoms, how thereby
everything comes into and goes out of being: matter is not inseparably
united; it is ever going to or coming from things: every individual is
thus changing, while the whole remains the same. 62 Mune age...
Lapediam is thus used by Virg. geor. tv 149; but the phrase recurs also
in Lucr. v1 495 and 738. Observe genttalia, gignant, genitas. 65
mobilitas is his usual word for swiftness of motion: literally great power,
facility of moving: he uses also mobilis mobiliter and mobilius: he has
prob. selected the word for this technical purpose, because neither veloci-
tus nor celeritas would suit the metre. 66 tu te dictis praebere memento:

124 BOOK Il NOTES II

11 135 tu cetera percipe dicta, τν 931 tu fac ne ventis verba profundam,
γι 920 Quo magis attentas auris animumque reposco: comp. the above
with auctor ad Heren. 111 1 nunc tu fac attentum te praebeas: nos profi-
cisct ad instituta pergemus. It is probable then that the somewhat
magisterial tone in which Lucr. so often addresses Memmius was thought
becoming in a philosophical teacher. 67 inter se stipata has, like so
many other terms we have noted in Lucr., a pregnant meaning, so massed
together as not to adinit of separation: 1 345 Undique materies quoniam
stipata quiesset: atoms are not united together, as the parts of each atom
are united in the atom; 1 610 Quae minimis stipata cohaerent partibus
arte. 68 materies is of course here as elsewhere the collective term
for atoms. 69 flwere in this sense of wasting, ebbing away is a
favourite expression of Luer. omnia becomes the object to subducere
in 70. 71 summa and 75 rerum swmma have their proper sense of the
whole sum or universe of things; but Luer. illustrates what he means
from what goes on in our world, in hace rerum summa, as is natural; for
what takes place throughout the universe is more or less a repetition of
what happens here. 76 mutwa is used as an adv. 5 or 6 times in
Lucr.: v 1100 we have mutua inter se, as here: Virgil uses per mutua:
Lepidus in Cie. ad fam. x 34 says summa studia officit mutuo inter nos
certatim constiterunt pro nostra inter nos familiaritate, The sense is that
mortals receive life and in their turn give it to others, and so the chain

of being goes on: comp. 111 964 foll. 77 Ov. met. xv 420 ste tempore
verti Cernimus atque las adsumere robora gentes, Concidere has. 79

the well-known metaphor of the torch-race: Varro de re rust. 111 16 9 γερο
cursu lampada tibi trado; the καθάπερ λαμπάδα τὸν βίον παραδίδοντες
of Plato. [For the torch-race see Wecklein in Hermes vol. 7 p. 437—
452, esp. p. 439—442.]

80—141: first-beginnings, when alone, move ceaselessly through the
infinite void by their own inherent motion or it may be after collision
with another: some of intricate shapes form after collision a close union
and thus help to compose hard bodies; others rebound to greater dis-
tances, and form softer bodies; some do not unite at all, but continue to
wander through space: the motes in a sunbeam will give some notion of
what is meant: single atoms unite into small bodies, these small bodies
form themselves into somewhat larger ones; till by little and little they
become visible and are seen to move in the sun, though why they move
is not seen. 80 foll. atoms, as we have seen, have weight as an inhe-
rent property, by which they move down space in straight lines at uni-
form speeds, until they come into collision with others: how that is
possible, will be explained 216 foll. 80 Sz: to begin a sentence thus
abruptly with δὲ is in the manner of Lucr.: comp. 1017, πὶ 170, 406,
946, 1053, 1v 1026, v 210, 319, 1334. κινοῦνται συνεχῶς αἱ ἄτομοι, and
also ἰσοταχώς, says Epicurus himself in Diog. x 43. 84 this is the

BOOK II NOTES II 193

κίνησις κατὰ στάθμην or natural motion sheer downwards. 85 ictu
alterius, the motion ἄνω κατὰ πληγὴν καὶ παλμόν : therefore he adds
JSorte, because this motion 15 casual. cita:seen.to11001. saepe: see
ῃ. to v 1231. 88 zbus Lach. wrongly introduces by conjecture into
two other places; but it recurs I believe vi 1012: whatever its quantity
in Plautus, ibus, as you might expect from quibus, is that of hexam.
verse; as in Lucil. lib. inc. 114 Mueller: for demonstr. pron. connected
with rel. of preceding v. see n. to 1718. 90 renuniscere, as proved
I 958 foll. totus summa, another name for the ome. 91 for the
position of corpora in the second clause see n. to 115: with neque habere
δὲ comp. v1 1052 neque habet qua tranet ut ante; Livy xxvi1 12 3 nec
ube consisteret...habenti; Cic. ad Att. x11 2 2 pedem «ἰδὲ ponat in suo
non habet; [Brutus ap. Cic. epist. x1 1 4 wbi consistamus non habemus. |
92 foll. notice the poetical tautology to emphasise what he says, sine
jine modoque, inmensum patere; in cunctas partis and undique ; ostendi
and probatumst; and comp. 1 1006 1007. 94 Pluribus ost. 1 988...
1007.

96 reddita in this sense of assigned as a property or the like is very
common in Lucr.: see 65 Reddita mobilitas cet.; also 142, 681, 758, 1
203, 577, 111 618, 1v 178, νι 494. 97 exercita: 120 Conciliis et disci-
diis exercita crebris; Iv 862 exercita motu. 98 confulta is a ἅπαξ
λεγόμ.: if the word is right, which is somewhat doubtful, it must mean,
resting and pressing one against the other, as the finer and smoother
atoms would do, which form the air, sunlight, etc.: it=mutuo fulta:
comp. Stat. Theb. v1 862 diw pendent per mutua fulti Bracchia. The abl.
magnis interv. and 99 brev. spatiis and 101 Latguis int. mean leaving
great or small spaces between, with great or small spaces between: the
great and small are of course relative merely, and have reference to the
extremely minute atoms; the great distance would be inconceivably
small in relation to anything of sensible magnitude: comp. Epic. Diog.
Laert. x 43 καὶ ai μὲν μακρὰν ἀπ᾿ ἀλλήλων διίστανται, ai δ᾽ αὐτὸν τὸν παλμὸν
ἴσχουσιν, ὅταν τύχωσιν ἐπὶ τὴν περιπλοκὴν κεκλιμέναι ἢ στεγαζόμεναι παρὰ
τῶν πλεκτικῶν : some rebound far, when the atoms are smooth; others
have simply a throbbing or oscillation, when they have got entangled or
covered in by those which are shaped for entangling. However close
they are, even if in a mass of iron, ‘there is space between them: they
collide, they recoil, they oscillate’, to use Tyndall’s words. And this
continual oscillation of atoms, in a lump of iron even, goes on exactly at
the same speed as that of the atoms racing down space: strange as may
appear this anticipation by Epic. and Lucr. of modern theory. The force
of στεγαζόμεναι in relation to the moving atoms is well illustrated by its
use in 66, where Epic. is speaking of the soul: ὅταν τὰ στεγάζοντα καὶ
περιέχοντα μὴ τοιαῦτ᾽ ἢ ἐν οἷς νῦν οὖσα ἔχει ταύτας TAS κινήσεις. 99 αὖ

ictu: see ἢ. to νι 9θ8. 102 perplexis fig.: 459 perplexis indupedita ;

126 BOOK IJ NOTES II

463 ὁ perplexis...elementis ; 394 hamatis inter se perque plicatis; 111 331
Inplexis principris. 103 vadices: these lay the first foundations or
roots of stone. fera ferri: Cicero and Tibullus thus play with the
assonance ferus et ferreus, and Ennius has fero ferro. 105 Paucula,
i.e. compared with the whole number. 106 lonye longeque: so 111 69;
Hor. sat. 1 6 18. This longe, as 98 magnis, is of course relative: far
only in respect of the extremely small atom. 111 etiam seems clearly
to have reference to recepta: quamvis recepta, tamen non potuere etiam
consociare: with this comp. sic deinde locutus for sic loc. deinde, and the
like, in Virgil. [112 wé memoro apparently=qualem (or quem)
memoro, and resembles 1 442 Aut erit, ut possunt in eo res esse: comp.
Plaut. Amph. 731 Recte dicit, wt commeminit, where wi=qualia or
quae. | simulacrum and tmago are exactly synon.: in Iv he regularly
uses tmago or tmaginibus, simulacra in the plur. nom. and ace. for the
εἴδωλα of Epicurus. 114 Contemplator enim cum recurs v1 189:
Virg. geor. 1187 Contemplator item cum: τν 61 Contemplator. cum...
cumque: I know no other example of cumque following cum. 115
curiously varied Aen. 11 151 gua se Plena per insertas fundebat luna
Jenestras. 116 per znane seems loosely put for the air which serves
as a place for these motes to move about in, and therefore is to them
what the real inane is to the atoms: just below, 151, he contrasts the
air which is not znane vacuum with 158 the real inane vacuum: Aen.
x11 906 vacuum per inane is still more loosely put for the air: and
Ovid in the metam. so uses per inane and per inania, 117 lamane in
ipso: see ἢ. to IV 736 aere in ipso. 118 proela pugnas recurs tv 1009:
Lach. well illustrates 1t by pugnant proeliant, turbas lites, morbum
mortem, donum praemtum, from Plautus and Terence. [So Lucil. xx1x
25 coningat communicat: see Mueller there; Plaut. Amph. 891 stupri
dedecoris: see Ussing there.] Comp. too Livy xiv 40 1 ponderibusque
αὐτὰ argenti: in old Latin the idiom is widely extended ; in Livy 1 32
11 a single sentence of an old formula contains quarum rerum litium
causarum, popult Romani Quiritium, quas res dari solvi fiert oportuat :
the words have usually a close and formal connexion: usus fructus,
emptio venditio, aequum bonum, calce harenato. 119 dare pausam,
like dare motum, discessum, ruinam and the like,=facere pausam,
facere finem: see ἢ, to Iv 41. 123 Dumtaxat: this curious word
occurs in another of its senses 931: there it=certe, ‘at all events’,
a sense it often has in the younger Pliny. Cic. Brut. 285, cited by
Hand Turs. 11 p. 33, hoc recte dumtaxat, the word seems to mean, ‘so
far as it goes’, as here: 11 377 it means ‘only’, ‘so much and no more’:
amore usual sense. [For the meaning ‘at all events’ see Cic. epist. xm
1 1 wt mihe videamur omne iam ad tempus ab illo dumtaxat sordidissimo
perrculo tut. futurt; xv1 26 1 (Quintus’) verberavi te cogitationis tacito
dumtaxat convicio: auct. bell. Afr. 90 3 se eis dumtaxat vitam concessu-

BOOK I! NOTES II [27

yum. It is also used in one of the two first senses by Q. Cic. de pet. 53
multitudo ex eo, quod dumtaxat oratione wm contionibus ac iudicio
popularis fuistr, te ὦ suis commodis non alienum futurum; and Cic. ad
Q. fr. 1 1 11 dumtaxat firibus iis praestabis.| The corp. inscr. Lat. will
shew that it was a very old legal term, which passed into the common
language. 126 turbare=turbari: so 438, v 502, 504, νι 370. 129 εὲ
1.6. in the sunbeams. 132 a princ. from the first-beginnings upwards:
comp. 138. 137 proporro: see n. to v 312. 138 ascendrt, because
what is invisible is said to be below our sense: 111 274 Mec magis hac
infra quicquam est, Iv 111 primordia tantum Sunt infra nostros sensus.
141 depends on the prec. relative clause, as illustrated in n. to 1 718.
app. ap.: seen. to1 826. Lucr. has here anticipated in a striking way
the most modern theories of the most advanced thinkers: see N.
British Review 1. }. p. 220; and Prof. Maxwell, Theory of heat ρ. 285
‘the opinion that the observed properties of visible bodies apparently at
rest are due to the action of invisible molecules in rapid motion is to be
found in Lucretius’. In his Introductory lecture p. 21 he says ‘in-
vestigations of this kind, combined with a study of various phenomena
of diffusion and of dissipation of energy, have recently added greatly to
the evidence in favour of the hypothesis that bodies are systems of
molecules in motion’. Martha too, p. 287, is worth reading: Lucr. he
tells us, had a glimpse of that great principle of modern physics which
teaches that the general forces of nature never are at rest even in the
inorganic world: we do not see this perpetual movement of the atoms in
bodies, because our eyes are too gross to apprehend it.

142-164: the sun rises, and the world is at once clothed in light ;
yet its rays are complex, not single, and do not pass through a void: how
much more swiftly then must first-beginnings move! since they travel
through a perfect void and trave! singly, and each is one indivisible
whole. 144 Primum cet.: Aen. 1x 459 Lt cam prima novo spargebat
lumine terras...aurora: so that Virgil seems, as Lach. remarks, to have
understood primum of time, not of order. 145 var. vol.: see ἢ. to I
589. 146 tenerum: see n. to 1 207. liguidis voc.: Iv 981 cetharae
ligquidum carmen; Ν 1379 liquidas avium voces. loca: Virg. geor.
iv 515 et maestis late loca questibus umplet. 148 Convestire: Cicero in
his Aratea uses I find convestire or vestire 5 times of light: Lucr. has
prob. borrowed this, as many other expressions, from him: Aen. vi 640
lumine vestit: par. lost 11110 as with a mantle didst invest. 150 vapor,
vapores, etc. occur very frequently in Lucr. and always in the sense of
heat, 152 aerias quasi...undas i.e. the air which offers a resistance
like waves of water. [154 complexa: seen. to v 922. | 155 there
is at once an internal and external hindrance to absolutely swift
motion. enter se retr.: they pull and are pulled back, because in one
ray there is an enormous number of atoms combined. extra: see 151.

ds

128 BOOK II NOTES II

156 Oficiuntur, the only instance in Lucr. where a verb which governs
a dat. in the active, has a personal passive: he twice uses the part.
offectus, 1v 763 v 776. The licence is altogether rare: Horace has
emperor and invideor; Ovid thus uses credor more than once, and
dubitor ; Virgil has the partic. creditus; Tacitus credebatur ; Caecina ap.
Cic., the auctor ad Heren. and others have persuasus est; the auctor ad
Heren. has also supersedenda causa; the auctor bell. Hisp. est litata;
Metellus Numidicus 7llt interdicti: several of these are homely writers.
158 Cum...foris is in contrast with 151 Non per...undas; 159 ipsa...
feruntur with 153 Nec singill....ire: there can be no doubt therefore that
159 ipsa, suis e partibus una refers to the primordia, each one of which
is ἃ unum suis 6 partibus, that is one indivisible whole of parts which
are absolute leasts and incapable of existing alone, as we have explained
so fully 1599 foll.: with suis 6 partibus wna comp. U1 545 contracta suis
e partibus [anima]: he could hardly without an awkward periphrasis
have expressed what he means without using the plur. wna; nor is it
any harsher than Cic. pro Flacco 63 unis moribus et numquam mutatis
legibus vivunt ; or the auctor ad Ileren. 111 33 duplices similitudines esse
debent; unae rerum, alterae verborum. ipsa, una e=ipsa, quorum
quicque est unum e. 160 only means that they race perpendicularly
down space, so as to continue the direction they have once taken, in
unum locum, in quem coepere [ferri]. 163 164 recur 1v 207 208.

163 Afultiplex, many times as much, πολλαπλασιος. 164 pervolgant=
14 Concelebras. Epicurus says himself in Diog. Laert. x 46 ἡ διὰ τοῦ
κενοῦ φορὰ κατὰ μηδεμίαν ἀπάντησιν τῶν ἀντικοψάντων γινομένη πᾶν μῆκος
περιληπτὸν ἐν ἀπερινοήτῳ χρόνῳ συντελεῖ. The above comparison and
illustration are plain enough in reference to the movement of the
unobstructed atom down space; but the atom’s own motion is of the
same speed, even when it is caught in the hardest body and can only
oscillate through an inconceivably small space: see above, n. to 98; and
below, 297 foll.

165—-183: they are greatly mistaken that think the course of nature
could not go on, nor the products of the earth and the race of men be
continued without divine providence: nay I might prove from the imper-
fection of this world that it is not divinely created.—That these vss. have
no proper connection with what precedes or follows; that 184 continues
the argument as it was left at 164; and that in a finished composition
183 and 184 could not stand side by side, has been demonstrated by
Lach. He shews with as much certainty as if he had had the poet’s ms.
before him, that 165—183 must have been a subsequent addition which
the author’s death prevented him from adapting to the context: in this
state the first editor must have introduced them into the body of the
poem. Lach. has also proved that v 195—-234 which fulfil the promise
of 182, are likewise a subsequent addition; as well as the cognate argu-

BOOK II NOTES II 129

ment of 1v 823—857, where the doctrine of final causes in respect of
the bodily organs is so earnestly denied. On these and similar sections
of the poem see what is said above p. 28—30, where I attempt to carry
Lachmann’s argument somewhat farther. Some vss. as is said in notes 1,
are clearly wanting before 165: whether they ever existed in the poem
and were not rather lost before it came into the first editor’s hands, we
may well doubt with Lach. The way in which the latter supphes the
meaning of what is wanting, seems to me however somewhat awkward:
I should be disposed to make the gods the subject to persectara and
videant, and to take the reasoning to be something like that in Cic. de
div. 11 105 foll. where it is said negant id esse alienum maiestate deorum.
scilicet causas omnium rntrospicere, ut videant quid curque conducat.
You must not suppose that the gods have anything to do with the
motions and unions of these atoms: nay it would not be even consistent
with their majesty and happiness to be tormenting themselves with all
these minutiae, ‘and to be following up the course of every single atom
to see how everything goes on’.

165 persectart recurs Iv 1010, and appears to be peculiar to Luer.
167 gquidam: the stoics are doubtless pointed at, perhaps also the aca-
clemics. 169 admoderate seems also peculiar to Lucr.: Gronov.
observ. 111 5 compares the attemperate of Ter. Andr. 916 which has pre-
cisely the same sense. 171 ΔῈ cam cetera appears to be used almost
absolutely, as cetera, et cetera are in so many ways: jfiere or naturam
facere non posse may be understood from the context. 172 173 these
two vss. are connected with the relative clause, as 141 and some of the
instances given in ἢ. to 1718. 172 deducit : metaphor from leading
the bride to her husband: comp. 1 96 Deductast and n. there. 173
blanditur propagent for blandiendo hortatur ut prop. as Lach. observes :
he compares Vitruv. pref. to 111: but comp. too Livy xx1 1 4 Hanniba-
lem.,.pueriliter blandientem patri Hamilcart, ut duceretur in Hispaniam.
174 quorum i.e. hominum, understood from genus hum.: seen. to Iv 934.
175 omnibwu’ rebus is so used by Cicero, as div. in Caec. 61 tu, cum ommni-
bus rebus inferior sis, hac wna in re cet. ego, sv superior omnibus rebus
esses, hanc unam ob causam cet.; similarly 111 1026 Que melhor multis
quam tu furt, mprobe, rebus. 177—181 recur, slightly altered, v
195—199. 179 reddere: see n. to 1566 reddz. 181 stat: Lach.
cites 1 564 Stare, and, a doubtful instance, vi 1058 Pondere enim fretae
partim stant: perhaps Lucr. was thinking of Lucilius’ stat sentibw pectus,
and stat sentibw’ fundus; as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid possibly, when
they wrote stat pulvere caelum, alta stet nive candidum Soracte, saxo stant
antra vetusto, respectively. [See Nonius p. 392 6 and Sisenna quoted
there, and esp. Varro Eumenid.] At all events Caecilius’ ager autem
stet sentibus and Titinius’ funds stabunt sentibus shew that the phrase
was proverbial. Comp. too Aen. 111 210 stant nomine dictae ; and Luer.

Μὰ Il. 9

130 BOOK II NOTES II

11 843 manere, v1 1274 templa manebant. constare is much oftener
used by Lucr. in this sense. Chrysippus wrote several works περὶ τοῦ
μηδὲν ἐγκλητὸν εἶναι μηδὲ μεμπτὸν κοσμῷ : to him and other stoics Lucr.
plainly refers.

184—215: you are to know too that nothing naturally mounts up-
wards: flames and the growth of crops and trees are only apparent
exceptions: thus blood from a wound spirts up; and a log forced down .
into the water starts up again; yet we know these things tend down-
wards by nature: so 1ὖ is with flame: observe meteors and the like fall-
ing to the earth; the rays of the sun tending downwards ; lightnings
flying about and falling to the ground: this is their natural tendency.—
This argument is well and clearly put by Lucr.: it is directed against
the stoics: see notes to 11083 foll. where the same teachers are refuted ;
and the same false instances of fire, crops and trees are cited. 184
Nune locus est: Virg. geor. 11177 Nune locus arvorum ingeniis: est
being omitted, as so often by him compared with Luer. 187 flume.
corp. a mere periphrasis for jlammae: corpora are not here the prima
corpora. tibt dent fraudem = Cicero’s facere fraudem alicui: seen. to
iv 41. 188 aug. swm. recurs v 681. 191 sebsiliwnt: Cicero in
setting forth this stoical doctrine, Tusc. disp. 1 10, uses the word subvo-
lent. 192 degustant: so he himself, Virgil and Horace apply lambere.
tigna trabesque here and v1 241 are used in their restricted sense: tigna
the rafters let into the érabes or main beams; 196 they are used gene-
rally for any large pieces of timber. 194 Quod genus or quod genus
est, an antique phrase which he and the auctor ad Herennium often use.
The latter appears always to omit est; as1 14,1119 bis, 20, 45, 49, 111 29,
31; but 1 48 quod genus Τὰ sunt: this makes Lachmann’s insertion of
it here and elsewhere still more unjustifiable. Here and in the auctor
ad Heren. it means no more than velwt; as in Lucil. 11129 Muell.: [see the
instances Mueller, p. 204, quotes from Cicero de inv. ] 196 Norwne
vides: Lamb. notices his fondness for this phrase. 198 Derecta: see
ἢ. to vi 823: it has here its literal sense ‘perpendicular’ opposed to
obliqua: Caes. bell. Gall. vir 23 trabes derectae...in solo contocantur ;
iv 17 4 non sublicae modo derecte ad perpendiculum. mag. υἱ
mul.: Nepos vit 3 3 non sine magna multorum consensione; Lucil.
lib. inc. 118 Muell. multorwmn magnis ictibus. 200 plus parte =plus
iusta parte, or as he says himself 1v 1231 plus parte aequa; Le. it
starts farther out than it would be, if left alone: Ovid trist. πὶ 3 16
plus in nostro pectore parte tenes; V 10 30 tect? plus quoque parte tenet ;
fasti 1v 301 plus quam pro parte laborat: in all these places it may
mean plus dimidia parte; as in1 617 pars; and in Germanicus Caesar
Arat. phaen. 588 Bootes In terras abit et noctis plus parte relinquit: he
means clearly more than half of night, though the expression of Aratus
583 is very obscure, πλεῖον δίχα νυκτὸς ἰούσης: Cicero 364 translates

BOOK II NOTES II I3I

recedit Post mediam labens claro cum corpore noctem, Mart. 11 24 6 Das
partem? ‘multum est ’, Candide, das aliquid ?: Ovid met. 111 43 has then
the fuller form, media plus parte leves erectus in auras. multis, omnibus
partibus are also very indefinite in meaning. 202 deorswm trisyll., 205
dissyll.: so with seorswm and seorsus: he also uses indifferently the form
sorsum: see ἢ. to 111 631. 206 sov 1191 Noctivagaeque faces caelt
flammaeque volantes: comp. Virg. geor. 1 366 noctisque per umbram
Flammarum longos a tergo albescere tractus: Lucan. 1 527 caeloque
volantes Obliquas per inane faces may have had this v. and 213 in his
mind. 209 stellas et stdera, single stars and constellations: see lexi-
cons, and Macrob. somn. Scip. 1 14 21, who so explains Cicero’s ¢dlis
sempiternis ignibus quae sidera et stellas vocates. 211 lum. cons. arva
means perhaps no more than Virgil’s spargebat lumine terras ; though
Arist. poet. 21 mid. says τὸ τὸν καρπὸν μὲν ἀφιέναι σπείρειν, τὸ δὲ τὴν
φλόγα ἀπὸ τοῦ ἡλίου ἀνώνυμον. GAN ὁμοίως ἔχει τοῦτο πρὸς τὸν ἥλιον
καὶ τὸ σπείρειν πρὸς τὸν καρπόν, διὸ εἴρηται σπείρων θεοκτίσταν
φλόγα. 218 transversos and therefore not tending upwards: for the
constr. see ἢ. to 217 and 226. 214 abrupte: seen. to 1 724: Aen. 111
199 wngeminant abruptis nubibus ignes; Ov. met. v1 696 and vi 339
elisi nubibus ignes. [abruptr; ‘regelrecht mit ab, doch Cic. Phil. 14 12
haec se prima latrocinio abrupit Antoni. Draeger hist. synt. 1p. 466.]
215 concursant here = discurrunt, its usual sense; 111 395 concursare =
concurrere, to clash. Observe in this passage the frequent assonance
alliteration and redundancy of expression by which the poet seeks to
give emphasis to his argument, to which he not unnaturally attaches
much importance, as refuting his chief adversaries: surswm ferra sur-
sumque meare; sursus versus...Et sursum answered just after by
deorsum; v recurring four times within five lines; H7icat exultans ;
196 tigna trabesque; magna vi multi...aegre; sursum revonut, remittit;
emergant exthantque; sursum succedere answered by deorsum deducere ;
stellas et sidera.

216—224: know too that atoms while travelling down space in
parallel straight lines, at quite uncertain times and spots swerve from
the perpendicular to an imperceptible amount.—This is the famous
κίνησις Kata παρέγκλισιν of Epicurus. My general remarks on the
theory will be reserved for 292. Cicero de fin. 119 puts it very clearly,
deinde ibidem homo acutus, cum illud occurreret, si omnia deorsum 6
regione ferrentur et, ut dixt, ad lineam, numquam fore ut atomus altera
alteram posset attingere, itaque attulit rem commenticiam: declinare
drat atomum perpaulum quo nihil posset fiert minus ; ita effici com-
pleaiones et copulutiones et adhaesiones atomorum inter se, ex quo
efficeretur mundus omnesque partes mundi quaeque in ¢o essent, and comp.
de fato 22. 217 corpora = of course prima corpora. 217 and 226
rectum per inane=recte or ad lineam per inane; as in 213 Transv.: = trans-

9—2

132 BOOK II NOTES II

verse per imbres ; rectum is used as primus, postremus and the like are so
often used for their adverbs; see n. to 1080 and 111 250 postremis datur
ossibus: Cic.1.1. uses recte and ad laneam to express the same thing: v1 689
rectis ita faucibus eicit alte; τν 550 rectoque foras emittimus ore: Aen. VI
900 recto litore, and v11I 57 recto flumine: in the sentent. Minue. corp.
inscr. 1 199 sursum rivo recto, inde recto rivo, sursumvorsum iugo recto,
susum iugo recto, sursum iugo recto (six times), ugo recto, deorsum iugo
recto, dorsum iugo recto are all found: Plaut. Bacch. 711 Recta porta ;
Ter. Ad. 574 and 582 λας recta platea; Livy vir 15 5 and xxxvi 20 8
obliquo monte; 1x 35 7 per obliqua campi; Ov. met. ν 132 a obliquo in-
guine; Stat. silv. 1 3 66 per obliquum amnem; [ Val. Flacc. 1 484 per
obliqui...conpendia montis. | 218 foll. see N. P. Howard Journ. of
phil. 1p. 123. = fer. pond. propr. = ponderibus suis ferri of Vv 189 and
424; and expresses the natural gravitation downwards of the atoms by
their own weight: these vss. are precisely illustrated by Cicero 1. 1.; and
de fato 22 gut potest pellt alia (atomus) ab alia, st gravitate feruntur ad
perpendiculum corpora individua rectis liners, ut Epicuro placet ?; also
23 cited in ἢ. to 251; and 25; and de nat. 169 ait atomum, cum pon-
dere et gravitate directo deorsus feratur, dechinare paululum, With
spatio = via, comp. Cic. de div. 117 certo lapsu spatioque feruntur ; de
nat. 11 49 spatiis immutabilibus ab ortu ad occasum commeans; and with
se dep. spatio, Horace’s recto depellere cursu; Quintilian’s recta via, and
recto itinere depulsus. The se depellere would seem to be used, to shew
that this swerving comes from their own inner impulse. Jerme: see
ἢ. to1 14 ferae. 219 paulum, Tantum quod momen mutatum d. p.
is well expressed by Cic. 1. 1. perpaulum quo nihil posset fieri minus.
220 Tantum quod, just and only just, is common in Cicero, but he seems
to use it of time, tantum quod..., cum cet.: Livy xx11 2 9 tantum, quod
extaret aqua, quaerentibus: [but just as Lucr. has paulum, Tantum quod,
so Sen. rhet. controv. 11 20 has praestitisse se dixit exiguum, tantum
quo spirituin posset producere.| momen, which as we have said to 1 435
Lucr. uses for momentum, here signifies the ῥοπῇ or inclination of the
balance. 223 Nec cet. asexpl. in what follows. The atoms would
have gone on for all eternity to descend in parallel lines with equal
velocities. Lucr. does not tell us whether every atom thus swerved
at some time or other; nor whether an atom could thus swerve only
once; and Cicero seems not to know what Epicurus taught on this
point.

225—250: you must not think that the heavier can overtake the
lighter atoms and so give birth to things: a heavier thing falls more
quickly than a lighter through water and air, because these offer unequal
resistance to unequal weights: not so with void which yields to light and
heavy alike: nothing therefore can account for the first collision of
atoms except this declination ; which must be the least possible, that we

BOOK Il NOTES II 133

may not attribute to them oblique motions. 225 potesse: see n. to
1665. 226 feruntur: seen. to1 1058: yet ferantur may be right, as
the indic. here is very harsh, [For the mood comp. Cic. Lael. 56 wz,
quant quisque se ipse facit, tanti fiat ab amicis: see Seyffert (Mueller)
here. | 228 vreddere in Lucr. often, as here, means simply dare
or edere: 890 witalem reddere sensum; Ov. met. vi 308 nec bracchia
reddere motus. 232 tenuis seems to be a nomin. as 1 281 mollis.

236 237 almost the same as 1 1079 1080. 238 quietum: a
poetical epithet implying that it can offer no resistance active or
passive; Quod manet intactum neque ab ictu fungitur hilum. 239
comp. 1 1076 and Epicurus there quoted. 240 foll.: hear Epicurus
himself in Diog. x 61 ἰσοταχεῖς ἀναγκαῖον τὰς ἀτόμους εἶναι, ὅταν διὰ τοῦ
κενοῦ εἰσφέρωνται μηδενὸς ἀντικόπτοντος" οὔτε γὰρ τὰ βαρέα θᾶττον οἰσθή-
σεται τῶν μικρῶν καὶ κούφων, ὅταν γε δὴ μηδὲν ἀπαντᾷ αὐτοῖς" οὔτε τὰ
μικρὰ τῶν μεγάλων, πάντα πόρον σύμμετρον ἔχοντα, ὅταν μηθὲν μηδ᾽ ἐκεί-
νοις ἀντικόπτῃ. 244 minimum: so Cic. de fato 22 tertius quidam
motus oritur extra pondus et plagam, cum declinat atomus intervallo mint-
mo, id appellat ἐλάχιστον. The use of minimum or ἐλάχιστον here is
quite analogous to that so fully discussed 1 599 foll.: as there Lucr. and
Epicurus spoke of the part of an atom as an absolute least, a thing the least
possible, so small that it could not exist alone, and could not therefore be
looked upon as an individual thing ; so here this motion of declination is
so small, as not to admit of having the distinctive term ‘slanting’ applied
to it: he thus hopes to escape the necessity of asserting that atoms can of
themselves move obliquely. 248 quod=quoad or quantum: see Lach.
to v 1033: so quod commodo tuo fiat, quod potero, quod potes, quod poteris,
quod licebit, quod commodo tuo facere poteris, quod sine molestia tua facere
poteris, quod adhuc coniectura providert possit, nusquam quod sciam,
non ero quod sciam, quod commodo reipublicae facere posset, quod sine
sactura reipublicae fiert posset in Cicero Terence Plautus Caesar Livy
respectively. 449 recta regione seems unquestionably right; I cannot
understand Lachmann’s objections: 1v 1272 recta regione viaque; 514
rectis reguonibus exit; Livy xx1 31 9 non recta regione ater instituit, sed
ad laevam...flemt; Cic. Verr. v 176 si qui tantulum de recta regione
deflexertt; and 181 haec eadem est nostrae rationis regio et via; Caes.
de bell. Gall. vir 46 1 oppidi murus ab planitie...recta regione, si
nullus anfractus wntercederet, MCC passus aberat; [νι 25 2 rectaque
Jumms Danuvii regione pertinct ad cet., hine se flectit sinistrorsum
diversis ab flumine regionibus :] in the sentent. Minuc. corp. inscr. 1 199
recta regione, ‘in a direct line,’ twice occurs. 250 sese is harsh
thus separated from declinare ; but I now think it is what Lucr. wrote ;
as he has many such collocations of words, sometimes in order to produce
a peculiar effect, sometimes from pure indifference: see the instances in
n. to ΠῚ 843 Ht st tam nostro sentit; and comp. 11 916 Tamquam in

134 BOOK II NOTES It

morte mali cum primis hoc sit eorum ; 196 Namque papaveris aura potest
suspense levisque Cogere ut ab summo tibi difiuat altus acervus, to bring
into relief the papaveris ; v 65 Ut mihi mortal consistere corpore mun-
dum Nativomque simul ratio reddunda sit esse: 572 Forma quoque hinc
solis debet filumque videri, Nil adeo ut possis plus aut minus addere, vere,
is very similar to our passage.

251—293: again if there is no such declination of atoms to break
the eternal sameness of their motions, the perpetual sequence of cause
and effect, whence have all living things freewill? whence can we
change our motions at pleasure? thus horses cannot start in a race at
once: motion has to spread from the heart through the limbs: thus
too when we are carried along by an external force, there is some-
thing in us which resists, and enables us sometimes to stop: while
the weight then of atoms enables them sometimes to withstand the
external force of blows, it is only this declination of atoms at quite
uncertain times and places which gives the mind its freedom of action.
951 foll. Cic. de fato 23 states this as the chief motive with Epicu-
rus for devising this tertius quidam motus extra pondus et plagam:
hance Epicurus rationem induxit ob eam rem, quod veritus est ne, st
semper atomus gravitate ferretur naturali ac necessaria, nihil liberum
nobis esset, cum ita moveretur animus ut atomorum motu cogeretur ; and
Epic. himself in Diog. x 134 ἐπεὶ καὶ κρεῖττον ἦν τῷ περὶ θεῶν μύθῳ κατα-
κολουθεῖν ἢ τῇ τῶν φυσικῶν εἱμαρμένῃ δουλεύειν"... ἢ δ᾽ ἀπαραίτητον ἔχει τὴν
ἀνάγκην. 252 ordine certo, i.e. if they move straight down by in-
herent gravity and only change their motion by plagae, or collision with
other atoms. 258 progredimur we men for instance among other
living beings. Epicurus always passionately maintained the doctrine of
freewill in opposition to the everlasting necessity of Democritus as well
as most of the stoics, τῆς ἀιδίου κινήσεως μηχανώμενος ἐλευθερῶσαι καὶ
ἀπολῦσαι τὸ ἑκούσιον, ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ καταλιπεῖν ἀνέγκλητον τὴν κακίαν, Says
Plut. de repug. stoic. 34, p. 1060 C. 262 regantur, spread over the
body like so many vivi: comp. Iv 907 somnus per membra quietem Inri-
get with Furius in Macr. sat. v1 1 44 meitemque rigat per pectora som-
num: Aetna 385 quaecumque rigant incendia silvae. 263 Wonne
vides cet. has suggested his simile to Virgil, geor. 111 103 Nonne vides,
cum...ruuntque effusi carcere currus cet. tempore puncto: a favourite
phrase of his: v1 230 puncto in tempore: it=puncto temporis, 1.6. while
the smallest point of time is pricked down or marked. 265 de swbrto
recurs ΠῚ 643. 267 congwirt 1.6. be sought out and brought into
communication one part with the other. 269 corde the seat of the
animus. 270 id seems to refer to the preceding v.: creatum hune
uitum motus: comp. id in Plaut. aul, 8, 10 and 265: then perhaps
motum alone is the subject of davi. 271 Inde...porro: Wak. com-
pares Aen. v 600 hine maxima porro Accepit Roma: 1 461 porro deinde

BOOK II NOTES II 135

seems different; see n. there. totum corpus et artus: he has many
such pleonasms; though this might be explained ‘through the body gene-
rally and each of its parts’: so 282 per membra per artus; Iv 887 quae
in corpore toto Per membra atque artus animai dissita vis est; 1042
Per membra atque artus decedit corpore toto: vi 797 membra per artus
Solvunt; 945 per omma membra, per artus. 272 sumilest ut cum
seems like similis ut si qui, tamquam st, guast, which occur in Cicero:
Pomponius 74 Samile est quasi cum fulgit ; [Plaut. epid. 621 Est con-
similis quasi cum cet. | ictu depends on ampulst. 285 foll. see
Cic. de fato quoted at 251: the passage tallies exactly with this;
pondus and plaga denote there, as here, the natural and the impressed
motion of atoms. 288 foll. Luer. too, like Cicero I. 1., assigns
the freedom of the will as the chief proof of the necessity of this
third motion: the natural gravity of atoms gives them, says Lucr., a
certain independence and power of resisting extraneous force ; but the
mind itself can only escape from inexorable necessity and acquire free-
dom of action by this fitful declination of atoms. 289 necessum est is
used several times by Lucr. as well as by Plautus and Livy: but Lach.
to v1 815 justly observes that necessum used as it is here with an epithet
is singular enough. 291 ferre patique: so Mart. x11 268: Livy x Il
12 ferre ac pati. v 314 perferre patique, which Horace uses more than
once, and Martial v11 39 3; Terence has perferre ac pati, Cicero patietur
perferet and the like, [Servius Sulpicius ap. Cic. epist. Iv 5 3 haec
sufferre et perpeti. | 292 clinamen: see ἢ, to 1 435 and 653; it=
declinatio or welinatio.

This theory has naturally enough drawn down on Epicurus the scofis
of his many adversaries: res tota ficta pueriliter, says Cicero: the whole
business is contradiction and ridiculous nonsense, echoes Bentley in his
Boyle lectures. Even his friends have mostly here deserted him: Marul-
lus, one of the most enthusiastic of them, writes in the margin of Mon.
‘absurditas’ ‘insania’, Yet there is something grand and poetical in its
very simplicity. He wished, like other thinkers, to derive his system
from as few first principles as possible: he saw in mind his atoms de-
scending from all eternity in uniform blind motion. How then was ex-
istence possible? a sentient first cause was to him inconceivable. This
minimum of declination then, this perpaulum quo nihil posset esse minus,
rose before his reason and imagination, as the simplest theory which
would solve the great problem of being, of the creation of this and all
other worlds with all that is in them. What system-monger but some
where or other reaches a point where reason must be silent or self-contra-
dictory? In a curious memoir of the Berlin transactions for 1782 by
G. L. Le Sage, called Lucréce Neutonien, the author ingeniously argues
that if Epicurus had had but a part of the geometrical knowledge of say
his contemporary Euclid, and conceptions of cosmography the same as

136 BOOK II NOTES II

those of many then living, he might have discovered the laws of univer-
sal gravity, and not only the laws, but, what was the despair of Newton,
its mechanical cause, Had he supposed the earth to be spherical and
made his atoms move in directions perpendicular to the surface of a
sphere, that is towards its centre, he might not only have proved the law
of the inverse square of the distance, but have demonstrated the cause of
that law. But the truth is Epicurus might probably have left his worlds
to shift for themselves and let eternal time past take the place of a first
cause, if he had not wanted this theory mainly as we have said to explain
the great mystery of freewill: he wished to mark this as one of the
cardinal points of difference between himself and Democritus whom
Cicero praises for choosing to accept fate and necessity rather than have
recourse to such a doctrine as this of Epicurus. It is for this reason
that Lucr. dwells at such length and with such emphasis on this part of
the question; out of respect for Democritus as well as opposition to the
stoics. See N. British Review 1. 1. p. 223 ‘it is a principle of mechanics
that a force acting at right angles to the direction in which a body is
moving does no work, although it may continually and continuously
alter the direction in which the body moves...It is clear to us that Epi-
curus, when he devised his doctrine of a little swerving from the straight
path of an atom, had an imperfect perception of this mechanical doctrine
...We can see that their conception was not stupid, it was simply false,
as all physical explanations of the origin of energy and matter must be’,

204. 807: the matter of the whole universe never was either more
or less condensed than it is now: the motions which first-beginnings now
have, they always have had and will have: what they have produced,
they will again produce: the sum of things no force can change; for no
new matter can escape out of the universe nor come into it and change
the order of nature. 294 foll. as his atoms are eternal, it is an axiom
that none can come into being or go out of being: the sum of matter
therefore must ever be the same. 296 adaugescit: in the use of this
word Cic. prognost. frag. 3 has preceded him. 297 wn motu...in
eodem: see ἢ. to 1 999, 300 quae consuerint 1.6. ea quae, such things
as: the subj. is quite in place, though Lamb. objects to it. 3801 Con-
dictone : this spelling is now incontrovertibly fixed by reason and autho-
rity; cond. is related to condicere, as dicio to dicere: the latter point is
proved by Cicero himself de leg. agrar. 11 39, where he puts together
diciont tudicio, and then clearly implies that dicere is to dicto what 2udi-
care is to iudicium. 305 quicquam est extra: comp. Ν 361 summarum
summa est aeterna neque extra Qui locus est quo dissiliant neque corpora
sunt quae Possint incidere, and τ 963 extra summam quoniam nil esse
Jatendum, Epicurus in Diog. Laer. x 39 says more generally τὸ πᾶν ae
τοιοῦτον ἦν οἷον νῦν ἐστὶ Kal ἀεὶ τοιοῦτον ἔσται" οὐθὲν yap ἐστιν εἰς ὃ μετα-
βάλλει, παρὰ γὰρ τὸ πᾶν οὐθέν ἐστιν ὃ ἂν εἰσελθὸν εἰς αὐτὸ τὴν μεταβολὴν

BOOK II NOTES II 1:7

ποιήσαιτο. With this paragraph comp. N. British Review L 1. p. 225
‘this proposition foreshadows the doctrine of conservation of energy. It
is coupled with the assertion that the sum of matter was never denser or
rarer than it now is, a proposition which we may admit in the sense that
the mean density of the universe is constant...It is clear in all his work
that Lucr. conceived two things as quite constant: atoms were neither
created nor destroyed, and their motion could neither be created nor
destroyed. He believed that each atom kept its velocity unaltered. The
modern doctrine is that the total energy of the universe is constant,
but may be variously distributed, and is possibly due to motion alone
ultimately, though this last point has not been proved’. The amount
of motion in the παλμὸς or oscillation of the atoms forming a lump of
iron or of granite is precisely the same as that of the motion of these
same atoms racing alone down space.

308—332: though atoms are in constant motion, yet the whole uni-
verse appears to be at rest, because they are far beneath the ken of our
senses: nay visible things often when seen from a distance seem to be at
rest; as a flock of sheep feeding; or as an army of foot and horse, if
looked down upon from a height. 309 sent wn motu: an unusual
rhythm ; but iz motu is to be taken metrically as one word; so always
enter se, enter nos and the hike, 310 Summa...summa: the play on
words which he so loves. 311 dat motus=movetur: see ἢ, to 1819:
either the sun or moon or the clouds or any thing moving on the earth
is an instance of such partial motion. 312 infra is here the adv. :
iacet infra longe an. s.: 1v 112 the prepos. is used with the same force:
primordia .. Sunt infra nostros sensus. 313 Primorum: Iv 186 e
primis facta minutis: see ἢ. to 1 δῦ, 314 cam: it has precisely the
same force 1601: quod nostri cernere sensus Tam nequeunt: where see
n.: and 613 and 625. surpere: Horace and Plautus also use this con-
tracted form. 316 diductai.e. fromus. 9318 reptant well expresses
the slow regular advance of sheep as they are feeding. 319 comp. v461
gemmantis rore per herbas ; culex 69 gemmantis .. per herbas; but there
of flowers. 320 coruscant: Iuven. x11 6 uses it actively, frontemque
coruscat ; Quintil. inst. vir 3 21 caput opponis cum eo coruscans (Halm,
contficans mss. ). 323 foll. comp. 40 foll. 324 bel. sim. οἷ, : see n.
to 41. 324 foll. Lucr. had more than one passage of Homer in his
mind: Od. € 267 πλῆτο δὲ πᾶν πεδίον πεζῶν τε καὶ ἵππων Χαλκοῦ τε στερο-
πῆς, 1]. Τ 362 Αἴγλη δ᾽ οὐρανὸν tke, γέλασσε δὲ πᾶσα περὶ χθὼν Χαλκοῦ
ὑπὸ στεροπῆς" ὑπὸ δὲ κτύπος ὥρνυτο ποσσὶν ᾿Ανδρῶν, and B 457 and 465.
326 Aere ren.: Virg. geor. 11 281 fluctuat omnis Aere renidenti tellus.
supter appears to be an adv.; for it would be harsh to join it with pedi-
bus; and so I presume Luer. understood ὑπὸ in 1]. B 465 and T 363.
328 sid. mun.: see n. to 1 788. 332 consist. ful. i.e. videntur consis-
tere velut fulgor: comp. 322. Martha, p. 288, well remarks that ‘such

138 BOOK II NOTES II

comparisons are not mere embellishments: they are facts, examples, to
illustrate the law: they place before the eyes what otherwise the mind
would have difficulty in seizing’.

839- 880: know too that these first-beginnings are of many different
shapes: thus no two men or other animals are quite alike; thus a cow
knows its calf among all other calves ; thus kids and lambs run each to
its own mother ; thus every grain of corn, every shell is distinct. 333
cunct. ex. rer.= primordia rerum, the cunctarum being equivalent to
prima. 335 mltagents appears to be a ἅπαξ λεγόμ. : 1t must come
from multigena, as the omnigenum of Virgil from omnigena: see n. to I
683: Luer. has alientgena terrigenaGrariugena Trowugena ; but caecigent.
336 337 recur 723 724, and partially 692 694. 336 Non quo.. sint,
Sed quia non constant: this is the regular constr.: non quo, non quod, non
quia, non quin, followed by sed quia, sed quod, or sed or verwm alone,
take a subj. in the first, an indic. in the 2nd clause: vi 71 non quo violari
summa deum vis Posstt.. Sed quia tute.. Constitues.. Nec. .adibis; Cic.
de orat. 11305 non quo libenter male audiam, sed quia causam non liben-
ter relinguo; so Tusc. disp. 11 56 non quod, sed quia; Sall. Cat. 35 3 non
quia, sed quod ; Livy xxxvu1 33 11 non qua salvos vellet, sed quia perire
causa indicta nolebat; Cic. ad Att. vil 26 2 non quin, sed quia: Ser.
Sulpic. ap. Cic. ad fam. Iv 51 non quo ea te fugere existimem, sed quod
Jorsitan dolore impeditus minus ea perspicias, the perspicias depends on
Jorsitan. Lachmann’s constent seems therefore not easy to defend. [| How-
ever Cic. epist. Iv 7 1 mss. give sed quod iudicem, editors tudico.] With
non quia the best writers sometimes have an indice. in the first clause : 3
Non quia vexart quemquamst rucunda voluptas: so Cic. pro Plane. 78 ;
Livy x 4112. parum multa recurs several times: it and parum saepe
are similarly used by Cicero: instead of being few, the atoms of each
shape are infinite in number, as he soon after proves. 340 prorsum
seems best taken with omnia; as v1 528 omnia, prorsum Omnia ; but it
may be taken with non in the sense of prorsum non: see n. to 1 748 ;
though the other sense agrees best with guaedam of 380. 341 jilo:
jfilum is properly thickness, as Iv 88 suptil: praedita filo; hence size as
here, and v 572, 581, 589; see Lach. to v 571. 342 Praeter eat: Iv
388 ea praeter creditur ire: let them pass before you in review, and then
347 sumere perge out of the number any of them for inspection, and you
will find they differ. Praeter eat, which 1 have divided for emphasis,
was suggested to me by Hor. sat. 14 25 quemvis media elige turba, Aut
οὗ avaritiam aut misera ambitione laborat. [And so transeo is used by
Sen. rhet. controv. 1 4 12 quam otiosi, quam securt adultert transierunt
praeter oculos meos.| The metaph is perhaps from the sollemmnis trans-
vectio of the knights for inspection: comp. Ov. trist. 11 89 vitamque
meam moresque probabas Lllo, quem dederas, praetereuntis equo; 541 cum
te delicta notantem Practerti totiens .. eques. mutaeque natuntes: see

BOOK II NOTES II 139

n. to 1 258. 343 Plaut. rud. 942 sine squaimoso pecu. 344 comp.
Aen. vil 32; and Ov. met. 11 252. As ldaeto in the old writers (see
Fore.) signifies to make glad, it seems best to take laetantia to mean
making glad ; it may however be synon. with daeta ; as Cic. de nat. deor.
1116 quae sua voluptate laetans. 346 comp, 145. 347 generatim
= 372 Quique swo genere. [sumere=eligere: see Lucil. x1x 10 Sume
diem qui est visw tibe pulcherrimus unus, and Nonius s. v.| 348
tamen of course refers to the gutdvis: comp. 371 quodvis .. tamen.
351 cluere = esse. 302 delubra seems here to have its primary sense,
the inner part of the temple where the statue of the god was, and the
arae therefore to be within the temple. 353 Tur. ar: Aen, Iv 453
turicremis cuni dona tmponeret αὐ 8. 354 comp. Aen. 1x 414 vomens
calidum de pectore flumen. 355—359 imitated by Ov. fasti τν 459
460, 463 464, 481: Ut vitulo mugit sua mater ab ubere rapto Et quaerit
jetus per nemus omne suos...Inde puellaris nacta est vestigia plantae Et
pressam noto pondere vidit humum: (this v. shews that Ovid read noscit
in Lucr.): Quacumque ingreditur miseris loca cuncta querellis Implet.
359 absistens: the cow searches for her calf, cannot find it, desists from
the search, stands and lows piteously, returns to her stall, goes out
again, does the same and returns once more: this, which is so near the
ms. reading, seems to me to suit the sense exactly. revisit Ad: v 636
ad hanc quia signa revisunt; v1 1239 visere ad aegros: the constr.
is common in the older writers. 360 perfixa seems a word peculiar to

Lucr.: comp. 11 305; νι 392. 361 foll. seems to have suggested to
Virgil geor. 111 520 Von wmbrae cet. 362 ila, emphatic in a good
sense; as 182 zla Religio, in a bad. sum. lab. ripis: Hor. epod. 2

25 Labuntur altis interim ripis aquae; od. 1 2 18 vagus et sinistra
Labitur rapa; Ovid am. 11 17 31 Sed neque diversi ripa lubuntur eadem.
363 swbhetam is the participle: perhaps it is regular and subeo curam is
said as subeo dolorem in Cicero and the like; but I think it better to
take it to be curam quae subitt. This use ofthe pass. partic. is common
in Latin: potus pransus cenatus iuratus cretus concretus placitus nuptus
adultus and many such are found in all periods of the language ; senectus
is used by Lucr. more than once; see ἢ. to 11 772. Dut there are
other words which have a more immediate bearing on our passage:
Lucr. himselfin vi 491 has enpensa for ‘ quae inpendent’ and Sen. Herc.
Oet. 1592 says wnpensum ferrum ; Prisc. inst. 1x 48 foll. gives a list of
such words: of compounds of ¢o we find Laevius saying mzserilo obito ;
Claud. Quadr. multis utrimque interitis; then praeterttus for ‘qui
praeteriit ᾿ was common at all times: [ Lucil. xxv1 49 flacttam familiam;]|
Paulus Festi p. 28 ‘ad eaxttam aetatem, ad ultimam aetatem’, where
exitam seems to be ‘quae exiit’: similarly Caelius ap. Prisc. has custocd-
bus discessis ; and the young Cicero, ad fam. xvi 21 2, writes to Tiro
(patre non probante perhaps) cum omnia mea causa velles mihi successa:

140 BOOK II NOTES II

Vitruv. v 8 scaenam recesstorem : occasus sol is likewise not unfrequent.
Some of these expressions were always in use, some became archaic and
homely ; but Lucr. was no ways averse to the latter kind: see ἢ. to 156
Officiuntur. On the analogy then of obitus interitus exitus praeteritus,
discessus successus recessior, and Plautus’ puppis pereunda est probe,
Lucr. may surely have said subitam curam for ‘curam quae subiit’.
365 derivare animum: it would not be easy perhaps to find an exact
parallel to this expression. cur. lev.: Hor. sat. 11 5 99 curaque
levarit; Ov. met. v 500 curaque levata..eris. 369 Balantum pecudes
after Ennius ann. 192: v1 1132 pegris balantibus: comp. corpora penni-
potentum: squamigerum pecudes and the like. 370 fere: see n. to I
14 ferae (fere). 371 comp. 347: here also tamen answers to guoduis;
for quodvis is emphatic as in Cic. de inv. 1 100 nam ex ws rebus .. quae-
vis amplificationes et indignationes nasci possunt ; Caes. bel. Gall. τν 2
ad quemvis numerum ephippratorum equitum quamvis pauci adire au-
dent. Corn of whatever kind you choose to take you will yet find not
to be all alike: on tamen is used exactly as in v 920 quia quae de terris
nunc quoque abundant Herbarum genere ac fruges arbustaque laeta Non
iamen inter se possunt complexa teneri: comp. too Iv 952 poplitesque
cubanti Saepe tamen summittuntur. 3872 Quique is abl. of course: see
Lach. and Madv. de fin. v 46: and comp. Livy 111 22 6 equates θην suae
cuique parti...collocat ; XxIv 3 5 separatimque greges sui curusque generis;
xxv 17 5 motibusque armorum et corporum suae cuique genti assuetis ;
Plaut. Poen. v 4 5 copia venustatum in suo quique (quieque A) sita
munde. 875 mollibus of the waves falling gently on the shore; nota
general epithet of water, as 1 281 mollis aquae natura: comp. Aen. Ix
817 ac molhbus extulré undis. 377 Quware cet. proves, if proof were
wanting, that Praeterea in 242 cannot be right: it draws the conclusion
from all the instances given above beginning with 342 ; and it would be
ludicrous to include what precedes, that is, to assert ‘ therefore it follows
that atoms must have different shapes, because I have declared that they
must not all have the same shapes’.

381—397: thus the fire of lightning can pass where earthly fire cannot,
because it is formed of finer atoms: for like reasons light passes through
horn, rain does not; wine runs easily, oil slowly through a strainer,
because the elements of oil are larger or more hooked, and so cannot
separate so readily. 381 exsolvere : v 773 resolvi is also used meta-
phorically ; and perhaps v1 46 where mss. have dzssolut. 383 fuat
recurs Iv 637 and is found in Virgil, and often in Plautus, 385 magis
may belong to Suptilem; but it seems better to take 1t with parvis:
comp. vi 225 Hune tibe subtilem cum primis ignibus ignem Constituit
natura minutis mobelibusque Corporibus. Jiguris are here the atoms
themselves ; as 679 varias cohibere figuras; also 682, 685, 817, 111 190,
246, vi 770, 776: see n. to 1 55 foll.: so Democritus gave the name of

BOOK II NOTES Il 141

ἰδέαι or εἴδη, which Aristotle interprets by σχήματα, sometimes to the
shapes of atoms, sometimes to the atoms themselves. 388 cornum, a
form found in Varro Ovid Gellius and others: [see Ussing to Amph.
337. | 391 guamvis=quantumvis. 394 perque pl.: so perplexis
figuris and inplexis principtis: their being hamata makes them also
perplicata. 397 cwiusque seems to me to be used to increase the
antithesis: the several elements of any oil in relation to the several
openings of any particular strainer: though Bruno's conj. is ingenious.

908. 407 : honey and milk are pleasant to the taste, wormwood and
the like nauseous ; the former therefore consist of smooth, the latter of
jagged atoms which tear a way into the body. 401 Centauri: 1v 125
and Virg. geor. Iv 270 have the form centawrea; the mss. of Pliny who
often uses the word appear to give cenfaurion or centawrium for the
nomin.: the latter is the form used here: it appears not to be extant
in Greek. absinthi, Aegz, conchyli are similar genitives of Greek
words in Lucr. pertorguent appears not to be found elsewhere :
the nomin. is natura twice repeated: this is less harsh than 11 558:
Virg. geor. 11 246 At sapor...ora Tristia temptantum sensu torquebit
amaro or amaror: par. lost x 569 Werth hatefullest disrelish writhed their
Jaws. 402 rutwndis AB here and elsewhere. 404 quaé amara:
617 quit in oras, IV 1061 Nam si abest, ν 7 Nam st ut, T4 qui in orbi, vi
716 qui etesiae, 796 st odoratast ; so with monosyllables ending in m, 681
sunt cum odore, 111 394 Et guam in, 1082 Sed dum abest, v1 276 cum eo:
comp. Virgil’s An qui amant, te amice, ὁ Alexi; Horace’s Si me amas,
cocto num adest ; Catullus’ téin omnibus, dt ament; st adire of the cata-
lecta ; Lucilius’ qué eam: this prosody is exceedingly common in the
old scenic poets, but there the non-elision takes place always, or nearly
always, in the arsis of the foot. [Lucilius in his iambics and trochees
has also the old scenic usage: xxvilI 19 Lucali, st in amore; xxvi δῦ
quam in album; xxvill 5 igni cum et aqua.) With this passage and
with τν 615 foll. it would be worth while to compare Theophrastus de
caus. plant. v1 6; de sensu et sensil. 65 66 67 ; all quoted by Mullach
Democr. p. 217 foll. where it is explained at length out of what kind of
atoms the flavours γλυκύς, orpudvos, ὀξύς, δριμύς, ἁλμυρός, πικρός are
severally formed according to Democritus.

408. 448: also what is pleasing or offensive to the other senses, to
the hearing smell sight, must be formed of elements more or less smooth
or rough respectively: again some bitter flavours have elements, not
hooked, but slightly prominent: those of fire and cold are jagged, but in
different ways as shewn by touch, every bodily sensation being a kind of
touch. 408 Omnia postr.: passing from taste to the other senses.
tactu is here the dat. of tactus; and is quite synon. with sensibus, as it
implies in its general meaning every way in which you can tangere et
tanyt: thus tangere 1 643 is said of hearing, τι 403 of taste, 1v 674 of

142 BOOK II NOTES II

smell. Virgil ends geor. 111 416 with aut mala tactu: but tactwu there
appears to be the supine. 412 musaea: this adj. appears peculiar to
Lucr. at least in the senses in which he employs it: here it=musica; in
1 and iv it=simply musarum. mele: 505 cyenea mele; v 334 modo
organict melicos peperere sonores. This v. is almost made up of Greek
words ; 505 Et cycnea mele Phoeboeaque daedala chordis, even more so:
in both places he wishes to express sweet sounds, so far supporting
Quintil. x11 10 33, ‘itaque tanto est sermo Graecus Latino iucundior ut
nostri poetae, quoties dulce carmen esse voluerint, illorum id nominibus
exornent’. Juv. 111 68 Zt ceromatico fert niceterta collo seems to parody
the practice, which Virgil and Ovid in regard to proper names and
rhythms are so fond of ; but which in the age of Quintilian and Juvenal
was carried to an absurd extent. 413 fgurant: Iv 552 Formaturaque
labrorum pro parte fiywrat, 1.6. shapes the articulate words : here I pre-
sume putting the tunes into shape means to execute them. 416 Lt
cum and 420 Ht qui: see n. to 1 280. croco ("ἰοὺ : culex 399 Crker
crocus editus arvo. perfusa in a liquid state, as described by Seneca
Pliny and Martial. 419 oculos cet.: Tac. hist. 11 31 saevissiema Vtel-
lit vox qua se (ipsa enim verba referam) pavisse oculos spectata inimict
morte tactavit ; Sen. epist. 58 25 oculos...ut dict solet, pascit. Terence
has oculos pascere, Plautus oculis epulas dare, Martial oculis comedit and
oculis devorantibus: comp. 1 36. 421 it is not easy to see how mere
ugliness or hideousness of aspect implies roughness in the atoms: one
could conceive a very ugly thing having a soothing effect, if applied to
the eyes; while bright and beautiful objects may often conpungere acien.
423 principials lev. 1.6. levore principiorum: comp. 425 materiae squalore.
426 quae vam nec: the force of tam is clear enough; which, when you
come to them, you can no longer call either smooth etc.: comp. Cic. de
fin. ν 14 praetereo multos, in his... Hveronymum, quem vam cur Peripate-
ticum appellem nescio; Pollio ap. Cic. ad fam. x 32 3 alla vero tam ne
Caesaris quidem exemplo; Cic. Brutus 70 iam tamen quae non dubites
pulchra dicere; Livy v 14 3 non prodigta, sed 1am eventus ; Lucil, lib. ine.
13 Muell. tertiatam postremaque nostra: comp. also 313 whe ipsa Cernere
cam negueas, and 1 601, 613 and 625. It cannot have the meaning it
has just after in 430, 431, 440, where particular instances are specified.
428 uiqui: see ἢ. to 1 755, 429 Titellare...sensus: Cic. de nat.
deor. 1113 has leviores dicis voluptates quibus quasi titillatio (Epicuri
enim hoe verbum est) adhibetur sensibus ; de fin. 1 39 sz ea sola voluptas
esset quae quasi titillaret sensus; and other passages: Epicurus’ own word
γαργαλίζειν is often mentioned: he applied it to the slighter bodily
pleasures. 430 Maecula: Hor. sat. 11 ὃ 9 faecula Coa: the fecula of
AB and Lach. cannot be from Lucr. though before the end of the first
century it became common to put e for ae in many words, maereo aerwm-
na paenitet cet.: V 1141 A has /ecem. 433 tactus wterque=tactus

BOOK II NOTES 1 143

utriusque: Hor. od. τι 17 8 tlle dies utramque Ducet ruinam; Livy xxxv
46 7 nihil utilius Graeciae civitatibus esse quam utramque complecti
amicitiam ; ita enim ab utriusque iniuria tutae; Cic. ad Att. xv 1 3 se
autem utrague arma metuere ; Sueton. 1 6 de eius ac patris sur utraque
origine sic refert; [Tacit. hist. 150 utrasque tmpias preces, utraque de-
testanda vota. | 434 this point is put with emphasis to shew the
vast importance of touch; for as nothing can tangere et tang sine corpore,
so nothing can sine tactu sentere: all the senses are but different forms of
touch: he then enumerates the different ways in which the body can
feel ; either something enters from without, and gives pleasure or pain ;
or something takes place in the body, and gives pleasure or pain; or
thirdly the atoms in the body itself, before quiescent, are troubled by
some collision and so disturb the body’s feeling, as for instance when you
strike any part of the body. 438 Aut from the attraction probably
of aut in 437: it should be vel, to answer vel of 435 and 436. turbant
neut.: see n. to 126. corpore wn tpso=merely intus in corpore: see Nn.
to Iv 736 aere in 180.

444477: again things hard and dense, stones metals and the lke,
have hooked and branching particles ; fluids have them smoothed and
round: things again which do not cohere, but yet are pungent, smoke
mist flame, have sharp, but not tangled elements : sea-water has particles
round and smooth mixed with others round but rough which give it its
saltness ; and these latter by filtering you may separate from the former.
445 foll. hamatis cet.: Cic. acad. pr. 11 121 alle qua asperts et levibus et
hamatis uncinatisque corporibus concreta haec esse dicat: the uncinatis=
4957 flexis mucronibus unca. Newton optics p. 251 Horsl. ‘the parts of
all homogeneal hard bodies which fully touch one another, stick together
very strongly. And for explaining how this may be some have invented
hooked atoms, which is begging the question’. 448 ectus contemnere
sueta: Virg. geor. 11 360 contemnere ventos Adsuescant: for the sense
comp. Pliny xxxvil 57 wincudibus hi (adamantes) deprehenduntur rata
respuentes rctus ut ferrum utrimgue dissultet, incudes ipsae etiam dissili-
ant; ouippe duritia inenarrabilis est...unde et nomen enterpretatione

Graeca indomita vis accept. 449 silices: seen. to1 571: these blocks
paving their streets and roads would always be present to the eyes and
minds of Romans. robora: see ἢ. to 1 882. 450 Aeru, claustris,

restantia are all vague words ; so that their joint meaning must be some-
what doubtful: Aera I take to be the bronze bars or bolts of a gate ;
claustra the staples or metal boxes into which the bolts went to fasten
the gate; apparently the strict meaning of the word: ‘massy staples And
corresponsive and fulfilling bolts’: but German. 196 197, compared with
the original of Aratus 192 193, is obscure to me both as to reading and
sense. restantia then=resistentia, as1110: rest. cl. meaning struggling
with, refusing to part from: [Baechrens in Rh. Mus. xxix p. 360

144 BOOK II NOTES II

seems rightly to amend Lucil. xx1x 47 Caede ostium, Gnato, urge /—restat.
—pertimus. (urguent, instant Muell.)] Yet claustris might be the
modal abl.: most of the editors seem to take aera for the cardo; but as
the ancient cardo had nothing in common with the modern hinge,
claustris must then apparently mean the socket of the door-flap which
moved about the aera or pivot of the postis: this it can scarcelydo. In
ordinary doors the aera would be the pessuli, one of which went into a
claustrum in the upper limen or lintel, the other into one in the lower.
Hence each door-flap or valva had two, one above one below: Plaut.
aulul. 1 2 25 occlude sis Fores ambobus pessulis: the sera being the
wooden bar which went across the whole door into a hole in each
postis. 452 fliivido: 464 flivida, 466 flividus. liquida: so 1 349,
ur 427; ιν 1259 liquidis et liquida crassis; where see note: liquida
Laevius frag. 7 Mueller; even Phaedrus has Jiqwidus. 1 453 liquor
aquat; the only case where the subst. is long, though that is the regular
quantity of the verb. 454 glomeramina: this word, almost peculiar
to Lucr., v 726 means the ball of the moon; 11 686 atoms of different
shapes meet glomeramen in unum: from the context glomeramina would
seem in our passage to mean globosa primordia, the round particles of
any liquid; but if so, this sense is in strange contradiction to the mean-
ing which Luer. elsewhere gives to it: if it means the drops into which
a liquid sometimes forms, that would only apply to a few cases in which
a liquid so disperses itself: the words retenentur inter se are ambiguous,
as they may refer either to a composite body keeping together, or to
the separate atoms holding themselves in union. 455 proclive: see
Cic. de fin. v 84 proclivi currit oratio, and Madvig there who shews
that proclivt and proclive are the same in meaning and used adverbially:
he compares facile and sublime, and refers to Gellius x 24 who says the
ancients used proclive and proclivi indifferently: Cic. Tuse. disp. Iv 42
guia sunt in lubrico incitataque semel proclivt labuntur. 460 vesca:
see n. to 1 326: pen. ves. to enter in with a biting power well suits the
context. 462 sedatum I keep: a thing, like smoke for instance, enters
the eyes and bites them ; but its atoms disperse at once, and thus the
sense is able to quell and allay them: comp. the use of sedare in 956:
the remaining motions can often Vincere et ingentis plagae sedare
tumultus : comp. too the longa dies sedavit vulnera mentis of Ovid ex
Ponto 1v 11 19; and the uses of sedaé in Pliny xx 211; 212; and xxix
133: [comp. too Cic. Cat. πὶ 6 tum interventu Pomptini atque Placer
pugna quae erat commissa sedatur: see too Nizolius: also Amm. Mare.
xIv 6 23 ef quoniam apud 608 ut in capite mundi morborum acerbitates
celsius dominantur, ad quos vel sedandos omiis professio medendi torpesert
cet.] The ms. reading is thus unaltered, while the corrections of Lach.
Bern. and others are very violent. 463 acutis: so that they can
pungere, but not haerere. 465 Sudor maris is simply the salt water

BOOK II NOTES II 145

of the sea, and has nothing in common with v 487, where salsus sudor
is literally the sweat of the earth; or with what is there quoted from
Empedocles. [habeto: see Seyffert, Lael. p. 48, on ste habetote.| 467
doloris is the acc. plur.: it is certain that doloris laborts maioris and the
like were often, if not generally, written by Lucr. and Virgil: see 509
melioris and v 591, and Wagner orthogr. Verg. p. 404: creant doloris =
470 laedere sensus. 469 Sclicet esse: see n. to 1 210 Esse videlicet.
472 Neptuni: he takes himself the licence here, which 652 (655) he
somewhat contemptuously concedes to others. (474 for arrangement
of words comp. v1 140; Plaut. asin. 230 and Ussing there. ] 475
mansuescat : i.e. by losing the aspera semina. 476 vire: virus is used
for the brine of the sea 1 719, v 269, repeated v1 635, Percolatur enim
virus; Manil. v 684 ponti secernere virus.

478—521: hence it appears that the number of different shapes
in atoms is finite: some atoms must be infinitely large, if you have an
infinite variety of shapes ; for say certain atoms consist of three parts or
four parts : their permutations will only give a certain number of shapes ;
go on increasing the number of parts, the shapes after every change of
position will still be only finite in number: hence to get an infinite num-
ber of shapes, some atoms must be infinitely large; which is impossible:
again were the shapes infinite, what is now best in colour smell flavour
sound would be far surpassed ; as well as what is worst: but as it is
there is a limit to all this; there is a limit too to the heat and cold of
the year.—This was another point in which Epicurus differed from
Democritus and Leucippus who according to Arist. de gen. et corr. 1 1
p. 314 a 22 taught that their atoms ἄπειρα καὶ τὸ πλῆθος εἶναι καὶ τὰς
μορφάς: p. 315 Ὁ 9 foll. he gives their reasons for this. Philoponus in
his comment p. 3 b on the words of Aristotle just quoted records that
according to Alexander of Aphrodisias the epicureans on this point
οὐκέτι συνεφώνησαν Anpoxpirw: this Epicurus himself in Diog. x 42 dis-
tinctly confirms, καὶ καθ᾽ ἑκάστην δὲ σχημάτισιν ἁπλῶς ἀπειροί εἰσιν
ἄτομοι, ταῖς δὲ διαφοραῖς οὐκ ἁπλῶς ἄπειροι ἀλλὰ μόνον ἀπερίληπτοι:
the number of shapes is not infinite, only inconceivably great: this care-
ful limitation is added no doubt with reference to Democritus. Lucr.
simply states and argues that the number is finite, without deciding
whether it is large or small. 479 Ex hoc cet.: it derives its proof
from what has been said, because though there is so much difference in
things in regard to hardness softness, smoothness roughness, and the like,
yet these differences are only finite: see 500 foll. 480 = 514 finitis
differre figuris. 481 rursum iam refers to 1615: it will once more
follow, though it was there proved to be impossible: see below 499 supra
quod vam cet. 483 my correction is I think very simple: in eodem
i.e. Semine: then defining more strictly, ‘I mean in the one small size
of any single atom’: because his argument obliges him to begin with the

M. Π. 10

146 BOOK II NOTES II

smaller and go on to the larger: the eodem would infallibly be changed
into eadem by the context: in Lucil. xx1x 79, if Mueller is right in read-
ing Zodem una (uno mss.) hic modo, the case 1s exactly parallel. As
Lach, says, eadem una would hardly have the meaning of wna et eadem.
In the Journ. of phil. rv p. 123 124 I argued for Vamque eadem minima
(eadem in una, in eadem una); but my present reading is much simpler.
484, 487 and 490 corporis is of course the atom: sce n. to 1 600 Cor-
ports tllius. Lucr. seldom has to speak of a single atom: when he does
mention one, he has hardly any word for 1t but corpus as here. 485
minimis e partibus: this has been fully explained 1 599 foll.: these
minimae partes, which could not exist alone and had no distinctive
qualities, Lucr. seems to have regarded as each perfectly identical ; so
that the atom took its shape and character solely from the mode of
juxta-position in which these existed from everlasting in the atom ; and
three he seems to have thought the very smallest number that could

compose one of his atoms, 490 Lormai specicne: comp. 1v 69 format
figuram. 491 Quod superest: see ἢ. to1 50. 492 Addendum
partis: seen. to1 111: the permutations will soon come to an end and
to inerease the shapes new parts must be added. 494 etiam, once
again, still, which the comic poets shew to have been an idiomatical use:
Cic. Verr. πὶ 175 dic, dic ettam clarius, 496 Subsequatur, at once
follows upon. 498 maaimitate: see ἢ. to 1 693. 499 supra i.e.

1615 foll. With what precedes comp. Epicurus himself in Diog. x 56
πᾶν δὲ μέγεθος ὑπάρχον οὔτε χρήσιμόν ἐστι πρὸς Tas τῶν ποιοτήτων δια-
φοράς, ἀφῖχθαί τε μέλλει καὶ πρὸς ἡμᾶς ὁρατὴ ἄτομος.. πρὸς δὲ τούτοις
οὐ δεῖ νομίζειν ἐν τῷ ὠρισμένῳ σώματι ἀπείρους ὄγκους εἶναι οὐδ᾽ ὁπηλι-
κουσοῦν.

500 AMeliboea: Lucr. tells us that this was the Thessalian town: it
Jay on the shore, between Ossa and Pelion: Aen. v 251 Purpura Maean-
dro duplict Meliboea cucurrit; where Conington says ‘dfeliboeus is
formed from it as an adj. by poetical licence, as 111 401 ducis JMeliboed’.
501 Thessalico cone. col.: seen. to1 474. Philostr, heroica 744 proves
that the Thessalians were known for dyeing with purple from the κόχλος.
tacta: Lucr. uses contingo and contactws in the same sense. Oudendorp
on Lucan x 49] among several false instances quotes 11 536 tetigtt san-
quis pollutos Caesars enses. 502 ridentt: τν 1125 pulchra in pedibus
Sicyonta rodent. 504 iacerent of course is continued to this verse :
Lucr. assumes according to wont that where the varieties are infinite
there must be infinitely good and infinitely bad in what they produce.
505 Lamb. seems to be right in taking ’hoebea to imply tunes played on
the φόρμιγξ, the instrument of Phoebus. daedala chordis appears to
be the same as 412 per chordas organici quae...figurant: both phrases
seem toimply the giving expression on the strings to all the varied forms
of the musie. 509 in melioris depends in grammar on cedere retro, in

BOOK II NOTES II 147

sense on progredi or the hike. 513 and 518 swmmam i.e. the whole
range within which they move. 515 Lachmann’s 2ter usque is tame
and I should like to read hiemum usque; yet with Lach, I think Fini-
tumst and remensumst harsh without a subject ; though scarcely so harsh
perhaps as Iv 813 semotwm fuerit longeque remotum. 516 remensus
is more than once passive in Virgil. 517 Omnis cet. is rightly
explained by N. P. Howard Journal of phil. 1 p. 126. The fires of mid-
summer and the frosts of winter are the two extremes, between which .
lies every degree of calor, frigus and medit tepores. 518 Interutrasque
is to be kept here, and v 472 476 839 νι 362 1062, as I suggested in
notes 1 of my second edition, comparing the adverbs alias alteras or else
foras: Buecheler Lat. decl. p. 32 cites Nonius p. 183 for wétrasque,
which in Cassius Hemina signifies ‘both times’, in Caecilius ‘on both
sides’. The origin of these forms is nowise clear, as is the case with
many other adverbs in Latin. 520 mucront: the metaphor must be
from the mucro or point of the stz/us setting a mark at each end of any
length you wish to note: on the ὁ of the abl. see n. to 1978. 521
anfesta: Melai 4 mediam aestus infestat, frigus ultimas; 11 44 tellus
anfesta frigoribus,

522568 : the number of shapes being finite, the number of atoms
of each shape is infinite, since it was proved in the first book that the
sum of matter was infinite: if you say some animals are more scarce
than would be the case, if the atoms of which they were made were
infinite, I answer these animals may be very numerous in remote regions;
but even if but one thing of its kind existed in the whole world, this
would imply an infinite sum of atoms; else how could these have met
and united in the boundless ocean of matter? the first-beginnings there-
fore of every shape and kind are infinite in number. 522 foll. see
Epicurus cited to 478 foll. who precisely agrees with Lucr. 525
cluere=esse. etenim cet. for no finite number multiplied by any finite
number however large can produce an infinite sum. And as Epicurus
and Lucr. conceived all infinites to be equal, the atoms of each shape
must to them have been equal to the sum of all the atoms of all shapes;
which seems absurd ; but this opinion they shared with all the ancients,
and moderns till comparatively recent times: Philoponus, ]. 1. to the last
section, has a curious argument to shew that Democritus holding the
atoms of each shape to be infinite must have held that there was τοῦ
ἀπείρου ἀπειρότερόν τι, and that the epicureans teaching that the num-
ber in each shape was infinite must have believed the same: this to him
seemed an absurdity; and it must have puzzled Epicurus and Luer.
aswell. Newton cited to 1 622 clears up the mystery. 528 probavi
1 1008—1051: Lach. goes sadly astray, μέγας peyadwori. 529 Ver-
sibus is thus nakedly put 1 416 Quam tube de quavis una re versibus cet. ;
and diclis with the same sense more than once. 530 Lax infinito, 1.6.

10—2

148 BOOK II NOTES II

tempore, not spatio, apparently : see ἢ. to 1 1001: but here it is not
quite certain. 531 protelo: 1v 190 Lt quasi protelo stumulatur fulgere
fulgur: from the passages of Lucilius and others quoted by Force. the
word appears to denote a number of draught-oxen yoked one in front of
the other and advancing by even successive pulls: hence it well ex-
presses the effect produced by the continuous succession of blows of
atoms. 532 Van quod cet.: an apparent objection to some shapes
having an infinite number of atoms, but only apparent: the quod vides
is like the familiar quod scribis in Cicero, to introduce his own answer or
opinion: see ἢ. to Iv 850. 535 numerum: so as to bring it up to an
average: comp. guingentorum numerum explebant and similar expressions
so common in Livy. 537 anguimanus recurs V 1303 as the ace. plur.
fem.: Lach. quotes Priscian to shew that centimanus unimanus and the
like are declined like mans and observes that Lucr. is the only writer
of authority who uses any of these words except in the nom. and ace.

sing.: Cic. de nat. deor. 11 122 manus etiam data elephanto est. 938
I know no other mention of this fable. 043 orbi: see n. to 1 978.
546 quod superest : see 491 and n. to 1 50. 047 sumam hoc quoque

uti seems to me not only near the ms. reading, but to give the sense
needed: were I to asswme this further, that the elements were finite, my
argument would be proved by the absurdity of the conclusion: euphony
has determined the position of the words, as ('uippe etenim hoc quoque
uti would have had a very harsh sound: comp. ur 293 fit qué and n.
there, and tv 752 Nune igitur docut quontiam: for ut thus placed comp.
Iv 638 Katetque ut serpens; v 871 nec ipsa Sponte sua possent ut vivere ;
γι 784 capitis faciant ut saepe dolores; 887 calidus queat ut frerc fons ;
1064 Inpellant wt eam; 1214 neque se possent cognoscere ut pst; Hor.
sat.1 4 105; Ov. ex Ponto 119 80; 111 ὃ 95 faveas quin his (mss.: quin
his fuveas vulgo). 550 turba aliena, of atoms different in kind.

553 [distect.: used by Amm. Marc.: see Herz in Hermes vit p. 269.]
guberna occurs in Lucilius too ap. Nonium p. 490. 5990 fl. apl.:
Cic. Arat. frag. xx11 Navibus absumptis fluitantia quaerere aplustra.
aplustre, in plur. aplustra or aplustria, was a fan-like erection of planks
rising above the poop: Lucan u1 585 dum pugnat ab alta Puppe Tayus
Graiumque audax aplustre retentat. [Οἱ aplustra see Mayor to Juv.
x 135.] 559 comp. v 1004 Nee poterat quemquam placidi pellacia
ponti Subdola pellicere in fraudem ridentibus undis; Virgil has the
adj. pellax: these two appear to be the only good writers who use the
words. 561 aevom: so 111 589 omnem...per aevon; Plautus has
vitalem aevum. 567 Lsse igitur cet.: he assumes now that he has
proved the question stated 522 foll.; the whole paragraph therefore
stands in closest connexion one part with the other. 968 palam
est = apertum est, is found also in Cicero, and Livy xxx1 14 8 and Pliny
ΧΧΙΧ 11: Plautus has ves palam est; rem palam esse; Terence palam

BOOK II NOTES II 149

est; [and Bruttedius Niger ap. Sen. rhet. suas. vi 21 hoe certe publicum
beneficium palam erat:| comp. palamfacere, and 111 355 ipsa palam quod
res dedit ac docuit nos: so V 1157 id fore clam. un. om. sup. i.e. unde
omnia primordia, quae suppeditantur, suppeditantur: but perhaps it is
simplest to take it for omnes res suppeditantur: seen. to 1 230; and for
the sense comp. 11 589—597,

569—580: thus production and destruction alternately prevail, their

elements ever waging equal war: no day passes without some dying, some
being born. 569 itaque: for its place in the sentence see ἢ. to 1 419
on igitur. itaque: because the atoms of each shape being infinite, those
which tend to preserve or clestroy anything are alike infinite. 6171
rer. gen. auct. mot. 1.6. motus principiorum quae generant et augent res.
auctifict is a ἅπαξ λεγόμ. 974 contractum...bellum: Iv 968 contrac-
tum cum ventis degere bellum. 575 vitalia (primordia) rerum: comp.
vi 771 Multa, cibo quae sunt, vitalia. 976 vagor: Festus p. 375
quotes this passage and one of Ennius as authority for this form.
077 visentis 1s nom. plur.: see ἢ. to I 808 animantqs. 078 Every
minute dies a man, Every minute one is born. Here he has been content
perhaps to sacrifice philosophical to poetical distinctness: what as an
epicurean he means to say 1s that in the universe of things death and
destruction are evenly balanced by life and production. Wishing to
illustrate this doctrine, he has drawn his images from the apparent
equality that there is in our world, so long as things continue as they
are. But he elsewhere teaches, as his system required him to do, that
our world came into being only yesterday, and sooner or later must be
destroyed in an instant with all that is in it. What becomes then of
this balance so far as we are concerned? he no doubt felt that its ruins
would go to construct something else; but that he has not said. This
balance of the whole universe, says the epicurean in Cic. de nat. deor. 1
50 ἰσονομίαν appellat Kpicurus, id est aequabilem tributionenr...et, st
quae interemant innumerabilia sint, etiam ea quae conservent infinita
esse debere.

581—599: this you must carefully bear in mind: the more powers
and properties anything possesses, the greater variety of elements it con-
tains: thus the earth has elements out of which seas and fountains and
fires, ont of which crops and trees, rivers and pastures are supplied; it
is therefore called mother of gods, men and beasts alike. 981 obsig-
natum: the force of the metaphor is obvious: the signing and sealing a
document is a proof of its importance. qguwoqgue would certainly seem to
belong rather to /ilud than to obsignatum; as 216 Lllud in his quoque te
cet. where there is no doubt: see n. to v 192: 1t might here be explained
sealed, as well as written and deposited: Ov. her. x11 66 Siynatum
memore pectore nomen habe. 582 mandatum i.e. menti, follows on the
obsig. 986 vis multas: 11 265 multae vis: Probus cathol. p. 19 22

150 BOOK {I NOTES II

Keil ‘Lucretius tamen numero plurali hae vis et has vis’; p. 31 1 ‘hae
vis, sicut Lucretius et Varro’; Sallust and Messalla also use this form.
590 volventes frigora: a bold and beautiful image. 598 imp. Aet.: VI
281 gravis ignis Impetus. 595 habet (corpora prima) unde, 596
comp. 875. 598 Quare cet.: having more variety of first bodies in
her, she has greater powers of production; and therefore is preeminently
styled the mother of all living things, as from her alone comes the food
which sustains all. mag. deum mat.: 655 terrarum dictitet orbem Esse
deum matrem: this and the mater [daea were her legal and official names:
see n. to 611. Dio speaking of Cybele’s temple at Rome calls her ἢ μητὴρ
τῶν Gewv.

600—660: her the old Greeks have personified as the great mother :
she rides in a chariot drawn by lions; wears a mural crown, has Phry-
gian attendants, is accompanied with noisy music, receives on all hands
alms; her followers represent the Curetes who saved the young Jupiter
from his father: all which things are an allegory with some moral signi-
ficance ; but beautiful as they are, they are mere fancies; the blessed and
immortal gods trouble themselves not about men: as you call the sea
Neptune and the like, call the earth mother of the gods, if you please ;
but remember at the same time that it is senseless matter, only contain-
ing the elements of many things. 601 Aen. 11 113 Δ cuncts currum
dominae subiere leones; x 252 Alma parens Idaea deum cur Dindyma
cordi Turrigeraeque urbes biiugique ad frena leones; and Soph. Phil.
399 Ἰὼ μάκαιρα ταυροκτόνων Λεόντων epedpe. 602 foll. Varro quoted
by St Austin de civit. dei νι 24 quod turres in capite (habeat significari
esse) oppida; quod sedens fingatur, circa eam cum omnia moveantur,
ipsam non movert...leonem adiungunt solutwmn ac mansuetum, ut osten-
dant nullum genus esse terrae tam remotunr ac vehementer ferum quod non
subigi colique conveniat: see Haupt in Hermes Iv p. 333: he quotes
Servius on Aen. 111 113, who paraphrases this passage of Lucr. 603
comp. 1 1057. 604 605 comp. Ovid fasti tv 215 coepi ‘cw huie genus
acre leonum Praebeat insolitas ad wuga curva iubas’. Desieram. coepit
‘feritas mollita per tllam Creditur : td curry testificata suost’: all this
part of Ovid much resembles Lucr. 606 Jfurale corona: Aen, VI
784 Berecyntia mater Invehitur curru Phrygias turrita per urbes ; Ov. 1.
1, 219 At cur turrifera caput est onerata corona? An primis turres
urbrbus ula dedit ? and Spenser f. qu. tv 11 28 Old Cybele arayd with
pompous pride, Wearing a diadem embattild wide Wath hundred turrets
hike a turribant: the mural crown given to the soldier who first mounted
the walls was imitated from the walled crown of Cybele. 611 Jdaeam
voc. mat.: her legal name: Cic. de leg. τι 22 Prueter Idaeae matris
Jamulos...ne quis stipem cogito; and Livy xx1x 10 5 the Sibylline books
say st mater Idaea a Pessinwnte Komam advecta foret: the expression
continually recurs in Livy; xxxv1 36 3 he joins matris magnae Idaeae ;

BOOK II NOTES If I5I

Sueton. 111 2 matris deum Idaeae: see n. to 598, and Wilmann’s ex.
inscr. Lat. indices p. 478: Augustus says in his res gestae 1v ὃ aedem
matris magnae in Palatio fect ; as she is termed by Livy too. Phrygias :
Lucr., as Virg. Aen. 1x 80 Phrygia...in Ida, points to the Trojan or
Phrygian Ida: the whole worship was purely Phrygian: Eurip. Bacch.
58 tamywpe ἐν πόλει Φρυγῶν Τύμπανα, Ῥέας τε μητρὸς ἐμά θ᾽ εὑρήματα:
though, as we can see in this very passage, the Phrygian and Cretan
legends got mixed together. 613 creart=nasci: therefore coepisse
may be used instead of coeptas esse. 614 nuwmen...Matris i.e. Cybeles,
though Creech sneers at poor Fayus of the Delphin for so taking it.
615 e¢ cet. explains numen qui vi. ma.: they outrage her divinity by
ingratitude to parents ; as she is great mother of men as well as gods:
see 599. For this explanatory use of ef comp. n. to 111 993 atque exest.
et here=‘that is to say’. 617 qui in: see n. to 404. 618 palmis :
it appears from old paintings that the tympanum was struck with the
open hand: Catul. 64 261 Plangebant alw proceris tympana palinis ;
63 21 Ubi cymbalum sonat vox, ubt tympana reboant; | Anthology
(Riese) 726 18 resonant cava tympana palmis. See too Mayor Juv.
vit 176 and index s.v.] tentu, explained by Auson. in his imitation,
epist. 25 21 tentis reboant cava tympana tergis. cym. cir.: Virg.
geor. IV 64 matris quate cymbala circum; Ovid fasti tv 213 Cymbala
pro galeis, pro scutis tympana pulsant, Tibia dat Phrygios, ut dedit
ante, modos; met. 1v 29 inpulsaque tympana palmis Concavaque wera
sonant. 619 rauctsono cet.: v 1084 Raucisonos cantus; Catul. 64
263 raucisonos efflabant cornua bombos: an imitation of Lucr.; see con-
text. 620 mentis: seeintrod. vol. 1p. 35. 624 imitated by Virgil 1.
1.t0 606. 625 Munificat and 627 largifica appear to be ἁπαξ λεγόμενα.
626 iter viarum: V 1124 iter infestum fecere viat; 714 cursusque viam
sub sole tenere. 627 ningunt, a fine image to express the thick falling
of the flowers: Ovid ex Ponto 11 1 36 Saxaque roratis erubursse rosis :
Lucr. seems alone to use the word in this way and with this sense; but
pluo, fulmino, etc. are often used personally as well; 618 we had tonant.
629 Curetas...Phrygios, called after 633 the Dictaeos Curetas: most
Greek authorities confine the Curetes to Crete, and call the Phrygian
attendants Corybantes ; but Eurip. Bacchae 120—125 places the Kovpy-
ται and Κορύβαντες both in Crete, and so Ovid 1. 1. 210 unites the two,
Hoc Curetes habent, hoc Corybantes opus: comp. too German, 35
attonitae cum furta parentis Aerea pulsantes mendacr cymbala dextra,
Vagitus puert patrias ne tangeret. auris, Dictaet texere adytis fumulr
Corybantes, his original having Δικταῖοι Kovpytes: German, appears to
leave his original in what precedes too for Lucr. Later Latin poets
confound the Curetes and galli. 630 forte: ‘quo poeta’ says Lach.
‘significat eos non semper armis ludere, sed interdum, si quando libu-
erit’, guod refers of course to 633 referunt. 631 Ludunt in

152 BOOK II NOTES II

num. ex. and 636 in numerum pulsarent cet.: Virg. ecl. vi 27 in naime-
rum faunosque ferasque videres Ludere: 1v 769 Bracchiaque in numerum
iactare et cetera membra; 788 in numerum procedere ; Ov. trist.1v 1 10
In numerum pulsa...aqua. V 1401 extra numerum procedere is the oppo-
site : so Cic. parad. 111 26. 632 almost repeated v 1315: Ov. met. 1
179 Terrificam capitis concussit terque quaterque Cuesariem. numine
implies the swaying of the head to this side or that: comp. 1v 179 Jn
quem quaeque locum diverso numine tendunt. Wagner philologus suppl.
1 p. 400 well defends newmene, and asks why the mss. which in 4 or 5
places rightly keep momen, should just err in these two places, where
numene, Supposing it can have the sense of nutus, seems more appro-
priate: Conington to Aen. 11 123 compares Catul. 64 204 Adnutt
anvicto caelestum numine rector, Quo cet. where both meanings seem
to unite: Livy vil 30 20 annuite, patres conscripti, nutum numenque
vestrum invictum Campanis. 633 foll, Ov. L 1. 207 Ardua 1amdu-
dum resonat tinnitibus Ide, Tutus ut infanti vagiat ore puer. Pars
clipeos sudibus, galeas pars tundit inanes. 685 puert with reference to
the name Κουρῆτες : puert, puerwm followed by aeribus aera is another of
his many assonances. Lucr. may have been thinking here of Callimachus
hymn. in Tov. 52 Οὖλα δὲ Κουρῆτές σε πέρι πρύλιν ὠρχήσαντο Tevyea πε-
πλήγοντες ἵνα Κρόνος οὔασιν ἠχήν ᾿Ασπίδος εἰσαΐοι καὶ μή σεο κουρίζοντος.
Comp. Aen. 1684 puert puer indue vultus ; ν 569 pueroque puer dilectus
Iulo; Plaut. capt. 626 puerum te vidi puer; 639 iam inde usque amicus
uit mihi a puero puer; Ov. ex Ponto τιν 3 12 Paene puer puero tunctus;
12 20 Paene mihi puero cognite paene puer. pernice: v 559 he has the
niore usual pernici: comp. stmplice in 11013: Catullus has infelice; and
even in Cicero are found felice furace truce: see also Mommsen, Hermes
1p. 466, and Neue 11 p. 47—49. Propert.1 8 19 I would read δ te
praevectam felice (felict praevecta mss.) Ceraunia remo: ce of felice was
prob. absorbed in Ce of Ceraunta, and then felict praevecta read to give
a verse. 636 comp. Ovid cited just above and to 618; and met. 111
532 aerane tantum Aere repulsa valent ?; fasti 1v 183 184: the Cretan
Curetes clashed with real arms; the cymbals and tambourines of the
Phrygian Curetes recall the memory of that old story. 638 malrs
mandaret: Cic. de orat. 111217 and again Tuse. 1v 77 quotes from Accius
hortatur me frater ut meos malis miser Mandarem natos, as the latest
editors of Cicero read after all the best mss. of the Tusc.; but the best
mss. of the de orat. and Ribbeck trag. rel. have manderem; which certainly
is the more natural expression: so Virg. geor. 111 268 malis membra
absumpsere ; Aen. 111 257 malis absumere mensas: yet Lucr. seems to
have read or thought he had read in Accius mandarem. 639 Aen. I
36 aeternum servans sub pectore vulnus: Lucr. himself 1 34 aeterno
devictus vulnere amoris.

646—651 : of many passages which might be quoted the most in

BOOK II NOTES II 153

point is the first κυρία δόξα of Epic. himself in Diog. Laer. x 139 τὸ
μακάριον καὶ ἀφθαρτον out αὐτὸ πράγματ᾽ ἔχει ovr ἄλλῳ παρέχει ὥστ᾽ οὔτ᾽
ὀργαῖς οὔτε χάρισι συνέχεται" ἐν ἀσθενεῖ γὰρ πᾶν τὸ τοιοῦτον, translated by
Cic. de nat. deor. 1 45 quod beatum aeternumque sit, id nec habere ipsum
negotrr quicquam nec exhibere alterr, itaque neque ira neque gratia teneri,
quod quae talia essent inbecilla essent omnia: at v 146 foll. and 1161 foll.
more will be said on this question: that Epicurus and Lucr. firmly be-
heved in the existence of these gods is certain ; how this immortality and
supreme felicity can be reconciled with the rest of their philosophy, it
were vain to ask; for no answer could be given. Did the gods exist
from all eternity? or had they a beginning? The words of Ennius trag.
353 are well known, Lyo deum genus esse semper dixi et dicam caelitum,
Sed eos non curare opinor quid agat humanwum genus. 646 with
Omnis divom natura comp. 757 st nulla coloris principtis est Reddita
natura; 1 710 in rerum naturas vertier omnis: he usually gives the
epithet to natura, not to the substantive depending on it: see ἢ. tor
281 mollis aquae natura; and comp. also 1 962 haec sensus natura. divom
natura seems to be a mere periphrasis for divi; as 1194 natura animan-
tum for animantes: comp. too natura aquae, mundi, animi, animae,
sensus, ete. 649 privata = expers, is very common in Lucr. as 111 905
cunctis privatu’ doloribus aegris. 650 paraphrased by Claudian de
cons. Mall. Theod. 4 who says of virtue Nil opus eaternae cupiens, nil
mdiga laudis, Divitiis animosa suis. 652 Neptunum, as he himself
does 472 Neptuni corpus: 653 Bacchi nom. as he does himself 111 221
Baccht cum flos evanuit: but in these verses he doubtless points at the
stoics who carried allegory of this kind to an absurd length: see what
the stoic Balbus says in Cic. de nat. deor. 11 50 [0]. Every part of
heaven and earth was thus purcelled out among the gods and demigods,
and fatuous derivations assigned to their names by Zeno Cleanthes
Chrysippus and other leaders. 653 Bacchi, 654 latecis: Bacchi latex
cinum glossary in Hermes vi p. 176: see too Mayor on Juv. vu 25, 2nd
ed.; and comp. Cic. de nat. 111 41. 656 ipse seems most simply taken
with animum, so that it=ipse suum animum: so Aen. x1 544 Lpse sinu
prae se portans; and so ipse manu often in Virgil=sua manu. It may
denote the real man in contrast with his empty words: the exact force
of zpse is often easier felt than expressed. 658—660 (652—654) see
notes 1; and for an explanation of this transposition see vol. 1 p. 29.
659 potitur prumordia: the same constr. is found 111 1038 Scepétra potitus,
and 1v 760 quem...potitast: the latest editors appear to banish it wholly
from Cicero; but the best mss. of the auctor ad Heren. 1v 57 have
potatus est glorianv: this constr. is very common in the fragments of the
old tragic writers; and the auctor belli Africae has it 4 or 5 times,
auctor belli Hisp. once; both homely writers and contemporaries of
Lucretius,

154 BOOK II NOTES II

661—699: in this way sheep horses and cattle, eating the same
grass and drinking from the same river, all keep their distinctive differ-
ences; thus grass and each river must contain most different elements:
nay the parts of the same animal are quite different; and are formed
therefore of different elements: then too fuel must contain elements of
fire and flame and ash; then many things have divers properties, colour
flavour and smell; and these have all different elements as they enter
things in different ways; things therefore must be of mixed seed: again
as the same letters are common to different words, so the same elements
may be common to most different things, to men and corn and trees.
661 ttaque manifestly refers to Multa modis multis efert: with these
words in their old place it has no meaning: the thread of the argument
dropped at 599 is again resumed, 1.6. the great variety of elements the
earth contains. 662 duellica: so duellum duellatores, perduellis which
always remained in use, Duelonai is an old inscription, duwenoro (bono-
rum) on the tomb of the Scipios: Lach. quotes from Plautus capt. prol.
bellique dvellatores optumi, the τὸ of such words in Plautus being gene-
rally, as here in Lucr., a consonant; so Ennius perdvellibus. 663
Buceriae: Nonius Charisius Servius all attest the feminine: Lucr. uses
the neut. bwcera more than once. sub. teg. caelr: see 1 992. [664
flum. aquat: Aen. x1 495 aquae perfundi flumine noto. | 669 Hine
porro, 671 porro, 673 Tum porro, as if the use of the word suggested
unconsciously its repetition. 678 igitur: see ἢ. to 1 419: it has
the force which it not unfrequently has in the old writers, as Plaut.
miles 772 Quando habebo, igitur rationem mearum fabricarum dabo, the
participial clause being equivalent to a protasis: see Hand Turs. ΠῚ
p. 185. 679 figuras, 682 figuris and 685 primis figuris: see ἢ, to 385:
in these three places the word clearly refers to atoms, but may include
also shapes of atoms; as it must so far have been ambiguous to Lucr.
680 foll. see Journal of philol. rv p. 243 244: 111 266 Quod genus in quovis
animantum viscere volgo Est odor et quidam color et sapor, seems like a
reference to our passage, confirming my conception of it. 681 Πεώ-
dita: for the neut. referring to 2 masculines Lach. compares 111 282
ventus et aer Et calor inter se viyeant comnmixta: τ 559 the neut. is °
even harsher; see ἢ. there: the neut. is the rule when the prec. snbstan-
tives are masc. and fem. cum od.: see n. to 404. dona: τν 1237
adolentque altaria donis; v1 752 non cum fumant altaria donis. 683
Nidor, which specially designates the smell of burnt animal matter and
other greasy substances, is substituted for odor of 681. 683 and
684 fucus=color: so 744 nullo circumlita fuco, and Iv 84 fucum
Mittunt. 685 pr. fig.: νι 776 primasque figuras. 688—690 =1
823—825. 691 mwlia parum: see n. to 336. 694 = 337 = 724.
698 merito ex aliis cet. though they have very many elements in
common.

BOOK II NOTES If se

700—729: but all elements cannot unite in all ways: else monsters of
all kinds would arise: every creature has its fixed seeds, its fixed mother;
and thus is kept within its limits; and of the elements it takes as food
some only remain, others are rejected as unsuitable: and so it is with
inanimate as well as animate things; they have each elements different
or differently combined; and the modes of action of these elements differ,
so that not only living bodies, but all nature, earth sea and heaven, are
kept distinct. 700 foll. this question is more fully discussed v 837—
924, 702 Semiferas the centaurs: comp. v 878 foll. 103 egigne
seems a ἅπαξ λεγόμ.: with eg. corp. comp. v1 761 Et quibus effiant causis,
and ἡ. to v 703; Hor. sat. 11 2 105 tanto emetiris acervo. 704 he
speaks of Scylla: comp. v 893. 705 comp. v 900—906. 706 om-
niparens terra is found also v 259 and in Virgil. 710 and 725 neces-
sust recurs IV 1006: see n. to 289, and Lach. vi 815; who shews that
Terence has necessus fuit, sit necessus: Plautus necessumst, necessust,
necesse est, all three forms found in Lucr. But necessust in Plautus must
surely be necessus est, and this contraction Lucr. would not use: are we
to read necessumst here, or is there a nom. necessw? 711 intus 1.6.
when they are inside the body, 714 revcere i.e. the different excre-
ments, multa caec. cor....e cor.; see n. to 1 875, and τι 843 846 Cor-
pora prima.. Nec waciunt..de corpore: here in fact multa would
naturally agree with corpora; so that we should then have multa corpora
Corp. caec. fug. 6 corpore. 717 consentive=una sentire. 719 dister-
minat is used by Cicero Arat. 94: ‘keeps the termznt of things apart.’
725—729 as the atoms differ in shape, then the void spaces between them,
when they are in union, must differ; and therefore the passages, the
manner in which they are linked together, the weights collisions and the
like must all differ: thus not only does each living thing preserve its
individuality, but inanimate things as well; and indeed the great divi-
sions of the whole world, earth sea and heaven, are kept from inter-
mingling: heaven earth sea have all many common elements, but as a
rule the heavier and those which unite more closely will seek the heavier
earth, the lighter the lighter ether orairand the like. 726 Intervalla
—motus: recurs v 438 439, and partly, 1 633 634. 729 retentant
seems synon, with retinent.

730—756: atoms have no colour whatever: the mind has to conceive
them as without colour; for any colour may change into any other; but
the first bodies are unchangeable, or things would pass into nothing.—
He proceeds to shew that atoms have none of what are called secondary
qualities, colour and the like: the import of this section is briefly given
by Epicurus in Diog, x 54 τὰς ἀτόμους νομιστέον μηδεμίαν ποιότητα τῶν
φαινομένων προσφέρεσθαι πλὴν σχήματος καὶ βάρους καὶ μεγέθους καὶ
ὅσα ἐξ ἀνάγκης σχήματι συμφυῆ ἐστί. ποιότης γὰρ πᾶσα μεταβάλλει,
at δ᾽ ἄτομοι οὐδὲν μεταβάλλουσιν, ἐπειδήπερ δεῖ τι ὑπομένειν ἐν ταῖς δια-

156 BOOK II NOTES II

λύσεσι τῶν συγκρίσεων στερεὸν καὶ ἀδιάλυτον, ὃ τὰς μεταβολὰς οὐκ εἰς
τὸ μὴ ὃν ποιήσεται οὐδ᾽ ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος: and Diog. 44 referring forwards
to this passage adds τὸ δὲ χρῶμα παρὰ τὴν θέσιν τῶν ἀτόμων ἀλάττε-
σθαι ἐν ταῖς δώδεκα στοιχειώσεσί φησι (Ἔπίκ.). Democritus, as appears
from Diogenes Sextus Stobaeus and others, held quite the same views.
730 Nune age calls for attention as he is passing to a new and important
argument. 731 albis ex: see n. to 1 841. 733 nigrant, a very rare
word except in the pres. partic. 734 Nive: 111 286 Nz; [Lucil. xxix
73 ni rediret,| Catul. 61 153, and ?Aen. 111 686: Orell. inser. Lat. 4783
vogo per deos superos inferosque ne velitts ossa mea violare: the new
corp. inscr. Lat. has many instances of 22 and n2ve and more than 100
of nei and neve which connect the nt with the common form 216: see
also Donatus quoted to 1 277 mamaria. inb. colorem: Virg. geor. II
307 Vellera.. T'yrios incocta rubores; Tac. hist. v 5 nec quicquam prius
unbuuntur quam contemnere deos; 11 74 aramque posuit casus suos in
marmore expressam, imitated from Val. Flacc. 1 398 casusque twos
expressa, Phalere, Arma geris; id. 11 655 Pocula bellorum casus expressa.;
1 402 caelata metus alios gerit arma: [comp. also Draeger hist. synt. 1 p.
335 (inscriptus, suspensus, cet.), and Stat. Theb. 1v 267 pictus praelia. |
740 anime iniectus: 1047 animi iactus liber quo pervolet ipse: comp.
Cic. de nat. deor. 1 54 there quoted, who uses in quam se iniciens
animus in the same way: Gronovius obs. 1 4 p. 65 shews that both
Cicero and Lucr. are translating Epicurus’ technical word ἐπιβολή or
ἢ φανταστικὴ ἐπιβολή : comp. Epicurus in Diog. Laert. x 62, where
τὸ Kar ἐπιβολὴν λαμβανόμενον TH διανοίᾳ is opposed to what is perceived
by sense; they are the two great ways by which truth can be arrived at.
741 caeciyent seems peculiar to Luer. 743 δα ineunte aevo recurs in
Lucr, five times and always denotes, as here, the beginning of the life or
existence of some living or inanimate things. 748 a verse must be
lost here, such as Corpora quae constant nullo coniuncta colore. 749
Omnis, omnino, in omnis. The argument is curtly but clearly expressed:
any colour may change into any other; if then white colour comes from
white atoms, black from black, the atoms must change; but this we have
proved to be impossible. 751— 754 =1 790—793. 755 contingas:
see ἢ. to 1 934.

797—787: again if atoms have no colour, but beget any colour by
their different shapes positions motions and the like, you can explain
change of colour: thus the green sea becomes white: why? by its
elements changing their order, and by some going, others coming: but
green elements could not become white. But if you say they have differ-
ent colours, then you should see in the one colour of the sea others quite
different mixed up, as in a square composed of various shapes you see
these shapes: again these shapes do not prevent the whole exterior being
square; but different colours would prevent a thing being of one colour.

BOOK II NOTES II 7

757 foll. with this and with what precedes and follows comp. what Plut.
adv. Colot. 7 cites from the 2nd book of Epicurus against Theophrastus:
colours are not συμφυῆ τοῖς σώμασιν, ἀλλὰ γεννᾶσθαι κατὰ roids τινας
τάξεις καὶ θέσεις πρὸς τὴν ὄψιν κ-τ.λ. 7θ0---7602. nearly =1 817—819,
908—910, 11 1007—1009. 767 candenti marmore is abl. of quality:
with canos candenti comp. 771 candens et album, both mere pleonasms:
ciris 320 candentes canos; Catul. 64 14 candenti 6 gurgite, 18 6 gurgite
cano. 777 nitorem = colorem, as 782 787 and 819. 780 Convenie-
bat, after 776 Sin sunt: the tense always used by Lucr. in this sense:
another proof, if that were needed, that 111 685 Convenit cet. is spurious,
the right form Conveniebat having preceded in 682. 785 extra, on the
outside, opposed to what is inéus, seems quite to suit the meaning: comp.
Varro de re rust. πὶ 16 16 votiles fimo bubulo oblinunt intus et extra;
[Quintil. inst. orat. 110 43 dent in quadram pedes, quadraginta per
oram, intra centum erunt:| comp. too Lucr. 1v 646 Ut sunt dissimiles
extrinsecus.

788—794: we are tempted to give to atoms colour, not knowing how
colour otherwise can come: but we have seen that white can come from
what is not white; and surely white can arise more easily from no
colour, than for instance from black: this reason then falls to the ground.
789 causa, i.e. the vulgar notion that things with colour cannot come
from things without colour; which is easily understood from 730 foll.
190 qwoniam, as seen in the last paragraph. 791 cluent=sunt.
varus ex: seen. tor 841.

795—816: again colours cannot exist without light, atoms never
come into the light, therefore atoms have no colour: what colour can
there be in darkness, when we see that the same thing continually
changes its colour in different lights? as therefore it is such and such
stroke of light which produces such and such colour, without that stroke
they cannot exist: as too one stroke produces white, another black, and
as a stroke is a touch, and as it is shape, not colour, which affects touch,
atoms need, not colour, but different shapes to give different touches.
795 foll. Lucretius’ syllogism is quite correct; it is Lambinus’ which is in
fault, who quite misstates the poet’s minor premiss. 797 velata: a
picturesque metaphor. 799 quin ipso = quinetiam: see n. to I 588.
802 cervices collumque, one of his many pleonasms; as cervices means the
back, collwm the whole circle of the neck: Cic. in Vatin. 4 inflato collo,
tumulis cervicibus; pro Sestio 90 et cervices et tugulum. 803 ‘the
pyropus was made by adding 6 scruples of gold, or one quarter, to the
ounce of copper’ King on gems p. 116. But the pyrope was also a pre-
cious stone, a kind of garnet: ib. p. 53; and this meaning agrees perhaps
better with the curalium and zmaragdos of 805, Ovid. met. 11 2 flam-
masque wmitante pyropo. 804 sensu refers to the beholder’s perception
or mode of viewing it: 1v 448 quodam sensu fit uti videantur Omnia.

158 BOOK Il NOTES II

805 Wak. well compares Samon. 952 Curalium vero si collo nectere males,
Ne dubites illo virides miscere smaragdos: he plainly imitates Luer.

807 obversa, as it turns about: Aen. 11 549 Cornua velatarum obverti-
mus antemnarum; Ov. met. 111 676 obstantes dum vult obvertere remos.
809 Scire licet: see n. to 1 210.

817—825: again if atoms have colour, it will not be said that this
or that colour belongs only to this or that shape of atom: why then
should not things formed out of coloured atoms vary their colours also?
why should not crows be sometimes white, swans black or green? 819
Formamenta, another of the many words which seem peculiar to Lucr.
and his imitator Arnobius, 821 perf. col.: Aen. v 111 ostro Perfusae
vestes. 825 may he briefly put for Aut cycnos fier alio quovis colore,
vel uno vel vario, de semaine ervus coloris; and then with uno varioque
comp. 830 Purpura poentceusque color 1.6. color sive purpureus sive poe-
niceus; v 985 Spumigert suis adventu validique, where Lach., as I now
see, wrongly reads ve for gue; 1237 dubiaeque minantur, where Bentl.
reads dubraeve; νι 114 chartasque volantis: Wagner quaest. Virg. XXXIV
1 gives many similar instances from Virgil of gwe with the force of
vel, vel or sive, stve: comp. too n. to 111 551 manus atque oculus naresve.
But as Luer. is so fond of guivis wnws for guivis simply, I now take alio
varvoque colorve to be one of his many pleonasms for adio colore or vario
colore: comp. 778 ex aliis formis variisque figuris; 783 Dissimiles longe
unter se variosque colores; V 1060 Dissimelis soleant voces variasque ciere.

826—833: again the smaller the shreds into which a thing is divided,
the more its colour vanishes: be sure that all colour is gone before a
thing comes to its first elements. 829 with austrum and ostrum comp.
Claudius and Clodius, Paulus and Pola, ausculum auseulari and osc.,
aula, aulularia a play of Plautus, and olla, plaustrum and plostrum, and
the like; dawrea, and the plebeian Joreola in a proverb quoted by Cic. ad
Att. v 20 4. austrum is the general term for the purple cloth of
whatever hue: [so in Catull. 64 48 quod... Tincta tegit roseo conchylt pur-
pura fuco, purpura is the purple cloth:] comp. Aen. 1 700 stratoque
super drscumbitur ostro; Hor. epist. 1 10 26 Sidonto ostro; Stat. Achill.
1 82 picto discumbitur ostro: whether this cloth be the purpura or
darker hue, or the poenzceus or bright scarlet. Prop. v (1v) 3 51 Poenis
tibr purpura fulgeat ostris; Aetna 333 purpureo ostro; Sen. Med. 99
ostro puniceo; Claudian Prob. et Olyb. consul. 90 Album puniceo pectus
dascriminat ostro. Lach. shews that poeniceus puniceus poinicius punt-
cus have all the same meaning, belonging to the Poenz: thus the lex
Thoria has bello Poenicio, Ovid A duce Puwniceo, while Horace applies
Punico to the colour; as does Ovid too, am. τι 6 22. 832 effi. col.:
V 652 suos efflavit languidus ignis.

834—841 : you do not assign sound or smell to things which give
forth no sound nor smell: why then attribute colour to all things? the

BOOK II NOTES II 159

mind can perceive things without colour as well as things without
smell.

842864: but atoms are likewise without heat or cold, without
sound flavour or smell, Asin preparing a perfume you seek out a quite
scentless oil, that it may not infect the perfume with its own scent; thus
first-beginnings must possess neither heat nor cold, smell sound nor
flavour; these qualities are all frail and mortal, and must therefore be
wanting to immortal elements unless things are to pass away to nothing.
842 colore: the frequency with which this word has been repeated in the
last 100 lines is very striking. 842 foll. notice the variety of expres-
sion to denote privation: spoliata secreta sterila reruna sevwncta, and
above privata, sine odore, sonitu remota, orba colore, efflare stingur eva-
nescere colorem; all in the compass of a few lines. Democritus before him
in Sextus adv. math. vil 135 said νόμῳ γλυκὺ καὶ νόμῳ πικρόν, νόμῳ θερ-
μόν, νόμῳ ψυχρόν, νόμῳ χροιή: ἐτεῇ δὲ ἄτομα καὶ κενόν. ᾿ 843 manere =
esse, 845 feruntur τὸ sunt, as cluent so often is in Luer.: it is curious
that two such opposite words should come to have the same force: ferun-
tur is elsewhere applied by him to his atoms in onward motion; but that
can hardly be its sense here: with manere comp. v1 1274 and the use of
stave inn. tom 181. [manere is thus used by Sall. hist. orat. Lepidi
24 nist maneat expulsa agris plebes.| secreta teporis: 1 194 secreta cibo,
with abl. 844 calidi vaporis: calidus in Luer. is a perpetual epith.
ornans of vapor ignis fervor etc.: comp. gelidae pruinae, gelidus rigor,
candens lacteus wmor, aeriae aurae, sonitu sonanti and the like: 858
calidum tepidumque vaporem, the epithets are distinctive. 845 sonitu
sterila: the gen. is more common: the form séerz/us is mentioned by
Festus: see ἢ, to 1 340. suco vevwna: Cic. orator 106 has the gen.,
ieiunas igitur huius...orationis wures civitatis accepimus. 846 ullum
proprium odorem: 855 adhibere swum gignundis rebus odorem. 847
amaracini: this perfume is mentioned tv 1179 and v1 973. Daubeny
Rom. husbandry p. 272 ‘Dioscorides and Pliny both tell us that ama-
rvacus was the same plant as /ampsana, and the latter is considered by
Sibthorp to be our marjoram, origanwn maiorana, a native of Egypt
and Crete’. stactae, named from the dropping of the myrrh juice:
Pliny x11 17 says murra et per se unguentum facit sine oleo, stacte
dumtaxat; and Dioscor. 1 73 says the same, στακτὴ... καθ᾽ ἑαυτὴν μύρον
καλούμενον, δόκιμος δέ ἐστιν ἡ ἀμιγὴς ἐλαίῳ: but the point of Lucretius’
argument is the mixture with Ο1]. 848 xarde florem, unless Lucr. is
speaking vaguely, must be used, as acchit flos and the like, for the
aroma or bouquet; as it appears from Pliny and Dioscorides that it was
the ear ancl leaf of the eastern nardus that was used in perfumes; the
stalk and root of the northern. 849 Cum...instituas: see ἢ. to 41.
850 possis is potential, because the 2nd pers. sing.: see n. to 1 327: if
he can there use potest and possis in the same passage, he may surely

160 BOOK II NOTES II

here join licet and possis: comp. too Ovid rem. 415 Dum piget et malis
nullam tetigisse puellam Tacturusque tibi non videare di: but comp.
too ars πὶ 761 Aptius est deceatque mayis. inolentis another ἅπαξ
λεγόμ. 851 auram: Martial 111 65 2 de Corycio quae venit aura
croco; and Virg. geor. Iv 417 spiravit crinibus aura. 853 vi70 in
this sense is almost unexampled: v1 805 odor viri is used for the pungent
fumes of charcoal. [Mart. v1 93 7 Virus ut hoc alio fallax permutet
odore; 1 87 5 Quid quod οἷοί gravius mrxtum diapasmate virus 2)
859 Cetera without et: so 1085: it is found in Cicero, as topica 27.
tumen, as so often, implies something understood: all these, whatever
they are, however much they differ, are yet of such sort as to be liable
to death, whether they are Mfolli lenta or etc.: the molli lenta seems to
refer to fire and heat, fragosa putri to ice and cold, cava corp. raro to
flavour sound smell; as they are all material and would seem, where he
describes them, to be of bodies severally like these: Cic. ad Att. Iv 15 2
cum illis tamen, (i.e. even if you desert them now), cum salvi venerint,
Romae vivere licebit. 860 fragose = fragilia: a sense which the word
seems nowhere else to bear. 862 subiungere appears to be the op-
posite of seiwzncta in the preceding verse: such things must be detached,
that imperishable foundations may be attached to things.

865—885 : all things which have sense come from insensible ele-
ments: a visible proof of this you may see in living worms rising from
the putrid earth: again grass and water change into cattle, the flesh of
cattle into men, men often go to feed beasts and birds: nature turns food
into what has life and sense, much as dry wood passes into flame; so
much is effected by transposition and mixture and motions of elements.
—That the soul, the vital principle and sense were born and died with
the body in all creatures, was of course a necessary doctrine of the epi-
cureans and is passionately asserted by Lucr. throughout the third book.
866 —870 and 888 ansensilibus: this word as well as sensilts seems pecu-
liar to Luer. among writers of authority: Arnobius his constant imitator
has insensilia. 869 ipsa manu ducunt: Aen. 111 312 [pse manu multo
suspensum numine ducit, literally: the metaphor 15 obvious: χειραγωγεῖν
is common in the later Greek writers. 871 fol]. this illustration,
important from his point of view, he often repeats; see 898, 928, 111 719,
v 797: Aristotle and the old physiologists seem to accept it as an un-
doubted fact. 872 putorem: 929 putor, v1 1101 putorem: all of the
rottenness of the earth after rain; though putor in Varro de ling. Lat. v
25 and elsewhere is said of a putidus odor: Lamb. and others would read
in all these cases putror. 874 itidem i.e. inanimate things into living
and sensible. 875 comp. 596 Unde etiam fluvios frondes et pabula
laeta cet.: this justifies Lambinus’ correction: the streams, the leaves
and grass feed and sustain beasts, beasts feed us. 878 pennipotentum:
this expressive word recurs v 789, 881 flame seeming to be no more

BOOK IL NOTES II IOI

like wood than a sensible to an insensible thing. adque B some six
times, A never: it seems to have become more common in the first
century and later from a false affectation of analogy: see ἢ. to νι 92
praescribta. Wagner forces adque on Virgil in all cases, against the
overwhelming testimony of mss.: Augustus however in his res gestae
writes adque the only time he uses the word; but he also writes aliquod
for aliquot, perhaps from a notion of consistency: see vol. I p. 34 and
30. 883—885 repeated in substance 1007—1009.

886—930: the mind tries hard not to believe that sense can come
from what has not sense ; for stones wood clods can by no mixture pro-
duce it: but, mind, it is not every element that can beget sense; only
certain atoms with certain shapes and arrangements: yet even these woods
and clods may, as we have seen, give birth sometimes to living things.
But they who say that sense can only come from what has sense, suppose
elements to be soft, as we never see sense united but with what is soft:
now suppose such elements eternal; they must have the sense of some part
or of the whole living thing: but no part can feel away from the whole
thing: well then these elements must be like the whole living thing: if
they are living then, they are thereby liable to death; but even if they are
not, they would make a mere medley of living things, like the impossi-
ble unions of men and brutes: but if they lose their own sense, why
then give it only to take it away? nay we have just seen that sense can

come from what has no sense. 886 animum percutit seems almost
proverbial: Ter. Andr. 125 Percussit tlico antmum; Cic. ad Att. Iv ὃ Ὁ
3 audivi...Romae esse honunem...percussit aninum. 887 varios sensus

1.6. varias sententias: it is very probable that his frequent use of sensus
with its primary meaning in this part of his poem has prompted him to
use it here, rather than avoid it, in 2 different signification: see ἢ. to 1875.
892 not out of all atoms alike which go to form things ; but only out of
certain very fine and smooth ones as provedelsewhere. 894 quantula,
because the atoms which go to produce sense and life are of the smallest
and finest kind. 896 guae sint 1.6. qualia sint. 807 Qu. nil rer.=
quorum nihil, a common constr.: Caes. bel. Gall. 11 4 3 quarum rerum
a nostris...fiert nihil poterat; ν 1 7 nihil earum rerum; bel. civ. 1 7 7
guarum rerum nihil factum ; 11 43 2 quarum rerum nihil: the opposite
constr. is also common: see ἢ. to 111 184 res ulla...quorum. rerum
here has of course an abstract sense, ‘none of which conditions’: comp.
1018 discrepitant res, and ἢ. there. 901 Conc. ita ut debent i.e. Cone.
tali concilio quali debent: at first sight you might expect debeant, as
Lamb. suggests; but the indic. is quite idiomatic: Cic. ad Att. 1v 5 1
non est credibile, quae sit perfidia in istis principibus, ut volurnt esse, et ut
essent, st cet.; vil 2 3 adulescentem, ut nostr, 1.6. talem qualem ; 1x 7
A 1 Balbus says nedum hominum numilium, ut nos sumus; xv 4 1
seripsr ita, ut te probaturum existimo ; Pers. v 73 Libertate opus est, non

PA I. Cae 41

162 BOOK II NOTES II

hae, ut, quisque Velina Publius emerwit, scabtosum tesserula far Possidet:
and so v 583 ut est cumque: see ἢ, there. In1442 I should before have
kept the ms. reading Aut erit, ut possunt, as far more emphatic than
possint: aut debebit esse tale, in quali possunt res esse gerique. [In
this use wt=qualis in the widest sense, both as relative and indirect in-
terrogative: for additional examples see Cic. Lael. 19 wé ἐὺ fuerunt,
modo quos nominavi; epist. x11 64 2 magnum theatrum habet ista pro-
vincia, non ut haec nostra, ad cet.; ad Q. fr. 111 1 2 mihi, ut est, magis
placebat; Q. Cic. ap. Cic. epist. xvi 27 1 ea tu sine assentatione, ut erant,
ad me scripsisti; Hor. sat. u 1 54 nal faciet sceleris pia dextera (mirum,
Ut neque calce lupus quemquam neque dente petit bos); Plaut. Bacch.
396 nunc certamen cernitur, Sisne necne, ut esse oportet: comp. also 112
Cuius, uti memoro, τοὶ νὰ Plautus quoted there. For wt=indirect interro-
gative qualis, see Plaut. Amph. 104 ego vos novisse credo vam, ut (=qualis)
sit pater meus, Quam lber...siet, Quantusque amator sit: with this
comp. Lucr. v 583: Ussing compares Ter. heaut. 436 Von tu et dixisti
ut essem? So wta or sic=talis: Lucretia poemata, ut scribis, ita sunt;
Plaut. Amph. 571 Utinam ita (=talis i.e. ebrius) essem: see Ussing here:
and Cic. Laelius 5 sic enim est habitus. | 902 foll. a hiatus is not only
the simplest remedy here, as not a letter of the ms. reading has to be
altered, while Lach, in 3 vss. makes 4 changes; but seems necessary for
the argument: in making things sensible, they make them soft, and, if

soft, then mortal too. 907 esto tam: see un. to 1 968. 909 Aut
(sensu) stmele esse putari: comp. 111 620, vi 268. 911 alio...respicit

1.6. respicit ad animam: but the true reading is very uncertain; as is
the right place of 915 (923); but I can find none more suitable than
the one I have given it after Bern. 922 (921) nequeant is potential:
comp. 986 sz potest,...queant; v 210 Si non...cimus...nequeant; 648
queant ; and ἢ. to 1 808 possint. 925 quid opus: for surely if an
element first lose sense, it is the same as if it had never had it. 926
foll. tum praeterea: a concluding argument drawn from what we actually
see going on in the world: see 1 984 (998) foll. and other examples in 1 11
I11 Vv there cited. 926 quo fugimus i.e. quo confugimus: Petron. sat.
132 “ὦ verba, magis quae poterant nocere, fugit, [and? Sen. rhet. 1 23 ἐὐδὲ
quaecumque meretrix prostabit fugiet:| this I keep, because the ms.
reading is then most simply accounted for; though my former cor-
rection vecimus suits the context just as well, and has been adopted by
Brieger. ante Le. 871 foll. 927 Quatenus=quandoquidem: 111
218 Quatenus...Extima membrorum circumcaesura tamen se Incolumem
nraestat; 424 Quatenus est unum inter se: see also Horace and others
in Fore. for this use. 928 vermisque effervere: Virg. geor. Iv 556
apes...ruptis effervere costis. 930 ex non sensibus, 932 a non sensu:
comp. 1 1075 per non medium; and n. there.

931—943: if it be said sense comes from what has not sense by a

BOOK IL NOTES II 163

process of change or a sort of birth, I answer, birth and change both
imply a previous union: before the creature is begotten, its body cannot
have sense, as its matter is dispersed abroad and has not come together
in a way to awake any of the senses.—This passage is obscure: he must
apparently be alluding to the stoics: Plut. de stoic. repugn. 41, of Chry-
sippus, τὸ βρέφος ἐν τῇ γαστρὶ φύσει τρέφεσθαι νομίζει, καθάπερ φύτον᾽
ὅταν δὲ τεχθῇ ψυχούμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀέρος καὶ στομούμενον τὸ πνεῦμα μεταβαλ-
λειν καὶ γίνεσθαι ζῶον «.7.A.: now this certainly might be termed a
process of change or the effect of a sort of birth; life being the immediate
consequence of the birth; but Lucr. is brief and obscure as he is doubt-
less alluding to writings not extant. 931 dumtaxat: see n. to 123.
nmutabelitate, in the unusual sense of actual change: the primary meaning
is that in which Cicero uses it, tendency to change. orirt Posse a non
sensu: Iv 484 quae tota ab sensibus orta est; 521 Jalsis quaecumgue ab
sensibus ortast, will support Wakefield’s a against ez. 933 proditus,
used literally also 111 587 extra prodita corpus. prod. ext.: 1 625 nullis
quae praedita partibus extent; 11 929 eapergitus extat; v1 494 redditus
extat. 934 Hue cet.: he may be told that he really concedes the point
that sense can come from what has not sense. [plan. fuc.: lex. agrar.
64 quod eius agri locer ita planum factum erit. | 935 Non fieri par-
tum: IV 1229 Semper enim partus duplict de semine constut. 935 936
so that in both cases there is a union of senseless elements previous to
the reception of sense. 936 5. conc.: in the three other passages
where concileatws occurs, it signifies a union already formed; so that
sue conc. appears to me almost synon. with nist concilatum; perhaps
even more significant. 937 Principio: ‘hic est praecipue (hoc autem
vocabulo Lucretius non utitur) vel 1 primis, ante omnia, ἀρχήν. sic in
v 92, 111 119’ Lach. 942 omnituentes formed like omniparens and the
like. 943 Accenst sensus: 959 paene amissos accendere sensus ; UI
336 accensus nobis per viscera sensus.

944962: a living creature receives a blow which its nature cannot
endure: the senses of body and soul are stunned; the connexion of the
two is broken, and the soul escapes through the apertures of the body:
a blow can do no more than break up and scatter the several elements.
Again the remaining vital motions can often get the better of a less
severe blow, bring each thing back to its proper channel, and rekindle
the senses: in this way only is the thing recalled to life. 950 nodos:
vi 356 Dassoluont nodos omnis et vincla relaxant. 951 cazlas Lucr.
uses eight times in this sense, a sense quite peculiar to him; see Festus
and Varro in Forc.: the word must evidently be cavula. —_etecit: see n.
to 134 Reicit: the classical writers knew the forms e7zécié or eicit, never
ewcit: and so with the other compounds of zacio: 111 513 ¢ratecere mss.:
Ribbeck has often restored the e to Virgil; and it was not unknown to
Livy: see Madvig emend. Liv. p. 190; and indeed the better mss, of

11----2

104 BOOK II NOTES II

almost any classical author offer examples: Cic. Marius in de div. 1 106
Abtéctt ecflantem; 111 639 dissicietur mss.; this form Ribbeck’s mss.
sometimes restore to Virgil; see also Kempf Valer. Max. p. 282 6:
Halm reads dissice in Cic. pro Caelio 37, and Tac. ann. 1 65 M has dis-
sicere; but so have the mss. of Seneca, Suetonius and others, 952
foll. the blow can only dissolve the union of the elements, not deprive
them of sense, if they had it of themselves. 955 Relrgiz, those which
the blow has not stopped. vincere... Vincere: 111 12 aurea dicta, Aurea;
iv 789 mollia membra movere, Mollia cet.; v 298 tremere rgnibus instant,
Instant: 950 lavere umida saxa, Umida saxa; vi 528 omnia, prorsum

Omnia: the practice is as old as Homer. 957 quicquid=quicque:
see ἢ. to 1 289. The swos meatus are opposed to the lett motwm of
next v. 960 qua re is emphatic here and means ‘in what way, if

not in this’; I have therefore printed it in two words: comp. Ter. eun.
369 Quid si nunc tute fortunatus fias? qua re, Parmeno?...capias tu illius
vestem; adel. 327 Perit: qua re?; Andr. 909 qua re?; Sall. Iug. 101 1
undique simul speculatores citi sese ostendunt, qua re hostis adesse intelle-
gitur; (Cic. ad Q. fr. 13 2 qua re (so Δ: qua im re Wesenb.) peccavi
scelerateque fect; Caes. Ὁ. ὁ. πὶ 97 2 qua re wmpetrata; ib. 3 qua re
animadversa; ib. 4 qua re animadversa;| auctor ad Heren. 111 18
statim re narrata expectat animus auditors, quae re causa confirmari
possit; Cic. ad Att. 1x 13 3 nec ego nunc, ewm vuvare qua re possim,
scio: the two last examples have possim, hike Lucr.; and there are
other instances in the auctor ad Heren. Lucr. means that it is the
remaining vital motions which give back sense and life to the elements
which of themselves have no sense. lett imine: a metaphor which
he repeats νι 1157 and 1208: comp. too 111 681 vitae cum limen inimus;
culex 221 cum te Restitur superis lete iam limine ab aso. 961 possit
i.e. the animans of 944: possibly the ms. reading may be defended;
but the change made is very slight. conlecta mente: Lamb. compares
Cic. Tuse. disp. 1v 78 quid est autem se ipsum colligere nist dissupatas
anim. partis rursum in suum locum cogere. 962 quo decursum: same
metaphor 111 1042 obit decurso lumine vitae; τν 1196 spateum decurrere
amoris: same metaphor and constr. Cic. Tusc. 1 15 nune video calcem,
ad quam cum sit decursum, nihil sit praeterea extimescendum. are et
abire, a studied assonance; see ἢ. to 1 826: abire a euphemism for abire
e vita: Petron. sat. 42 abut ad plures: Lucr. more than once uses ire
almost in this sense; odire is really similar.

963—972: there is pain when the elements are disordered in their
seats, pleasure when they return to their place; therefore first-beginnings
themselves can feel neither pleasure nor pain, since they are not formed
of other first-beginnings, whose motions can be disturbed so as to give
them pain, or rearranged so as to give them pleasure. 963 Praédterea:
Lach. has a most obscure note; the only thing it clearly shews is that he

BOOK II NOTES II 165

quite fails to apprehend the poet’s meaning, when he reads here Prop-
tered, dolor, and therefore sense; pain in any thing that has sense is
only a disorclering of its elements. 966 voluptas, and therefore sense.
967 Scie cet.: therefore pleasure and pain being but the right or wrong
ordering of elements, the elements themselves which are each one and
indivisible, are formed of no elements which can be moved, so as to give
pleasure or pain; and therefore they have no sense. 969 non sunt ex
ullis cet. 1.6, ipsa non constant ex ullis principiis:; Lachmann’s punctua-
tion of this v. and explanation of the whole passage is to me quite
incomprehensible; he must have quite misunderstood both sense and con-
struction here. suntex: 161 ex illis sunt omnia primis; 11 458 Si minus
omntbw’ sunt e levibus atque rutundis; Cic. orator 215 creticus qui est 6
longa et brevi et longa.. Nam (paean) aut 6 longa est et tribus brevibus
.. aut e totrdem brevibus et longa...Est (spondeus) 6 longis duabus...Ne
cambus quidem, qui est 6 brevi et longa...aut etiam dactylus qui est e

longa et duabus brevibus. 970 quorum cet. i.e. ut dolorem capiant
novitate motus eorum; see n. to v 873 quare. motus is of course the
gen. 972 Haut igitur cet. because pain and pleasure are sense. The

argument may really be a begging of the question, but is perfectly
intelligible: these vss, too, 963—972, clearly form a new paragraph
quite distinct from the former: we might compare with them the famous
saying of Hippocrates de nat. hom. 2 ἐγὼ δέ φημι, εἰ ἕν ἦν ἄνθρωπος,
οὐδέποτ᾽ av ἤλγεε᾽ οὐδὲ γὰρ av ἢν Vp ὅτου ἀλγήσειε Ev ἐών.

973—990: if sense must be given to the elements of living things in
order that these things may have sense, then must their elements have
the same feelings and reasoning powers which men have; they will thus
have to consist of other elements, and these again of others on to in-
finity: if all this is absurd, and you cannot conceive laughing or think-
ing atoms, why not allow generally things that have sense to come from
elements without sense?—See what is said on 1 919 920: Mr Poste
observes that, as among the ὁμοιομερῇ Aristotle, and prob. Anaxagoras,
included the sensories, this may account for Lucr. introducing the subject

a second time, when he is treating, as here, of the sensories. 974 se
zam: see ἢ. to 1 968. 975 propritim, another ἅπαξ λεγόμ.: on these

adverbs see ἢ. to 1 20 generatim; but the form is curious, as analogy
would lead us to expect a form propritus. The argument is, if sense
generally must come from sense, then the special sense of man should
come from elements specially endowed with similar sense, the power of
laughing, crying, thinking. In this paragraph Lucr., as his wont is,
clinches so to speak his refutation of the doctrine that sense must come
from sentient elements, by a sarcastic appeal to common sense. 976
977 comp. 1 919 920, in substance the same. 976—984 Mr Poste
says ‘the answer to the query would be very easy on the theory of
Anaxagoras: he held the divisibility of matter including τὸ ὁμοιομερές

166 BOOK II NOTES II

ad infinitum, and would reply to the querists, your elements are just
like yourselves and bear the same relation to you that you do to the
massive sensories of the animals that walk the earth. But talking and
speculating de rerum natura are functions of the multiform compound,
τὸ ἀνομοιομερές, the rational animal; not of any of his component organs
in isolation.’ 978 rerum mixtura, the way in which the elements of
things are mixed to form these things. 979 proporro: seen. tov 312.
983 sequar...ut sit: seguar seems to have the pregnant sense of pressing
the adversary and requiring him to admit, ansequar et flagitabo ut: comp.
1 980 Hoc pacto sequar atque...quaeram. 987 doctis...dictis recurs
v 113: Virg. catal. 7 9 JJagni petentes docta dicta Sironis, of his epi-
curean master; Enn. ann. 274 Haud doctis dictis certantes, sed maledictis:
Plautus has docta dicta, dicta docta and dictum doctum; dolis doctis, ete.
988 Non ex sem. (factus). 990 uwndique=omnino: Cic. de fin. v 69
honestatem undique perfectam atque absolutam.

991—1022: nay we men, as well as beasts and the fruits of the earth,
may be said to have our birth from heaven as father, and earth who as
mother gives us food and therefore life: death too is but the going back
of our elements to heaven and earth respectively: then in a moment all
forms and colours and senses perish, which depend on the motions
arrangements etc. of first-beginnings; even as in this our poem a few
letters produce by different arrangements, etc. quite different verses. —
The first part of this passage is a literal translation of a fragment from
the Chrysippus of Anaxagoras’ scholar Euripides, Tata μεγίστη καὶ Διὸς
αἰθήρ, Ὃ μὲν ἀνθρώπων καὶ θεῶν γενέτωρ, Ἣ δ᾽ ὑγροβόλους σταγόνας
νοτίας ΠΠαραδεξαμένη τίκτει θνητούς, Τίκτει δὲ βορὰν φῦλά τε θηρῶν, Ὅθεν
οὐκ ἀδίκως ΔΙήτηρ πάντων νενόμισται. Χωρεῖ δ᾽ ὀπίσω Τὰ μὲν ἐκ γαίας
φύντ᾽ εἰς γαῖαν, Ta δ᾽ ἀπ᾽ αἰθερίου βλαστόντα γονῆς Eis οὐράνιον Πάλιν
ἦλθε πόλον" Θνήσκει δ᾽ οὐδὲν τῶν γιγνομένων, Διακρινόμενον δ᾽ ἄλλο πρὸς
ἄλλου Μορφὴν ἑτέραν ἀπέδειξε: it is translated by Vitruvius too at the
beginning of his 8th book: Euripides auditor Anaxagorae, quem philo-
sophum Athentenses scaentcum appellaverunt, aera et terram eamque 6
caelestium imbrium conceptionibus inseminatam fetus gentium et omnium
animalium in mundo procreavisse, and so on: comp. I 250 and what is
said in illustration of that similar passage about the antiquity of the
doctrine that heaven is the father and earth the mother of all things.
Arist. de plantis 1 2 p. 817 27 expressly states that Anaxagoras taught
ὅτι ἢ γῆ μήτηρ μέν ἐστι τῶν φυτῶν, ὁ δὲ ἥλιος πατήρ: Euripides re-
peats the same sentiment in a fragment of the Melanippe worth compar-
ing. The whole of our passage is quite epicurean and consistent with
the general argument of Lucr. though his fondness for Euripides has
made him express himself in the language of Anaxagoras; with whom
however as we have shewn in the first book he and Epicurus had many
points of contact, points which are well brought out here. What

BOOK Il NOTES ΤΙ ΤΟΥ

Lucretius means to say in his poetical language is this: so far from men
and other animals requiring special sensible elements, they like every
thing else on earth come from the mingling of the elements of ether and
earth; and at their death these senseless elements return whence they
came, to be employed afresh in producing other things: the elements are
the same, it is onty their motions arrangements etc. which make the dif-
ference: he then adds his favourite illustration from the letters of the
alphabet. I should not say, as Zeller does from this single passage,
‘hence Epicurus shares the stoic belief in a divine origin of the human
race.’

991 orzunds: a very rare example of ὁ altogether suppressed, with
scarcely a parallel in the hexameter poets: abiete arvete abiegni fluviorum
principium consiliwm and the like, where? has the power of a consonant,
are common enough; but for instances like ours Lach. in his learned
note has to go to the old scenic poets; and his examples are vehemently
controverted by Ritschl prisc. Latin. epigr. suppl. m1 p. xx1: but L.
Mueller de re metr. p. 249 gives déminid from Lucilius, opériuntur from
Laevius, mélius from Varro, as instances of ὁ wholly suppressed, as here.
996 Pabula cum praebet: it is said to give birth to man and beast by
giving them food, without which parent first and then child could not
exist a moment. The poet strives to find sufficient pretext for calling
earth mother. 999—1001 quoted by Lactant. inst. v11 12, who taxes
Lucr. with inconsistency, ‘sed victus est veritate’. 999 Cedot cet.:
Ὅθεν δ᾽ ἕκαστον εἰς TO σῶμ᾽ ἀφίκετο, ᾿Ἔνταῦθ᾽ ἀπελθεῖν, πνεῦμα μὲν πρὸς
αἰθέρα, To σῶμα δ᾽ εἰς γῆν, says Eur. suppl. 533, or else Moschion:
Epich. p. 258 Lorenz SvvexpiOn καὶ διεκρίθη κἀπῆλθεν ὅθεν ἦλθεν παλιν,
γᾶ μὲν εἰς γᾶν, πνεῦμα δ᾽ ἄνω: but Anaxag. himself, fr. 8 Schorn and
Mullach, τὸ μὲν πυκνὸν καὶ διερὸν καὶ ψυχρὸν καὶ τὸ ζοφερὸν ἐνθάδε
συνεχώρησε, ἔνθα νῦν ἡἣ yp’ τὸ δὲ ἀραιὸν καὶ τὸ θερμὸν καὶ τὸ ξηρὸν καὶ
τὸ λαμπρὸν ἐξεχώρησε ἐς τὸ πρόσω τοῦ αἰθέρος. 1001 rellatwm; but
v 686 rélatus: corp. inscr. 200 81 redlatum, and Ter. Phorm. 21 [and
Accius Didascalicon 11 1 2 Mueller]: 1v 761 he seems to have written
Rellicta; which is lengthened by Lucilius also: rehgio relicuus stand of
course on a different ground, as the verse requires the first syll. to be
long: see n. to 1 560. 1002 foll. hear Anaxagoras himself frag. 17
Schorn and Mullach, 22 Schaubach, τὸ δὲ γίνεσθαι καὶ ἀπόλλυσθαι οὐκ
ὀρθῶς νομίζουσι οἱ Ἕλληνες" οὐδὲν γὰρ χρῆμα οὐδὲ γίνεται οὐδὲ ἀπόλλυται
GAN ἀπὸ ἐόντων χρημάτων συμμίσγεταί τε καὶ διακρίνεται. καὶ οὕτως
ἂν ὀρθῶς καλοῖεν τό τε γίνεσθαι συμμίσγεσθαι καὶ τὸ ἀπόλλυσθαι δια-
κρίνεσθαι, an aphorism which Epicurus might have wholly adopted.
1004 et effit wt omnes res ita ie. et ita fit ut omnes res cet. effiant
occurs vi 761, effert Plaut. Persa 761: Luer. has also confiert often and
interfiert more than once: with efit ut...ita comp. Iv 944 fit ute pars
nde animat Hiciatur i.e. inde fit uti cet.; v1 204 Hae etiam fit uti de

168 BOOK II NOTES II

causa; 727 Quo fit ute pacto. 1005—1012 comp. 1 767 and what

precedes and follows. 1007—1009 have already occurred in substance
three times: see n. to 760 foll.: they express one of the most essential
of the epicurean doctrines. 1010 penes...Corpora prima: comp.

Ulpian in Fore. penes te amplius est quam apud te; nam apud te est
quod qualiter qualiter a te tenetur; penes te est quod quodammodo a te
possidetur: [see too Draeger hist. synt.1 p. 544 ὃ 254 2.] residere 15
also an emphatic word, to be abiding, inherent: see Cic. in Fore. 5. v.
1011 guod im summis cet. i.e. the formae colores sensus of 1005 1006.
in summis contrasts with penes, fluitare with residere, 1013 foll.
this illustration we have had again and again in words more or less
like: comp. especially 1 823 where Quin etianc introduces it and connects
it with what precedes exactly as here. 1018 discrepitant res: Vi
1105 quia longe discrepitant res. Observe the vagueness of res here,
the things or results which come from the different arrangements of
letters, 1.6, the words and verses; whereas in the very next words
Sic ipsis in rebus and 1022 res, res has its proper sense of material
things brought into comparison with the former res or words; so
careless is he in such matters: see n. to 1 875, 1021 occurred
1 685.

1023—1047: listen now to a question of vast moment. But nothing
is so easy that it may not at first seem difficult ; nothing so wondrous
but people cease in the end to admire it. Look at the sky with sun
moon and stars: what more marvellously beautiful? yet the world weary
of the sight cares not now to give it a glance. Fear not therefore the
novelty of the thing, but hear what I have to say; and if it be true,
surrender; if false, gird yourself to the combat: the mind would fain
comprehend that immensity into which it looks and in which it freely
expatiates. 1024 nova res, that which he enters upon in the next
paragraph, viz. innumerable worlds in the immensity of space. ad
auris Acc.: Οἷς. pro Sest. 107 ad populi Romani aures accidisse: in
Vatin. 4 ad aures tuas accidat. 1029 as Quod mirarier may be looked
upon as an accus.: see ἢ. to 1 331: the expression does not seem harsher
than Ter. Andr. 392 nec tu ea causa minueris Haec quae facis; hec. 616
Sed non minuam meum consilium. 1034 nune si...s1 nunc: comp.
V 332 etiam quaedam nunc artes expoliuntur, Nunc etiam augescunt,; Cic.
ad Q. fratr. 1 3 ego tibi ivascerer, tibi ego possem irasci; Ovid met. 1 111
Flumina iam lactis, iam flumina nectaris ibant; Juv. v1 157 hunc dedit
olim Barbarus incestae, dedit hunc Agrippa soror. 1035 poterat:
this use of the indic. is common enough: see Madv. Lat. gram. 348 6.
1038 Quam tibt tam nemo..dignatur: Lach. to 1v 1203 quam saepe,
cites for this use of guam also 1 104, νι 801, 1080: comp. Cic. ad Att. 1x
11 2 quam tlle haec non probare mihi quidem visus est! quam lam
vexviay.. temere | nemo, fessus = nemo, adeo onines fessi sunt, is idio-

BOOK II NOTES II 169

matic enough; 111607 Nec sabi enim quisquam moriens sentire videtur,...
Verum deficere cet.; 1v 610 cernere nemo Saepem ultra potis est, at voces
accipere extra; { Mart. 1x 79 7.| satiate; this form recurs v 39 and
1391; it is found also in prose, in Livy Pliny and others. 1041
Hxpuere cet.: still bolder is its application in Ter. eun. 406 Quasi ubi
allam expueret niseriam ex animo. 1043 Dede manus: da manus is
the usual expression; but comp. vi 1255 paupertate et morbo dedita
mort ; [Plaut. asin. 601 me morti dedere optas?| So dede neci in Virg.
geor. IV 90, Ov. her. x1v 125 and fasti 1v 840; Tib. 1 3 7 cinert quae
dedat odores ; Cic. pro Arch. 26 aures suas dederet. {Comp. also Calpurn.
11170 Quodst dura times etiam nunc verbera, Phylli, Tradimus ecce manus. |
falsum is used for a substantive, as in 111 525 convincere falsum ; τν 764
Nec possunt falsum veris convincere rebus: Ov. am. 111 14 41 nee quae
celare parabis Insequar, et falsum muneris instar erit: [but perhaps for
jalsum we should read falli: see Madv. adv. 11 p. 70:] comp. iv 813
semotum fuerit longeque remotum. With what precedes comp. the very
similar language of the stoic in Cic. de nat. deor. 11 96 quod st hoc zdem
ex aeternis tenebris contingeret ut subito lucem asprceremus, quaenam
species caelt videretur? sed adsidwitate cotidriana et consuetudine oculorum
adsuescunt anime neque admirantur neque requirunt rationes earum
rerum quas semper vident, proinde quasi novitas nos magis quam magnt-
tudo rerum debeat ad exquirendas causas excitare ; yet just above he says
of Lucr. and his school certe tta temere de mundo effutiunt, ué mihr qua-
dem numquam hunce admirabilem caeli ornatum.. suspexisse videantur :
such different conclusions may be drawn from the same phenomena.
Comp. too the auctor ad Heren. 111 36; and Sen. nat. quaest. vir 1.
1047 anim iactus: see ἢ. to 740 anim iniectus ; and comp. Cic. de nat.
154 cutus (dei) operam profecto non desideraretis, st immensam et intermi-
natam in omnis partis magnitudinem regionum videretis, in quam se
umiciens animus et intendens ita late longeque peregrinatur, ut nullan
tamen oram ultini videat in qua possit insistere. The argument could
dispense with these last four vss. and their style appears to me to have
something constrained in it. I am disposed to look upon them as one
of those subsequent additions of the poet, of which I have spoken above
vol. 1 p. 28 foll., and elsewhere.

1048—1066: space then being unlimited on all sides and atoms
infinite in number, it is not likely this world should be the only one in
being, since it was formed by a mere chance combination of atoms: there
are then in other parts of space other like combinations of matter.
1050 res tpsaque: Lucr. often has que in the third place, not only with
prepositions and their cases, even dissyllabic prepos. as v 1205 saper
stellisque: but in other instances, as here and 48, 111 662, 999, 962, IV
273, 824 errorem vitareque, 1010 persectantes visaeque, v 680, v1 957, 1007,
1085; also 1v 79 and 104 by I think probable corrections: with some

170 BOOK II NOTES II

poets this usage is common enough: comp. Catul. 57 2 Mamurrae pathi-
coque; Cic. de div. 1 20 Templa dewmque; Tib. 1 10 51 Rusteeus ὁ luco-
que; Ovid fasti 1 177 furit Luno, formam mutatque puellae; met. 11 89
dum resque sinit; vil 204 sua convulsaque robora terra; x 143 inque
ferarum Concilio medius, turba volucrumque sedebat; her. xx 226 Am-
plius utque; and the frequency with which these two poets put it in
the 2nd half of the pentameter: Sen. Oct. 361 ereptam pelagoque ; 363
ingens geminatque nefas: Virgil on the contrary has que in the third
place only with monosyl. prepos. and their cases and with zamque namque
according to Wagner geor. 1 142: 11 1099 Luer. has ve too in the third
place, Omnibus inve locis, and τν 616 plus operaeve: comp. Hor. od. 1v 2 21
Flebili sponsae iwvenemve. Perhaps Lucretius’ carelessness in the position
of qguoque is like in principle; see n. to v 192: raque, agitur, enom he
also often puts late in the sentence ; see n.to1419. On the other hand
it is to be noted that, like the older poets generally, he always has the
copulae et, nec, nazz in the first place; while Virgil and the later poets
often transgress this rule. 1051 elucet thus coupled by a simple e¢
with docut and vociferatur is somewhat awkward: one would have
expected a word meaning ‘to make clear.’ 1053 Undique vorsum: 188
Sursus enim versus: see Forc. for similar instances from Cicero Caesar
and the best writers, deorsum versus, utroque vorsum, quoquoversus and
the like: Gellius x11 13 20 has undique versum. 1054 innwmero
numero: 1086 sed numero magis innumerals ; 111 779 Innumero numero ;
νι 485 Innumerabilem enim numerum; Plautus in his own epitaph, Ht
numeri innumert semul omnes collacrumarunt, which Ritschl parergon
p. 42 refers to the great variety of Plautus’ metres: in wumber number-
less and numbers numberless are common in our old writers: not unlike
are innuptae nuptiae, mentes dementes, mrustaque usta of other poets;
and similar in effect are 1 98 casta inceste, 111 869 Mortalem vitam mors
cum inmortalis adenit, V 121 Immortalia mortali sermone.— With the
above vss. comp. Cic. de nat. deor. 1 54 in hac igitur inmensitate lutitu-
dinum longitudinum altitudinum imfinita vis innumerabilium volitat
atomorum cet. 1058 natura, by natural causes, not by divine power
or necessity. 1059 verses like this apparently wanting a caesura are
not uncommon in Lucr. and other poets: comp. vi 197 Comnplerunt,
magno indignantur murmure claust; in three other instances, πὶ 612
715, v 165, the word wnmortals occurs; so that in our verse and all the
others it may be presumed that the preposition of the compound formed
a quasi caesura ; for in fact the Latins seem to have made no clifference
in sound between ὁ). mortalt and inmortalt: Lucilius ventures to write
Scipiadae magno improbus obiciebat Asellus; anc Horace Vestrum praetor,
is intestabilis et sacer esto; and in the new corp. inscr. Lat. we find on
the one hand ab iwraverit, ad tribuere 7 times, ex actum, in doucimus
and many such like; on the other hand aquo, amatre, adeum, desuo, ex-

BOOK Il NOTES I 171

formula, inmanu, obeas and a hundred such like. There is one other
instance, 111 258, Naune ea quo pacto inter sese miata quibusque, where
the v. may have prompted a Latin to pronounce interse se. Lachmann’s
distinction between a short vowel as in forte, and a long vowel as in
magno or an mas in quid enim inmortalibus, so that our present verse
shall not be a legitimate one, appears to rest on no reason. 1060
tem. inc. fr.: comp. V 1002 temere incassum frustra mare saepe coortunr;
νι 319 Nec temere omnino plane: he delights in these poetical tautolo-
gies, for in their application here these words are synonymes: but before
him Cic. Arat. 32 Sed frustra temere a vulgo ratione sine ulla. 1061
colarunt, have strained as through a colwm the atoms fitted to unite: this
word is well illustrated by N. P. Howard, Journ. of phil. 1 p. 129, from
the Greek: Epic. in Diog. x 73 τοὺς κόσμους δεῖ καὶ πᾶσαν σύγκρισιν πε-
TEepacpevynv...vopice γεγονέναι ἀπὸ TOU ἀπείρου, πάντων τούτων ἐκ συστρο-
φῶν ἰδίων ἀποκεκριμένων κιτιλι: he compares too the ὥσπερ διαττώ-
μενα (σώματα) οὗ Diog. 1x 3] with respect to Leucippus: v 422—431
should be compared with this passage, both in their general agreement
with it and partial divergence. quae coniecta: 1108 Senna quae mag-
mum raculando contulit omne. 1062 exordia here and v 430 has
precisely the same force as Virg, 66]. v1 33 ut his exordia primis Omnia
cet. 1.6. the rudimentary formations of earth sea heaven etc. 1066
avido cet.: v 470 Omnia sie avido compleaw cetera saepsit. There are
not only other worlds, but innumerable other worlds, as he proves in
the next paragraphs: with this and what follows comp. Epic. himself
in Diog. Laert. x 45 ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ κόσμοι ἀπειροί εἰσιν, εἴθ᾽ ὅμοιοι τοῦτῳ
ες,

€LT ανΌμοιοι.

1061---1076 : nay when there is matter and place ready, and nothing
to hinder, and countless atoms with the same powers as those which have
formed our world, you must admit that there are other worlds with men
beasts ete.—A mere variation of the last paragraph. 1069 confier :
this form recurs several times: see also n. to 1004. 1070 et, 1072
que: et followed by que is rare, but is found Hor. sat. 1 3 139
and even in Cicero: see de fin. v 64 and Madvig who there quotes
other instances: and in Livy, as xxxvur 38 12 δὲ ex tis praesidia
deducito, utique recte tradantur curato: but the reading is of course
uncertain. si tanta, and that this is so has been proved. 1072
Visque eadem et natura manet, and there is no conceivable reason
for questioning this. Comp. with the above Epic. 1. }. ai te yap
ἄτομοι ἀπειροι οὖσαι, ὡς ἄρτι ἀπεδείχθη, φέρονται καὶ πορρωτάτω' οὐ
γὰρ κατηνάλωνται αἱ τοιαῦται ἄτομοι ἐξ ὧν ἂν γένοιτο κόσμος ἢ) ὑφ᾽ ὧν av
ποιηθείη, οὔτ᾽ εἰς ἕνα οὔτ᾽ εἰς πεπερασμένους, οὔθ᾽ ὅσοι τοιοῦτοι, οὔθ᾽ ὅσοι
διάφοροι τούτῳ.

1077---1089 : again there is nothing that is sole in its kind, man
beast bird or fish; and so is it also with heavens earths seas suns and

[7 BOOK II NOTES II

moons; they are all without number; since they have all birth and
death on the same conditions as each thing here on earth. 1077 foll.
comp. the very similar argument in 532 [0]. Epicurus’ friend Metro-
dorus in Plut. de plac. phil. 1 5 says pointedly ἄτοπον εἶναι ἐν μεγάλῳ
πεδίῳ ἕνα στάχυν γεννηθῆναι Kai ἕνα κόσμον ἐν τῷ ἀπείρῳ. 1080 22
primis anim.=primum in animalibus: comp. iv 478 primis ab sensibus
and the like: this use of the adj. primws 1s very common in the poets,
esp. Virgil: see Wagn. quaest. Virg. xxvii 3b and 4 and 6: see n. to
11 250 postremis datur ossibus=postremo datur oss.; quite the same in
principle is 11 217 and 226 rectum per inane, where see note. —inelute
Memmi recurs v 8: comp. Emped. 439 κλυτὲ κοῦρε Θεανοῦς Πυθαγόρεώ τε.
1086 num. innum.: seen. to 1054. 1087 depactus ternunus alte: the
sense and metaphor are the same as those of the often recurring alte
terminus haerens. 1089 genus omne, whether men beasts birds or
fishes: hic 1.6. in thisearth. generatimst abundans: 111 396 est animus
..coercens. Lach. quotes Manil. 1 858 /gnibus usque adeo natwra est
omnis abundans: comp. also v 389 Has erit et sumilts tribuens olor aureus
artes; 397 Quisquis erit tali cuptens sub tempore vitam: and see Draeger
hist. syntax ὃ 142. 1087—1089 the argument seems to be, since all
these things are mortal and had a beginning, they must be subject to the
same conditions as other mortal things: in fact, as repeated by Plutarch
Cicero and others, Epicurus taught that innumerable worlds were daily
coming into being and daily perishing.

1090—1104: the knowledge of these things will rid you of fear of
the gods; for how could any being rule these numberless heavens and
earths? how could he hurl his bolts at once in so many places, bolts
which often destroy the innocent and miss the wicked ? 1090 sz
teneas: see note to 1 327, 1092 sua sponte: though Lucr. elsewhere
and the poets generally for obvious reasons say sponte sua: sua sponte is
the common order in prose: yet Augustus in his res gestae v 4 and Livy
xxvul 11 3 have sponte sua: [see Draeger hist. synt. 1p. 519f.] dis
expers: V1 1181 eapertia somno: he oftener has the gen. which hecame
the regular constr.: Sall. Cat. 33 1 plerique patriae, sed omnes fama
atque fortunts expertes sumus: [see Ussing to Plaut. Amph. 706.] Itis
worth comparing these vss, and the cognate passages such as v 86 foll.
γι 62—79, also 111 14 foll., ν ὃ deus tlle furt deus, with Cic. Tuse. disp.
1 48 soleo saepe mirari nonnullorum insolentiam philosophorum qui
naturae cognitionem admirantur etusque inventorr et principr gratias
exultantes agunt eumque venerantur ut deum,; liberatos enin se per eum
dicunt gravissimis dominis, terrore senynterno et diurno ac nocturno metu.
quo terrore? quo metu? quae est anus tam delira quae tumeat ista, quae
vos videlicet, si physica non didicissetis, timeretis? But Lucr. was no
haruspex: he meant what he said, and thought that others did the same.
Cicero’s philosophical works were all written within a few years after

BOOK II NOTES II 176

this poem was published, and they afford many proofs that Cicero was
familiar with its language: it was not his usage to quote the actual
words of contemporaries, profuse as he is in his citations from the older

writers. 1098—1104 are very similar to the longer passage vi 387—
422. 1095 profund is a subst. agreeing with immensi: see n. to 1
1002. 1096 Indu: seen. to 182. moderanter a ἅπαξ λεγόμ.: mode-

ranter habere habenas=moderari habenas: [comp. Cic. Lael. 45 quam
laxissimas habenas habere amicitiae. ‘moderanter: Lucr., Nouat. Trinit.
3, id. ib. 29 ad decreta ipsius se moderanter temperare, Mélanges Gr.
Rom. 111 p. 476. ] 1097 caelos in the plur. to express all the different
heavens in the universe, just as we translate the terras of the next v.
by ‘earths’ for a like purpose; otherwise the plur. is quite unknown to
classical writers: Serv. Aen. 1 331 secundum Epicureos qui plures
volunt esse caelos: Ennius has caelus profundus, shewing that the sing.
was once both masc. and neut. as in the case of so many other nouns.
{Arnob. 111 9 has emnumeros caelos: Trimalchio in Petron. 39 says caelus
hic and totus caelus.| caeli for caelum was a hebraism of the Church
writers. With caelos comp. Iv 291 aertbus binis, v 645 aeribus.
1098 suffire seems to have the sense of ‘to warm’ here only: tv 1175 se
suffit odoribus, it has its proper force. 1100 ccaeli serena is opposed
to the nubibus: the sonitus arises in the nubibus and shakes the caeli
serena at a distance; for v1 99 Wec fit enim sonitus caeli de parte serena, and
so 400 foll.: with this compare vi 96 Principio tonitru quatiuntur caerula
caeli Propterea quia concurrunt sublime volantes Aetheriae nubes; comp.
too 285 Quem gravis insequitur sonitus, displosa repente Opprimere ut
caelt videatur templa, and 387 Quod si Luppiter atque alit fulgentia divi
Terrifico quatiunt sonitu caelestia templa: the sonitus or thunderclap is
confounded with the thunder itself; as in Ter. eun. 590, imitated by
Luer., At quem deum! qui templa caeli summa sonitu concutit. 1101
et aedis cet.: comp. VI 417 foll. and Cicero cited there, whom Lactant.
inst. 111 17 compares with our passage: in libris consulatus sui eadem
dixit quae Lucretius, Nam pater cet. 1102 in deserta recedens: comp.
νι 396. 1103 quod saepe cet. enlarged upon vi 390—395. 1104
Seneca nat. quaest. 11 46 is asked by the epicurean Lucilius quare [uppiter
aut ferienda transit aut innoxia ferit? and prudently evades the question.
1105—1174: and after our world was born, many elements were
ever added to it so as to increase all its parts, until it attained its full
growth: even thus things which you see growing take in more elements
as food than they give forth, until they reach their maturity; then they
gradually decay, and exhale more than they take into their verns; until
from inward rarefaction and outward blows they perish completely : even
thus will our world perish : already our earth has begun to fail, and can
no longer produce what once it did; tillers and vinedressers spend their
labour in vain and regret the olden time, not knowing that the earth

174 BOOK II NOTES II

like everything else must come to its end. 1105 Afultaque cet. is a
continuation of the argument broken off at 1089, especially of that con-
tained in 1058—1063, the intervening vss. 1090—1104 containing one of
his many impassioned appeals. dremque Promigenum—coortum is a mere
poetical repetition of the preceding words. 1106 Primigenwm isa rare
word, for which lexicons only cite Avienus besides Lucr.: perhaps he
wished to translate the Homeric zpwroyovos. 1107 corpora and Semina
are of course synonymes. 1110 Appareret: I find no other example
of the use of this verb which is here very expressive: Faber compares
the Greek προσκτᾶσθαι. caeli domus: vi 358 Concutitur caeli domus:
he may have been thinking of Ennius’ strange divwm domus altisonum
cael.: Aen. x 1 domus omnipotentis Olympi: but Lucretius’ expression
implies more: Hor. od. 11 12 8 Lulgens contremurt domus Saturni veteris.
1111 consurgeret: one can hardly say whether this is simply for surgeret,
or, what is more graphic, for undiqgue curcum surgeret, or even surgeret
una cum caelo, This formation of our world is much more fully de-
lineated v 449—508: above, 1058—1063, he described the exordia of
this world; here he pictures its completion. 1112 plagis: these blows
of atoms are, as we have so often seen before, the chief cause of the for-
mation and conservation of things, by enabling the atoms to clash and
try all kinds of union, until some suitable one is found. 1114 umor,
terra, ignes, aether are used here loosely and poetically for the elements
fitted by their shape etc. to assist in forming water earth ete. 1115
procudunt, as 111 1081 Nee nova vivendo procuditur ulla voluptas; v 850
propagando procudere saecla; 856 propagando procudere prolem. aethe-
raque aether: for aeraque aer, since the poet here employs Empedocles for
his own purpose, just as 991 fol]. he made use of Anaxagoras and Euri-
pides: Emped. 270 πυρὶ δ᾽ αὐξάνεται πῦρ, Avge δὲ χθὼν μὲν σφέτερον δέ-
μας αἰθέρα δ᾽ αἰθήρ: in form his vss. are rather a reminiscence of the more
famous 321 Taty μὲν yap γαῖαν ὀπώπαμεν ὕδατι δ᾽ ὕδωρ Αἰθέρι δ᾽ αἰθέρα δῖον,
ἀτὰρ πυρὶ πῦρ ἀΐδηλον: elsewhere too Emped. thus uses αἰθήρ, as 105 Πῦρ
kat ὕδωρ καὶ γαῖα καὶ αἰθέρος ἥπιον ὕψος, and 216. Lucr. has probably
only followed Empedocles here; but see n. to 1 250 aether, where it is
shewn that he sometimes uses the word strictly, sometimes for the upper
regions generally and the seat of rain: thus in one place he has aetheriae
nubes, in another wnubilus aether, in a third aetherias auras. 1116
Donique: this form of donec recurs v 708, 723, 997, always before a
vowel: Lucr. may in one or other place have written doneque, which
in one place, v 708, A pr. m. exhibits. See too Val. Rose in Hermes 11
p. 468, who there and in his edition restores to Vitruvius doneque four
times for the denique of mss.; but he does not state the case quite fairly
between donique and doneque, our oldest authority, an inscription, having
as Huebner shews, donique. He quotes however three instances of
doneque from Tischendorf’s cod. Palat. of the oldest version of the Gos-

BOOK II NOTES II 175

pels, the Amiatinus etc. substituting donec. Vitruv. ΙΧ 1 11 has doni-
que cum=donique=donicum which occurs several times in Plautus.
perfica=perfectrix: a goddess Perjica is mentioned by Arnobius. 1119
venas seem here and elsewhere to include the arteries as well as veins.
1121 refrenat: a favourite word of his. 1122 adauctu, used by Lucr.
alone of good writers. 1126 dispessa: see notes 1: it must agree with
quaecumque, and refer to things which have attained the fulness of their
growth: the atoms are dispersa, but not the res: for form comp. Gellius
xv 15 Plautus in milite glorioso (360) a littera in 6 mutata per composite
vocabult morem dispessis dicit cet. 1127 vescitur is quite suitable
here: eats, i.e. takes in as food. 1129 manus dandum est: see n. to
“1111: the infin. after manus dandum est would seem like the infin. after
Confugient in 111 765, 1133 res amplior...et latior, with reference to
1126 dispessa: for involved arrangement of words see ἢ. to 111 843.
1135 modo has reference, as Lach. says, to augmine adempto; but modo
used of present or future time is rare: see Force. who quotes Ter. ad. 289
modo dolores, mea tu, occipiunt primulum, and the remark of Donatus
evidenter hic modo temporis praesentis adverbium est: comp. also Livy
xxvI 15 13 modo prohiberi etiam se, si id vellet, senatus consulto diceret.
modé, as 1v 1181 Una modo: it is also long, as Lach. shews, in Plau-
tus Terence Lucilius and Cic. Arat. frag. 8 Huic non una modo caput.
dispargit : 111 5389 and Iv 895 dispargitur; 111 661 conspargere; V 371
exspargi; VI 525 aspargine: τι 33 conspergunt mss. of Lucr.; but Macrob.
sat. VI 2 conspargunt, perhaps rightly: Lucr. has also contractans, ete. ;
Augustus, somewhat of a purist in such matters, twice in his res gestae
writes consacravt. 1137 progquam: 111 199 parvissima corpora pro-
quam...ita; vt 11 progquam posset: the word seems not to be found out
of Lucr.: Lach. to v1 11 ‘aeque Latina sunt pro ut, prae ut, pro quam,
prae quam, neque ab his differunt praeter quam, post quam, ante quam,
super quan’. 1138 tantum answers to proquam, as 111 200 ata.

1139 cibus, cibus, cibus may be compared with the instances given in ἢ.
to 955 vincere saepe, Vincere: the designed effect is the same, to obtain
emphasis by iteration. 1140 fulcire cibus: Hor. sat. 11 3 153 Deficient
inopem venae te, ni cibus atque Ingens accedit stomacho fultura ruenti ;
Sen. epist. 95 22 dare cibum saepius et vino fulcire venas cadentes ; 68
alius frequentr cibo fulcit. 1144 omnia: sce ἢ. to 1 15 capta...quam-
que. 1146 tuditantia=crebro tundentia, and recurs 111 394: Enn.
ann. 138 tuditantes.

1148 Ste igitur cet.: the world will have the fate of all mortal things:
it has attained its full growth and begun to decay, and must finally
perish.—A new paragraph ought not to commence here; as the preceding
illustrations have been merely given with reference to this, and it is a
direct continuation of the argument of 1105 foll. more especially of 1116
foll. from which it cannot be separated. 1149 Faepugnata cet.: keep-

176 BOOK II NOTES II

ing up the metaphor of the moenia, which expression has been explained
in I and will be further illustrated in v. dabunt labem, ruinas: see ἢ.
to 1v 41: dare ruinas occurs several times in Lucr. for ruere; labem
appears to be here used in its primary sense of the sinking and giving
way of the ground, 1150 foll. Martha p. 346 argues that this picture
of the world and its products may have been suggested to Luer. by the
wretched state of Italy, the decay of agriculture, etc. 1150 Lamque
adeo: adeo strengthens the zam, even now, now already; it is a favourite
expression of Virgil: Wagner quaest. xxv1 4 cites Aen. 11 567, v 268,
S64, vir 585, x1 275, 487. 1151 anim. parva: the vermiculr and the
like, referred to more than once above ; comp. too v 797 Jfultaque nune
etiam existunt animalia terris Imbribus et calido solis concreta vapore.
quae cuncta cet. as told at length v 780 foll. 1152 dedit...partu:
Aen. 1 274 geminam partu dabit Iha prolem. 1159 superne: a favour-
ite word of Lucr., generally with him meaning ‘overhead’: here and in
one or two other places it has the force of desuper: in Livy it frequently
has the same sense, aS xxIV 39 4, 47 3, xxvit 3, 7, xxx 10 13; and Sen.
dial. 12 1; Suet. Tib. 39. 1154 Aurea...funis: Gellius x11 21 (20)
21 Lucretius aeque auribus inserviens funem feminino genere appellavit
in hisce versibus Haut cet. cum dicere usitatius manente numero posset
Aureus e caelo cet.: see too Quintil. inst. 166. Luer. alludes no doubt
to the σειρὴ χρυσείη of Homer, but probably also to some stoical allego-
rising of the same: we know from Marcus Aurel., Eustathius p. 695 at
beg. and others that the stoics connected it with their εἱμαρμένη; and
Themistius orat, 32 p. 363 ὁ proves that it was used in the way hinted
at by Lucr.: ὁ φιλότεκνος ἀξιέπαινον πάθος ἐστὶ καὶ οὐκ ἔοικε τῷ φιλοχρη-
μάτῳ ἢ τῷ φιλαργύρῳ. ἐκεῖνα μὲν γὰρ τὰ ὀνόματα εἰκότως παρὰ τοῖς ἀνθρώ-
ποις ὀνείδη λέγεται καὶ ἔστιν οὐ γὰρ ποιεῖ αὐτὰ ἡ φύσις, ἀλλ᾽ ἡ μοχθηρία ἡ
ἡμετέρα. τοῦτο δὲ ἄνωθεν αὐτῇ ἐνδέδοται ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ ἐξῆπται ἐκείνης
ἀτεχνῶς τῆς χρυσῆς καὶ ἀρρήκτου σειρᾶς, dv ἧς ξυρράπτουσα ἀεὶ καὶ ξυγκολ-
λώσα τῷ φθίνοντι τὸ φυόμενον οὐκ ἀπολισθαίνειν ἐᾷ εἰς τὸ μὴ εἶναι : Heracl.
alleg. Hom. ch. 36 gives another stoical explanation of the ceipy. 1159
fetus are the arborer fetus or fructus: he thus enumerates corn, vines,
fruits of trees and pastures, the four chief products of the earth: comp.
v 783 and 786: thus too Virg. geor. 154 Hie segetes, tlhe veniunt felicius
uvae, Arborer fetus alibi atque iniussa virescunt Gramina; but his Arbo-
rev leaves no ambiguity: 1163 fetws is more general. 1162 suppedi-
tati is most simply taken as mare supped. in 1 230, where see note, and
possibly 11568 unde omnia suppeditantur: our wants scarcely supplied
by the tilled lands: otherwise a7vis may be the dat. and supped. have its
more usual force, as v1 1066 Ut mihi multa parwm genere ex hoc suppe-
ditentur : we are scarcely supplied in sufficient numbers, our numbers
scarcely suffice for the tillage of the lands: [comp. Lucan 1 29 desunt-
que manus poscentibus arvis. | 1163 shews how this is: they are so

BOOK lil NOTES I! ΠῚ

niggardly of their products, and only let these grow after great exertion
on our parts: aug. lab. fetus=exactly 1160 via nostro grandescunt aucta
labore. labore occurs by itself in Cic. pro Sex. Roscio 88 ut quaestum
nosset nullum, fructum autem eum solum quem labore peperisset, [1164
caput quassans: significative of sorrow or anger: Plaut. asin. 400 quas-
santi capite incedit; Aen. vil 292; x11 894; Val. Flace. 1 528 Adfremit
his quassatque caput; Caecil. 271 Ste quassante capite tristes encedunt. |
1165 manuwum labores: Ovid met. tv 39 Utile opus manuum: comp. too
1209 manibus melioris reddere fetus; Sall. Cat. 37 7 tuventus quae in
agris manuum mercede rnopiam toleraverat; Cic. pro Mare. 11 joins
opere et manu factum. 1166 for the arrangement of the words see n.
to 1 358; and Livy xxix 26 4 sed et bellum bello secundum priori ut
atrocius Romanis videretur; and Hor. sat. 11 6 80 Rusticus urbanum
murem nus paupere fertur Accepisse cavo, veterem vetus hospes amicum,
where the words are meant to smell of the ‘infacetum rus’. 1171
viétae, as also in Terence: Hor. epod. 12 7 vieétas. vet, viet.: Ter. eun.
688 vietus vetus veternosus senex. 1172 momen: the metaphor seems
to be from the momentum or sway of the balance. caeluinque fatigat:
Lach. compares Phaedrus tv 20 (19) 24 Caelum fatigas sordido per-
wurio: this use of fattgo is very common in Latin; Iv 1239 divom
numen sortisque fatigant. 1173 iVec tenet: 111 649 Nec tenet amissam
laevam cet.; 1070 morbi quia causam non tenet; v1 83 est ratio caeli
speciesque tenenda. 1174 ire Ad capulum: Plautus uses capulr decus
and capularis in jest for one near death. Paulus Festi and Nonius make
the word capulum, and the latter explains it as ‘sarcofagum, id est sepul-
chrum’: in this sense Apul. met. Iv 18 ἐδὲ capulos carie et vetustate semi-
tectos, quis inhabitabant prulveret et 1am cinerost mortur, passin. .resera-
mus: but Stat. Theb. 11 361 dui funera portant, Dum capulo nondum
manus excidit; Varro ap. Nonium p. 157 Propter cunam capulum posi-
tum Nutrix tradit pollinctori; and Serv. Aen. x1 64 says of feretruim
‘Latine capulus dicitur’; Placidi gloss. ‘capuli, lecti funerei vel rogi in
modum arae structi; est autem capulus masculini generis’. vetusto
seems harsh as an epithet of spatio; yet it recurs 111 774 aetates spatio
ne fessa vetusto, and v 827 mulier spatio defessa vetusto; so that it seems
a mere periphrasis for vetustate.

BOOK III

1—30: he addresses Epicurus as his father and guide, who had dis-
pelled the darkness of error, explained the whole nature of things,
revealed the gods and their blest abodes, and destroyed the belief in
Acheron, 4 Ficta is the older form, the ¢ being softened into s in
Jizus: Diomedes 1 p. 377 11 reperinus enim fictus et fixus; Scaurus de

M. IL. 1»

178 BOOK III NOTES II

vita sua ‘sagittis’ inquit ‘confictus’ cet. pedum pono cet.: Ovid met.
11871 Falsa pedum primis vestigia ponit in undis ; Hor. sat. 11 6 101 pont
uterque In locuplete domo vestigia; epist.1 19 21 Libera per vacuum
posur vestigia princeps, Non aliena meo presst pede. ὃ cupidus answers
to quod aveo and=quod cupio: Livy xLl 5 6 sew praeoccupati...sew
mutations rerum cupidi seu quia non abiecte esse Romanrs volebant; 1x 6
4 incerti de fide sociorum et quod pudor praepediebat; Ov. ex Ponto 11

3.91 Haec igitur referens et quod mea crimina.,..posse latere vides. 7
Cycnis: its position is meant to be emphatic. 9 patria is said with
reference to pater: thou, o father, like a father. tursque ex: seen. to
1 841. 11 omnia, Omnia..auwrea, Aurea: comp. n. to 11 955 vincere,
Vincere. 12 depascimur..dicta: Eur. Med. 821 ἀποφερβόμενοι κλει-
νοτάταν σοφίαν. 14 vocif.: see n. to 1 732, 17 Discedunt is here
used in what seems its primary sense: see Fore. video: the walls of

the world part asunder and allow me to see into the boundless void.
18 sedesque quietae: the μετακόσμια, which Cicero renders intermundia:
these the ἰσονομία or aegualis tributio of Epicurus required to be as many
as the mundi, that is to say innumerable: that Epic. and Lucr. believed
in these zntermundia is certain; but how they are consistent with their
general system, is as difficult to comprehend as the rest of their firm
belief in gods: see what is said on this question at 11 646—651, and v
146 foll. and 1161 foll. 19 Quas neque concutiunt cet.: Where falls
not hail or rain or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly. 20 neque
nic cet.: vi 845 Frigore..quasi concrescit; Virg. geor. τι 376 Prigora
nec tantum cana concreta pruima. 21 Cana cadens: comp. Virg. geor.
Iv 370 Saxosusque sonans Hypanis; Aen. vill 559 tnexpletus lacrimans;
Ov. met. v1 475 patriosque lacertis Llanda tenens umeros. innubilus
coined by him to render Homer’s ἀνέφελος, for these vss. are from Odyss.
ζ. 43 ὅθι φασὶ θεῶν ἕδος ἀσφαλὲς αἰεὶ "Eupevat. ovr ἀνέμοισι τινάσσεται
οὔτε ποτ᾽ ὄμβρῳ Δεύεται οὔτε χιὼν ἐπιπιλναται, ἀλλὰ μάλ᾽ αἴθρη Πέπταται
ἀνέφελος, λευκὴ δ᾽ ἐπιδέδρομεν αἴγλη. 24 delibat: 1088 nec delibare
valemus; comp. too v1 70 Delibata deum per te tibi numina. 25 nus-
quam apparent, because he has proved them not toexist. Acher. templa:
see n. to 1 120. 26 Nec tellus: it is not the earth which hides them,
as his philosophy shews what is below as clearly as what is above the earth.
28 voluptas..adque horror: Petron. sat. 83 Protogenis rudimenta cum
ipsius naturae veritate certantia non sine quodam horrore tractavi. Wak.
cites Stat. Theb. 1 493 laetusque per artus Horror wt; and Pacuvius 224
horror percuptt: comp. also Plaut. Amph. 1118 miki horror membra
misero percipit dictis tuis; and Pacuv. 294 anwni horrescit, gliscit gau-
dium. [29 Percipit: see n. to 1v 729, and Ussing to Plaut. Amph.
1134. ] 30 manifesta is in apposition with and explains patens: comp.
21 Cana cadens,

31—93: I have now to explain the real nature of the soul and to

BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II 170

dispel the terrors of hell which poison life: many boast they know all
this, but when tried by adversity, they choose to suffer any misery
rather than face death and its consequences: nay often men from this
fear will commit any crime, in order to get wealth and honour, thinking
that want and contempt destroy the security of life; hence civil war,
hence hatred of relations; hence men often rush to death from fear of
death: this fear in short is the source of all evils: and can be destroyed
only by the true knowledge of nature. 31 cunet. exor. rer.=rerum
primordia: see ἢ. to 1 ὅδ and τι 333. 94 Quwove: see n. to 1 57. 36
claranda: 1v 777 multaque nobis Clarandumst. 37 Et metus cet.: see
n. to 1 78. 40 “Esse..relinguit: Lucr. is fond of this construction:
1515 solidum constare relinguas; 703 quedvis tamen esse velinguat; VI
654 mirart multa relinquas. vol. lig. pur. rel.: Epic. in Diog. x 143
ὥστ᾽ οὐκ ἦν ἄνευ φυσιολογίας ἀκεραίους Tas ἡδονὰς ὑπολαμβάνειν. 42
Tartara leti: Virg. geor. 1v 481 intima leti Tartara: lett seems a gen. of
quality: see ἢ. to v 369 cladem pericl ; and comp. Prop.1 1 3 mihe
constantis deiectt lumina fastus. 43 comp. Emped. 317 Αἷμα yap av-
θρώποις περικάρδιόν ἐστι νόημα: Arist. de anim. 1 2 p. 405 Ὁ 6 attributes
this theory to Critias, and says there that each of the elements has an
advocate to claim for it to be the soul except earth; Tertull. de anima 5
assigns the doctrine to Empedocles and Critias: comp. too Cic. Tuse.
1 19 for this and the next v.: there was great play of words on the
connexion between animus, ἄνεμος, and ventus: see Lactant. cle opif. dei
XVII. [44 si fert cet.: Aen. νι 675 sz fert ite corde voluntas. | 45
δῖος prosum: seen. to 1 748. prosum, as in 514; so ztrosum once
and ruswm three times in A and B; this suppression of r after a long
vowel before s was very common: szsiwm three times and suso vorsum
occur in the sent. Minuc. corp. inscr. 1 199. 51 tamen though they
make these boasts and though they are in such misery, instead of shew-
ing a contempt of death, they have recourse to the meanest superstitions
in order to escape it. 52 nigras cet.: Virg. geor. Iv 545 Inferras
Orpher Lethaea papavera mittes Et nigram mactabis ovem; Aen. vi 153
Due nigras pecudes; [‘recte factum esto ovibus atris tribus’ m carmine
devovendae urbis: Macrob. 111 9 11 cited by Wordsworth Frag. and Spec.
p. 286.] 57 that Catullus has not unfrequently imitated Lucretius, is
I think certain; but so far as I know, these imitations all occur in his
longest poem, the marriage of Peleus and Thetis; and most of them in
one section of that poem. He seems to have published his works in
a collected form only a very short time before his early death which
happened, as Schwabe in his recent account of his life has given good
reasons for believing, within a year of the death of Lucretius. The
poem in question then would appear to have been written or completed
just before this publication. The apparent imitations which I have ob-
served in Catullus’ 64th poem I will now give. Compare 11 57 Nan

12—2

180 BOOK III NOTES II

verae voces tum demum pectore ab imo Kiciuntur, 81 maerenti pectore,
γι 16 infestis coger saevire querellts, quae quontiam a common Lucretian
phrase, with Catullus 1. 1. 195 meas audite querellas, Quas ego.. pro-
ferre..Cogor..Quae quoinium verae nascuntur pectore ab imo, 125 imo
fudisse e pectore voces, 202 Hus postquam maesto profudit pectore voces,
921 laetanti pectore: Lucr. ur 834 Omnia cum bellt trepido concussa
tumaltu Horrida contremuere sub altis aetheris oris, with Cat. 294 na-
mine..Qwo tunc et tellus atque horrida contremuerunt Aequora concussit-
que micantia sidera mundus ; sidera mundi being a Lucretian expression:
Luer. 111 304 caccae caliginis with Cat. 207 caeca caligine, both speaking
of the mind: Lucr. 11581 Lud in his obsignatum quoque rebus habere
Convenit et memori mandatum mente tenere, with Cat. 209 Quae man-
data prius constanti mente tenebat, 231 fucito wt memori tibi condita
corde Huec vigeant mandata, 238 Llacc mandata prius constanti mente
tenentem: Lucr. τι 618 Tynipana tenta tonant palmis et cymbala circum
Concuva raucisonoque minantur cornua cantu, 636 in numerum pul-
sarent aeribus aera, 1V 546 Lt reboat raucum regio cita barbara bombum,
with Cat. 261 Plangebant alit proceris tympana palnis Aut terete tenwis
tinnitus aere cicbant: Multis raucisonos efflabant cornua bombos Barba-
raque horribili stridebat tibia cantu: Lucr. 1 718 maginis anfractibus
aequor.. Angustoque fretw rapidum mare dividit undis, with Cat. 178
gurgite lato.. pontum truculentum ubi dividit aequor: Lucr. 1110 Vune
ratio nulla est restandi, nulla facultas, with Cat. 186 Nulla fugae ratio,
nulla spes: Lucr. 1 631 quae nallis sunt partibus aucta Non possunt ea,
Ul 626 Quwingue..factundum est sensibus auctam, 630 ammas antro
duxerunt sensibus auctas, 1v 460 Et sonitus audire..et reddere dicta
tacentes, with Cat. 165 quae nullis sensibus auctae Nec missas audire
gueunt nec reddere voces: Lucr. 1 722 [ic est vasta Charybdis with Cat.
156 quae vasta Charybdis: Luer. 1 11 genitabilis aura favoni with Cat.
282 Aura...tepidi, fecunda favoni: Lucr. vi 34 Volvere curarum
tristis in pectore fluctus, 74 magnos trarum volvere fluctus, with Cat. 62
magnis curarum fluctuat wndis: Lucr. 111 615 anima mens consiliumaque,
ete. with Cat. 136 mentis Consilium. All the passages I have cited
from Catullus come in the episode of Theseus and Ariadne, beautiful in
itself but singularly interrupting the theme of the poem; while the
passages from Lucretius are scattered through his poem. One might
surnuse that this episode was filled up by the poet, when he was fresh
from reading the new work of Lucretius.—I am by no means inclined to
retract the above in consequence of the long polemic with which 1 have
been honoured by Mr Julius Jessen in a recent pamphilet on this subject,
p. 5—15: he will see, if he attends to my general argument, that I no-
where imply, or mean to imply, that Catullus has no reminiscences of
Lucr. in other parts of his 64th poem: my words assert the very con-
trary; I only maintain that they are peculiarly frequent in the episode

BOOK III NOTES II ISL

in question. Mr Jessen’s notions too of imitation in poetry are very
different from mine, if he hold that it is seen less 10 resemblances of
expression or rhythm, than in the general drift of entire passages.
Again I have never seen any reason for supposing that Catullus died
before the latter part of U. C. 700: Buecheler’s argument is least of all
convincing, as I have argued in another place, Journ. of phil. vol. 2 p. 4.

62 Noctes opes =11 12 13. 64 Von min. partem: v1 1259 Nee
minimam partem; 1249 Inde bonam partem: the same constr. is found
in Cicero Caesar and Livy ; and in fact partim is an accus. 65—67

and so by their wealth they think to put off death or at all events the
thoughts of death. 65 ferme: see n. to1 14 ferae (fere). 67 cuncta-
rier the infin. as a subst.: see ἢ. to 1 33]. 68 Unde...effugisse
longeque remosse: ea must be supplied to remosse out of wnde: so 22
Integit and what precedes have the accus., while to rident a nomin. is
understood: comp. too 1018. 69 Draeger hist. synt. § 128 shews that
perf. infinitives are very common in legal and old Latin after verbs hke
volo: he says no instance of this constr. is found in Cicero Caesar Sallust
and Tacitus. 71 caedem caede accum.: v1 1238 cumulabat funere
Sunus; Cic. de off.1116 Africanus eloquentia cumulavit bellicam glorian ;
in Catil. 1 14 nonne etiam alio incredibili scelere hoc scelus cumatlastt ;

[Petron. 89 (v. 48) Accwmulat ecce liberum funus parens. | 72 com-
pared by Macrob. sat. vi 2 15 with Virg. geor. 11 510 gaudent perfust
sanguine fratrum. 73 consangwineum: see ἢ. to 1 162. 76 claro
honore, with the purple and other insignia of high office. 78 In-

tereunt cet.: Enn. ann. 403 reges per regnum statuasque sepulchraque
quaerunt, Aedificant nomen; Epic. in Diog. Laert. x 149 quoted by Lach.
speaks of desires neither natural nor necessary, ws στεφάνους καὶ ἀνδριάν-
των ἀναθέσεις. 80 Peretpit cet.: Plaut. truc. 1 ὅ 14 evus etto odiwm
percipit ; Ter. eun. 972 Neque agri neque urbis odium me umquamr perci-
pit. humanos=homines; as 837 Omnibus humans: Varro in Nonius
p. 81 Natura humanis omnia sunt paria; Lustin, xiii 3 primusque huma-
norum; Cic. ad Att. x1m 21 5 possum fall, ut humanus (mss. homo
editions); Ov. fasti 11 503 Podcher et humano manor. 81 Epicurus
appears to have dwelt on this topic: comp. Sen. epist. 24 22 etem alo
loco dicit (Epicurus) ‘quid tam ridiculum quam adpetere mortem, cum
vitam inquietam {ἰδὲ feceris metu mortis?’ his adicias et rllud eiusdem
notae licet ‘tantam hominum imprudentiam, immo dementiam, ut quidam
timore mortis cogantur ad mortem’; 70 8 stultitia est timore mortrs more.
83 84 for the hiatus here, which seems the simplest remedy, comp. notes
1: Conington on Aen. x 9 quis metus aut hos Aut hos arma sequi fer-
rumague te suasit, and Nettleship suggest that Virgil here had
Lucr. in mind. If this be so, we can hardly expel swadet, or give another
meaning to the Hunc—hune of 83. (Comp. Cic. epist. 1x 16 4 wt Ser-
vius. .fucile diceret ‘hic versus Plauti non est, hic est’. 84 tn summa :

182 BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II

auct. bell. Alex. 71 agere—postulare—interponere, in summa frustrart
coepit. See too Mayor on Juv. 111 79 and index 8. v.] 87—93=11 55
—61, where see notes; and vi 35—41.

94—135: well first the mind, ananus or mens, is a part of man,
as much as the foot or head: some deny this and affirm the mind’s sense
to be a harmony or certain life-giving state of the body by which we
have sense, though the mind is nowhere: they are quite wrong; for often
the body is sick, while the mind is happy; the mind 15 wretched, when
the body is well; just as the foot may be sore, when the head is whole:
again the body is often asleep and without sense, while something in us
is moved by various passions. Next the soul too or anima is in the body
and no mere harmony; for often much of the body is taken away,
while life continues; and often when a few particles only of heat and air
quit it, life is gone; so that you see that some elements are more important
for life than others: this harmony therefore is nothing. 94 Primum:
he first shews that the animus isa part of the body, being in fact in the
region of the heart: see 140 foll.: then 117 foll. he proves the anima
also to be a part, being in fact spread over the whole body: see 143 foll.
anmum..mentem quam: 99 habitum quendam.. Harmoniam Grai
quam dicunt; 139 Consiliunt quod nos animum mentemque vocamus ;
δῦ. homine, illius quasi quod vas esse videtur; IV 132 in hoc caelo qui
dicitur aer. [So Caes. bell. Gall. 138 1 ad occupandum Vesontionem, quod
est oppidum maximum Sequanorum; but v 11 8 flumen quod appellatur
Tamesis.} See Lach. and comp. Cic. de leg. 1 22 animal hoc...quem
vocamus hominem; de rep. vi 21 (somn. Scip. vi 3) ilo mari, quod
Atlanticum, quod magnum, quem oceanum appellatis in terris, qui tamen
cet. According to Madvig’s rule, Lat. gram. 316, Cicero in our passage
would have written mentem quem with AB; as we perhaps ought to do:
99 and 1v 132 he would have agreed with Lucr., but not 11 555: Lach.
is to me obscure and ambiguous here; and he takes no account of 1 432
Quod quasi tertia sit numero natura reperta, which seems to contradict
his law, but agrees with Madvig’s. animum, mentem: see ἢ. to 1 74
mente animoque: the words are, as: Lucr. here intimates, perfect syn-
onymes all through this book: 139 Consiliwm quod nos animum mentem-
que vocamus gives us a third synon. 97 oculer: 1 230 ingenuer; Iv 602
vitret: In these places our mss. have preserved this old spelling, which
doubtless Lucr. himself employed much oftener; and which appears
more or less disguised in the mss. in 1 1114 and v 38 sei, v 201 avidei,
v1 16 coget, 1195 truce, 1199 ἐδεὶ: the same diphthong is found in the
middle of the word in v1 1217 eaciret, 1221 Exeibant. 100 Graz are
the Greeks who maintain this theory. quod faciat refers to the habituin
vitalem or life-giving or life-supporting ἕξις. The chief of these Grat was
Aristoxenus a pupil of Aristotle and a famous writer on music: Cic.
Tuse. 119 says Aristoxenus musicus idemque philosophus ipsius corporis

BOOK III NOTES II 183

intentionem quandam, velut in cantu et fidibus quae harmonia dicitur ;
sic ex corporis totius natura et figura varios motus crert tamquam im
cantu sonos, hic ab artificio suo non recessit et tamen diart aliquid, quod
upsum quale esset erat multo ante et dictum et explanatum a Platone:
he refers apparently to Phaedo 80 foll. p. 86 foll. where the Theban Sim-
mias asserts that the soul is ἁρμονία τις and is afterwards so triumphantly
refuted by Socrates: comp. too Lactant. inst. v1 13 guid Aristoxenus
qut negavit omnino ullum esse animum, etiam cum vivit in corpore ?
sed sicut in fidibus ex intentione nervorunr effict concordem sonum atque
cantum quem musict harmomam vocant, ita wm corporibus ex compage
viscerum ac vigore membrorum vim sentiendi existere: this would con-
nect him with his fellow-pupil Dicaearchus, a favourite of Cicero, who
says of him Tusc. 1 21 that he held nihil esse omnino animum et hoc
esse nomen totum inane...vimque omnem eam qua vel agamus quid vel
sentiamus, in omnibus corporibus vivis aequabiliter esse fusam nec sepa-
rabulem a corpore esse, quuppe quae nulla sit nec sit quicquam nist corpus
unum et simplex, ita figuratum ut temperatione naturae vigeat et sentiat ;
and 51 he joins the two, 106 Saepe itaque: to prove what I say,
often then et cet. aegret recurs 824, morbis cum corporis aegret, and is
hardly found elsewhere. 113 comp. Cic. Verr. v 28 wt fusi sine mente
ac sine ullo sensu vacerent. honustum is too well attested for us to
regard it as a corruption: Gell. 11 3 3 ‘sic honera, sic honustum dixerunt
(veteres nostri)’; and Servius to Aen, 1 289: the Plautus palimpsest
attests 1t more than once; and Mueller I see in Lucil. x1x 5 reads
honustam for honestam of mss. 116 znanis, the vain fancies of a
dream. Both the above reasons prove the animus to be a distinct
part, not a mere state of the whole body, as Aristoxenus says.

117 anamami: this as shewn in the next paragraph is spread over the
whole body: he proceeds to prove that it, as well as the anwmus, is
no harmony, because often a large portion of the body, say the arms and
legs, might be taken off, and life remain, while often the smallest punc-
ture in a more vital part will cause death.—on membris, ‘in numero
membrorum’ Lamb. 1 take it simply for ‘in corpore’, as 120 in membris
vita moretur, and elsewhere: by making it a mere harmony, they made
it a nonentity. 125 corpora, pruma of course = 127 Semina. 129
moribundos des. artus: 653 moribundus pes; 1033 moribundo corpore ;
Ov. her. 14 13 ut dicant morientia ‘paenitet’ ora: for rhythm Ov. ibis
125 cruciatos spiritus artus Deserat. 132 ad organicos, to musicians
like Aristoxenus. delatum Heliconi cet. whether this name came from
the muses, or whether they got it themselves from some other source and
applied the general term ἁρμονία or fittingness to musical tune. /Teliconi
is abl.: see n. to 1 978. 133 in allam.. quae res: see ἢ. to 1 15
capta.. guamque, 135 habeant =sibi habeant: the phrase, as here,
generally indicates contempt; and is common enough: Cic. pro Sulla 26

184 BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II

sibt haberent honores, sibi imperia, sibt provincias, sibi triumphos, sibi
alia praeclarue laudis insignia: mihi cet.; pro Flacco 104 sibi habeant
potentiam, sibi honores, sibi ceterorum commodorum summas facultates:
liceat his cet.; Cato 58 habeant igitur sibt arma, sibi equos, sibi hastas,
sibi clavam et pilam, sibi natationes atque cursus: nobis cet.: tibi habe in
Juv. 1 187; v 118, where see Mayor; Mart. vir 48 4 has vobis habete.
There is a contemptuous irony in these last vss. not unlike what Cicero
Tusc. 1 41 uses: alter (Aristoxenus) tta delectatur suis cantibus ut eos
etiam ad haec transferre conetur. harmoniam autem ex intervallis sono-
Tum Nosse possumus...membrorum vero situs et figura corporis vacans
animo quam possit harmoniam efficere non video. sed hic quidem, quam-
vis eruditus sit, sicut est, haec magistro concedat Aristoteli, canere ipse
doceat : Cicero means to say his master would have taught him better on
this head, though he were a better teacher of singing himself: comp.
Arist. de anima 1 4 at beg. καὶ ἄλλη δέ τις δόξα παραδέδοται περὶ ψυχῆς
..ooTep εὐθύνας δεδωκυῖα καὶ τοῖς ἐν κοινῷ γιγνομένοις λόγοις, 1.6., as
Bernays αἴθ Dialoge des Arist. p. 14 foll. says, in his celebrated dialogue
EKudemus where this theory was discussed and refuted: in p, 27 is quoted
from Philoponus a very interesting fragment of this dialogue bearing on
the argument mentioned by Lucr. 102 Ut bona saepe valetudo cet.: it
concludes εἰ τοίνυν y ἀναρμοστία (τοῦ σώματος) νόσος καὶ ἀσθένεια καὶ
αἶσχος, 7 ἁρμονία ἄρα ὑγίεια καὶ ἰσχὺς καὶ κάλλοςς ψυχὴ δὲ οὐδέν ἐστι
τούτων, οὔτε ὑγίεια, φημί, οὔτε ἰσχὺς οὔτε κάλλος. ψυχὴν γὰρ εἶχεν καὶ
ὁ Θερσίτης αἴσχιστος wv’ οὐκ ἄρα ἐστὶν ἡ ψυχὴ ἁρμονίας The peripa-
tetics at this time began to make a great stir, and Lucr. appears more
hostile to them than to any except the stoics: their philosophy was in
most points very adverse to his. On the above question comp. ‘Alex.
Aphrod. de anima, p. 127 Ὁ Ald. 1534’ J. E. M.

136—160: the animus and the anima make up one nature, but the
animus is the ruling part in the whole body and is situated in the region
of the heart; the anima being spread through the body: sometimes the
animus feels, when the anima does not; but under any violent emotion
we see the anima sympathise throughout the frame with the animus: the
anima therefore is united with the animus, and, being moved by it, stirs
the whole body. 136 contuncta: the neut. as usual when referred
to two subst. of different genders: but 416 Hoc anima atque animus
vinctz sunt foedere semper; 1vV 1009 Accipitres . . persectantes visaeque
volantes: 66 1 have obeyed Lamb. and Lach. in reading Semota . . viden-
tur for videtur: the change is slight; but perhaps it 15 wrong to refuse
to Lucr. the same liberty which other writers claim: Cic. pro Cluent. 146
can say mens et animus et consilium et sententia crvitatis posita est in
legibus. 140 Idque situm cet.: Epic. in Diog. Laert. x 66: τὸ μέν τι
ἄλογον, i.e. the anima, αὐτῆς (τῆς ψυχῆς) ἐν τῷ λοιπῷ παρεσπάρθαι σώματι,
τὸ δὲ λογικὸν ἐν τῷ θώρακι, ὡς δῆλον ἔκ τε τῶν φόβων καὶ τῆς χαρᾶς.

BOOK III NOTES I 185

Arist. de part. an. 11 10 p. 656 28 says that the ἀρχὴ τῶν αἰσθήσεών ἐστιν
ὁ περὶ THY καρδίαν τόπος : 50 with Epicurus the animus was not the
heart, but in or about the heart: Cic. Tusc. 1 19 altis nec cor ipsum
placet nec cerebri quandam parteni esse animum, sed alte in corde, alti in
cerebro dixerunt animi esse sedem et locum: the heart had more advocates
than the brain. regione in pectoris: Lucr. is fond of this position of the
prep.: 49 Conspectu ex hominum; 463 morbis in corporis; 824 morbis
cum corporis; 1088 Tempore de mortis ; Iv 335 oculis in eorum ; vi 466
ipso Vertice de montis; 1074 uno Corpore cum lanae; 1265 silanos ad
aquarum; Iv 547 validis cyent torrentibus ex Heliconis: this idiom
occurs in Virgil and in other poets, and is one of the numerous artifices
of Tacitus to deciceronise the style of his annals; as 111 72 orvnatum ad
wrbis. 141 Hic cet.; comp. Epic. 1. |. 142 Laetitiae: Cicero twice
quotes from Caecilius omnibus laetitiis ; and, ad Att. 117 6, has him-
self daetitias twas: Pompon. 141 luetitias ; so v 48 desidiaeque. hic
ergo is the τὸ λογικόν of Epicurus, the consiliwm, mens or animus of
Luer. 143 per totum dissita corpus, a translation of Epic. ]. 1. παρ᾽
ὅλον τὸ ἄθροισμα παρεσπαρμένον. 144 nwmen here perhaps unites
the physical sense which it has 11 632 and 1v 179, and the metaphorical
sense of will, much as Catull. 64 204 Adnuzt invicto caelestum numine

rector Quo cet. momen, again the ῥοπή or sway of the balance. 145
Idque, the consilium of 139 and 140: Accius 296 Sapymus animo, frut-
mur anima: sine animo anima est debilrs. 147 Lt quasi cet.: the

eye and the head may be affected without the rest of the body feeling
with them, but when these are more violently assailed by disease, the
rest of the body sympathises, shewing thus that it is one with them: so
it is with the anzmus and anima. 1δ5 infringi linguam: the καμ μὲν
γλῶσσα eaye of Sappho; for doubtless Lucr. was here thinking of her
famous ode. aborirt: V 733 he has the unexampled form aboriscz.
156 sonere recurs 873: sonit sonunt resonit resonunt, as well as sonere,
occur in Ennius or other old writers. 160 exim is the spelling of our
mss, and of the best authorities. ἐοΐέ: τν 1050 unde icimur tctw: the
technical phrase foedizs tcere is common in the best writers: see too Ov.
fasti τν 709.

161—176: the animus and anima are therefore bodily also, since
they can move and direct the body; for this cannot be without touch
nor touch without body: the animus too suffers with the body, when the
latter is wounded: it must then be bodily, since it suffers from bodily

weapons. 162 Corpoream: Epic. 1. 1. 63 says ὅτι ἡ ψυχὴ copa ἐστι
λεπτομερές K.T.A. 163 comp. Aen. Iv 572 Corripit e somno corpus.
168 fungr: seen. to 1 440. 170 Sz: see n. to 11 80. 171 entus

appears to belong to disclusts, and adactus is used, as Aen. 1x 431 sed
vwibus ensis adactus T'ransabut costas: those who would join intus with
adacta might appeal to vi 23 where ztus would go most naturally

186 . BOOK ΠῚ SSOTES Ti

with receperat: 1 223 11711 and τν 1091 entus, properly explained, has
its proper force. 173 Segnis: with this might be compared Aen. x
699 poplite Palmum Succiso volvi segnem sinit. in terra is opposed to
terrae petitus: when one is down on the ground. 176 comp. with
what precedes Epic. 1. 1. 67 καθ᾽ ἑαυτὸν δὲ οὐκ ἔστι νοῆσαι TO ἀσώματον
πλὴν ἐπὶ τοῦ κενοῦ" τὸ δὲ κενὸν οὔτε ποιῆσαι οὗτε παθεῖν δύναται, ἀλλὰ
κίνησιν μόνον δι’ ἑαυτοῦ τοῖς σώμασι παρέχεται" ὥσθ᾽ οἱ λέγοντες ἀσώμα-
τον εἶναι τὴν ψυχὴν ματαΐζουσιν" οὐθὲν yap ἂν ἐδύνατο ποιεῖν οὔτε πάσχειν,
εἰ ἣν τοιαύτη" νῦν δ᾽ ἐναργῶς ἀμφότερα ταῦτα διαλαμβάνομεν περὶ τὴν
ψυχὴν τὰ συμπτώματα.

177—230: the αγιϊ)ιιι5 consists of very small round atoms, which
can move with extreme celerity and ease; for nothing 1s so swift as
thought: of visible things those which move most easily, as water, are
composed of very small round elements: those of the animus then must
be eminently subtle. Again the fineness and smallness of the substance
of the animus and anima are shewn by this: after death, when they have
left the body, it is not perceptibly diminished in size or weight; you
may compare it with wine whose flavour is gone, or the like: the ele-
ments which compose this flavour are very minute; and their absence
does not lessen the weight and bulk of the wine. 177 animus: it
will be seen, by comparing 208 eius with 212 anime natura animaeque
and the rest of the section, that here too he includes the anima in the
term animus ; though it is not till 431 that he tells us that when he uses
one word he intends to comprise the other as well, where the one is not
expressly distinguished from the other. It is his general practice, as we
have often seen, to keep distinct similar words, when his argument
requires, it; to use them indifferently, when precision is not called
for. corpore is here used in its most general sense for material sub-
stance. 178 Constiterit=constet: see ἢ. to 1 420. 184 res ulla..
quorum: Sall. Iug. 41 1 abunduntia earum rerum, quae prima mortales
ducunt; Cic. ad fam. xv1 4 2 ulla in re, quod ad valetudinem opus sit ;
Livy xxxi1 29 5 rebusque aliis divinis humanisque, quae per ipsos agenda
erant, perfectis: see ἢ. to τι 897 Quarum nil rerum; and to157. 186
constare rutundis cet.: Diog. Laert. x 66 ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τόδε λέγει ἐν ἄλλοις,
καὶ ἐξ ἀτόμων αὐτὴν συγκεῖσθαι λειοτάτων καὶ στρογγυλωτάτων, πολλῷ τινι
διαφερουσῶν τῶν τοῦ πυρός. 189 flutat: Iv 77 jlutant from a probable
conj. of Turnebus. Macrob. sat. 111 15 ὃ quotes from Varro’s Gallus de
admirandis ‘a2 Stcdlia quoque’ inquit ‘manu capt murenas flutas, quod
eae in summa aqua prae pinguedine flutentur’. 190 and 246 figuris:
see n. to 11 385. 192 actus: Aen. x11 687 Fertur in abruptum magno
mons improbus actu: Paulus Fest. p. 17 explains it as modo motwum cor-
poris, ut histrionum et saltatorum. 196—202 after his wont he gives
an example of what we see before our eyes in order to illustrate his argu-
ment: a heap of poppy-seeds which are small and round a breath dis-

BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II 187

perses, a heap of stones a violent wind cannot stir. 196 papuveris is
put out of its place at beg. of the sentence to render more vivid its con-
trast with 198 lapidum: seen. to 843 and 11 250. suspensa: Vv 1069
Suspensis . . dentibus. 197 tibi: see n. to 1 797. 199 Voenw
recurs Iv 712: itis simply ne oenwm (ne unum), the fuller form of non ;
ne nec neque being the old negative particles: see ἢ. to 11 23. [Comp.
Lucil. xxx 23 st noenw molestumst: see Mueller’s note p. 267.] proquam :
see n. to 11 1137. 201 cum pondere magno=pondere magno, the abl.
of quality: see n. to 1 755. 207 cluebit=erit, as so often. 208
quoque etiam, and qiuogue rtem, etiam quoque, ttem quoque occur in Lucr.
again and again: quoque etiam is not unknown to Cicero: de orat. 1164
nunc vero, Crasse, mea quoque etiam causa rogo; in Verr. 111 206 cetera,
quae forsitan alii quoque etiam fecerint: nor etiam quoque to Livy: in
Plautus quoque etiam is very common: asin. 184 et quoque etiam. 208
Haec quoque res, 211 Quod: quod has here the same force as if the sen-
tence had been introduced without any connecting particle: comp. Cic.
de off. 11 70 videndumque rllud est, quod, si opulentum fortunatumque
defenderis, in uno illo. . manet gratia; sin autem cet.: see n. to νι 250.
211 sec. qguies: 939 capis securam, stulte, quietem. 212 Indepta: see
n. tor 82. 213 cernas: see ἢ. to 1 327. 214 Ad speciem, ad pon-
dus: Vv 569 nil ud speciem est contractior ignis; Cic. in Verr. (2) 1 58
vidi. . forum comitiumque adornatum ad speciem magnifico ornatu, ad
sensum cogitationemque acerbo et lugubri; Livy 111 38 1 neque ad speciem
(imminutis) honoris insignibus ; Mela 11 16 viros benignius alit, non ad
speciem tamen,...ceterum ad ferociam et numerum. 215 cal. vap.: see
n, to 11 844. 219 Hatima membrorum circumcaesura recurs Iv 647:
περικοπή sometimes has the same sense. [Comp. Arnob, 111 13 fer-
renorum corporum circumcaesura finiiis. | 221 Quod genus est: see n.
to 11 194. Bacchi flos: Libert or vini jflos is found in Livius Andr.
Pacuvius and more than once in Plautus: curcul. 96 Flos veteris vint
naribus mets obvectust shews that flos means the bouquet of the wine:
comp. 11 848 nardi jlorem: Pliny x1v 136 has flos vini for the spuma:
see Turnebi adv. xx1x 34. 227 rerum: the sucos et odorem shew that
he is speaking of the different things above mentioned, the wine, the per-
fume and the aliguod corpus.

231—257 : the animus is made up of spirit heat air and a fourth
nameless substance, the finest and most nimble that can be conceived and
made of the smallest and finest atoms: from it comes the beginning of
sensation which thence spreads through the several parts of the body :
the least pain or hurt, if it reach to this substance, will destroy life at
once. 232 foll. Epic. 1. 1. 63 says of the ψυχή that it is a thing προσ-
εμφερέστατον πνεύματι θερμοῦ τινὰ κρᾶσιν ἔχοντι καὶ πῇ μὲν τούτῳ προσ-
εμφερὲς πῆ δὲ τούτῳ (ἐκείνῳ): Lucr. expresses his πνεῦμα by aura, his
θερμοῦ κρᾶσιν ἔχον by mixta vapore: vapor and 234 calor are of course

188 BOOK III NOTES II

synonymes as elsewhere in Lucr.; in this slight sketch Epicurus speak-
ing of the whole ψυχή does not mention the air, nor the fourth nameless
substance ; but Stob. ecl. 1 41 1 and Plut. de plac. phil. 1v 3 say that
Epic. mace the soul κρᾶμα ἐκ τεττάρων, ἐκ ποιοῦ πυρώδους, ἐκ ποιοῦ ἀερώ-
δους, ἐκ ποιοῦ πνευματικοῦ, ἐκ τετάρτου τινὸς ἀκατονομάστον ὃ ἦν αὐτῷ
αἰσθητικόν. 234 .Vec calor cet.: Lucr. seems to have drawn this
conclusion from what he saw of fire and its mode of operation. _— calor
quisquam: seen. to 1 1077 Nec quesquam locus est. cut: Enn. Epich.
2 Frigori miscet calorem atque umore aritudinem ; Aen. vil 431 JMWisce-
bant opert; Ov. met. 11 634 meatogue onert gaudebat honore; 1v 140
sletumque cruort Miscurt; v 638 se mahi misceat ; x11 866 se tibt misceat ;

Lucan 1 271 plebi muscere. 239 ‘may not mens be right? since the
mind does not allow’ J. BE. M. 240 Sensiferos: a word peculiar to
Lucr, and to this book. 242 east omnino nominis expers and 279

nominis huec expers vis express the ἀκατονόμαστον of Plutarch and Sto-
baeus: the latter continues |. 1. τὸ δ᾽ ἀκατονόμαστον τὴν ἐν ἡμῖν ἐμποιεῖν
αἴσθησιν" ἐν οὐδενὶ γὰρ τῶν ὀνομαζομένων στοιχείων εἶναι αἴσθησιν, and
Plut. adv. Col. 20 says τὸ yap ᾧ κρίνει καὶ μνημονεύει καὶ φιλεῖ καὶ μισεῖ
καὶ ὅλως τὸ φρόνιμον καὶ λογιστικὸν ἔκ τινος φησὶν ἀκατονομάστον ποιότητος
ἐπιγίνεσθαι : this fourth nameless thing must have been restricted to the
central animus ; the anima must have shared with it the other three:
perhaps Epicurus got the notion of this τετάρτη οὐσία or quartessence
from the quintessence of Aristotle. 247 venti here and below takes
the place of the aura of 232 and 290: its effects are described below ;
but how far this ventus, aura or πνεῦμα differed in substance from his
aer 1s not stated. 250 postremis...ossibus: see ἢ. to 1 217 and 1080,
and comp. Aen. v 857 Vix primos inopina quies laxaverat artus; Aen.
x1 664 Quem telo primum, quem postremum...Deicis; Cic, ad Att. x11
45 1 in qua extrema scriptum erat; x1v ὃ 1 litteras.. quibus in extremis
erat. 251 ardor, a strong excitement or feeling, good or bad; the
epithet contrarius makes it here the opposite of voluptas. 252 huc, to
the central position of this fourth nameless thing. 257 Afotrbus i.e.
of physical pain or suffering. 252—257 it must surely have been a
misapprehension of some statement of Epicurus similar to this that led
to the strange assertion in Plut. de plac. phil. 1v 23 that Epicurus placed
καὶ τὰ πάθη καὶ τὰς αἰσθήσεις ἐν τοῖς πεπονθόσι τόποις᾽ TO yap ἡγεμονικὸν
ἀπαθές.

258—332: these four substances have their elements so mixed to-
gether as to make up a single whole; just as in the flesh of any animal
there are different substances, which yet compose a single body: the
fourth nameless substance, the first source of sensation, lurks in the
inmost recesses of the body and is so to speak the soul’s soul, being to
the soul what the soul is to the body, and supreme over both. Thus too
the three other substances must be so mixed up as to form one whole,

BOOK III NOTES IL 189

lest their several powers acting independently should destroy sensation:
every animal has in it the heat, the spirit, and the air, but one animal
has more of one than of the other, and thus gets its distinctive character:
the lion has more of heat, the stag of spirit or wind, the ox of air: so is
it with men; their characters differ as they have more of one or of
another of these: yet reason will so keep down the too great influence
of any of them, that a wise man may live like a god. 258 see n. to 11
1059 for rhythm. 259 Compta: seen. to1 950. 460 patr. ser. eg.:
see above p. 11. 261 the constr. seems to be swmmatim tangam, ut
potero attingere: such involutions are common in Lucr.: see ἢ. to 843.
262 principrorum is, as always, the gen. plur. of primordia; therefore
princ. motibus = suis motibus. 265 multae vis: see ἢ. to τι 586.

266 and 276 Quod genus: see n. to 11 194: in both our places the illus-
tration it introduces refers alike to what precedes and follows: comp. 327.
266 267 comp. 11 680 multa vides quibus et color et sapor una Reddita
sunt cum odore cet. and note there. 271 ab se: Iv 468 animus quas
ab se protinus addit, though the force of αὖ se is there slightly different.
271 272 are illustrated in the preceding paragraph. 273 274 275 and
279 280 281 notice the redundancy of words and their repetition, by
which he wishes to point attention at once to the exceeding fineness and
secrecy and the exceeding importance of this nameless substance. 274
infra=lv 112 infra nostros sensus: comp. too 11 138 ὦ principtis ascendit
motus et exit Paulatim nostros ad sensus; and n. there: so that I take
anfra est to be almost a synon. of subest. 275 and 281 Proporro: see
n. tov 312. ‘Is not this v. strange when compared with 280? would
he need the apologetic quas? of 280, if he had without qualification said
the same thing just before?’ J. E. Δ. 279 δὲ: see ἢ, to 1 797.
282 Consimilt ratione: in the same way that this fourth substance mixes
with the others, yet keeps itself withdrawn and is known only by its
effects; so the other three must keep themselves each one in due subor-
dination or prominence according to the nature in which they are, lest
by acting independently they should ruin one another and destroy sense.
284 1.6. aliud aliis magis subsit in hac re, magis enineat in illa re.

285 the most prominent of the three in any nature giving that nature
its unity and distinguishing character; the lion having for instance more
of the calor, the stag more of the ventus, and so on. But 294 foll. must
be taken into consideration together with 288 foll.: we all have each of
these elements, as may be seen in anger, etc.; but one generally predo-

minates in one, another in another animal. 286 Ni: see ἢ. to 11 734
Nive. seorsum and diducta mean, if they were separate and therefore
hostile. 4288 st etenim cet. for every mind and soul have in them all

three; but 294 foll. in one animal one is more prominent, in another
another ; and 307 so it is with men: one man partakes more of one,
another of another. an tra Cum fervescit: 295 facile effervescit in tra.

{90 BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II

289 ex oculis cet.: Aen. x11 102 oculrs micat acribus ignis. 292 etram
quoque: see ἢ. to 208. 293 fit qui: see ἢ. to 11 547, and 1v 752 docui
quoniam; and comp. Ov. fasti 1 91 cur de caelestibus unus, Sitgue quod
a tergo sitque quod ante, vides?; trist. 1v 1 100 Et tulerit me quo casus
et unde, subit. 296 vis violenta leonum: ὃ fortis equi vis; Iv 681
promissa canum vis: Lucr. delights in this and like periphrases, animé
vis animaeque potestas; ferri, aeris vis, plumbi potestas, tripectora terge-
muni vis Geryonai, rapax vis solis equorum, etc. 297 298 Pectora qui
rem. rumpunt cet.: Aen. vil 15 gemitus traeque leonum: Heyne to Aen.
xu 526 rune, nunc Pluctuat ira intus, rumpuntur nescia vinct Pectora,
says that the image there is taken from water boiling up, which strives
to burst the vessel in which it is confined: thus in our passage the breast
cannot hold the boiling billows of rage, but is ready to break: with 298
comp. also v1 34 and 74; Catull. 64 62 maynis curarum fluctuat undis;
Aen. Iv 532 magnoque trarum fluctuat aestu, and x11 831 Jrarwm tantos
volvis sub pectore fluctus; Livy xxxv 18 6 ingentes iam diu iras

eum wm pectore volvere. 298 Ov. met. vi 609 ardet, et iram
Non capit ipsa suam Progne; Aen. vit 466 Nec iam se capit ipsa: [see
too Mayor on Juv. x 148.] 303 percit: 1 212 cimus: where see note.
305 perfixa: see 11 360. 306 Inter wtrosque cet. imitated perhaps

by Manil. 11 240 Inter utrumque manet Capricornus corpore mixto.
[313 clem. aequo: ‘Sall. Cat. 50 gravius aequo. Sonst nur Luer. ἃ.
Horaz’ Draeger hist. synt. 1 p. 524.] 315 sequacis seems rightly
explained by Creech and Forc. ‘qui istam naturam sequuntur’. 316
seems modelled on Cic. Arat. 234 Quarum ego nunc nequeo tortos
evolvere cursus. 319 firmare for affirmare is rarely found in good
writers, for confirmare frequently in the best and elsewhere in Lucr.:
but the former is one of Tacitus’ many artifices of style: ann. 1 81 fir
mare ausin; V1 Ὁ firmare solitus est. 322 Ut nil inpediat: Epic. in
Diog. Laert. x 135 ταῦτ᾽ οὖν καὶ τὰ τούτοις συγγενῆ μελέτα διὰ παντός... .καὶ
οὐδέποτ᾽ οὐθ᾽ ὕπαρ ovr’ ὄναρ διαταραχθήσῃ, ζήσῃ δ᾽ ὡς θεὸς ἐν ἀνθρώποις"
οὐθὲν γὰρ ἔοικε θνητῷ ζώῳ ζῶν ἄνθρωπος ἐν αθανάτοις ἀγαθοῖς. 307—
322 have pointed reference to the great stoical doctrine of the perfect
apathy of the wise or good man: Lucr. concedes much to philosophy and
reason ; but will not allow that they efface all distinctions of natural
character; comp. 319—-322 with what Cicero says of Zeno that he ‘omnes
virtutes in ratione ponebat’; with him and his school in fact ‘ipsa virtus
brevissime recta ratio dici potest’.

323—349: the soul is held together by the body and in turn keeps
the body in life; the one cannot be torn from the other without destruc-
tion to both, any more than its perfume can be separated from frankin-
cense: by their mutual motions sense is kindled; nor is the body ever
born nor does it grow withcut the soul nor continue when the soul has
left it; even in the mother’s womb they learn in common the motions of

BOOK III NOTES II ΤΟΙ

life. 327 Quod genus, as 266 and 276, introduces an example illus-
trating both what precedes and what follows. 330 Haut fucile est
means of course that it is quite impossible; as 361 Diffictlest: see n.
there. 992 consort vitu: they are coheirs or copartners of ἃ life,
which is a sors, a patrimony or capital, which cannot be divided, but
must be used by them in common: comp. ciris 14 δὲ me iam summa
sapientia pangeret arce, Quattuor antiquis quae haeredibus est data con-
sors, where the arz is the joint sors of the four. 333 Wee sibs quaeque:
suus or sui with which qutsque goes so naturally, allows of quaeque
being said of either of two: so Cic. pro Rosc. com. 32; Livy 1 7 1;
x 12 3; xxvii 20 10 cum δἰδὲ quisque consultum sine alterrus respectu
vellet; see Mayor on Juv. 141: and so quis is sometimes used for uter ;
yet the negative Wee quaeque for nec utra or nec altera seems harsh.
Terence, on the other hand, heaut. 394 wtrique αὖ utrisque ; Phorm. 800
uterque utrique=alter alteri; [Varro Men. 377 B uterque utrumque
vituperato; Mart. vit 38 4 alterius fiet uterque timor.| 8336 accensus...
sensus: comp. 11 943 and 959, This doctrine of Lucr. that for the pro-
duction of sense and life the body is as necessary to the soul as the soul
is to the body; that though sensation’ must begin with the animus and
proceed to the anima before it can extend to the body, and the sense of
the soul is more active than that of the body, yet the body feels and
lives as well as the soul, is emphatically declared by Epic. in Diog. Laert.
x 63 καὶ μὴν καὶ ὅτι ἔχει ἡ ψυχὴ τῆς αἰσθήσεως THY πλείστην αἰτίαν δεῖ
κατέχειν. οὐ μὴν εἰλήφει ἂν ταύτην, εἰ μὴ ὑπὸ τοῦ λοιποῦ αθροίσματος
ἐστεγάζετό πως: τὸ δὲ λοιπὸν ἄθροισμα παρασκευάσαν τὴν αἰτίαν ταύτην
μετείληφε καὶ αὐτὸ τοιούτου συμπτώματος παρ᾽ ἐκείνης, οὐ μέντοι πάντων ὧν
ἐκείνη κέκτηται : see this same argument repeated in different words 558
—579; and elsewhere in this book. 337 Praeterea cet.; this argu-
ment is more fully developed 445—525. 345 J/utua cet.: with this
and 558—-579 comp. Epic. |. 1. 64; and with this and much that follows
comp. also 65 καὶ μὴν καὶ διαλυομένου τοῦ ὅλον ἀθροίσματος 4 ψυχὴ δια-
σπείρεται καὶ οὐκέτι ἔχει τὰς αὐτὰς δυνάμεις οὐδὲ κινεῖται, ὥστ᾽ οὐδ᾽ αἴσθησιν
κέκτηται. οὐ γὰρ οἷόν τε νοεῖν αὐτὴν αἰσθανομένην, μὴ ἐν τούτῳ τῷ συστήματι
καὶ ταῖς κινήσεσι ταύταις χρωμένην, ὅταν τὰ στεγάζοντα καὶ περιέχοντα μὴ
τοιαῦτ᾽ ἢ ἐν οἷς νῦν οὖσα ἔχει ταύτας τὰς κινήσεις.

350—357 : to say that the body has no sense, and that the soul
spread through it alone feels, is to contradict a self-evident truth: but it
is said when the soul departs, the body has no sense: yes, because sense
like much else is no inherent property, but an accident only. 350
refutat: as this cannot be really disproved, but only denied, Lambinus’
renutat is very specious: but refutat may wellimply ‘tries to disprove’ or
‘thinks he disproves’. 353 man. ver.: not only true, but manifestly
true. 354 corpus sentire=corporis sensus: see ἢ. to 1 331. adferet
1,6. rationem adferet: thus we have had more than once reddere =

192 BOOK III NOTES II

rationem reddere: comp. Cic. Tusc. disp. 1 70 credo equidem wn capite, et
cur credam adferre possum ; and ἢ. to 1 566 possit reddi. 355 palam
dedit=palamfecit: comp. 11 568 palam est, and ἢ. to Iv 41: quod is the
relative. 857 proprium=Kal αὐτὸ συμβεβηκός or coniunctum: see 1
451: sense is a mere eventum, which comes to both body and soul by
their reciprocal action one upon the other; and when this ceases, all
sense ceases for both alike. Lach. Inow see to be mistaken 1n marking
off this and the next two paragraphs, as not connected with what pre-
cedes and follows: the above vss. are a manifest continuation and com-
pletion of the preceding argument ; are in fact a summary of Epic. 1. 1.
64 διὸ ἀπαλλαγείσης τῆς ψυχῆς οὐκ ἔχει τὴν αἴσθησιν (τὸ σῶμα)" οὐ yap αὐτὸ
ἐν ἑαυτῷ ταύτην ἐκέκτητο τὴν δύναμιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἑτέρῳ ἅμα συγγεγενημένῳ αὐτῷ
παρεσκεύαζεν, ὃ διὰ τῆς συντελεσθείσης περὶ αὐτὸ δυνάμεως κατὰ τὴν κίνησιν
σύμπτωμα αἰσθητικὸν εὐθὺς ἀποτελοῦν ἑαυτῷ, ἀπεδίδου κατὰ τὴν ὁμούρησιν
καὶ συμπάθειαν καὶ ἐκείνῳ, καθάπερ εἶπον: it gets for itself and imparts in
turn sense to the soul. At the same time this and succeeding paragraphs
are clearly in an unfinished state, their connexion being often so loose
that they might be interchanged in a variety of ways without loss to the
general argument. But surely it was the poet himself who left them in
this inchoate condition. 357 1) aevo=in vita; 50 ex ineunte aevo five
or six times=ex ineunte vita: we have also in Lucr. aevi florem; Degitur
hoc aevi; partem maiorem conteris aevr; tolerarit aevom ; exigat aevom ;
colere aevom; consumit aevon.; degebant aevom: the poetical aevom having
the various senses of vita and aetas; and in aevo being used here as in
acetate by Plautus. 358 quam exp. ante: seen. to 973 quam nascumur
ante: my correction of this v. which I now believe to be the poet’s, is I
think specious: quam was put in the margin, having become illegible
and passed into wi in the v., and the aevo came from aevo at the end of
the prec. v. The body loses sense, you say: yes, certainly, it loses sense,
a mere accident ; just as during life it loses many other things, strength,
beauty, etc. before the anima is expelled; for the sense shews that anima
is nomin. of expellitur, i.e. anima nondum dimissa: a fortiore, dimissa.
9590. 969: the assertion that the eyes cannot see, but that the mind
sees through them, as through a door, is contradicted by their sense: nay
bright objects often hinder the eyes from seeing them; but this could
not happen to doors; nay if eyes act as doors, we ought to see better by
entirely taking away these doors. 359 foll. Sextus adv. math. vir
350 says οἱ δὲ αὐτὴν (τὴν διάνοιαν) εἶναι tas αἰσθήσεις, καθάπερ διά τινων
ὁπῶν τῶν αἰσθητηρίων προκύπτουσαν, ἧς στάσεως ἦρξε Στράτων τε ὁ φυσικὸς
καὶ Αἰνησίδημος : Lassalle Herakl. 1 p. 316 well compares with this what
Sextus |. 1. 130 says of Heraclitus, ἐν δὲ ἐγρηγορόσι πάλιν διὰ τῶν αἰσθητι-
κῶν πόρων ὥσπερ διά τινων θυρίδων προκύψας (ὁ ἐν ἡμῖν νοῦς) Kal τῷ περιέ-
χοντι συμβαλὼν λογικὴν ἐνδύεται δύναμιν, and suggests that a comparison
of this passage on the one hand with that quoted just above and on the

BOOK ΠῚ NOTES 1 193

other with this of Lucr. makes it highly probable that the illustration
here employed came from Heraclitus: in what relation to him Aeneside-
mus stood is well known; the other, the peripatetic Strato of Lampsacus
who went by the name of ὁ φυσικός, seems also to have been much
indebted to him. This connection in the present case will appear yet
more probable, if we compare Tertull. de anima 14 near end, non longe
hoc exemplum est a Stratone et Aenesidemo et Leraclto; nam et insi
unitatem animae tuentur quae...per sensuaha variis modis emicet: the
doctrine here assailed by Lucr. is lucidly stated by Cic., Tusc. 1 46 nos
enim ne nunc quidem ocrilrs cernimus ea quae videmus; neque est enim
ullus sensus in corpore, sed, ut non physict solum docent, verum etiam
medic qui ἰδέα aperta et patefacta viderunt, viae quasi quaedam sunt ad
oculos, ad auris, ad naris a sede anima perforatae: he adds animum et
videre et audire, non eas partis quae quasi fenestrae sint animt; and so
Epicharmus νόος ὁρῇ καὶ νόος ἀκούει, TaAAG κωφὰ Kai tupAa. 361 Diffi-
cilest I keep: v 526 quid in hoc mundo sit eorum ponere certum Difficile
est: difficile there, and 111 328 and 330 haud facile est really mean ‘it is
not possible’ according to that common rhetorical device of bringing
your meaning out more strongly by understating it; and this is the
sense here. To be sure if you press the word dzcere, it is possible enough
to say this or anything else; but then Deszperest is equally out of place;
for the wisest man may say it, as well as the most foolish; and indeed
‘it is impossible’ only means ‘it is absurd’: Livy vii 40 3 nec facile est
aut rem re. aut auctorem auctort praeferre: yet literally this is easy
enough to do. 362 I now retain, though the v. is obscure and incom-
plete: for this sense of theirs draws on and forces (? the soul) to the very
acves of the eyes. 364 Lumina luminibus, another instance of false
antithesis : see n. to 1 875. 367—369 he concludes his case here, as
so often elsewhere, with a brief argument addressed to the common sense
of men, which here, as 1 915, takes the form of a sarcasm: see the
instances given at 1 984—987. 369 pustibus appears to mean the
door-posts together with their fores: so it was understood by Lactant. de
opif. dei 8, where he assails this, as he terms it, ineptissimum argumen-
tum of Lucr.: quoniam evalsae cum postibus fores plus inferunt luminis.

370—395: you must not believe what Democritus teaches, that the
atoms of the soul alternate one by one with those of the body, and are
therefore as many in number: they are in fact not only much smaller,
but also much fewer; not enough to awaken sense through the body,
which often therefore does not feel very small things that come in con-
tact with it; they not exciting any part of the soul. 370 wossts; see
n. to 1 327, 371 recurs Vv 622; and proves that Democrzte goes with
what follows. Dem. sancta sententia: Lucilius has Valeri sententia
dia, Horace sententia dia Catonis. vire thus coupled with a proper
name and without an epithet is curious; its force is much the same as that

M. I. 19

194 BOOK Ifl NOTES Ii

which it has in Arma virwmque and Aen. Iv 3 Multa viri virtus. 372
privis, 389 priva, here and elsewhere in Lucr. are exact synonymes of
singula. 373 variare is of course neuter here, as often in Lucr.
This is another leading point of difference between Epicurus and Demo-
critus, and one we should not have known of but for this passage: Arist.
de anima 1 5 at beg. merely says of Democritus that his ψυχή is ἐν παντὶ
τῷ αἰσθανομένῳ σώματι, Which would be quite as true of Epicurus’, who
in many recorded points agreed with him on this question as on others,
such as making the soul consist of the smallest and roundest atoms.
374 animae elementa: V1 755 Sed natura loct ope: comp. too Virg. geor.
u 144 tenent oleae armentaque laetu: the only two cases where Lucr.
lengthens by the caesura a short vowel, πὶ 27 and v 1049, occur likewise
in the middle of the fourth foot. minora, as proved at length 179—
980. 377 dumtaxat: seen. to 1 130. 379 Corpora are any of
these small external bodies, a grain of dust etc.; whereas a corpore is
our body on which these fall: the word is thus used with his usual
indifference to ambiguity: see n. to1 875. Then notice the prima of
378, which=an adv. whereas in 380 prima ex.=primordia; though from
the turn of the sentence, you would think there was an antithesis in
these two uses of prima, there being none whatever. There is thus no
occasion to read priva with Bentl. in these two places, which would then
give exordia by itself the force of primordia which it nowhere has in
Lucr. If a grain of dust touch the body without being felt, then the
distance between two atoms of the soul must be greater than this grain.

381 Nam cet.: Lucr. does not venture to say how few they are
compared with those of the body; but these instances prove he thought
the disproportion to be very great: the foot of a gnat or a grain of dust
touching the body must touch thousands and thousands of atoms: if
then these can often fall on the body without being felt, that is without
touching any atoms of the soul, these must be vastly fewer than those of
the body. But does not the body feel as well as the soul? yes; he has
elaborately proved already that the one feels as well as the other, and
that neither of the two can possibly feel without the other; but he has
also shewn that the izztws motus must proceed from the anima, and not
merely from the anima, but from that part of it which is the animus,
and not merely from the animus, but from that fourth nameless substance
in it; the anima and animus then form one connected whole in the
body ; if therefore any atoms of the anima are moved they will at once
communicate with the animus, and sense will commence and be imparted
to the whole anima, and from the anima to the body which will then
feel. But many atoms of the body he argues may be touched without
any part of the soul being moved, and therefore without there being any
commencement of sensation: see what presently follows, 391—395.
adhaesum: this word occurs three times in Lucr. and seems to be found

BOOK HI NOTES II 195

nowhere else: he dearly loves these substantives in -ws. 383 aranei:
this contraction is forced on him by the necessity of the metre. 387
levitate...gravatim: seen. to 11 1054: Ov. met. x 738 male haerentem et
mma levitate caducum (florem). 390 et cetera is exactly the English
‘ete.: 11812 nigrum cum et cetera sentit; 855 odorem—sonitum—sapo-
rem—frigus—vaporem, Cetera. 391 crendum semina: another instance
of this idiom so common with him: see ἢ. tor 111. 392 393 wrongly
transposed by Marullus, and in all editions from Junt. to my second: pri-
mordia is put in the dependent instead of the leading clause, as so often
in Lucr.: see ἢ. to 1 15: czendwm est multa prim. corporis priusquam
sem. anim., cor. nos. tmm., sentiscant haec primordia concussa esse.
393 sentiscant: τν 586 sentiscere: the word seems to occur nowhere else.
394 tuditantia: see n. to τι 1146. 395 he seems here briefly to indi-
cate the process spoken of at 381, that of the particles of the anima
meeting, moving the animus, which excites sense, reacts on the rest of
the anima and then on the body, thus at last exciting its sensation.
396—416: the aims has more power over life than the anima:
without the animus the anima cannot remain one instant in the body,
but if the former is safe, much of the latter may be cut off without
destroying life: the anzmus is like the pupil of the eye, the least hurt to
which destroys the sight; the anzma is like the rest of the eyeball, much
of which, not all, may be cut away and sight continue. 996 est...coer-
cens: 11 1089 generatimst rebus abundans: see ἢ. there; and comp. Livy
v 34 6 quod quidem continens memoria sit, vitar claustra: see n. to
1 415, 397 dominantior recurs vi 238: see ἢ. to Iv 961 divisior, dis-
tracttor. 398 mente animoque, 402 mens animusque, here as else-
where mere pleonasms. 399 obs. partem pars. 401 comp. iv 924
Aeterno corpus perfusum frigore letr. 403 Quamvis est: 705 quamvis
. eunt; τν 426 quamvrs est. 404 membris must be the parts yet left
or the trwncus; but it is very harsh, considering the membris of 403.
405 aetherias: see ἢ. to1 250 and 11115: when Lach. was dealing so
remorselessly with the aetheriae awrae of Lucr. and Virgil, he ought not
to have left unscathed the striking expression of Aen. vI 436 quam vel-
lent aethere in alto, i.e. merely in the upper air on earth: imitated by Sen.
Hipp. 501; 848; Oed. 220: and when Sen. Herc. Oet. 893 says Superest
et auras ille caelestes trahit, an imitation of Aen. 11 339 superatne
et vescitur aura, he almost comments on 1 546 s2 vescitur aura Aetheria:
both Ovid and Seneca too have aetherias auras after Lucr. and Virgil ;
[and Mart. 1 6 1 Aetherius . . per auras. | 406 Sz non omn., at:
11 1017 δὲ non ommia sunt, at multo cet.; Cic. pro Sest. 7 μέ alle. . δὲ
mon omnem, at aliquam partem maeroris sut deponeret; Catull. 54
Othonis caput (oppido est pusillum) Et, trirustice, senilauta crura,
Subtele et leve peditum Libonis, St non omnia, displicere vellem T'rbi
cet.;° Lucil. 1 33 Muell. Se non amplius, at lustrum hoc protolleret

13—2

196 BOOK III NOTES II

unum. 409 vivata potestas recurs 558: vivatus is also mentioned by
Festus. 410 foll. he presses the comparison: much of the anima may
be taken away, not all: also much of the eyeball, not all. 412 sine

pernicie is used absolutely as in 326 Nec sine pernicie divelli posse viden-
tur: comp. too 347 Discidium ut nequeat frerr sine peste maloque: the
gen. eorum too I now see has no proper reference to what precedes; and
in other places, as 111 1016, Iv 43, 68, 101 and 116, is found without
meaning at the end of a v. et orbez I now read: if ef were absorbed in
fret, orwet would easily pass into eoru with a final half a: comp. v1 1143
omnem for omnet. We have seen in ἢ. to 208 how often Lucretius and
others have etiam quoque, quoque etiam, quoque item and the like; we
have seen too that six times at least he has e¢ for etzam, which is found
in Cicero, Now Cic. Verr. 11 1 11 has erunt qui et in eo quoque auda-
ciam eius reprehendant; de leg. 1 4 quod et an ws etiam qui nune
regnant manet: [οὐ] Halm: Livy xxx 10 15 deinde et propugnatoribus
quoque incommodae erant: [et] Madvig: xxxv 35 9 Nabids quoque e
ipsi: [et] Madvig: Prop. 1 9 18 June etiam felix inter et arma
pudor; Aen. 1 5 Multa quoque et bello passus; [Petron. 90 ceterum
ne et tecum quoque habeam rixandum.| So we propose for Lucr.: ‘that
too, the cutting it entirely away round the pupil, cannot be done to the
ball even, without total ruin’, 1.6. of the whole seeing power. With
position of ef orber comp. 233 Nec calor est quisquam cur non sit
miaxtus et aer; Horace’s non, st male nunc, et olim Sic erit; Cic, ad Att.
χα 49 1 maultam igttur salutem et Philiae; and for sense Lucr. v1 7
Cuius et extincti; Virgil’s timeo Danaos et dona ferentis ; and for sense
and position Ov. met. vil 571 aliquis tamen haurit et illas. 413 tan-
tula pars media illa: v 593 Tantulus alle...sol. 413 foll. here too the
comparison is minutely carried out with 398 foll.

417—444; this soul and mind (we may now use the terms indif-
ferently) have a birth and are mortal; for they are of the smallest and
finest atoms, being more easily moved than anything else, even by images
of the rarest things, smoke mist and the like; as these things then
melt into air, so must the soul when severed from the body dissolve even
more quickly: how indeed, when the body cannot keep it, could the air
which is much rarer hold it together ?—Martha, p. 149, thinks it pro-
bable that his 28 proofs of the soul’s mortality were taken from some
formal treatise. I have no doubt they were all set forth in one of the
37 books of Epicurus περὶ φύσεως. Zeller well observes that, with the
stoics, the soul keeps the body together ; with the epicureans, the body
the soul. 417 Nune age, as he now passes to a new branch of the
discussion. 420 Digna cet.: culex 10 Ut tibi digna tuo poliantur car-
mina sensu, a manifest imitation which shews that Digna tua is not to
be tampered with. disponere: τ 52 mea dona tibi studio disposta
fideli: [comp. Prop. v (Iv) 157 J/oenia (Afunere Muell.) namque pio conor

BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II 197

disponere vers (versus Muell.)] 421 wno sub ἢ. 1: see n. to
1841; and comp. Livy 1 367 sub wsdem nominibus.. appellati sunt ;
43.9 sub wusdem nominibus.. fecit; Ov. met. 1 410 sub eodem nomine
mansit ; trist. 1v 10 68 Nomine sub nostro fabula nulla furt; Lucan
1405 sub Herculeo sacratus nomine portus. 424 Quatenus: see n. to
τι 927. unum, coniuncta res: seen. to 184; and 1 57. 428 nam:
see notes 1: that this is cause, not effect, is proved by 179 foll. esp.
186 44 quod mobile tanto operest, constare rutundis Perquam seminibus
debeé cet. and 203 Nunc iagitur guoniam est aninu natura reperta
Mobilis egregie, perquam constare necessest Corporibus parvis cet. 431
im somnis is thus used thirteen times by Lucr. who never once says
somnis sopitt or the like, never indeed employs the plur. except in
the phrase 72 sonmts: this will shew how rash and unfounded Lach-
mann’s alteration and note are. 433 Nam cet. as fully set forth
in Iv. 434 Nunc igitur quontam: in consequence of the long
parenthesis he begins the protasis afresh, instead of simply saying Zé
quoniam with reference to 425 foll.: with 425 Principio quoniam,
428 nam, 434 Nune igitur quoniam comp. the precisely similar passage
Iv 54 Principio quoniam, 61 nam, 63 Quae quoniam, which Lach, should
not have overlooked. [Just so Cic. epist. 1 9 23 scrips etiam (nam. .
ab orationtbus .. delectarunt) scripst igitur cet.; xv 101 quoniam id
accidit, quod...(murificus enim generis...) quoniam ergo rita accidit, wt
cet.: comp. too de orat. 111 70 et, si satis esse putatis, ea... Antonius ;
sed, si his contentt estis cet. See Hand Turs. ut p. 193.] 440 vas quasi:
555 tllius quasi quod vas esse videtur, and 793, repeated v 137, in
eodem vase of the body: so Cic. Tuse. disp. 152 corpus quidem quasi
vas est aut aliquod animi receptaculum; and others: thus the later
Greek philosophers speak of the body as the ψυχῆς ἀγγεῖον : this use
of vas and ἀγγεῖον is probably taken from the physiological sense of
the latter: Arist. p. 521 b 6 πάντα ὅσα φύσει ὑπάρχει ὑγρὰ ἐν TO σώματι,
ἐν ἀγγείοις ὑπάρχει, ὥσπερ καὶ αἷμα ἐν φλεψὶ καὶ μυελὸς ἐν ὀστοῖς
K.7.A.; 692 ἃ 12 μαστὸς ἀγγεῖον γάλακτος : 787 ἃ 3 ἀγγεῖα πνεύματος :
hence Luecr. says vas quase. 441 Cum ec. nequit: for the indic.
see n. to 1 566.

445. 458: again the mind is born with the body, grows with it, decays
with it: in the child it is weak, in the man strong, in the aged again child-
ish; it is natural then it should die also with the body. 445 446 are
very similar to Herod. 111 134 αὐξανομένῳ yap τῷ σῴματι συναύξονται καὶ αἱ
φρένες, γηράσκοντι δὲ συγγηράσκουσι καὶ ἐς τὰ πρήγματα πάντα ἀπαμβλύνον-
ται, Whether Atossa learnt it from Democedes or Herodotus from Demo-
critus: comp. Arnob. 117. 448 in a frag. of Metrocorus, vol. Hercul.
vi col. 7, ἐπεὶ yap ἡ ψυχὴ μεικρῷ σώματι παρατείνουσα κατὰ THY παιδικὴν...ν
αὔξεται, he is speaking of the same thing. 449 Inde ubr robustis
adolevit viribus aetas, 451 Post ubi 1am validis quassatum est viribus

198 BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II

aevi: ‘Hor. sat. 1 9 34 adoleverit aetas’ J. E. M.; where Kirchner cites
Livy 148; Aen. x11 438. Wak. well compares Virg. geor, 11362, 367 Ac
dum prima novis adolescit frondibus aetas, Inde ubi iam validis amplexae
stirpibus ulmos ; for in what precedes and follows Virgil shews that his
mind was saturated with the verses of Lucr.: comp. 363 se laetus ad
auras Palmes agit laxis per purum imnussus habenis with v 786 Arbori-
busque datunist...per auras Crescendi magnum inmissis certamen habenis:
360 contemnere ventos Adsuescant, 365 [psa acie nondum cet. with τι 448
Prima acie constant ictus contemnere sueta: 351 Qui saxo super atque
ingentis pondere testae Urgerent with 111 892 saxi, Urgerive superne obtri-
tum pondere terrae: 324 genitalia semina, 325—327 Tum pater—fetus,
328 Avia tum resonant avibus virgulta canoris, 331 Laxant arva sinus,
superat tener omnibus umor, Inque novos soles audent se granina tuto
Credere and 47 Sponte sua quae se tollunt in luminis oras, 336—345
followed by the Lucretian Quod superest, with v 851 genitalia semina in
a different sense, 1 250 foll. Postremo pereunt timbres, ubi eos pater aether
cet., 256 Frondiferasque novis avibus canere undique silvas, 1 809 tener
umor, V 806 wmor superabat in arvis, 771 Quod superest, 780 Nunc redeo
ad mundi novitatem et mollia terrae Arva, novo fetu quid primum in
lunvinis oras Tollere et incertis crerint committere ventis, and then follows
the description of the early world of which Virgil’s is a summary: 310
Praesertim si tempestas...glomeratque ferens incendia ventus with 11 32
and v 1395 Praesertim cum tempestas, τν 871 glomerataque multa vaporis
Corpora quae stomacho praebent incendia nostro, the words like, the
meaning quite different: 260 Lacoquere et magnos scrobibus concidere
montis, 295 Multa virum volvens durando saecula vincit, 297 media ipsa
with 1 201 Transire et magnos manibus divellere montis Multaque vivendo
vitalia vincere saccla, ν 905 media tpsa: 291 auras aetherias, 287 in
vacuum Lucretian expressions: 281 ac late fluctuat omnis Aere renidenti
tellus with τι 325 totaque carcum Aere renidescit tellus: 250 ad digitos
lentesctt habendo with 1 312 Anulus in digito subter tenuatur habendo: °
246 At sapor indicium faciet manifestus et ora Tristia temptantum sensu
torquebit amaro with 11401 foedo pertorquent ora sapore, τν 634 triste et
amarumst: 217 Quae tenwem exhalat nebulam fumosque volucris with v
253 Pulveris exhalat nebulam nubesque volantis: 209 Antiquasque donos
avium with 118 Frondiferasque domos avium: 165 argente rivos aerisque
metalla Ostendit venis atque auro plurima fluxit; Haec genus acre virum
with v 1255 Manabat venis ferventibus...argenti rivus et auri, Aeris item
et plunibt, 862 genus acre leonum: 149 atque ahients mensibus aestas with
1 181 atque alienis partibus anni: 151 saeva leonum Semina with ΠῚ
741 triste leonum Seminium: 140 tauri spirantes naribus ignem with v
30 eque spirantes naribus ignem: 144 Implevere,; tenent oleae armenta-
que laeta with the rhythm of v 202 Possedere, tenent rupes vastaeque
paludes, and then 411 segetem densis obducunt sentibus herbae, 237 validis

BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II 199

terran proscinde wuvencis, 263 1d vents curant gelidaeque pruinae, 293
non hiemes tllam, non flabra neque imbres Convellunt, 47 Sponte sua quae
se tollunt in luminis oras, also 1 197 multo spectata labore Degenerare
tamen, ni vis humana quotannis, 45 Depresso incipiat vam tum nuh
taurus aratro with passages of Lucr. immediately following the one
last quoted, v 206 td natura sua vi Sentibus obducat, nt vis humana
resistat Vitat causa valido consueta bidents Ingemere et terram pressis
prosciidere aratris, 212 Sponte sua nequeant liquidas existere im auras,
Et tamen interdum magno quaesita labore, 216 Aut subsite peremunt
imbris gelidaeque pruinae Flabraque ventorum violento turbine vexant.
Just after where we began, 376 Frigora nec tantum cana conereta
pruina with πὶ 20 neque nix acrt concreta pruina: 402 Atque on se
sua per vestigia volvitur annus with τν 472 Qui capite ipse sua in staturt
vestigia 8686: 428 Vi propria nituntur opisque haud indiga nostrae with
11 650 Jpsa suis pollens opibus, nil indiga nostri: 461 foll. δὲ non cet.
with 11 24 St non cet.: 475 776 vero primum dulces ante omnia musae
Quarum sacra fero ingentt percussus amore, 478 Defectus solis varios
lunaeque labores, Unde tremor terris ; 482 Hiberni, vel quae tardis mora
noctibus obstet with 1 923 Percussit thyrso laudis spes magna meum cor
Et simul incussié suavem mi in pectus amorem Musarum, ν 751 Solis
item quoque defectus lunaeque latebras, v1 287 Inde tremor terras, V
699 noctes hiberno tempore longae Cessant: 490—492 Felia qui potuit
rerum cognoscere cuusas cet. have been compared at 178 with various
vss. of Lucr.: 500 Quos rami fructus, quos ipsa volentia rura Sponte
tulere sua, carpsit compared by Macrob. with v 937 Quod sol atque enbres
dederant, quod terra crearat Sponte sua, satis id cet.: 510 gaudent perfusi
sanguine fratrum comp. with πὶ 72 Crudeles gaudent in triste funere
Fratris: 523 dulces pendent circum oscula nate with 111 895 nec dulces
occurrent oscula nate Praeripere. 449 wiribus, 450 vis, 451 viribus,
452 viribus : see n. to 1 875. 450 auctior is used by Caesar Livy and
others. 456 ceu fumus: 614 vestemque relinquere (se), ut anguts ;
where Lach. in answer to Madvig opuse. pr. p. 312, who objected to the
nomin., quotes also 426 minoribus esse Principiis factam quam liquidus
umor aquat ; αν 698 matoribus esse creatum Principrs quam vox; as well
as examples from Varro and others: ‘Livy xuu 37 ὃ Messen adque
Elit; Tac. ann. x111 19 part ac Nero gradu [Neronem Nipp. Ritter]’ J.
E. M.: and so Cicero himself, writing to Caesar, ad Att. 1x 11 A 3
eandem me saluiem a te accepisse putarvr quam ile. For the usage in
Greek see Dobree advers. 11 p. 223—226. Comp. 598 Emanarit utr
fumus diffusa animae vis, and Sextus adv. math. rx 72 καὶ καθ᾽ αὑτὰς δὲ
διαμένουσι καὶ OVX, ὡς ἔλεγεν ὁ ᾿Επίκουρος, ἀπολυθεῖσαι τῶν σωμάτων καπιοῦ
δίκην σκίδνανται : the same metaph. in Plato Phaed. 70 ὥσπερ πνεῦμα ἢ
καπνὸς διασκεδασθεῖσα. 458 fessa fatisct recurs ν 308.

459— 525: again, as the body is liable to disease, so is the mind to

200 BOOK III NOTES 1

cares and fears; therefore it should partake with the other of death:
again when the body is ill, the mind often wanders and is senseless
before death; it ought then to die, since disease reaches it; for that
which feels disease must die: again in drunkenness the mind shares in
the disorder of the body; but if it can thus be disordered, it may be
killed by a more powerful cause: again in a fit of epilepsy, the sinews
stiffen, the man foams at the mouth and the hke; lis mind is at the
same time disordered by the attack ; then when the fit is over he rises
up reeling and gradually comes to his senses: when the mind then is
thus tempest-tost in bodily disease, how could it battle for ever with
storms in the open air? again the mind may be healed like the body; it
is therefore mortal ; for that which is immortal allows not of any chang-
ing or shifting of parts: the healing therefore of the mind by medicine
and its suffering from disease both alike prove it to be mortal. 459
foll.: comp. what Cic. Tusc. 179 says of Panaetius, alteram autem adfert
rationem, nihil esse quod doleat quin id aegrum esse quoque possit; quod
autem in morbum cadat, id etiam interiturum,; dolere autem animos, ergo
etiam wmterire: what precedes illustrates Lucretius’ last argument.

460 Swscipere would come more naturally in the same clause with videa-
mus: comp. 510: this then might be added to the examples given in ἢ.
to 1 15. 462 Quare cet.: for death results from some disease or pain:
472 Nam dolor ac morbus leti fabricator uterquest. 464 dementit is
found in no other writer of authority. 467 voces i.e. conclamantium:
the custom would in this case be very appropriate in order to decide
whether it were a lethargy or death; the friends were still ad vitam
revocantes : iam conclamatum est could not yet be said; [comp. Prop. v
7 23 and Paley there.] 469 comp. 11977 £t lacrimis spargunt roranti-
bus ora genasque. 467—469 Ov. trist. 111 3 41 Nec dominae lacrimis
in nostra cadentibus ora Accedent animae tempora parva meae? Nec
mandata dabo, nec cum clamore supremo Labentes oculos condet amica
manus ? 479 tardescit seems a ἅπαξ λεγόμ. 480 tur. gl.: Plaut.
asin. 912 pulcre hoe glisctt proeium. 481 Lt iam cetera de genere
hoc, or Cetera de genere hoc or horum are favourite phrases of Lucr.
imitated by Hor. sat. 1 1 13. 483 corpore in ipso = intus in corpore:
506 corpore in ipso is opposed to 508 sine corpore: seen. to 1v 736.

492 Nimirum cet.: Lach. well shews that here begins the explanation
of the symptoms mentioned above. 493 agens anrmam: Cic. Tuse,
disp. 119 antmume autem alia animam, ut fere nostri. declarat nomen;
nam et agere animam et effiare dicumus; ad fam. vill 13 2 Q. Hor-
tensius, cum has litteras scripsi, animam agebat; Catull. 63 31 ankelans
vaga vadit animam agens. 494 fervescunt, and therefore foam, with
reference to spumat; the winds answering to the animam. 4908 Qua:
seen. t01 356. Qua cet.: 1.6. qua consuerunt ferri et est illis munita
via, ‘a regularly made road’. 500 docui, in 492. 502 reflexit

BOOK III NOTES II Zor

neut.: so Iv 1130 vertunt; v 831 vertere cogit; 1422 an fructum con-
vertere ; ΤΥ 135 vertere is ambiguous: vi 823 qua derigit aestus; 1122
aimmutare coactat: comp. also ἢ. to 11 126 turbare=turbari: vi 595
movere; 1190 trahere; 519 tenere; and 1 397 7,986 in se trahere. reddit
is the present. 504 vaccillans : so spelt in Nonius p. 34 who cites
Cic. Phil. 111 31, and there the oldest ms. of Baiter and Halm has
vaccillante ; and so in Apul. met. v 25: I find also from a quotation in
the Libri catal. of mss. 299 that a ms. of Cyprian attributed to the 9th
century has vaccillat. This would confirm its derivation from the
waddling gait of the vacca: Lucr. six times gives 1t the quantity 1t has
in other poets; here A and B rightly have the ce: see n. to 1360; and
comp. mamma mdmilla, offu Gfella, tintino tintinnabulum, Porsenna
Porséna, Catillus Catilus ; and perhaps currus edirilis, quattuor quater,
littera litura.—Joh. Schmidt, Indog. Vocal. p. 104, denies its connexion
with vacca: he says vacillo is from vanerllare, derived from véculus =
vanculus, and compares it with Sanscrit and Teutonic words: the unac-
centuated a of vacillo is then shortened ; comp. dcerbus, médlestus, con-
seribillo. His reasoning is acute and may be right: at the same time
he does not account for the spelling with cc; for bacca buccina bracca
succus muccus for baca etc. are mere modern barbarisms. With the
above comp. what Celsus 111 23 says of an epileptic fit, enter notessumos
morbos est etiam is qui comitialis vel maror nonunatur. homo subrto
concidit, ex ore spumae moventur ; deinde interposito tempore ad se redit
et per se ipse consurgit: the poet’s description is probably taken directly
from some medical treatise ; and we need not look for minute complete-
ness any more than in his account of the plague. 906 LZaec, the
animus and anima. 513 tratecere: comp. 11 951 evectt, and ἢ. there.
514 prosum and 534 Introsum: seen. to 45. ὀ ργΌδιίηιν seems to have
the same force that prorsus so often has in Sallust: Cat. 15 5; 23 2;
Iug. 23 1; etc.: ‘in short’, ‘to say no more’. /ilwm in an affirmative
sentence occurs also iv 515 libella aliqua si ex parti claudicat hilum: I
find no other example ; but vi 576 perhilum is also affirmative. 515
Priscian inst. x ὃ ‘Lucilius in 111 Conturbare animam potes est quicum-
que adoritur’ doubtless blunders. 519 520 so often recurring. 524
eff. praecl.: 1 975 effugiwm praecludit, where see note. 925 Anciprte,
alike whether the animus sickens or is healed. refutatu, another
ἅπαξ λεγόμ. in -us, = refutatio: see ἢ, to τ 653.

526—547: again a man often loses sense and life limb by limb; the
soul then thus severed and lost must be mortal: or if you say it draws
itself together from all the limbs, then the spot in which it is thus
gathered ought to have a livelier sense ; but this is not so; it therefore
disperses, that is dies: nay grant that it can contract itself, you must admit
it to be mortal, for equally in this case it gradually deadens, and sense
and life quit the man. 526 176: so 531 wtque; vi 1243 contagibus

202 BOOK III NOTES If

ibant Atque labore: somewhat similar are 11 962 quo decursum prope tam
siet wre et abire ; and 111 593 labefacta videtur [re anima. 527 is the
most effective instance of sound answering to sense, produced by the
simplest means, that I know of in the whole range of Latin poetry.
529 post inde: he also has post deinde, v1 763 post hinc, v 1007 tum
deinde: post tide is found in Enn. ann. 1], and in Cic, in ῬΊδβοπ, 89 :
Plaut. trin. 768 quid tune postea ? 531 hoc I take in the sense it has
in Iv 658 [oc ubi quod suave est cet.; 1093 Loc facile expletur cet.; V1
274 Hoc ubi ventus cet.; Virg. geor. 11 425; [Catull. 44 13 Hoe (Ο,
Baehrens: Πὲς G, vulg.) me gravedo frigida et frequens tussis Quassavit ;
Lucil. vi 29 Hoc tw apte credis quemquam latrina petisse?; Plaut.
Amph. 164 Opulento homini hoe servitus durast; Pseud. 826 Hoe hie
quidem homines tam brevem vitam colunt .] 807 Hoc ego fut hodie solus
obsessor fori; rudens 388 hoc 8686 excruciat animi, Quia, cet.; Pliny
epist. 11.19 3 tamen hoc quod sedent quasi debilitantur: see Hand for
other instances: it almest = ergo; and the emphatic words of the sen-
tence Sc. cet. come first, as so often in Lucr.: v1 1246 Optimus hoe leta
genus ergo quisque subibat: see n. to 1 419: hoc might have the some-
what different meaning it has in Plaut. trin. 783 hoc. . Suspicionem ab
adulescente amoveris: 1.e. hac re. 532 existit: so 11 796 neque in
lucem existunt primordia rerum; V 212 nequeant liquidas existere in
auras; {auct. bell. Afr. 7 6 latent enim in insidiis cum equis inter con-
valles et subito existunt; 69 1 agmini cius extremo se offerunt atque ex
collibus primis existurt; Cic. Verr. 1v 107 spelunca quaedam.. qua Ditem
patrem ferunt repente cum curru extitisse: see too White. | 597 272
sensu: 596 in taetro tabescat odore; 11 819 tn quovis esse nitore; 111 188
in tra Cum fervescit ; 295 effervescit in ira; 401 artus in lets frigore
lingurt ; 826 inque metu male habet ; Sen. epist. 74 27 τη eadem uterque
forma fuit: seen. to1 999, [Comp. also Cic. epist. 11 12 3 non essem
quidem tamdiu in desiderio rerum mihi carissimarum; xv 6 1 qua apse
in laude vixerunt. | 540 si iam libeat: see ἢ. to 1 968. 545 suis 6
partibus I take to be the parts of the soul itself: comp. 11159 ipsa suis
e partibus una. obbrutescat, a rare word: Afranius 420 has obbrutwi:
AB both spell it with one 6; and so do the mss. of Nonius, and of
Paulus Festi twice over: opportunus occurs in Lucr. five times: in each
ease either both AB or one or the other write oportunus: Servius to
Aen. 1 616 has ‘applicat: secundum praesentem usum per d prima
syllaba scribitur: secundum antiquam orthographiam quae praeposi-
tionum ultimam litteram in vicinam mutabat, per p: secundum vero
euphoniam per ὦ tantum’: i.e. only one p was sounded.

548—557: the mind is as much part of the man, as the ear or eye or
any other sense: none of these can exist alone, but decay at once: so it
is with the mind, which is as closely connected with the body as these
are, 551 atque..ve: see notes 1; and comp. Juv. 1v 76 de qua

BOOK III NOTES II 203

citharoedus Echion Aut Glaphyrus fiat pater Ambrosiusque choraules.
503 Sed tamen cet. =secd in tempore quamvis parvo tamen licuntur:
comp. Cic. de rep. νι 21 (somn. Scip. v1 3) quem oceanum appellatis in
terris, gut tamen tanto nomine quam sit parvus vides; pro Sestio 140
atque hune tamen flagrantem invidia...semper ipse populus Romanus pe-
riculo liberavit; [epist. 1116 7 hoc aspersi, wt scires me tamen in stomacho
solere ridere ; and perhaps Phil. 17 quae tamen urbs mihi coniunctis-
sima plus una me nocte cupiens retinere non poturt; Plaut. Stichus 99
Lonas ut aequomst facere facitis, gquom tamen absentis viros Proinde
habetis quasi praesentes sint ;] Ter. eun. 170 Tamen contemptus abs te
haec habui in memoria; and so Meineke seems rightly to explain Hor.
od. 115 19 tamen heu serus adulteros Crines pulvere collines, i.e. quam-
vis serus, tamen collines ; the force of tamen is very much the same in
τ 50, 988, 992. 855 homine...guod vas: see ἢ. to 94; and for
vas comp. 793 or v 137 in eodem homine atque wm eodem vase manere ;
and ἢ. to 440.

558—594: again body and soul depend for life one on the other:
without the body the soul cannot give birth to vital motion, nor can the
body without the soul continue and feel: mind and soul produce their
sense-giving motions, because their atoms are kept in by the bodily
frame: this they cannot do in the air; or else the air will be a body and
an animal, if the soul can move in it as it moved in the body: often
again in life the sou] seems to fail and to be on the point of going: it is
so shattered together with the body that a more violent shock would
destroy it; how then could it exist a moment, not to say an eternity in
the open air? therefore when the body dies, mind and soul die. 558
foll. Denique cet. clearly begins a new argument: in the last section he
shewed that the mind, the mens or animus, not the anima, has a fixed
seat, viz. in the breast, and cannot live away from the body, any more
than the ear or eye; but there he says nothing of the body not existing
without the mind. In our present section he shews the reciprocal de-
pendence of soul and mind and of body one on the other: see what is
said of Lachmann’s punctuation in note 1. The soul runs through the
whole body which depends on it, as much as it depends on the body.
There is a striking resemblance between the language here and that of

323—349; only the conclusion proved is different. 598 vivata potes-
tas: see 409 and n. there. 599 contwncta is neut. plur. and must refer

to potestas twice repeated; yet he usually employs the neut. only when
the substantives are of different genders: this case is very exceptional,
to which I know no parallel; and harsher than even 11 400 ¢aetra ab-
sinthi natura ferique Centaurt foedo pertorquent ora sapore, where Lach.
would prefer pertorqueat. Inter se convuncta : 332 consorti praedita
vita. 060 edere: 11 443 varios quae possint edere sensus ; 816 variantes
edere tactus. 562 sensibus uti, which the soul enables it to do by

204 BOOK Ill NOTES II

giving birth to sense-giving motions. 564 seorswm corpore, without ὦ,
appears an unusual construction. 569 moventur motus: a grecism.
Epic. in Diog. Laert. x 66 coneludes in the same way, ov γὰρ οἷόν τε νοεῖν
αὐτὴν αἰσθανομένην, μὴ ἐν τούτῳ τῷ συστήματι καὶ ταῖς κινήσεσι ταύταις
χρωμένην, ὅταν τὰ στεγάζοντα καὶ περιέχοντα μὴ τοιαῦτ᾽ 7 ἐν οἷς νῦν οὖσα
ἔχει ταύτας τὰς κινήσεις. 573 Corpus enim cet.: he has shewn again
and again that reciprocity on the part of the bocly is necessary to enable
the soul to begin to act and produce sense, 975 in ipso corp. 1.6.
intus in corpore: comp. 605, 506, 483 and n. there: that 5¢6— 590 (692—
606) are to be transferred here will be manifest, when 1t is once pointed
out. 578 velle: 1v 518 Lam ruere ut quaedam videantur velle, 579
supremo tempore occurred 1 546: v1 1192 adssupremum denique tempus.
581 unimo male factum est, male fit, male est are all found in Plautus ;
the last in Terence. 582 animane liquisse: animus seems more usual
in this phrase; as Caes. de bell. Gall. v1 38 + relinquit animus Sextiwm ;
Suet. 1 45 repente animo lingur.. solebat: Ovid heroid. 11 130 Languor
et ancillis excipienda cado. 583 repruchendere: this spelling recurs 839 ;
in three other instances AB have repreh.: for meaning see n. to vi 069
reprehenlere. 585 haec appears to be the fem. plur., Luer. never uses
hae; see v1 456 haec comprendunt, and un. there; but haec may be neut.
as 559 Contuncta. 987 prodita: 11 933 aliquo tamquam partu quod
proditus eatet. 588 22 aperto: vi 817 in apertum. 989 omnem..
per aevom: τι 561 aevom.. per ommnem: see n. there. 594 duobus
means of course the ants and auima, taken as one, and the corpus:
comp. the eunclusion of a very similar argument 348 Ut videas quoniam
coniunctust causa salutis, Coniunctam quoque naturam consistere eorum,
1.6. corporis atque animal.

595—614: when the soul leaves it the body rots away: a proof that
the soul has come out of its inmost depths, to cause such utter ruin ;
the soul then must have been torn in pieces itself, ere it got out of the
body; again a dying man feels not the soul escaping entire from him, but
failing in this spot or that: if the mind were immortal, it would not
mourn its dissolution, but its having to quit the cover of the body.

596 in taet. od.: Wak. quotes Aen. 111 228 tum vox taetrum dira inter
odorem, taeter is several times applied to odor by Luer., still oftener to
the sense of taste, sometimes to the sight. m: seen. to 537, 998
uti fumus: see Epicurus cited to 456 cew fumus. 607 is the manifest
sequence of the statement concluded at 606 (591). 610 Verum cet.
i.e. omnis, understood from 607 Nec guisquam: see ἢ. to 1 1088.

611 sensus alios, the senses as well: see πὶ to 1 116. parti: see n. to
11111. 613 Von tam, followed not by guam, but 614 by Sed magis:
comp. Plaut. trin. 688 Volo ego mihi te tam prospicere qui meam eges-
tatem leves, Sed ut inops infamis ne sim; Cie. de tin. 1 1 gquidam autem
non tam wd reprehendunt, .. sed tantum studium tamque multam

BOOK III NOTES II 2035

operam ponendam in eo non arbitrantur; and see Madvig’s note, and
also his emend. Liv. p. 573; where in XLIv 25, to answer non tam quia,
he adds in 3 ceterum; but to me it seems that after a long quasi-paren-
thesis the non tam is answered in 5 by mags cupret. 614 μέ angriis :
see n. to 456.

615—623: why too is the mind never born in the head or foot, but
in one fixed spot, if not because it is only a part of the body; and the
body, like other things has its own fixed organism, so that every member
has in it its proper place? effect ever follows cause, nor can fire arise in
water, frost in fire. 615 anime mens: IV TO8 Mens animi vigilat ;
Vv 149 animi via mente videtur ; VI 1183 Perturbata animi mens ; Catull.
65 4 Wens animi; Plaut. epid. τν 1 4 Pavor territat mentem animi.

616 unis: 11 159 ipsa, suis 6 partibus una; 919 wna eademque; v 897
mec moribus unis. 617 omnibus I now take for the dat. mase. though
it is somewhat harsh. 619 ube gaicquid = ubi quicque: see ἢ. to II
957. 620 malt. partitis artubus esse: comp. τι 909 “μέ simili totis
animalibus esse; and vi 268. 618—621 ‘the constr. seems to be
“reddita sunt cuique certa loca cet.: [redditum est cuique] ubi—crea-
tum”: then in 620 it may be a question whether esse depends on possit
or is subject of redditum est curque again, May not cuique and quicquid
be taken not specially for parts of the body, but universally? There isa
law which appoints to each several thing its place of birth, its place to
abide in, and its existing with such a manifold organisation of joints,
that etc.’ J. KE. M.—This paragraph as it stands has very many diffi-
culties: others have seen that there is no very close connexion with
what precedes and follows; and that the language much resembles 784—
797. At the same time it cannot be transferred there: the argument
is far from being the same: there existence of both the soul and the mind
out of the body is denied: here the existence of the mind alone anywhere
but in its own proper spot in the body, etc. In my earlier eclitions,
thinking as I now think that 620 621 must refer to the organised
body, 1 inferred that cuiqgue and quicquid must refer to parts of the body.
To this Professor Mayor’s argument is directed: cuique and quicquid I
allow are better taken generally; as 787 Certwm ac dispositumst οὐδὲ
quicquiét crescat et insit, since the whole of that passage has apparent
reference to our own. As for the constr. of 619 Prof. Mayor’s may be
simpler ; but I took it as=certa loca reddita sunt ubi quicque nascatur
et natum durare possit. I now believe that certainly one v. and proba-
bly two at least are lost after 619; and that this might shew the mean-
ing of what is wanting: Certum ac dispositum naturae legibu’ constat.
Hoc jiert nostrum quogue corpus foedere debet, Atque ita cet. 622
623 comp. 784 Denique in aethere non arbor, non aequore in alto Nubes
esse queunt cet. and v 128 foll. 623 Fluminibus: in understood from
in igni: IV 98 speculis in aqua splendoreque in omni; 147 wbe aspera

206 BOOK III NOTES II

saxa Aut in materiem ligni pervenit; V 128 iw aethere non arbor, non
aequore salso: Aen. v 512 notos atque in nubila fugit.

624—633: again if the soul is immortal and can exist alone, it must
have the five senses, as imagined by writers and painters; but none of
the senses can exist alone away from the body. 626 sens. arctam,
630 sensibus auctas: 1 631 quae nullis sunt partibus aucta; Catull. 64
165 quae nullis sensibus auctae. 631 sorsum 1.6. a corpore: comp. I
910 foll.: Lucr. writes indifferently sorswm and seorswm, seorsus and
sorsus, when they are equally dissyllables: seorswm is sometimes too a
trisyllable ; 1v 491 foll. within three or four vss. we have seorswm, seor-
sus and sorsum ; and seorsum both trisy]. and cissyl.; v 447 448 sorsum,
Seorsus. deorsum and dorsum, both found in inscriptions, may be com-
pared: see also n. to τι 202. 633 per se 1.6. sine corpore: to sentire
and esse, animae is understood from 632.

634—669: since life and sense pervade the whole body, if it be cut
in two by a sudden stroke, the soul must also be divided ; but what is
divided cannot be immortal : a soldier’s arm or foot or head cut off in the
heat of battle will shew for a time remains of sense and motion; a
serpent chopped in pieces will writhe and with the severed inouth seek to
reach the other pieces of the body : now you cannot say that in each part
there is an entire soul; therefore the soul has been divided, and there-
fore is as mortal as the body. 639 dissicretur: see ἢ, to τι 951.

642 falciferos currus recurs V 1301: in prose falcatus. 643 permiata
caede calentes recurs V 1313; [comp. Catull. 64 360 Cutus iter caesis
angustans corporum acervis Alta tepefaciet permixta flumina caede. |
647 in...stwdio quod dedita: 1v 815 quibus est in rebus deditus; Catull.
61 101 in mala Deditus vir adultera; | Arnob. 159 quosdam im sapientia
deditos.| 648 petessit: v 810 aurasque petessens ; Cic. Tuse. disp. 11 62
qui hane petessunt nullum fugiunt dolorem: Festus p. 206 says it is
saepius petere ; verbs of this form being generally accounted desiderative.

650 abstraxe: seen. to 1 233. 653 moribundus: 566 ἡ. to 129: Aen.
x 341 Deatera.. moribunda. 658 wtrwmque is the Greek ἀμφότερον,

our ‘both’, as v1 499 wtrumque Et nubis et aqguam.; where see note:
perhaps minanti may be retained, ‘protruding from’: comp. Virgil’s
scopulique minantur In caelum. 660 ancisa seems not to oceur else-
where: see Key’s Essays p. 9: he compares it with anguzro and anhelo ;
and the an with ava. [{Comp. Ov. fasti 111 377 Atque ancile vocat, quod
ab omni parte recisum est; also Varro 1. Lat. vir 43 ancilia dicta ab

ambecisu, quod ea arma ab utraque parte, ut Thracum, incisa. | 662
Ipsam se, the mangled body and tail. 663 ardenti, burning with the
torture. 665 at ew cet. which is absurd; therefore ete.

670—678: if the soul is immortal, why cannot we recollect what
happened before our birth? if the mind is so changed as to forget every-
thing, that is very like death; so that even thus yon must admit that

BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II 207

the soul which then was, has perished, and that the one which now is,

is newly made. 672 super=insuper: see ἢ. to 1 649. anteactam
refers to nascenttbus: the time before our birth. 675 retinentia ap-
pears to be a ἅπαξ λεγόμ. 676 longiter: see ἢ. to 1 525. 677 so

that even granting this transmigration of souls, the soul that was before
birth has really perished, and on entering a new body has really become
a new and different soul: in the above passage he is evidently assailing
the pythagorean metempsychosis, which Enn, ann. 10 thus states, Ova
parire solet genw’ pennis condecoratum, Non animam , et post inde venit
dwinitw’ pullis psa anima.

679—712: if the soul enters the body after it is fully formed, it
should not seem to be so mixed up with it, but should have a hole to
live apart in; whereas in fact it so penetrates the whole frame that the
very teeth have feeling ; it therefore has birth and dies; else it could not
be so united with the body, nor being so united leave it entire: but if it
ean so enter and then spread itself over the whole body, then must it
perish thus diffused ; even as food transmitted into the body perishes
and then furnishes out of itself another nature: thus the soul that entered
will die, and another be formed out of it; thus still the soul will be
mortal, 681 vitae limen: he has δέν limen several times; see ἢ. to 11
960. 682 conveniebat 1.6. vivere from 084, 688 sensw partic. :
Plaut. miles 262 has the same constr., on potuit quin sermone suo
aliquem familrarium Participavertt de anica ert; and truc. Iv 2 35
St volebas participare. 689 Aforbus i.e. dentium: comp. v1 657 alium
quemvis morbi per membra dolorem? Op. 6. 8. p., arripit acer Saepe
dolor dentes. stringor seems a ἅπαξ λεγόμ. [696 exsolv...ee: ‘sonst nur
mit blossem Ablativ’ Draeger hist. synt. 1 p. 475.] 700 Zanto
quigue magis is repeated v 343; so v1 460 Quam sint quoque magis:
quique is of course the abl.; and seems natural enough, though no other
instances are found: is it similar to φεῦ in wtqui, etc.? see ἢ. to 1 755.
cum corpore fusa=soluta et mixta cum corpore. 701 foll. comp. 756
Quod mutatur enim dissolvitur, interit ergo; Traiciuntur enim cet. :
but in our passage 701] is more parenthetical; and the enim of 702
refers directly to 700. 710 tum 1.6, at the time when this theory
supposes it to enter the body.

713—740: are atoms of the soul left behind in the dead body or
not? if they are left, it cannot be immortal, since it has left parts of
itself behind ; if it goes out entire, whence come worms and other living
things into the carcase? but if souls come from without into these
myriads of creatures, do they each create a body for itself, or enter bodies
already formed? then why make a body, when they are better without ?
disease and cold and hunger come from the body: but were it ever so
useful, they could not make it: if again they entered it already made,
they could not unite with it so closely as to have sensation in common.

208 BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II

[718 necne: ‘Cic. Tusc. 111 41 sunt haec tua verba necne?’ Draeger hist.
synt. 1 p. 324 Ὁ: he says these are the only two instances of necne
in direct question. | 713 Linguontur, 714 lincuntur: 1 743 relin-
quont, V 1239 relingunt; lincwnt three times; secntur seven times ;
iv 581 locuntur; 590 logrontur; 1018 loguunter: all these forms pro-
bably, except perhaps the last, were in the mss. of Lucr. within a
ceneration of his death: a proof of the excellence of our mss. in their
spelling ; as none even of Virgil’s retains the old forms in so large a
proportion as this. 715 Haut ert ut possit=haut poterit: 725 est
ut Quaerendum videatur: seen. to 1 620: on rhythm of v. see ἢ. to II
1059. 717 sincerts membris taken as the parts of the soul would
agree with 531 Scinditur itque animae hoc quoniam natura nec uno
Tempore sincera existit: but I now take sinc. mem. to be ‘from the
untainted body’, as Mr Paley suggested to me, in contrast to 719 ran-
centi iam viscere: with such use of snc. comp. Virg. geor. Iv 285 Jnsin-
cerus apes tulerit cruor. membris has thus its usual force, the body
opposed to the soul: comp. 120; 127; 439 ea hominis membris ablata
vecessit ; 772 membris earre senectis ; ete. 721 £xos is also found in
his imitators Serenus Samonicus, and Arnobius [1v 8 sz exos genus
hamanum velut quidam vermicult nasceremur'}. perfluctuat seems
another ἅπαξ Aey.: this is imitated by Arnob. vii 17 fervescere vermabus
et jluctuare. 728 ubi sint: so esse in 789; 791; 795 whe esse et crescere
possit. 730 negue=non: see ἢ. to 23. 731 Dicere seems to be
used here as ἃ subst.: comp. 1V 765 meminisse tacet; and n. to1 99];
Livy xxvii 27 3 ad vos quemadmodum loquar nee consilium nec oratio
suppeditat. 734 contage: probably he wrete contaget or contagi, as
iv 336 he has contagé: comp. v 930 dabi, and see ἢ. to 1 978: but 1 806
we find also wt tabé nimborum. 736 Cum subeant, and v 62 Sed
simulacra solere in somnis fallere mentem, Cernere cum videamur ewm
quem vita reliquit, and 680 C'rescere itemque dies licet et tabescere noctes,
Et minui luces, cum sumant augmina noctes, as well as Cato de re rust.
90 cum far insipiat, puriter facito: in these cases cum with the pres. sub).
or potent. seems to denote repetition ; as cum seems clearly to be tempo-
val in them all. Lach. says ‘recte cum subeant: cum res ita comparata
sit ut subeant corpus, esto lis sane utile sibi tum facere corpus’: this
to me explains nothing: Juv. x1 177 all the best mss. have Omma cum
factant, hilares nitidique vocantur. 738 wtqui: see ἢ. to1 755.
741—775 : again why do animals inherit the qualities of their
parents, unless the mind like the body comes from a fixed seed? if the
soul is immortal] and passes into different bodies, why do not dogs and
stags, hawks and doves, men and beasts exchange dispositions? they say
the immortal soul changes with the change of body: false; for what
changes is broken up, and therefore dies: if it be urged, a human soul
always passes into a human hody, a horse’s into a horse, why then 15 not

BOOK III NOTES II 209

the child as wise as the man, the foal as the horse? the mind grows
young in the young body you say: then is it mortal, since it thus loses
its former properties: or how can the soul come to maturity with the
body, unless its partner from the beginning? or why does it seek to quit
the aged body? it need not fear its ruin; for an immortal runs no risk.
741 triste leo. Sem.: Virg. geor. 11151 saeva leonwm Semina. leonum
Seminium, 746 suo...semine seminioque, 1V 1005 quo quaeque magis sunt
aspera seminiorum: in all seminium has the same meaning, the race
breed stock or seed collectively to which a creature belongs; therefore
leonum seminiwm is not the young of lions, but the breed or race to
which lions belong: comp. Iv 998 catulorum blanda propago; 1232
virum suboles and n. there; and Virg. geor. 111 101 prolemque parentum
and the like. 746 semine semintoque, thus joined for the sake of the
much loved assonance; as 753 fera saecla ferarum: see ἢ. to 1 826.
750 Hyrcano: Cic. Tuse. 1108 nobile autem genus canum illud seumus
esse (in Hyrecania). 754 quod aiunt: comp. 1008 Hoc, ut opinor, id
est,.. Quod memorant cet. 756 comp. 701 Quod permanat enim dis-
solvitur, interit ergo. 759 Denique has here the force which it has in
some of the instances given by Hand Tursell. 11 p. 266 πὶ 1, as Ter.
Phorm. 325 Vereor ne istaee fortitudo in nervom erumpat denique: [comp.
Sen. rhet. contr. 1 4 10 adulescens, denique adulteros excita. | 762
prudens: Cic. Cato 20 temeritas est videlicet florentis aetatis, prudentia
senescentis: prudens is the φρόνιμος of Aristotle; see eth. Nicom. vi 9.
764 Nec tam doctus cet. is added because 760 animas homenum in
corpora semper Ire humana implies animas equorum wre vm corpora
equina. fortis equi vis: see 8. 765 tenerascere: the mss. of Pliny
and Celsus appear to give the form teneresco. 766 Confugient with
the infin. is unusual: confugient i.e. ad eam sententiam, tenerascere cet.:
comp. 11 1128 fluere adque recedere...manus dandum est: ‘18 it not
similar to the use of adducor ut res ita sit, for adducor ut credam rem

ita esse’ J. Ἐς. M. st tam fit: see ἢ. to 1 968. 769 Quove modo
poterut=quaeram praeterea quo modo possit. 770 almost the same
as v 847. 772 membris...senectis: v 886 and 896 aetate senecta:

senecto corpore is found in Sallust, and senecta aetate in him and Plautus;
Mommsen inscr. regni Neapol. 3833 Sed. cum . te. decuit. florere. aetate .
cuenta. Interretsti . et liquistt in maeroribus. matrem.: senecta and vuven-
ta therefore must be originally adjectives: Lach. p. 44 quotes from
Varro senescendorum hominum, adolescendt humant corporis; and from
Verrius Flaccus rebus florescendis: cretus concretus suetus etc. are often
thus used; Livy Ovid and others have requietus; see also n. to 11 363.
774 aet. sp. vet.: seen. to 11 1174.

776—788: again how absurd that immortal souls should be present
at conception and fight who shall get the mortal body, unless indeed
they bargain, first come first served! 776 conibia or conibja? there

M. 11. 14

210 BOOK III NOTES II

is no other certain example of the word in Lucr. as v 1013 Conwbiwm is
introduced by conjecture: many and recently Luc. Mueller de re metr.
p. 258 argue for the two quantities of the word: the latter says ‘nota-
bile quidem debuit videri tot exempla durissimae synizesis cur noluerint
vitare poetae ponendo coniugiwm vel coniugialem .sed enim augebitur
admiratio reputantibus Lucani et Senecae, qui nunquam ὁ vel τὸ muta-
runt in consonam, versus tales Wox ube conwbhii pretium mercesque solu-
tast. Conubia vitat: genus Amazonium scias. porro Statius synizesin
cum alibi non plus septiens admiscrit, in uno vocabulo conwbit, 51 pro-
ductam habet semper secundam, deciens octiens eam adhibuisse erit
credendus’: he further shews that the old grammarians Consentius and
Servius hold it to be short in such cases. Conington to Aen. 1 73
observes ‘the analogy of pronubus innubus might be pleaded as proving
a variation of quantity; but no clear instance of conibewm occurs except
in Sidon. Apoll.’: Prudentius also has it short; and Claudian, a far
higher metrical authority than any of the Christians, writes epist. 11 18
Vectigal meritae conubiale lyrae : it is quite true that in the time of all
these writers the native feeling for quantity was utterly lost and did not
then exist in the Roman world; it was learnt only from tradition by
Claudian and Servius as much as by Prudentius or us; but in reply to
Conington’s pertinent remark it might be said that the word is not used
at all by Tibullus and Propertius nor in his lyrics and elegiacs by Catul-
lus; that Ovid has only the form conubia in his elegiacs; that the word
in the singular or dat. and abl. plur. occurring so often as it does in
some writers, in Virgil 8, in Statius 15 times, is always found with the
w in thesis, never once with it in arsis, and that though Lucan who
resolves the 72 of the gen. twice uses conwbiz, Virgil Aen. Iv 167
chooses to say conscius aether Conubiis, not Conubit.—But I now have
the conviction that here it is coniibia: I have taken mortalis which
would be equivalent to conwbjum or conibja, and find that Lucr. has
mortéis 23, mortalis 14 times; it is therefore beyond all reasonable
probability that we never should find in any poet conébjyum; the more so
that the final syll. might be elided, as Stat. Theb. x 62 Expers conubii et.
But what follows completes I think the demonstration that it is cond-
brum: here in Lucr. we have Denique conubia ad; Stat. silv. 1 3 19
Conubia ardenti; 11 3 110 Conubia et fidos; v 3 241 Conubia unus
amor; Theb. 1 245 Conubia.hane etiam; πὶ 579 Conubia et primo;
vil 235 Conubia, et multa; [Nemes. cyneg. 28 Conubia et saevo viola-
tum crimine patrem.| Now that conabja should have only these two
positions in the v., never once one of the many more convenient ones,
and that the a should always be elided, is more than improbable: take
natura or aeternd in Lucr. and see where they come in the v.: whereas
conubia would naturally form the first foot, as above in Statius,
and could seldom have any place but that or the 2nd foot, as here in

BOOK III NOTES II 2rl

Luer.; and the @ must be elided. conubia is used also by Ovid amores
1 7 21 for concubitas. 778 immor. mor. Inn. num.; see ἢ. to 11
1054, 779 praeproperanter another ἅπαξ λεγ. 780 prim. pot.:
Fronto ad ΝΜ, Caes. 11 15 huie primo ac potissemo; Livy v 12 12 pri-
mus ac potissomus; XxvI 40 1 primum ac potissemum ominium ratus ;
vit 29 2 and xxi 28 1 prior potiorque; Xxxv1 7 6 prius potiusque est;
XXXIX 47 ὃ nihil prius nec potius visum est. 782 volans adv.: νι 742
and Aen, v1 191 venere volantes.

784—829: again everything has its proper place assigned to it; and
thus the mind cannot be out of the body away from sinews and blood:
if it could be in the head or heels or any other part of the body (and
this would be much more natural than that it should be out of the body
altogether) there it would still be within the man: now as mind and
soul not only are in our body, but have a fixed place in that body, it is
still more inconceivable that they could exist wholly out of it; therefore
the soul dies with the body: nay thus to join a mortal thing with an
immortal is too absurd: but if you say the soul is immortal, because it is
sheltered from all that would destroy it, that is not true; not only does
it suffer with the body, but it has other ailments of its own, fears for the
future, remorse for the past, madness and lethargy. 184—797 recur
v 128—141 with very slight differences. 784 in aethere non cet.:
but in aethere nubes, in aequore pisces, in arvis arbor: comp. 622 623.
787 ube quicquit=ubi quicque, as is shewn above. 790 posset enina
multo prius i.e. in capite cet, esse, quam Sine corpore oriri sola et a nervis
longiter esse: on the parenthesis see ἢ, to v1 1022: I have noted many
like this in Cicero to Atticus; atque hi (nolo enim te permoveri); ego
adhuc ( pervent enim cet.); omnino (scli enim sumus); quae quidem (ita
enim cet.); cur tu (video enim cet.): and in Livy, as inde (recepti enim
cet.); et (cam enim hiemps instabat); et (nam appetebat tempus); ipse (tam
enim cet.): ceterum (quippe ea pignera cet.), ceterum (etentm cet.): ad
Att. tv 5 1 should run thus quid? etiam (dudum enim circumrodo quod
devorandum est) subturpicula mihi cet. 793 Tandem is used here in
not a common sense: comp. Plaut. miles 1062 2, Afinus ab nemine
accipiet. M. hew ecastor nimis vilist tandem; Ter. eun. 1055 ut haeream
in parte aliqua tandem apud Thaidem; Phorm. 630 Verum pono esse
victum eum: at tandem tamen Non capitis er res agitur, sed pecuniae.
{See Plaut. asin. 175 and Ussing there; and perhaps Cic. pro Rose.
com. 8 quid, st tandem amplius triennium est?| an eodem homine
cet.: 554 non quit sine corpore et ipso Esse homine, ilhus quasi quod
vas esse videtur. 794 nostro quoque cet.: not only is it in our body,
but in that body it has its fixed place. 796 anfitiandum Posse: est
om. because esse is contained in Posse, according to Lachmann’s rule
explained ati 111. wmfiteandum is spelt with ¢: ¢ is a gross error.
801 amutua fungi recurs Iv 947: for mutua see ἢ, to 11 76, fungi

14—2

212 BOOK III NOTES II

n. to 1 441. Observe the poetical tautology with which in this pas-
sage after his usual fashion he enforces an important doctrine: certwm
ac dispositunist, crescat et insit, sine corpore orirt Sola, im eodem homine
atque in eodem vase, certum Dispositumque, esse et crescere, durare
genique, diversius..magis disiunctum discrepitansque, nmortali atque
perenni. 820 ab rebus munita: Sallust Cat. 32 1 ab incendio intelle-
gebat urbem vigiliis munitam; Hor. od. πὶ 16 | Danaen.. munierant
satis Nocturnis ab adulteris; Colum. x1 3 2 hortwm ab incursu hominum
pecudumque munimus; Livy xx11 1 3 8686 ab tnsidiis munierat; [Caes.
b. civ. τι 9 5 tecta atque munita est ab omni rctu hostium; auct. b. Alex.
78 2 provinciasque populi Romani a barbaris atque mimicis regibus...
munivit.| The sense admits of no question ; but it may perhaps be a
question whether the vitalibus ab rebus of mss. was not used by Lucr.
in the sense of letalibus with contemptuous allusion to the use of
vitalia as a euphemism for mortualia: Sen. epist. 99 22 quam multas
cum maxime funus locatur! quam multis vitalia emuntur / and Petron.
sat. 71 at end interim, Stiche, profer vitalia in quibus volo me efferri,
and 42 bene elatus est, vitali lecto, stragulis bonis. 826 male habet:
Ter. Andr. 436 hoc male habet virum; 940 qui me male habet; hecyr.
606 haec res non minus me male habet quam te; Tib. 1 4 76 Quos male
habet multa callidus arte puer; [Lucil. vir 20 Hance «ἰδὲ vult male habere,
uleisct pro scelere evus. | 827 ‘there is much force in Praet. male
adm., if you compare futuris in 825: not only present bodily suffering
(S24), but fear of future suffering (S25); and when evil deeds are past
and gone, remorse remains’ J. Ἐς ΔΙ. Praet. adm. is the abl. abs.

male adm.: v 1224 Negquid ob admissum foede. remordent: 1v 1135
conscius ipse animus se forte remordet; Aen. 1 261 quando haec te cura
remordet.

830—869: thus the soul being proved to be mortal, death is nothing
to us; for as we felt no discomfort, when Rome and Carthage were war-
ring for the empire of the world, we shall feel none after the dissolution
of body and soul, though heaven and earth go to ruin: if our soul even
do exist after death, that is nothing to us, whose identity consists in the
union of soul and body: or if infinite time to come collects again and
gives life to the very same atoms of which we consist, that is nothing to
us, when this identity has once been broken; even as we know and
remember nothing of our former selves, if as is probable infinite time
past arranged the atoms just as they now are in us: death will prevent
us from existing in that future time and feeling the ills that may befall
that repetition of ourselves: death then will at once make us for ever-
more as if we never had been. 830 foll. Epicurus to Menoeceus in
Diog. Laert. x 125 says τὸ φρικωδέστατον οὖν τῶν κακῶν ὁ θάνατος οὐθὲν
πρὸς ἡμᾶς, ἐπειδήπερ ὅταν μὲν ἡμεῖς ὦμεν, ὁ θάνατος οὐ πάρεστιν, ὅταν
δ᾽ ὁ θάνατος παρῇ, τόθ᾽ ἡμεῖς οὐκ ἐσμέν. Both Lactantius and Bayle

BOOK ΠῚ NOTES ΠῚ 512

assail Epic. and Lucr. with the ‘Mors misera non est: aditus ad mor-
temst miser’; but neither meets them on theirown ground. 830 Nil
est ad nos: 845 Nil tamen est ad nos; 926 Multo igitur mortem minus
ad nos esse putandum est; 972 Respice item quam nil ad nos anteacta
vetustas..fuerit: Lucr. is prob. translating Epicurus’ οὐδὲν πρὸς nas.
Plin. epist. vil 17 12 recte an secus, nihil ad me; paneg. 31 nihil hoc ad
urbem ac ne ad Aegyptum quidem; Ov. trist. 11 472 Loc est ad nostros
non leve crimen avos ; Cic. de fin. 1 39 nzhil ad Epicurum: Madvig cites
there de div. 11 78, and other instances. [Comp. also Cic. in Pis. 68 rectene
an secus, nihil ad nos, aut, st ad nos, nihil ad hoc tempus. For anumber
of exx. in Cicero see Nizol. p. 19 col. 1.] 831 habetur here=intelle-
gitur, not simply existimatur: comp. 1758 quad a vero vam distet habebis,
andn.there. 833 comp. culex 33 Graecia cum timait venrentes undique
Persas; Juv. x1 113 Litore ab oceano Gallis venientibus: vento is con-
tinually used by Livy for the hostile advance of soldiers: see Arnob.
vil 50 at beg. 835 Horrida cet.; Lucr. seems to have been thinking
of Ennius ann. 311 Africa terribili tremit horrida terra tumultu ; and
Spenser faerie qu. 1 11 7 to have been thinking of Lucr. That with their
horror heven and earth did ring: Catullus too, quoted in ἢ. to 57,
imitates Lucr.: Virg. catal. 12 3 Zerrarwm hic bello magnum con-
cusserat orbem. 836 In dubtoque cet. 1.6, omnes humani in dubio
fuere utr. ad reg. 5101 cadendum cet.: Lucr. is very fond of such in-
versions: see n. to 1 15: huwmanis, as 80 Percipit humanos odium, where
see note. ad regna cad.: Livy 1 40 3 praeceps inde porro ad
servitia caderet; Publil. Syrus 101 Cito improborum laeta ad perniciem
cadunt: with these vss. comp. Livy xx1x 17 6 in discrimine est nune
humanum omne genus, utrum vos an Carthagimenses principes terrarum
videat: was Livy thinking of Lucr. or do both of them refer to
Ennius perhaps or Naevius? 839 uniter apt recurs 846; and the
phrase is found thrice in v, wniter being apparently used by Lucretius
alone; as well as longiter: the words are opposed to discidium, and
express that organic union of body and soul which gives a man his indi-
viduality and personal identity. 842 Non si terra cet. a proverbial
expression: see n, to 1 2 3 and 6—9: Juv. 11 25 Quis caelum terris non
misceat et mare caelo; Livy τν 3 6 quid tandem est cur caelum ac terras
misceant?: comp. what Cicero de fin. 111 64 calls tla vow inhumana et
scelerata, adopted by Tiberius and Nero, Ἔ μοῦ θανόντος γαῖα μιχθήτω πυρί’
Οὐδὲν μέλει μοι, Tapa yap καλῶς ἔχε. Sextus pyrrh. hyp. ΠΙ 229 is an
excellent comment on the above vss. καὶ ὁ ᾿Επίκουρος δέ φησιν “ὁ θάνατος
οὐδὲν πρὸς ἡμᾶς" τὸ γὰρ διαλυθὲν ἀναισθητεῖ, τὸ δὲ ἀναισθητοῦν οὐδὲν
πρὸς ἡμᾶς" φασὶ δὲ καὶ ὡς εἴπερ συνεστήκαμεν ἐκ ψυχῆς καὶ σώματος,
ὁ δὲ θάνατος διάλυσίς ἐστι ψυχῆς καὶ σώματος, ὅτε μὲν ἡμεῖς ἐσμέν,
οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ θάνατος, οὐ γὰρ διαλυόμεθα, ὅτε δὲ ὁ θάνατος ἔστιν, οὐκ ἐσμὲν
ἡμεῖς" τῷ γὰρ μηκέτι τὴν σύστασιν εἶναι τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ τοῦ σώματος οὐδὲ

511 BOOK III NOTES II

ἡμεῖς ἐσμέν. Cic. Tusc. disp. 1 90 nec pluris nunc facere Jf, Camillum
hoc civile bellum quam ego illo vivo fecerim Romam captam.

843 si iam: see ἢ, to 1 968: the assumption is of course false. st
zam nostro sentit cet.: similarly involved in construction are 1566 possit
tamen omnia reddi Mollia quaé fiunt...Quo pacto fiant cet.; 632 Non
possunt ea quae debet genitalis habere Materies; 645 8. partes ignis eandenr
Naturum quam totus habet super canis haberent; 11 1133 quanto est res
amplior, augmine adempto, Et quo latior est, in cunctas cet.; ΝἹ 158
Ventus enim cum confercit franguntur in artum Concreti montes cet. and
176 Fecit ut ante cavam docwi syissescere nubem; also 111 261 Sed tamen
ut potero summatim attingere tangam; Iv 1119 Nec reperire malum
id possunt quae machina vincat; 193 primum quod parvola causa
Est procul a tergo quae provehat utque propellat: Ovid is often very
licentious on this head: comp. ars 1 339; amor. 11 5 13 14, and 18;
ibis 3; ex Ponto1 1 80; 579; her. 10 110. [Coinp. also Plaut. Amph.
arg. 17 Blepharo captus arbiter, Uter sit non quit Aniphitruo decernere ;
ib. v. 81; Catull. 66 40 adiuro teque tuumque cuput, Digna ferat, quod
st quis inaniter adiurarit; Lucan 1x 568 (corr. by Madvig adv. 11 p.
133) An sit vita brevis nil longane differat aetas?; Calpurn. 1x 60
Munera namque dedi...Voculem longos quae ducit aedona cantus. |
Lucr. might have written here Δ si cam sentit, nostro cet., but we feel
the present order to be more impressive: very similar is v 177 Watus
enim cdebet quicumaque est velle manere In vita, where he might have
written Debet enim, natus quicumque est, velle cet.; Virg. ecl. χα 12
At mecum raucis tua dum vestigia lustro Sole sub ardenti resonant
arbusta cicadis, where, as I have learnt from Dr B. H. Kennedy,
mecum belongs to the clause tua dum cet.: Virgil too might have said
At raucis, mecum cet.: see also ἢ. to 11 250 Declinare—sese. 845 comptu:
see n. to 1 950 compta. 847 foll. Wee st materiem cet. refers
probably to some theory hke this in St Austin civ. dei xx11 28 miro-
bihus autem quiddam Marcus Varro ponit in libris quos conscripsit
de gente populi Romani, cuius putari verba ipsa ponenda: ‘genethliaci
quidam scripserunt’ imquit ‘esse in renascendis hominibus quam ap-
pellant παλιγγενεσίαν Graeci: hac scripserunt confict in annis numero
quadringentis quadraginta, ut idem corpus et eadem anima, quae fuerint
comuncta wn homine aliquando, eudem rursus redeant in coniunc-
tionem’. 848 comp. 857. 850 foll. ‘Cic. Tuse. 191; Prodicus ap.
Plat. Axioch. 369 B’ J. E. M. 851 repetentia, another word com-
mon only to him and his constant imitator Arnobius who twice uses it,
11 26 oblitam (animam) quod paulo ante sciebat ex oppositu corporis amit-
tere repetentiam priorum, and 28 quod enim rebus ingressis priorum
repetentiam detrahit, et intra se gesta inrecordabili debet obliteratione
deperdere: it is then almost certain that Arnobius found repetentia in
Lucr. and he seems to be referring both to this v. and 675: Lachmann’s

BOOK III NOTES II 215

objections are wire-drawn; repetentza nostri, the recollection of ourselves,
naturally enough indicates that continued consciousness of our personal
identity which is broken only by death; so long as we live, memori
guimus nos reprachendere mente; when dead, non quimus: repetentiam
nostri amittimus. 852 Ft nwnc: ‘and so too now’: Plaut. cure. 493
Et nunc idem dico; Poen.1 1 14 Μὲ nune ego amore pereo; Caes. bel.
Gall. γι 13 12 et nune, qui diligentius eam rem cognoscere volunt, ple-
rumgque illo discendi causa proficiscuntur, 853 derllisi.e. nobis. 854
cum respicias: seen. to 11 41 cum videas. 856 possis: see ἢ. to1 327.
859 reprachendere=repetere: Wak. compares Cic. Verr. 11 51 quod
erat imprudentia praetermissum, id quaestu ac tempore admonitus repre-
hendiste. 860 vitat pausa recurs 930. vageque cet.: 923 nostros
tunc illa per artus Longe a sensiferis primordia motibus errant: here then
Deerrarunt passim motus cet. because deerrarunt primordia, Sensifer unde
oritur primum per viscera motus, as he says 272. 862 misere aegreque ;
as male est, bene est: Catull. 38 2 JWalest mehercule et est laboriose ;
Lucil. x 2 Muell. firmiter essent; and comp. 863 male.. Accidere. 862
foll. comp. Sen. epist. 36 9 foll. 864 probet: see ἢ. to 1 977 probeat.
866 temendume without est, because of esse according to Lachmann’s rule:
see n. to1 111: see also 111 796 enfitiandum posse. 868 Differre anne: anne
recurs 1V 781: diff. anne seems like dubito, nescio an, implying a double
clause ‘fueritne an non’. 869 Jortalem cet.: Amphis in Athen. vir
p. 336 ο θνητὸς ὁ Bios....0 θάνατος δ᾽ ἀθανατός ἐστιν, av ἅπαξ τις
ἀποθάνῃ.

870—893: when a man laments that after death he will rot or be
the prey of beasts, be sure there is something wrong with him: he does
not separate his dead carcase from his present self ; and cannot see that
after death there will be no other self to stand by and mourn the self
thus mangled, or else burnt on the pyre; for if it is an evil after death
to be torn by wild beasts, it is surely as much one to burn in flames or
the like. 870 whi videas: seen. to ῃ 41. se... ondignarier: I know
no other instance of an acc. of the person in this sense; an acc. of the
thing is common enough: comp. Aen. 11 93 caswm imsontis mecum indig-
nabar amici with v 350 casus miserari insontis amict; so that miserari=
andignart; and Lamb. would read here miserarzer: 884 endiqnatur se
mortalem esse creatum; 1045 Tu vero dubitabis et indignabere obire; Sul-
picius ap. Cic. ad fam. 1v 5 4 hem nos homuncult indignamur si quis
nostrum interiit. 871 cor. posto: see n. to 892. 872 wnterfiat ; as
effio, confio; see ἢ. to 1 1004. 873 non sinc. sonere, a favourite me-
taphor with Greeks and Latins from Plato downwards: Theaet. p. 179
Ὁ διακρούοντα εἴτε ὑγιὲς εἴτε σαθρὸν φθέγγεται. sonere, as 156: Enn.
trag. 106 neque crate neque blandi quicquam sincere sonunt: seen. to 150.
sub. stin.: IV 1082 Ht stimule subswnt. 876 dat cet. i.e. dat id quod
promittit se daturum, et id ex quo promittit se daturum: wnde datum

216 BOOK III NOTES II

is a regular phrase: see Hor. sat. 11 2 31 and Bentl. there, who cites
Ovid and Persius. 877 etcit: IV 1272 Licit enim; Virg. ecl. 111 96
reice capellas; [Hor. sat. 1 6 139 Deicere de saxo Ἢ Stat. Theb. rv 574
reicitque; Sen. Phoen. 426 proiciet: Seneca often has ddice, 6bici,
Obicit or siibicit. 878 esse...super i.e. superesse. 880 in morte, after
death: Sen. epist. 30 5 and 8 uses zm ipsa morte for the moment of
dying, but 9 in morte means ‘after death’ as in Lucr. 881 miseret
personal: Ennius has mrserete and mesererent; Virgil uses meseresco.
illim, the same as wlinc: Cicero uses both allim and istim: on these
and cognate forms see Ritschl opusc. 11 p. 452—459. dividit illim
1.6. ab illo se: it seems simpler not to join it with removet and so
make ὦ protecto corpore an epexegesis of it, as Lach. does; though that
would perhaps resemble Virg. 60]. 1 54 HHinc...vicino ab limite.

883 contaminat has here the neutral sense that the subst. contagia has in
345 corporis atque animar Mutua contagia, and 740 consensus contagia.
885 aliwm se: Quintil. x11 11 2 cavendum est...ne se quaerat priorem.
888 am cet. with reference to lacerart urive, because it was vulgarly
thought that to be mangled by beasts was a misfortune, to be burnt on a
funeral pile a blessing: Petron. sat. 115 ferae tamen corpus lacerabunt .
tamquam melius ignis accijrat, immo hance poenam gravissimam credi-
mus, ubi servis trascimur: comp. also Sen. epist. 92 34. 889 Tractari;
an unusual meaning: in Ennius and others it has the sense of to drag:
see Fore. 890 torrescere appears to be a ἅπαξ λεγόμ. 891 892
denote one mode of burial, that of embalming and laying in a sarcopha-
gus: though in the time of Lucr. burning on a pile and gathering the
ashes in an urn was the common method, the other was also practised;
the numerous sarcophagi of all ages are sufficient proof of this. 891
in melle: it appears from many passages that honey was a principal
means of preserving a dead body: see Xenophon Varro Josephus in
Lamb. and Hav. [Alexander’s body was so preserved: Stat. silv. 111 2
117 (Friedlaender Sittengesch. 11 p. 175)]. 892 sum. gel. aeg. saat
prob. denotes the bottom of the sarcophagus on which the embalmed
body was laid out: 871 corpore posto: but bodies were sometimes stretched
on the bare rock out of which the tomb was hewn, as proved by many
ancient tombs that have been opened: or it may refer to a stone bed,
like the lectt mortuartz of the Etruscans: see corp. inscr. I 1313 for a
curious inscription found in a sepulchral chamber at Falerii, in which
they are assigned to various people, these lectz being hewn out of the
rocky walls, [Comp. Mart. vir 44 13 Supraque pluteum te iacente vel
saxum, Fartus papyro dum tibi torus crescit.| aequore: Iv 107
speculorum ex aequore, 893 common burying in the earth: [Ov.
met. Iv 243 enectum pondere terrae...caput:| Virg. geor. 11 351 Qut saxo
super atque ingentis pondere testae Urgerent, imitates this v. of Lucr.
with quite another sense,

BOOK III NOTES II 217

894911: they say, you will see no more wife home and children;
but they do not add, you care not now for these; else they would not thus
grieve for you: another adds, you sleep the sleep of death, freed for ever
from all ills; but we remain to mourn evermore: you might ask this
man, if the dead only sleeps, why mourn for himevermore? 894 Jam
zam: Cic. Verr. 1 77 tam tam, Dolabella, neque me tur neque tuorum
liberum...miserert potest; Catull. 63 73 Jam tam dolet quod egi, iam
tamgque paenitet; 64 143 lam iam nulla viro turanti femina credat; Aen.
Iv 371 tam tam nec maxima Iuno Nec Saturnius haec oculis pater aspicit
aequis; [11 701 lam tam nulla mora est:) so in Ovid tam numquam
videndus, loca iam non adeunda, and the like=non amplius cet. nequte
ux, opt.: it is not certain that these words go with what follows: the
older editors seem to join them with what precedes, though their stopping
is ambiguous. 895 nec dulces cet.: Virg. geor. 11 523 dulces pendent
circum oscula nati, Casta pudicitiam servat domus; Gray elegy 21 For
them no more the blazing hearth shall burn Or busy housewife ply her
evening care, No children run to lisp their sire’s return Or climb his
knees the envied kiss to share: Virgil and Gray I fancy joined the uxor
with the domus. [occurr. praeripere: Plaut. Bacch. 631 Mfilitis para-
situs huc modo aurum petere hine venerat; Cas. ul 5 68 Ego huc missa
sum ludere; asin. 901 ecquis currit pollictorem arcessere?; Pseud. 645
Reddere hoc, non perdere, erus me masit; Ter. Ph. 102 Voltisne eamus
visere?; hec. 188 nostra ilico It visere ad eam; ib. 345 filius tuus intro
at videre; eun. 528 misit porro orare ut venirem; Virg. Aen. 1 527 Nec nos
aut ferro Inbycos populare penatis Venimus aut raptas ad litora vertere
praedas; Hor. od. 1 2 7 Omne cum Proteus pecus egit altos visere
montes; ib. 11 21 7 Descende .. Promere languidiora vina; Ov. her. 1
37 te quaerere misso..nato; Prop. 11 12 Lbat et hirsutas ille videre
feras; 1 6 33 Seu pedibus terras seu pontum carpere remis Ibis; 1 20
23 At comes invicti vuvenis processerat ultra, Raram sepositi quaerere
fontis aquam ; ul (11) 8 (16) 17 mittit me quaerere gemmas; Iv (111)
1 3 Primus ego ingredior...ferre; V (IV) 171 Quo ruis imprudens, vage,
dicere futa, Propertz?; Wilmanns’ exemp. inscr. Lat. 2566 vade in A polinis
lavari. | 896 tacita cet.: Virgil was thinking of Lucr. as well as
Homer when he wrote Aen. 1 502 Latonae tacitum pertemptant gaudia
pectus. 897 factrs flor.: Plaut. miles 56 te unum wi terra vivere
Virtute et forma et factis invictissumis. 898 misero misere, κακῷ
κακῶς: Cic. ad Att. 111 23 5 quem ego meserum masere perdidi: Plautus
revels in this and like expressions; see Naeke Rhein. mus. ΠῚ p. 329,
misere misert, scite scitus, bella belle, doctum docte, inique iniqui, mala
malae male, bonus bonis bene feceris, cupida cupiens cupienter cupit:
comp. the Poorly poor man he lived, poorly poor man he died of
Spenser: 1015 L£st insignibus insignis. omnia cet.: Mommsen inscr.
regni Neapol. 3133 Apstulit haec unus tot tantaque munera nobis

Ὁ

218 BOOK III NOTES II

Perfidus infelix horrificusque dies. 900 “να cet. shews indirectly
who the speakers are, as in 909. 901 super =insuper: see ἢ. to
1 649. desiderium cet.: 918 Aut aliae curius desiderium insideat
ret. 904 Zu quidem ut: a rare form of elision in hexameter verse:
see Luc. Mueller de re metr. p. 290: but found also v1 80 Quam quidem
ut: comp. ur 339 Non enim ut; vit 485 Jnnwmerabilem enim; v 589
Alteram utram; tv 616 Plusculum habent; 618 spongiam aquai; 1 1012
alterwm eorum: it oceurs oceasionally in Virgil Horace and Ovid.—
Orell. inscr. 1192 soMNO. AETERNAL. C. MATRINI VALENTI. PHILOSOPHII
EPICUR...MATRINIA CONIUGI INFELICISSIM. 905 Duncan's in his grave:
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well: faerie queene 1 9 40 He there
does now enjoy eternall rest And happy ease which thou dost want
and crave. 906 cinefactwm: Lach. assails Nonius for explaining it
‘in cinerem clissolutum’: after the analogy he says of tawmefucere rube-
facere and the like it must be connected with a supposed neut. verb
cinére: prope must be joined with it: so prope cinef. means ‘qui iam
prope cineris colorem et adspectum nanctus est’. He thus in his short
enigmatical way implies that deste here is not the pyre, but the tomb
in which the body was laid entire and gradually assumed from time the
hue of ashes. —horrifico busto T have no doubt means the funeral-pile:
Aen. x1 200 Ardentis spectant socros semustague servant Busta neque
avellt possunt ; Paulus Festi p. 32 ‘bustwm proprie dicitur locus in quo
mortuus est combustus et sepultus’: and if cénefactwm cannot have the
meaning given to it by Nonius, it must imply that the friends looked on
and wept while the body was caught by the flames and gradually changed
its natural colour for that given to it by the scorching: of the fire. This
is perhaps more poetical than the meaning assigned to it by Nonius,
though it is bold in such a ease to speak dogmatically like Lach. ; but it
spoils the fine passage to join, as he does, prope with cinef.: with the use
of prope here comp. v1 403 prope ut hine teli determinet ictus. 907
Ins. defl.: Hor. epist. 1 14 7 dolentis Insolabiliter. 908 maerorem
seems rather to have the force of dolorem: Cic. ad Att. x11 28 3 maero-
rem minui: dolorem nec potui nec, si possem, vellem. 909 Lllud ab
hoc: here, as 900, with poetical indirectness he tells who is the speaker
of 904—908: probably the son or nearest relation is singled out. 91]
Cur quisquam aeterno cet. with reference to 907 aeternumque Nulla dies
cet,

912—930: men say glass in hand ‘enjoy the moment, it cannot
be recalled’; as if after death one felt the want of wine or aught
else: in sleep we have no thought for life; how much less then in
death if there can be a less than nothing! for death is a more com-
plete dispersion of our matter, a sleep that knows no waking. 912
foll. Martha p. 159 foll. well contrasts the sternness of Lucretian with
the frivolity of Horatian epicureanism ; the ‘carpe diem’ and the like.

«
.

BOOK III NOTES II 219

912 tenentque: 1 495 manw retinentes pocula rite. 913 saepe = ut
saepe fit: sce n. to v 1231. ora is very vaguely used by the poets;
here it must mean the brows: Aen. v1 772 wmbrata gerunt civili tem-
pore quercu: for it would be far-fetched to suppose that the crown on the
head shaded the face. 914 Hx an. wt die: τν 1195 facit ex animo
saepe; Ter. eun. 175 Utinam istuc verbum ex animo ac vere diceres; 179
Ego non ex animo misera dico; Sen. epist. 78 19 riset et quidem ex
animo; Catull. 109 4 zd sincere dicat etexanimo. brevis cet.: Amphis in
Athen. vii 336 C Hive παῖζε: θνητὸς ὁ Bios, ὀλίγος οὐπὶ γῆς χρόνος : copa
37 Pone merum et talos; pereat qui crastina curat! Mors awrem velleis
‘vivite’ art ‘ vento’. 915 fuerit has its well-known force: Stive erimus
sew nos fata fuisse velint: found already in Plaut. capt. 516 me fuisse
quam esse numio mavelrm. 917 torres: Lach, quotes from the glossar.
Cyrilli ἀπόκαυμα astilacio torres; and for the form compares labes tubes
pubes cet. 918 aliae: this gen. is found even in Cic. de div. 11 30
aliae pecudis tecur nitidum atque plenum est, aliae horridum atque exile:
réi monosyll. as Iv 885 ilhws ver constat rmago: see n. to 1 688. [In
Livy xxiv 27 8 all mss. have aliae partis: but see Madvig.] Plaut.
miles 802 has the dat. Que nisi adulterio studiosus rei nulli aliaest inpro-
bus, where Ritsch] quotes Paulus Fest. p. 27 ‘aliae rei dixit Plautus
pro eo quod est ali ret’: alterae, gen. and dat., occurs in Terence.
921 922 he accumulates words to express how utterly indifferent it must
be to us. 923 924 see n. to 860 vageque cet. 925 correptus cet.:
163 Corripere ex somno corpus. 928 disiectus seems to be a ἅπαξ
λεγόμ. 929 Consequitur: auctor ad Heren. 11 27 consequi videtur, ut
doceamus; Cic. de orat. 111 6 sudoremque multum consecutum esse audie-
bamus; ad Q. fratr. 11 6 5 in eam tabulam magni risus consequebantur ;
de fin. 1v 29 obscuratio consequitur: ‘idem est fere atque accidit sive fit’
Madvig. eto abl.=in leto, in morte: corp. inser. 1 1009 1], 17 leto
tacent; Aen. vu 566 leto sternendus erat; 1x 433 Volvitur Euryalus leto.
expergitus occurs twice in Fronto. 930 comp. Cic. Tuse. 1 92 habes
somnum imaginem mortis eamque cotidie indurs, et dubitas quin sensus
in morte nellws sit, cwm im eius simulacro videas esse nullum sensum?
guem semel est secuta: Ov. met. 11 611 Corpus inane animae frigus
letale secutum est; Colum. vit 4 2 clades sequitur gregem: ‘saepius res
Segui aut consequr aliquem dicitur, ubi recentiores aut absolute sequi
eam dicerent aut aliquem in eam incidere’ Madv. de fin. 1 32: he
cites Το. 11 28 gas ἐστίν Epicurum sequitur dolor; Sall. orat. Philippi
9 malos praenia sequuntur.

931—977: if nature were to say to you or me ‘why lament your
death? if your life has been a pleasant one, why not go to rest satisfied
with the feast? if the contrary, why not end your troubles? for I have
nothing new to give you, if you were to live for ever’: we must allow
her words to be true: if an old man were to bemoan himself, would she

220 BOOK III NOTES II

not with justice thus chide? ‘a truce with tears; the fault is your own,
if you have not had enjoyment’: make way for others: they too will fol-
low you, as you now follow those before you; life is but a limited tenure:
what took place before our birth is nothing to us; judge from this of
what the future will be after our death. 932 hoc alicur...increpet: a
common constr. in Livy: 1 51 1; vi 37 1; 1x 24 10; x 35 11; xxvi 1
9: [‘increpitare alicui aliquid Properzu. Val. Max.’ Draeger hist. synt.
1 p. 384: see Propert. 1v (111) 25 14 speculo rugas incremtante tibi.|
933 Quid {ἰδὲ tanto operest seems to mean qeid tibet est tam magni
moment. 935 Nam gratis cet., 938 Cur non: it can hardly be said
that st is omitted here: it is one of those sentences common in the best
writers, where the first clause is asserted as a supposition: ‘you have
passed, let us say, a happy life; well then ete.’: Cic. ad Att. xiv 13 4
proficiscor, ut coustitueram, legatus in Craectam: caedis impendentis perr-
culum nonnthil vitare videor cet.; sin auten mansero cet.; where, as in
Lucr., the meaning is made clear by the sin of the 2nd part: Hor. epist.
1 1 33—37; ib. 87—89, with δὲ non in 2nd clause; Ov. ars 11 225—230;
Sen. Agam. 262 263; Quintil. 1 2 11; Juv. xvi 17—22. 935 gratis:
its opposite ¢ngratis is used by Lucr. four times: Plautus and Terence
have the full forms gratits and tugratizs, but Cicero uses gratis and ἐγ-
gratis: they mean with the will and against the will respectively.
936 pertuswm cet.: 1009 laticem pertusum congerere in vas: the allusion
here therefore must be to the Danaids: Plaut. Pseud. 369 Jn pertusum
ingerimus dicta dolium; operam ludimus: Marullus says in marg. cod,
Victor. ‘Aauzpa’. 937 ingrata is opposed to 935 grates. 938 ple-
nus cet.: comp. 960 Quam satur cet. and Hor. sat. 1 1 118 exacto con-
tentus tempore, vita Cedat uti conviva satur; then 121 verbum non
amplius addam; and Lucr. 941 cur ampliws addere quaeris: Sen. epist.
98 15 ἐρ86 vitae plenus est, cur adicr nihil desiderat sua causa; Stat. silv.
112 128 abire paratum Ac plenum vita: Orellius |. 1. quotes from
Stobaeus ὥσπερ ἐκ συμποσίου ἀπαλλάττομαι οὐδὲν δυσχεραίνων, οὕτω Kal ἐκ
τοῦ βίου, ὅταν ἡ wpa 7. Comp. too 969 quam tu cecidere cadentque with
Hor. ars 70 guae tam cecidere cadentque: 971 perhaps with epist. 11 2
159: see ἢ. there: 996 Quit petere a populo fasces saevasque secures
Imbibit et semper victus tristisque recedit with epist. 116 33 wt si Detule-
rit fasces indigno detrahit idem. ‘Pone, meum est’ enquit: pono trestis-
gue recedo: 1028 magnis qui gentibus imperitarunt with sat. 1 6 4 qua
magnis legionibus imperitarent, as Lucr. v 1227 has Jnduperatorem...
Cum validis legionibus: 1063 Currit agens mannos ad villam, 1066 Aut
abit in somnum gravis atque oblivia quwaerit, 1068 LHoc se quisgue modo
Sugut (at quem scilicet, ut fit, effugere haut potis est, ingratis haeret) with
epist. 1 7 77 Lmpositus mannis, sat. 116 60 O rus, quando ego te aspiciam
...nune somno et inertibus horis Ducere sollicitae iucunda oblivia vitae, 7
112 Non horam tecum esse potes, non otia recte Ponere, teque ipsum vitas

BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II 221

Jugitivus et erro...cam somno fallere curas: Frustra, nam comes atra
premit sequiturque fugacem, od. τι 16 19 patriae quis exul Se quoque
faugit?; epist. 1 14 13 In culpa est animus qua se non effugit wm-
quam.

939 capis securam cet.: Ov. fasti vi 331 placidamane capit secura
guietem: comp. with what precedes Sen. de benef. 111 4 hoc loco redden-
dum est Epicuro testumonium qui adsidue queritur quod adversus prae-
terita simus ingrati, quod quaecumque percepimus bona non reducamus
nec wnter voluptates numeremus, cum certior nulla sit voluptas quam quae
7am ery non potest. 941 in offensust: offensa in Cicero; as ad Att.
Ix 2a 2 negas te dubitare quin magna in offensa sum apud Pompetum:
so wn invidia, in honore, in amore esse: 1V 1156 Esse in deliciis summo-
que in honore vigere. 943 (cur) Non cet. finem facis: 1093 gui finem ἢ
vitar fecit: the phrase is very common. 945 eadem sunt omnia
semper, 947 eadem tamen omnia restant: so says the preacher 1 9 the
thing that hath been 1s that which shall be, and that which is done ts that
which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun. 948 sz
pergas, 949 sz numquam sis moriturus: I doubt whether I have done
right in reading pergas for perges of mss. in deference to Lamb. and
Lach.: here the decisive future, followed by the more hesitating poten-
tial sis moriturus in a case which must ever continue doubtful, appears
to suit the context: Juv. 1 159 Jahn reads with P vehatur Pensilibus
plumis atque line despiciet nos: Mayor despiciat. 948 Omnia cet.:
1090 lecet quot vis vicendo vincere saecla; 1202 Multaque vivendo vitalia
vincere saecla, where see n. 950 Quid resp.: for the indic. comp.
Madv. opuse. 11 p. 39 who among many other passages cites Cic. ad Att.
xvi 7 4 nunc quid respondemus?; comp. too vi 1106 Nam quid.. puta-
mus, and n. there. intendere litem isa legal phrase; the intentio being
the plaintiff’s claim for damages: Gaius Iv 41 intentio est ea pars formu-
lae qua actor desidervwm suum concludit...si paret, N. N....dare oportere
cet. But probably it here means no more than to bring an accusation
against: auctor ad Heren. 1 27 ex intentione et infitiatione tudicatio con-
stituitur hoc modo: intentio occidisti Aracem cet.; 11 28 ratio est quae
causan. demonstrat veram esse quam intendimus; 45 intendere controver-
stam; Cic, de orat. 1 42; pro Caecina 20, 955 abhinc of the future,
a very rare sense: Lach. and before him Force. cite Pacuvius 21 seque ad
ludos ram inde abhine exerceant. 956 nerfunctus v. praemia: so the
antiquarian Fronto, ad Verum 11 7, onera quaestoria et aedilicia et prae-
toria perfunctus est: 734 mala mutta... fungitur; v 358 neque...fungitur
hilum; 11 940 ea quae fructus cumque es; τ᾽ 1078 quid primum...
Fruantur; 1095 Nil datur...fruendum; τὶ 659 potitur primordia; τι
1038 Sceptra potitus; Iv 760 quem...mors et terra potitast ; Vv 1033 vim
quisque suam quoad possit abuti. 957 Bentl. quotes Democr. frag.
31 Mullach avonpoves τῶν ἀπεόντων ὀρέγονται, τὰ δὲ παρέοντα.. .ἀμαλδύ-

222 BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II

νουσι: comp. too Eur. Hipp. 183 Οὐδέ σ᾽ ἀρέσκει τὸ παρὸν τὸ δ᾽ ἀπὸν
φίλτερον ἡγῇ: and inscr. Lat. 1 1403 Quod fugis, quod iactas, tiber
quod datur: spernere nol: see n. to Iv 880. (960 comp. Stat. Silv.
112 128 abire paratum Ac plenum vita.] 962 magnus: Sen. epist.
110 disce parvo esse contentus et lam vocem mugnus atque animosus ex-
clama; [Mart. vil 44 5 magnus comes eaulis isti.] concede: Ter. hee. 597

Hic video me esse invisam inmerito: tempus est concedere. 963 aned/et,
an old word found in Accius Pacuvius and Lucilius. 966 Nec quis-
guan cet, but his matter is used for the growth of other things. 969

ante haec: these very things which now flourish by your decay, have in
other combinations fallen themselves as you now fall, and in future
combinations will fall again. 971 every one has the wsus, and not
only the wsws, but the wsus et fructus; for usu is doubtless put with
poetical brevity for usw fructu: ususfructus, says the digest, est cus
alients rebus utendi fruendi, salva rerum substantia: the usus was much
more limited; the fructus includes the zszs, not the usus the fructus.
Curius says to Cicero, ad fam. vit 29 1, swm enim χρήσει μὲν tuus, κτήσ ει
δὲ Attict nostri; ergo fructus est tuus, mancipium alius ; and Cicero
replies in 30 2 c2zzs (Attici) quoniam proprium te esse scribis mancipio
et nexo, meum autem usu ct fructu, contentus rsto sum. wd est enim
culusque proprium, quo quisque fruitur atque utitur; Livy xiv 13 15
Masinissam..usu regnt contentum scire dominium et tus eorum qui
dederint esse. But nature gives to none the manciprum ex cure Qui-
ritium, the full and absolute ownership of life; life is only lent; its
usufruct as the digest says is only tus alienis rebus utendt fruendi ;
man is never dominius; nature keeps the dominiwm to herself: Quae-
dam, si credis consultis, mancipat usus, says Horace, but not life; no
usucapio is in force here: οὔτι yap κεκτήμεθα ἫἩμέτερον αὐτὸ πλὴν ἐνοι-
κῆσαι βίον, says Euripides, or Moschion, of the body. [So too Lueil.
XXvII 6 Cum sciam nil esse in vita proprium mortal: datum, Iam, qua
tempestate vivo, chresin ad me recimio; Arnob. 11 27 usu et lis est vita,
non mancipio tradita. manc. and usu I take to be ablatives: so Roby
gramm. pt. II p. XLVIII.] 973 quam nascimur ante: Iv 884 quam
mens providit quid velit ante; v1 979 quam...prius: 11 358 I now read
quam expellitur ante: comp. Tib. 13 9; Iv 78 quam meus ante; Mart.

1x 35 6 quam venit ante. 976 horribile: Pascal found it so: ‘quand je
considére la petite durée de ma vie, absorbée dans |’éternité précédant
et suivant, .. je n’effraie’. 977 Seneca must have been thinking of

Lucr. 830—977 when he penned epist. 54 4 mors est non esse. id
quale sit 1am scio. hoc erit post me quod ante me furt. si quid rn hac re
tormenti est, necesse est et fuisse ante quam prodiremus in lucem: atqur
nullam sensimus tunc vexationem: (comp. 832 anteacto nul tempore sen-
simus aegri)..utrimque vero alta securitas cet.: (comp. 977 non omni
somno securius exstat), Arist. eth. Nicom. 11 9 with truer instinct,

BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II 228

φοβερώτατον δ᾽ ὁ θάνατος" πέρας yup, καὶ οὐδὲν ἔτι τῷ τεθνεῶτι δοκεῖ οὔτ᾽
ἀγαθὸν οὔτε κακὸν εἶναι.

978—1023: the stories told of hell are really true of this life: Tan-
talus, Tityos, Sisyphus, the daughters of Danaus, are but types of people
tormented here by various lusts and passions: Tartarus too, Cerberus
and the furies have no existence; but are pictures of the various punish-
ments of crime in this world; and even if these are escaped, the tortures
of conscience make a hell of earth. 980 foll. this punishment 15 as-
signed to him by many, as Pindar Cicero and Eurip. Orest. 5, a passage
Luer. may have had before him, Τάνταλος Κορυφῆς ὑπερτέλλοντα δειμαί-
νων πέτρον ᾿Δέρι ποτᾶται: see Porson’s long note, and Pausanias there
cited, who describes a picture of Polygnotus and says the latter got the
impending stone from Archilochus: comp. too Welcker, Rhein. Mus. x
p. 242—254: he comments on Alcman’s fragment about Tantalus: Rib-
beck prol. Verg. p. 62; and a learned article by Dom. Comparetti in
Philolog. xxx p. 226—251, on Pindar’s account. 981 cassa form.
recurs 1049. 983 caswm: there is an evident play on the literal and
figurative meaning of this word: comp. with the above Cic. de fin. 160
accedit etiam mors quae, quast saxum Tantalo, semper impendet, tum
superstitio qua qui est inbutus, quietius esse numquam potest: he may well
have been thinking of Lucr. here, as in Tusc. 1v 35 he draws a different
moral from some tragic poet. 986 Perpet. aetatem: νι 236 Quod solis
vapor aetatem non posse videtur Kfficere. 989 Optineat: Livy v 37 5
immensum obtinentes loct; xxxv 27 15 obtinebant autem longo agmine...
prope quingue milia passuum; Cic. orator 221 haec enim in veris causis
maximam partem orationts optinent. 992 nobes: see n. to 1 797.

993 volwcres seems to be explained by angor and curae, but as a poet he
joins them by the simple copula atgue, and does not say hoc est angor, or
the like: Ov. ex Pont.1v 13 11 vires, quas Hercule dignas Novimus atque
alli quem canis esse pares ; Cie. de fin. 1 34 an drberos atque in sanguinem
suum tam crudeles fuisse: see Madvig who cites Verr. v 184 dignum
capitolio atque ista arce omnium nationwm; Halm pro Sulla p. 52: comp.
the use of ef, =id est, in 11 615 et ingrati genitoribus invent sent; and
Juv. x1 123 Grande ebur et magno sublinis pardus hiatu Dentibus ea:
illis quos cet. anxius angor recurs V1 1158: comp. Cic. Tuse. Iv 27
estque aliud iracundum esse, aliud iratum, ut differt anxietas ab angore ;
neque enim omnes anxu qui anguntur aliquando, nec qur anxwi semper
anguntur, ut inter ebrietatem et ebriositatem interest, alvudque est ama-
toremt esse, aliud amantem: so that Lucr. may mean to express an abiding
anguish; or it may be only one of his many poetical pleonasms and asso-
nances: see n. to 1 826 sonitu sonanti; and comp. Virgil’s imitation
Aen, 1x 89 timor anxius angit; and Enn. trag. 256 otioso in otio, to
which Cicero’s rule might apply. anzx. angor is Cicero’s aegritudo: Tuse.
disp. 111 27 cum omnis perturbatio miseria est, tum carnificina est aegri-

224 BOOK III NOTES II

tudo...lacerat exest animum planeque conficit. 996 fasces cet.: v 1234
pulchros fascis saevasque secures; Aen. VI 819 Consulis amperium hic
primus saevasque secures Accipiet: in Lucr. Nam petere imperium follows
immeciately. 997 Imbibit: v1 72 ut exira poenas petere inbibat acris:
Fore. gives examples of this use from Cicero and Livy. 1000 2txan-
tem: 1v 506 nixatur; vi 836 nivari: lexicons give no other instance
except Aen. v 279, where indeed MPV have Nixantem, R Nexantem.
1001—1002 Odyss. A 595 Ἤτοι ὁ μὲν σκηριπτόμενος χερσίν τε ποσίν τε
Adav ἄνω ὦθεσκε ποτὶ λόφον αλλ᾽ ὅτε μέλλοι “Axpov ὑπερβαλέειν, τότ᾽
ἀποστρέψασκε κραταιίς" Αὐτις ἔπειτα πέδονδε κυλίνδετο λᾶας ἀναιδής,

1001 γειβει)ῖ: seen. to 45 prosum. 1004 explere cet.: Nonius p. 424
‘explert et satiart hanc habent differentiam: expleri est tantummodo
plenum esse, satiari supra modum et abundantiam. Lucretius lib. v1
Deinde animi ingratam naturam pascere semper, Atque explere bonis rebus
satiareque numquam. M. Tullius de re publica lib. vi graves enim
dominae cet. quae quia nec explert nec satiarr ullo modo possunt’ cet.:
the words are practically synon. both in Lucr. and Cicero who in Cato
47 has satiatis vero et expletis with the order inverted. 1005 circum
cum redeunt expresses Homer's περιπλομένων ἐνιαυτῶν. 1010 potestur :
see n. to 1 1045 queatur.

1011 see notes 1 and Servius there; and comp. Cic. Tuse. 1 10 die,
quaeso, num te illa terrent, triceps apudinferos Cerberus, Cocyti fremitus,
travectio Acherontis, Mento summam aquam attingens enectus siti Tanta-
lus, tum tllud quod Sisyphw’ versat Saxum sudans nitendo neque proficit
hilum, fortasse etiam inexorabiles vudices Minos et Rhadamanthus? inthe
lost vss. mention may well have been made of Cocytus, Acheron, Rhada-
manthus or Minos, and of Ixion’s punishment, and thus antecedents got
for Qui sunt: in geor. Iv Ixion’s wheel is mentioned in the same way
together with Tartarus, Cerberus and the furies; and his wheel would
well represent some of the punishments on earth spoken of presently: in
Ov. met. tv 465 Ixion is conspicuous among the rest; see too Sen. epist.
2418 non sum tam ineptus ut epicuream cantilenam hoc loco persequar et
dicam vanos esse inferorum metus, nec [xionem rota volvi nec cet.; just
below he continues nemo tam puer est ut Cerberum timeat et tenebras cet.:
comp. Lucr. Cerberus et furiae vam vero et lucis egestas: Juv. x111 51 also
has Nec rota nec furiae nec saxum aut vulturis cet.: they none of them
forget Ixion. 1012 eructans faucibus aestus: Aen. v1 297 Aestuat
atque onnem Cocyto eructat harenam, 240 halitus atris Faucibus effun-
dens. 1015 luella: see n. to 1 39 Joquellas: this word seems to be a
ἅπαξ λεγόμ. 1017 vobwr must be the lowest dungeon in a prison,
hence called carcer inferior, into which criminals were thrown before
execution: Tac. ann. Iv 29 robur et saxum aut parricidarum poenas
ninitantium; Livy xxxvut 59 10 wt in carcere...includatur et in robore
et tenebris exspiret: the famous robur Tullianum, still to be seen at Rome,

BOOK ΠῚ NOTES II 225

is described by Sall. Cat. 55; comp. too Paulus Festi p. 264 robus quoque
am carcere dicitur rs locus quo praccitatur maleficorum genus, quod ante
arcis robusteis includebatur. Some take robur to mean the eculews; and
Valer. Max. v1 8 1 joins laceratus verberibus eculeoque inpositus, cander-
tibus etiam lammius ustus; Sen. controv. 34 p. 387 Elz. tortor cum
agnibus flagellis eculeis; and epist. 78 19 plus est flamma et eculeus et
lammina: Cic. Verr, v 163 cum agnes ardentesque lamminae ceterique
cructatus admovebantur: the jflamma of Seneca and ignes of Cicero=the
taedae of Luer. pia: Plaut. capt. 596 te, st hic sapiat senex, Pix αἶγα
agitet apud carnificem twoque capite inluceat: ‘Victor. var. lect. vu 14’
J. BK. M. 1018 foll. comp. Juv. x11 192 cas tamen hos tu Hvasisse
putes quos dirt conscia facti Mens habet attonitos et surdo verbere caedit
Occultum quatiente animo tortore flagellum. 1018 the constr. appears
to be adhibet sibi stimaulos terretque se: comp. 68 Unde.. Effugisse. .
remosse, andn, there. consceus sibi and conscius factis are both common,
but not the double dat.; though Fronto, a mimicker of old writers, ad
amicos 1 15 has cue ret mihimet ipsr conscrus sim. | But sibt may belong
too to praemetuens: Caes. b. Gall. vir 49 1 Caesar . . praemetuens suis;
Plaut. Amph. 29 sibe st praetingt. | 1020 1021 comp. Accius 577
Neque ulla interea finis curai datur. 1023 stwltorwm: the epicureans
and stoics had many points in common, ancl among these that of calling
the rest of the world fools: stolidus he twice uses, and both times
of the stoics, as we have seen. With what precedes comp. Democr.
frag, 119 Mullach from Stob, flor. cxx 20 ἔνιοι θνητῆς φύσιος διάλυσιν
οὐκ εἰδότες ἄνθρωποι, ξυνειδήσι δὲ τῆς ἐν TO βίῳ κακοπραγμοσύνης τὸν τῆς
βιοτῆς χρόνον ἐν ταραχῇσι καὶ φόβοισι ταλαιπωρέουσι, ψεύδεα περὶ τοῦ μετὰ
τὴν τελευτὴν μνυθοπλαστεύοντες χρόνου: comp. too V 1154 foll. and Epi-
curus and Seneca cited there.

1024—1052: you may say too to yourself ‘the best and greatest
kings conquerors sages and poets, Epicurus himself, have died; why
should I then seek to live, who dream away life amid cares and delu-
sions?’ 1025 the words are from Enn. ann. 150 Postquam lumina
sis oculis bonus Ancw’ relinquit; the thought of this and the next v. from
Thad ® 107 Kar@ave καὶ Ilatpoxdos 6 περ σέο πολλὸν ἀμείνων: Lach. is
doubtless right in making the whole of this passage a soliloquy of the
reader. sis: see ἢ. to 1 1022 se suo. 1026 improbe is ἀναιδής, uncon-
scionable, immoderate in expectation: as Hor, epist. 1 10 40 dominum
vehit improbus; and timprobe in sat. 11 2 104, 3 200; Pers. rv 47; Ov.
met. VI 136 vive quidem, pende tamen, improba; Juv. 1x 63 Improbus es,
cum poscis. 1027 rer. poten.: see n. to 1113. 1029 foll. comp. ‘Cic. de
am, τι 112° J, EM 1029 magnum: he is thinking of the power of
the sea generally without particular reference to the narrow Hellespont.
1031 Jucunas: this spelling is confirmed by our mss. here and vr 538
and 552, and by M in Virg. geor. 111 365: the change of ἃ into & in

ΓΜ. IL iis

220 BOOK III NOTES II

compounds is very frequent, as Iv 605 Dessulwit; so prosulio desulio
énsulio in Plautus: comp. calco and conculco etc. guatio and concutio
etc. clam and occulo, rapio and surruptus ete. a few instances out of
many: the antiquarian Fronto has corruptus for correptus, and surru-
puisse: Agam. 298 Sub rupe reductus of Flor. shews that Seneca wrote
Subrupere doctus: Plaut. trin. 83 swrrupuisse A: see Wagner there, and
to aulul. 39. 1032 comp. culex 32 Non Lfellespontus pedibus pulsatus
equorum, 1034 Scipiadas: see ἢ. to 1 26 Memmiadae: the termina-
tion -as is confirmed by our mss. and those of Lucilius Virgil and
Horace. Seip. bel. fulmen: Aen. vi 842 geminos, dwo fulmina belli,
Scipiadas, cladem Libyae; Silius vi1 106 ubi nunc sant fulmina gentis,
Scipiadae: all these passages might have reference to a lost one of Ennius
or other old poet, and it is natura] enough that both the elder and
younger Africanus should be termed thunderbolts of war; but then Cie.
pro Balbo 34 says cum duo fulmina nostri imperit subito in Hispania Cn.
et P. Sciynoneseatincti occidissent. Gnaeusand Publius were great generals;
but still when they met so disastrous an end, it is strange that Cicero
should call them the two thunderbolts of the empire. When we think of
the words scipio and scapus, and the English shaft, and σκίτων σκᾶπτον
σκῆπτρον, and then σκηπτὸς σκήπτω and cognate words, and their con-
nexion with the thunderbolt, we might be tempted to think that the
Scipios loved to refer their name to it rather than to the more homely
staff. I find but one recorded coin of the family, and it has on the
reverse a Jupiter with thunderbolt in the right and sceptre in the left
hand; which might recall both meanings of the word. A parallel case
would be the device of the Sibyl’s head on the coins of the Cornelii
Sullae, which was connected with the false derivation of their name from
Sibulla, mentioned by Macrob. sat. 117 27. Valerius Max. 11 5 1 has
this remarkable expression in relating the degeneracy of Scipio’s son, diz
boni, quas tenebras e quo fulmine nasct passt estis /—I now find that
Fick, vergl. Woerterb. p. 202, connects all these Latin and Greek words
with many Sanscrit words, and derives them from a root skap, skvap,
(skip, skrip), ‘to throw, hurl, set down heavily, press upon’. Carth.
hor.: Silius xv 340 Carthaginis horror; Sen. epist. 86 4 ile Cartha-
ginis horror; culex 368 (370) Sctpradaeque duces, quorum devota
triumphis Moenia .. Libycae Karthaginis horrent; Prop. v (1v) 10 9
Acron .. tus quondam firibus horror erat; Mart. v 65 2 Nemees terror,
5 Stlvarumque tremor; Petron. 123, v. 238 Magnus, Ille tremor
Ponti. 1035 famul inf:: after Enn. ann. 317 e regno summo ut
famul infimus (mss. optimus) esset: [perhaps in Ennius the true reading
may be famul ultimus.] Paulus Fest. p. 87 ‘famult origo ab Oscis
dependet apud quos servus famel nominabatur’: with famul may be
compared the many words ending in 7 which have lost the final ws, as
puer vesper ager socer tener and the like. 1036 Adde, Adde, as in’

BOOK III NOTES II 227

©2725 529; τῇ 1121 1122; vi 611] 613; and Livy xxvi 41 12; Ov.
ex Ponto 1 2 75, 77 Adde—Adde—adde. 1037 “οἰ, com.:
Aen. 1x 775 Crethea Musarum comitem; Hesiod theog. 1 Μουσάων
᾿Ἑλικωνιάδων, 99 ἀοιδὸς Movoawy θεράπων; hymn. Hom. xxx11 19 ἀοιδοὶ

Μουσάων θεράποντες. 1038 Scepét. pot.: Accius 590 sceptrum poteretur
patris; ‘Antipater Thess. ep. 24 1. 6 εἰ δ᾽ ὕμνων σκᾶπτρον Ὅμηρος
ἔχει᾽ J. EK. M. eadem alris: 11 919 animalia sint mortalibus una

eademque ; IV 1174 eadem facit, et scumus facere, omina turpi. alris
=ceteris: Plaut. trin. 944 alv dv: Livy thus uses aliws in the sing.
with extreme frequency; he also has the plur. as17 3 dis aliis; 111 54
2 alw decemviri; Ov. met. v1 408 alivsque repertis; 1x 13 alii cessere:
see too Draeger hist. synt. $55, who says the usage is unknown to Cicero.
1089 mat. vetwstas: his age at his death is variously given from 90 to
109 years. 1040 memores motus would produce memory, and thereby
the power of consistent thought, just as the sensifert motus produce
sense. Lucr. by placing Democritus here would seem to give him rank
next to Epicurus.

1042 obit decurso: Lach. in his elaborate note, after attempting to
prove that the last syll. of ἐτέ and its compounds is always long, proceeds
to shew that Lucr. could not have used the contracted form obz¢ before a
consonant: why? because the poets have three different usages in
regard to these forms; a few, Phaedrus Seneca and Silius, admit them
only before consonants or at the end of a verse; the old comic poets
either before a vowel or consonant; most, Virgil Ovid Lucan Statius
Martial and others, only before a vowel: now Lucr. twice uses them
before a vowel, tv 339 (314) Ater eit oculos, 771 perit alioque; unless
therefore he chose to descend to the level of a comic poet, he could not
also say obit decurso, as he had taken his stand on the other practice,
This curious conclusion is refuted by Luc. Mueller de re metr. p. 399 in
a few lines: Martial Lucan and Statius are placed by Lach. in the third
and most correct class; but Martial not only says 1 62 6 abit Helene, τι
64 3 transit et Nestoris aetas; but also lib. spect. 16 1 Laptus abit media,
x 77 2 werit fecit; Lucan not only has abit aut, but also 1x 205 obit
Pompeo, 1098 pertt caruere; Statius not only swbié ἐδὲ and the like, but
also Theb. vir 439 init fecitque, x 205 abit non: these instances are
given by Mueller. In addition Lucan vii 85 has perié quod; 321 abit
aut unde redit maiore in one v.; Juv. vi 559 obit et, 563 perit cut.
What Lach. says of Virgil has some apparent support from mss., though
that means little or nothing, as a large proportion of the oldest mss. of
certain authors always write -ἰξ for -ὐὐξ: Augustus in his res gestae has
adit, where he meant I presume aditt. Taking then into account that
poet’s usual rhythm it seems almost incredible that he should five times
have written éxit, éxit, transit, trdnsit, trdnsit; never once divided the
word between two feet, exit etc.; nor used it in the 6th foot; Martial

15—2

228 BOOK III NOTES II

does not hesitate to say transit et; take audent fundunt or any other
word of the same quantity and see how the case stands with them.
It may be said on the other side ‘why is not eat or transit used by
Virgil in the 5th foot?’ but these words only occur five times; and I
find that he uses audit 13 times in all, 11 times in the first foot; of the
two exceptions one 15 a case of repetition, dudut.. audit amnis. It is
however possible that Virgil so placed these words as to give his readers
the choice of taking them for a dactyl or spondee, as they pleased.
Ovid’s exceptional and repeated lengthening of tnteritt abiit redirt ete.
as well as petiit seems done in detiance, as if he would say ‘whoever is
afraid to lengthen these words, I am not’: his example appears to me
rather to go against than support Lach.; nor is the redieit ventert oeca-
sionally found in old inscriptions any ‘firmissimum argumentum’: seer
uber ibei riset quaset occur in the new corpus inser. more than 100 times,
fueit posedeit probaveit are also found; yet Virgil surely might use all
these short. Lach. quotes redieit from the titulus Mummian.; but the
2nd titulus, corp. inser. 542, has the hexam. De decuma, Victor, tibet
Luciw Mummiw donum; and ib. 38 of one of the Scipios, Matorum
optennt laudem ut sibet me esse creatum; ib. 1009 6 Ubei se reliquiae
contocarent corporis. Neither Wagner philol. suppl. 1p. 316 nor Coning-
ton Aen. 11 497 accepts his Virgilian theory; and, as to Plautus, Fleck-
eisen in Jahn’s Jahrb. Lx1 p. 59 foll. has deserted him and retracted his
former opinion. Luer. three times uses the contracted perf. of the first
conj. 1 70 Jnritat, ν 396 superat, vi S87 Disturbat: im each case a vowel
follows; but it may be remarked that the reading in the two first
instances rests on a conjecture, though a highly probable one.

dec. lum. vitae: Lach. says ‘interpretes vitee lumen quomodo de-
curratur ..non recte explicant, scilicet obliti se in libro 11 79 legisse
Et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt’; I much doubt this allusion,
and am disposed with Lamb. to look on it as a mixture of two meta-
phors, decwrso vitae spatio and extincto lumine vitae: it may have refer-
ence to the course of the sun: comp. the curious mixture of metaphors
in Juv. 1x 126 festinat enim decurrere velox Flosculus angustae miserae-
que brevissima vitae Portio: Tib. 1v 1 51 Titan decurreret; 160 hebernas
properat decurrere luces; Sen. Med. 30 [sol] Per solita purt spatia decur-
rit polt. 1044 ftestincart: Cic. orat. 5 nec epse Aristoteles admirabilt
guadam scientia et copia ceterorum studia restinait: ‘Leonid. Tar. ep.
49, t. 1 p. 233’ J. BE. M. 1046 vivo atque videnti, an alliterative pro-
verb, as Lamb. has seen, strengthened by the oxymoron Mortua cur vita
est: it occurs in Plautus and Terence and Cic. pro Sestio 59 wivus, ut
aiunt, est et videns cum victw ac vestitu suo publicatus. 1048 wigilans
cet.: Plaut. Amph. 697 and capt. 848 vigzlans somniat; Pseud. 368 Qua
imperata ecfecta reddat, non qui vigilans dormiat; so that this line toois
proverbial: Ter, eun. 1079 stertit noctis et cies. 1049 geris is simply

BOOK III NOTES II 229

habes: see ἢ. to v1 1145 gerebant; and comp. old poet ap. Cic. de off. 161
Vos enim ruvenes animum geritis muhebrem, lla virgo vire: animum or
animos gerere is thus used by Livy tv 32 2; vir 31 6; xxx 1] 5;
xxxvit 45 12; 54 24, 1051 Lbriws may here mean, having the mind
disordered and stupefied, or else, reeling like a drunkard under the load
of trouble: the metaphor is more obvious, when Horace speaks of one
Jortuna (τοὶ Hbria, or Catullus of a lover’s ebrios ocellos. 1052 comp.
Pacuv. 302 pertemefactus maerore anime incerte errans vagat.
1053—1075: men feel a burden pressing on their minds; but if
they knew why it weighs upon them, they would not live as they do,
trying by constant change of place to escape from themselves: they
would give up everything else to study the nature of things, since they
have to learn what their condition is to be not for an hour, but for all
eternity. 1056 mali moles: the assonance is evidently designed; as
Cic. in Catil. 111 17 hane tantam molen mali; de orat. 1 2 maximae
moles molestiarum et turbulentissimae tempestutes, where there is asso-
nance and alliteration: Tusc. 111 29 molem meditabar mala, after Eurip.;
Livy iv 54 4 multarum magnarumque rerum molem; V 37 1 tanta moles
mali; Sen. Here. Fur. 1239 perfer hance molen mals. 1058 foll.
comp. Enn. trag. 256 Oftoso an otio animus nescit quid velit...Imus huc,
alluc hance ; cum rlluc ventum est, wre illinc lubet: Incerte errat animus,
praeter propter vitam vivitur; Livy χα 20 4 nescire quid sbi vellet qui-
busdam videre. 1061 severtit pres. recurs ν 1153: it is an archaism,
as perf. reveréi is common; but reverto for revertor does not elsewhere
occur. Proll, de form. ant. Lucr. p. 44—48, in both places reads revisit;
but in v mss, have vevertit; and here revisit without eas or ad eas would
be harsh. [In Apul. met. rx p. 648 Oudenorp. vevertzt is surely present;
comp. also Pomponius 81 (δὲ ewm nemo vocat, revortit maestus ad maenam
miser. | 1063 mannos were small Gallic horses famous for swiftness
and evidently in great demand at Rome for use in harness; Horace
mentions them in his odes epodes and epistles. praecipitanter seems
not to occur elsewhere. [1066 gravis: Ov. her. 14 33 gives the full
expression Jamque οἷο vinoque graves somnoque tacebant ; met. x 438
Nacta gravem‘vino Cinyram: comp. with Lucr. Cicero ‘ce. sen. grat.
egit’ 13 wini, somni, stupri plenus, nadenti coma, conposito capillo,
gravibus oculis, fluentibus buccis, pressa voce et temulenta; and Hor.
epod. 2 57 gravi Malvae salubres corpori 1.6. morbo. | 1068 Hoc se
cet. quoted by Sen. de trang. an. 2 14 aliud ex alio iter suscipitur et
spectacula spectaculis mutantur. wt ait Lucretius Hoc se quisque modo
semper fugit. sed quid prodest, st non effugit ? sequitur se ipse et urget
gravissimus comes: he rightly marks the antithesis between fugit and
effugit; comp. Apul. met. νι 24 fortuna mea saevissima quam per
tot regiones iam fugiens effugere...non potut; Cic. de fin. v 20 ne
vitationem quidem doloris ipsum per se quisquam ὧν rebus expetendis

230 BOOK ΠῚ NOTES 11

putavit, nisi etiam evitare posset ; and Sen. epist. 93 at end guid autem
ad rem pertinet quam diw vites quod eviture non possis?; Hor. epist.
11413 In culpa est animus qui se non effugit wmquam. [For fugit..
Effugere comp. also Eur. Phoen. 1216 Ἢν μή pe φεύγων ἐκφύγης πρὸς
αἰθέρα; Aristoph. Ach. 177 Δεῖ yap pe φεύγοντ᾽ ἐκφυγεῖν ᾿Αχαρνέας.]
1069 ingratis: see n. to 935 gratis. et odit 1.6. se: seen. to vi 1022
on Lucretius’ love of parentheses like this. 1070 τηηιογδὲ aeger 1.6. quia
morbum sentit, sed quibus e causis fiat nescit: comp. 1053 foll. 1071
vyebus relictis, well illustrated by Lamb. from Plautus and Terence,
means ceteris rebus relictis: Caesar and Livy have omnibus rebus relietis,
omnibus omissis rebus, omissis vebus. 1072 Lelia qur potuit rerum
cognoscere causas; and Epic. in Diog. x 143 οὐκ ἦν τὸ φοβούμενον
λύειν ὑπὲρ τῶν κυριωτάτων μὴ κατειδότα Tis ἢ τοῦ σύμπαντος φύσις
KasA, 1070—1075: men know not the cause of their disease: it is
that from want of employment they are possessed with ennui; and
from want of right employment they are disquieted with fear of death
and suffering after death. If wise, they would study the true system of
things, which would teach them the real nature of the eternity to come,
and prove to them that they have nothing to fear. Once more his
favourite moral,

1076—1094: again why such a craving for life mid troubles and
dangers? death cannot be shunned: no nor cloes length of life create any
new pleasure; while the future may bring evil as well as good fortune;
and live as long as we may, the eternity of death will ever be the same.
1076 22 dub. periclis, as 55, 1078 it is possible that the eguidem of
mss. comes from Lucr. as we cannot assume that he followed the mistaken
theory, adopted by Cicero and many others, that equidem is ego quidem.

1081 procuditur: see ἢ. to m1 1115. 1082 like 957 Sed quia semper
aves quod abest, praesentia temais. 1084 hiantis, keeping up the me-
taphor of setis. 1085 hasa proverbial smack, as Virg. geor. 1461 quid

vesper serus vchat; Gell. x11 11 lepidisstmus liber est M. Varronis ex
satiris Menippeis qui inscribitur nescis quid vesper serus vehat ; Livy
XLV 8 6 nec praesenti credere fortunae, cum quid vesper ferat incertum est.
1087 Nee prorsum: see π΄ to 1 748. 1090 condere saecla: Hor. od.
ιν 5 29 Condit quisque diem; Plin. epist. 1x 36 4 quamgquam longissimus
dies cito conditur; paneg. 80 cum tribe dies omnis summa cum utilitate
nostra, summa cum tua laude condatur: Virg. ecl. 1x 52 has longos...
cantando condere soles, where Conington says condere to bury, for to see
go down, and he and Heyne compare Callim. epigr. 11 3 Ἤέλιον λέσχῃ
κατεδύσαμεν: but such a use is better suited to sol or dies, than saecla ;
and it seems likely that Lucr. was thinking rather of the technical
condere lustrum, though what the exact force of that expression is or
how far it differs from facere lustrum, I cannot tell: yet Livy 1 44 2
says zdque conditum lustrum appcllatum, quia is censendo finis jactus

BOOK IV NOTES II 231

est, and Hor. od. 11 4 24 clawdere lustrum; so that the word must have
suggested to them the notion of closing and completing: Livy xxxviI
36 10 censor...dustrum condidit...lustro perfecto: so that condere is
perhaps simply conficere: see n. to Iv 41. 1091 Alors aeterna: 869
mors wmmortulis,

BOOK IV.

1—25 =1 926—950, except 11 Nam, 1 936 Sed; 24 percipis, 1 949
perspicis; 25 ac persentis utrlitatem, 1 950 qua constet compta figura: see
Lachmann’s explanation of this last variation in notes 1 to 44—47 ; yet
I do not think that Lucr. who like other early writers repeats words and
phrases with such indifference, would have hesitated as to a single word
compta with an interval of two vss.: the fact 15 qua constet compta figura
would have been here utterly out of place, because what he says about
the figura of the universe is said between 1 950 and the end of 11.
1 foll. Nonius again and again assigns to the fourth book; probably
Quintilian also and Nemesianus, as Lach. says, read them in this book.
Macrobius on the other hand, sat. vi 2, cites them from the first ; and
doubtless Virgil too found them there, as he imitates what precedes
as well. They clearly belong to 1; and can scarcely therefore be in
place here, though the first editors, if not the poet himself, inserted them
in both places. 25 persentis: 111 249 he uses persentiscunt ; but Virg.
Aen. Iv 448 also has persentit.

26—41: having explained the nature of the soul, I now go on toan
important question, that of idols or images, which like small films con-
stantly proceed from the surface of all things and float in the air, and
often frighten us when sick or asleep: these we must not think to be
souls from hell, which have survived the dissolution of the body. 26
Atque cet.: so 111 31 he begins Lt quoniam docui cet. 27 compta: see
n. to 1 950 compta. 28 Quwove: seen.tor157. ordia primaa curious
transposition of primordia to be compared with 313 ea propter, v1 962 et
fucit are. 29 vementer cet.: comp. 11 1024 ἐὐδὲ vementer nova res molitur
cet. 30 guae rerum simulacra voc.: Epic. in Diog. Laert. x 46 τούτους δὲ
τοὺς τύπους εἴδωλα προσαγορεύομεν : Seen. to1 132 and τι 112, where is said
that he uses imago vmaginibus stmulacra, as the metre requires, and also
effiyiae, to express these εἴδωλα or τύποι of Epicurus. I have all through
used ‘idols’ and ‘mage’ as perfect synonymes for the synonymes simulacra
and wnago respectively. Catius a contemporary of Lucr., with whom
Cicero and Cassius make themselves merry in ad fam. xv 16 and 19, used

232 BOOK IV NOTES II

the word spectra; Cicero himself imagines. 31 comp. 43 50 sumo
de corpore rerum, Quor quasi membranae cet. 33—35 comp. 1132 Ft
quae res nobis, vigilantibus obvia, mentes Terrificet morbo adfectis, somno-
que sepultis, Cernere uti videamur cet. and see τ, there. 34 figuras is
the word used by Quintil. inst. x 2 15 to express the εἴδωλα or simula-
cra: illas Epicuri figuras quas 6 summis corporibus dicit effluere: Orelli
inser, 4847 Cum vita functus vungar tis unbra figuris. 35 semulacra-
que luce carentun adopted by Virg. geor. Iv 472. 37 ne forte cet.
depends on 29 30 Vune agere tncipram cet.: he here emphatically repeats
what he said in the similar passage I 132—135, that it is to free man
from these baseless terrors he undertakes this question: if it had not
been for these fears, οὐκ av προσεδεόμεθα φυσιολογίας: it is, echoes Luer.,
the naturae species ratioque which alone can free us from them: comp.
too what he says in a similar spirit 11 31 foll. This passage has the
same unfinished disjointed appearance that other passages introducing
new subjects present: much that is said, has been similarly said before,
or wiil be repeated presently: we have spoken of this above and shall
have to refer to it again in v and στῇ: it is one of many tokens that the
poem is in an unfinished state. 39 aliquid nostra is emphatic : Prop.
v7 1 Sunt aliquid Manes: letum non omnia finit; m1 (11) 34 58 Nee st
post Stygias aliquid rest arbiter undas, as I read; [Ov. trist. 1v 10 85
Si tumen extinetis aliquid nist nomina restat. | 41 cdiscessum dede-
rint: see notes 1 and n. tor 819. Lucr. uses dave with the same latitude
as Virgil and other poets: thus 1819 and elsewhere dent motws means
‘impart motion’ to others, but 1 511 dat motus=facit motus, movetur;
1 288 dat stragem=causes ruin, V 1329 dabant equitum peditumque
ruinas =overthrew, but 11 1149 dabunt labem putrisque ruinas, v 347
darent cladem mugnasque ruinas are said of the things themselves falling
to ruin: comp. too dare pausam=facere pausam, cessare; dare sonitum,
crepitum, frayorem ; palam dedit=palamfecit: all of which are found in
Lucr. Virgil carries this use of dare farther perhaps than Lucr.: Aen.
xur 575 Dant cunewm=faciunt cuneum: comp. too Aen. νι 76 finem
dedit ore loquendi, which=Lucilius’ pausam facit ore loguendi: Livy 1v
28 6 dant unpressionem; but 29 3 ampressionem factam: he first uses
impetum dare, and after him Tacitus, for zmp. facere. When we thus
find dare finem, cuneum, motus, ruinas, discessum etc. with the precise
force of fucere finem etc., one is tempted to look on it as a half-conscious
reminiscence of the do which survives in credo abdo condo subdo and has
the same origin as the Greek τίθημι and the Sanscrit dadhdmi: see Max
Mueller science of language, 2nd series, p. 224 ‘in Latin it was equally
impossible to distinguish between the roots dd and dhd, because the
Romans had no aspirated dentals; but such was the good sense of the
Romans that, when they felt that they could not efficiently keep the two
roots apart, they kept only one, dare, to give, and replaced the other

BOOK IV NOTES II 5.3}

dare, to place or to make, by different verbs, such as ponere, facere’.
guarque agrees with pramordia: see n. to 11 372.

42-109: that such films or images may be discharged from the
surface of things, you may learn in many ways: smoke and heat are
emitted in a state of solution; the coats of cicades, the slough of serpents
in a state of cohesion: much more then may very thin films from their
outermost surface leave things and keep their shape; just so colour is
emitted, as you may see, when all things in a theatre take the hue of the
awnings overhead: these images are so small as not to be visible sepa-
rately ; coming too from the very surface of things there is nothing to rend
them: such images invisible singly, when often repeated may be seen re-
flected from the surface of mirrors. 42 effigias: this form is found below
in 85 and 105, and in Plautus and Afranius. 50 Marullus’ arrangement
of these vss. I believe with Lach. to be right. Quoz: it is possible the Quz
of mss. comes from Lucr, and that qgui=cut or quot, as gun and qur are
found for cum or quom, and cur or quor: qu, dat., the mss. of Catullus
give in 11, 23,235: 107 1 quicquid for quot quid; and in Virg. ecl. 4
62 either Quintilian has taken Virgil’s dat. for a nom. gui; or else Virgil’s
mss. have wrongly taken his nom. guz for a dat. Quot and membranae
are both datives; and we have here another instance of that constr.
which is so common in Lucr. as almost to amount to a trick of style:
see n. to 115: amago is put, not in the leading, but in the dependent
clause: quoi corport quasi membranae est tmago: then, being unable to
use the dat. corticz, he varies the phrase: vel cortec nomin. The correc-
tion Quwae makes the sentence solecistic. 52 cluet vagari=vagatur.
53 repeated v 882. 5495 an rebus ves: 43 and 64 ab rebus, rerum;
90 91 res, e rebus; 100 foll. serum, rerum, rerum. 58 Cum teretis
cet.: comp. V 803 Lolliculos ut nune teretis aestate cicadae Lincunt: for
teretis see n. to 1 35 terete cervice. 62 auctas of A is confirmed against
auctos of B by Nonius more than once and by Philargyrius; though
vepres 18 masc. in other writers: yet Keil’s gramm. Lat. v p. 592 ‘vepres
generis feminini, ut Titus Livius has vepres’:? T. Lucretius: in Hor.
epist. 1 16 8 mss. point perhaps to benignae rather than benign. 63
tenuis, 66 tenuia and repeatedly below this word has the same poetical
force which he often gives to solidus, rarus, celer, profundus and the
like: 1 means enormously, inconceivably thin and fine: so 88 supteli
filo: comp. also ἢ. to 1 1081 magnum per inane. 66 hAiscendi, of
speaking in the lowest whisper: see Mayor Cic. Phil. 11 111 responde-
bisne ad haec aut omnino hiscere audebis ? 69 formar...figuram; Cie.
de nat. deor. 1 90 non ab honunibus formae figuram venisse ad deos; but
de off. 1 126 formam nostrum reliquamque figuram; de nat. deor. 1 110
formare figurare colorare; Lucr. 11 778 ex altis formis varvisque figuris.
76 ferrugia: the various usages of ferruginus ferrugineus and ferrugo
being compared, the colour denoted would seem to be a dark violet, like

234 BOOK IV NOTES ΠῚ

that of steel after it has been heated in the fire and cooled: Plaut. miles
1178 Causiam habeas ferrugineam...Palliolum habeas ferrugineum, nam
is colos thalassicust; answering therefore to Homer’s πορφύρεος or olvoy
applied to the sea; as in certain weathers the mediterranean has pre-
cisely such a colour. magnis int. eet.: V1 109 Carbasus ut quondam
magnis intenta theatris Dat crepitum malos inter iactata trabesque: Pro-
pertius has tam pleno fluitantia vela theatro, and Nec sinwosa cavo pende-
bant vela theatro: in the theatres at Orange and Pompeii may still be
seen the two rows of stone sockets running along the outside of their
walls on the top, into which the masts fitted that supported the vela or
carbasa; the trabes I presume were eross-beams which passed from one
malus to another to allow the awning to be unfurled more conveniently.
Pompey’s great theatre, the first permanent one built at Rome, appears
to have been finished the year of Lueretius’ death; but the temporary
wooden ones of whieh he had experience were probably construeted on a
similar plan. Q. Catulus is recorded to have first spread these awnings:
Pliny x1x 23, who calls them carbasina τοῖα. [But see Friedlaender
Sitteng. 1 p. 536; and Archaeological Journal vol. 32 p. 286 (J. H.
Parker), of the Coliseum: ‘it is now clear that there was an awning over
the heacs of the speetators in the galleries and kept at the height of 20
feet above their heads by masts on whieh it was suspended. Those at
the top were known before by the corbels that supported them, and the
holes through the cornice at the top of the building through which the
masts passed. We have now found evidence of similar masts at the
bottom, supported by corbels in front of the podium. It is probable
that the eords which carried the awning were also supported by the
columns on the outer edge of the upper gallery, as the distance would
be too long for the cords to bear the weight with no intervening support’:
p. 287 ‘we also there (on the upper wall) see the mode of fastening the
masts on the inner side of the wall to hold them fast.’] 77 flutant:
111 189 flutat. 79 patrum cet.: the senators occupying the whole
orchestra must have been very marked objects; and to a spectator,
like Luer., sitting in the cavea behind them, would have afforded as
much room perhaps for the play of light and colour, as the whole of
the stage. Aen. v 340 //ic totum caveae consessum ingentis et ora
Prima patrum magnis Salius clamoribus implet: the last words may be
a reminiscence of 1017 maynis clamoribus omnia complent. Tac. ann.
XI OL antravere Pomper theatrum quo magnitudinem populi viserent.
allic...dum consessum caveae, discrimina ordinum, quis eques, ubt
senatus percunctantur, advertere quosdam cultu eterno in sedibus sena-
torum...degrediunturque et inter patres considunt. decorum: Prop.
V(Iv) 111 Curia, praetexto quae nunc nitet alta senatu. [Juv. πὶ 172
(of a rural in contradistinetion to a city theatre) ipsa dierum Festorum
herboso colitur si quando theatro Maiestas...Aequales habitus illic simi-

BOOK IV NOTES II 235

lesque videbis Orchestram et populum. 81 Ausonius ‘ clarae urbes’ 5
Circus, et inclusi moles cuneata theatrt, might defend theatra. | 83 con-
rident seems not to occur elsewhere in a classical writer. correpta,

being gathered up into a small space: v 1223 Corripiunt divum
percusse membra timore; Sen. epist. 74 27 honestam vitam ex centum
annorun numero in quantum voles corrinpe et nm unum diem coge;
Suet. Domit. 4 singulos a septenis spatiis ad quina corriputt.

86 wtraque: 291 Aeribus binis quoniam res confit utraque, and vi 517:
Manil. 11 904 Nine huc nune luc sortem mutantis utraque. 87 iam,
as now shewn. 88 filo: see ἢ. to τι 341. 98 (in) speculis: see n.
to 111 623. 101 £xtema (simulacra)— orae inaginum: comp. 135 Fé
curiusque modi formarum vertere in oras: they are mere surface with no
depth, διὰ τὸ μὴ δεῖν κατὰ βάθος τὸ συμπλήρωμα γίνεσθαι, says Epic. in
Diog. Laert. x 48 of the cognate συστάσεις: Cic, de nat. deor. 1 123 of
Epicurus’ gods, wt homunculi similem dewm fingeret lintamentis dumtaxat
extremis, non habite solido; and Macrob. sat. vir 14 4 calls them inane
figura: Aen. VI 292 tenwis sine corpore vitas Admoneat volitare cava sub
imagine formae will illustrate Lucr.: comp. the κοιλωμάτων of Epic., Diog.
x 46; the word occurs in 11 219 Fxtima membrorum circumcaesura, with
saine sense. 104 rerum semilesque: see 79 and n. to 1 1050, 105
singillatim cet.: Locke essay 11 8 12 since the extension figure number
and motion of bodies of an observable bigness nuay be perceived at a dis-
tance by the sight, ἐξ 1s evident some singly imperceptible bodies must come
from them to the eyes etc. 106 tamen belongs to cum: v 479 tamen
cum sint ea quae moveantur; 518 tamen cum lucidu signa ferantur ;
1088 Muta tamen cum stint; v1 140; 678; τι 71: see also ἢ. to τι 239,
108 Nee rat. al. servari: he means that unless they were inconceivably
thin they could not pass unscathed through certain obstacles, for instance
the air; by number then they make up for fineness, so as at last to be
visible, adsiduo crebroque repulsu.

110—128: learn now how fine these images are: and first let me
remind you how exceedingly minute first-beginnings are: think of the
smallest animalcule, then of its heart or eye, then of the atoms which
form its soul: what is their size? touch again a strong-scented herb with
the tips of two fingers: what an amount of smell it emits! [what then
must be the size of the atoms of smell? from all this you may conceive
how thin these images or idols may be, and yet consist of material
atoms:| such then fly about on all hands unseen unfelt. 110 quam
tenut: in the words of Epic. in Diog. x 47 τὰ εἴδωλα ταῖς λεπτότησιν
ἀνυπερβλήτοις κέχρηται. 112 Sunt infra cet.: see ἢ, to 11 138 and 11
274 Nec magis hac infra cet. 114 τὰ quogue, as well as the other
point. exor. rer. Cunct.: see n. to II 333. 116 quorum=ut eorum ;
as 11 970: how greatly would the revelations of the microscope have
strengthened his argument! 123 Praeterea with reference to primum

236 BOOK IV NOTES II

of 116: in 120 praeterea merely connects its clause with those imme-
diately preceding. 124 panaces is plur, from panax: the Greeks used
the forms 7 πανάκεια, τὸ πάνακες and ὁ wavaé: Galen. de simpl. med. vill
4 says εἴθισται οὐκ οἷδ᾽ ὅπως oy σχεδὸν ἅπασιν οὐ πάνακες ἀλλὰ TaVvaKa
προσαγορεύειν τὴν πόαν ταύτην; and Luer. is not likely to have used the
masc, πανακής. 125 fabrotont: Dioscor. 111 26 says the Romans
called this αψίνθιουμ ἸΠοντικουμ. — centaurea: see n. to 11 401: both Virg.
geor, IV 270 Cecroprumque thymum et grave olentia centaurea, and Lucan
1x 918 Et panacea potens et Thessala centaurea...fumoque gravem serpen-
tibus urunt Habrotonum seem to have been thinking of Lucr. 126
duobus i.e. digitis, for digitis doubtless followed, must have been pro-
verbial: Plaut. Baceh. 675 Quid...Sic hoe digitulis duobus sumebas pri-
moribus?; Persa 793 Ve, sis, me wno digito attigeris: Terence so uses
uno digitulo and digito uno. 128 they have no force and therefore
are cassa sensu, can one by one make no impression on any of the senses.

129. 142: besides these images which come from things, there are
others which form in the air of themselves and present the outlines of
all kinds of shapes, giants mountains rocks beasts.——This passage, as
Lach. has proved, is clearly a subsequent addition of the poet’s, like
several other passages, unconnected with the context; for 143 Nune ea
cet. directly refers to 128: for a possible explanation of the strange dis-
order of these vss. in the mss. see vol. 1p. 30. Christ and others would
put them after 109: but with that paragraph too they have no proper
connexion, Luer. refers to the συστάσεις or spontaneous appearances
in the air, as a supplement to his discussion of the ἀπόρροιαι or images
from the surface of things, not wishing to leave this question altogether
untouched, because Epicurus had called attention to it, though it has
not much bearing on his general argument: 735 he again refers to these,
passim simulacra feruntur, Partim sponte sua quae fiunt aere in ipso.
Diod. Sic. 111 50 4 speaking of parts of the coast of Africa illustrates
well what Epicurus and Luer, meant: at certain seasons he says συστά-
σεις ὁρῶνται κατὰ τὸν ἀέρα παντοίων ζῴων ἰδέας ἐμφαίνουσαι" τούτων δ᾽ αἱ
μὲν ἠρεμοῦσιν, at δὲ κίνησιν λαμβάνουσι, καὶ ποτὲ μὲν ὑποφεύγουσι ποτὲ δὲ
διώκουσι K.7.A. 132 in hoc caelo means in this lower part of the
heaven called air: Epic. in Diog. x 48 καὶ συστάσεις ἐν τῷ περιέχοντι
ὀξεῖαι διὰ τὸ μὴ δεῖν κατὰ βάθος τὸ συμπλήρωμα γίνεσθαι. gui: see n. to
11 94. 135 in oras, that is the eatima pars, the extrema liniamenta,
as explained and illustrated to 101 Extima: comp. 166 ovis, and Accius
484 Scandit oras, laterum texta flamma Vulcani vorax. 137 mundi
=cueli, of course. 138 Aera mulcentes: Cic. Arat. 88 Igniferum mul-
cens tremebundis aethera pinnis; 184 quam flatu permulcet spiritus Austri.
138—142 such appearances seem to have tickled the fancies of the poets:
the Socrates of the Clouds saw νεφέλην κενταύρῳ ὁμοίαν Ἢ παρδάλει ἢ
λύκῳ ἢ ταύρῳ: Shakespeare’s Antony all the objects mentioned by Luer-.

BOOK IV NOTES II 237

a cloud that’s dragonish, A vapour sometime like a bear or lion, A towerd
citadel, a pendant rock, A forked mountain or blue promontory With trees
upont; while that which 1s now a horse even with a thought The rack
dislimbs; his Hamlet a camel, a weasel, very like a whale, perhaps the
very belua of Lucr.; Wordsworth an Ararat, a lion, a crocodile.
148—175: images stream incessantly from the surfaces of all things:
some things they pass through, by others they are broken; from others,
at once hard and bright, they are reflected back: they stream as con-
stantly from things, as light from the sun, so that as soon as a mirror 15
turned to a thing, its image appears in it at once: often too the sky ina
moment is overcast with thick clouds: what a multitude then of these
thin images must in an instant be shed from them, to allow of these
being seen by us! 143 foll. Epic. in Diog. x 48 ἡ γένεσις τῶν εἰδώλων
ἅμα νοήματι συμβαίνει" καὶ yap ῥεῦσις ἀπὸ τῶν σωμάτων τοῦ ἐπιπολῆς
συνεχὴς συμβαίνει...σώζουσα τὴν ἐπὶ τοῦ στερεμνίου θέσιν καὶ τάξιν τῶν
ἀτόμων ἐπὶ πολὺν χρόνον κιτιλ. and Macrob. sat. vil 14 4 censet Epicuras
ab omnibus corporibus iugi fluore quaepiam simulacra manare, nec und-
guam tantulam moram intervenire quin ultra ferantur inani figura
cohaerentes corporum exuviae: Plut. def. orac. 19 explains the πολὺν
χρόνον, by saying how ludicrous it is that these idols should appear in
all directions during ἀπλέτους ἐτῶν περιόδους, often when the beings
from whom they emanated have long been burned on the fire or have
rotted in the earth. 146 alias is most simply taken for ‘other
things’, except those mentioned afterwards; when the turn of the argu-
ment in 150 causes perhaps a slight anacoluthon: it might be ‘some’, as
if he had intended a second or third alias to follow; but changed the
constr. instead. 147 and 152 vitram: 602 Qualia sunt vitrer, spectes
gua travolat omnis. 147 (in) aspera: see n. to 111 623. 150 foll.
here and in what follows his theory involves him in enormous difiiculties,
some of which he gets over successfully; but hardly the present one.
Glass he says lets every image pass: but mirrors, viz. of metal; do not
let them even penetrate the surface, but send them back at once. And
yet a little quicksilver would have made the glass hurl them back better
even than the brightest polished metal; and surely he must have seen
sometimes imperfect images sent back from glass. 152 neg. wut. recurs
1857, v 366, v1 103, 779: it is found in Plaut. aulul. 30; where Wagner
cites Cic. ad fam. v 12 6: 111561 nec autem. 153 quam: the rel. has
same force as in qua est prudentia, quo animo traditur and the like: it
=therefore ita memintt cet. 160 celer: see n. to 63 tenuis: celer”
femin. is archaic: Ennius has acer hiemps; Livius Andron. celer hasta;
Apul. met. x 31 haec alacer; a poem of Nero’s time volucer fama, sil-
vester aedon: on the other hand we find the masc. celebris, salubris, ete.
in Tacitus and even Cicero and Livy: celer in fact is merely the abbre-
viation of celeris, as puer of puerus; Ennius having acris somnus, as well

220 BOOK IV NOTES It

as acer hiemps; and the genders were separated for distinction’s sake:

see Buecheler Lat. decl. p. 4. 166 oris: comp. 135 iz oras and 10]
Extima: the ab rebus of 163 shews of course that it is oris rerum of
which he is speaking. 167 ves, the images, which are res or real

things in being, as much as the things from which they come: 160 celer
his rebus dicatur origo; 235 vi luci quae poterit res Accidere ad speciem
quadrata, nisi eins imago; 690 mitto iam dicere quam res Quae fervunt
oculorum acies visumque lacessunt; and also 1132 £t quae res nobis,
vigilantibus obvia, mentes Terrificet: see ἢ. there. δὲ i.e. in speculo.
respondent i.e. oris of the thing from which the images come. 168 —
175 these vss. appear to me to have nothing to do with the συστάσεις
of 129—14?, with which Lach. connects them: the sense 15 obscure
and briefly put; but they are a continuation of the argument imme-
diately preceding, and illustrate quam facili et celert ratione images are
produced; for the clouded sky can only be seen by means of them, and
each image forms an inexpressibly small part of the whole. 168 cael
Tempestas .. fit turbida foede: Virg. Aen. xit 283 it toto turbida caelo
Tempestas telorum; geor. 1 323 Et foedum ylumerant tempestatem: foeda

tempestas is a very favourite expression of Livy. 169 Venpestas: 11
32 Praesertim cum tempestas adridet, and ν 1390. 170—173=vi 251
—254, except 170 rearis for reamur. 171 cael... cavernas: 391

Sidera cessare aetheriis adfixa cavernis; as Cic. de suo consul. in de div.
117 Aetheris aeterni saepta atque inclusa cavernis. Lamb. quotes Cie.
Arat. 252 late caeli lustrare cavernas, and Varro in Nonius p. 46 Vubes
aquali frigido velo leves Caeli cavernas aureas subduxerant: Varro de
ling. Lat. v 19 Ennius item ad cavationem caeli ingentes fornices; so
that doubtless his own cavernas had reference to this derivation of caelum.
172 tae. nim. nocte: Virg. geor. 1 328 media nimborum in nocte. 173
atrae cet.: Aen. x11 335 circum@ue atrae formidinis ora. 174 Quo-
rum quantula cet.: and therefore the images being so prodigiously thin,
what a number must leave in order to impress our sense on earth.

175 eam rat.: the ratio between the zmago and the overcast sky is such
that no sum can express it.—Comparing what precedes, esp. 163—167, I
certainly take the meaning to be: sometimes we see a bright sky covered
in a few moments with thick clouds: well, the sky is so covered first;
and then we see it by images shed from the clouds, which, singly in-
visible, only become visible by continuous repetition, the ratio of their
thickness to that of the clouds being something so small as to be almost
‘inexpressible by words or figures: how inconceivably numerous then
must they be for so many to have reached us in so short a time! But
Prof. Mayor writes to me: ‘ Lucr. is speaking, 164 165, of two things,
the rapidity with which these images are forming and their universal
diffusion: guantula pars seems not to relate to the thinness of the image
of these faces of horror, but to its narrowness as contrasted with the

BOOK IV WOTES II 239

faces themselves which fill the whole width of the sky’. From nothing
in Lucr. or Epicurus or any of their expositors, ancient or modern, have
1 been able to gather what their conception was, if they had one, of the
superficial extent of an image; whether for instance when you saw a
thing of large extent, you saw it by a succession of single images, or of
many images, advancing in parallel order and preserving their relative
positions.

176—229: the velocity with which these images travel is enormous:
light things made of fine atoms often travel very swiftly, as sunlight; it
is natural then that these images should do the same; of which too there
is a constant succession one following on the other ie light or heat from
the sun: again these images peed from the very surface of things and
should therefore travel more swiftly than light: a proof of the prodigious
swiftness of these images is this: put water in the open air, and at once
all the stars of heaven are reflected in it. As images come from all
things to the sight, so do things producing smell taste sound and the
like; so that all the senses are similarly moved. 179 quem quaeque
locum: see n. to 1966 quem quisque: it=in quemcumque locum haec vel
ila tendunt. The wretchedly scanty fragments from the 2nd book of
Epicurus περὶ φύσεως, published in the vol. Hercul. 11, are yet enough to
indicate that Lucr. followed it as his guide: col. 1 we find περὶ δὲ τῆς
κατὰ τὴν φορὰν ὑπαρχούσης ταχυτῆτος viv λέγειν ἐπιχειρήσομεν. πρῶτον
μὲν----ῇ λεπτότης μακρὰν τῆς ἀπὸ τῶν αἰσθήσεων λεπτότητος---ταχυτῆτα
τῶν εἰδώλων---ανυπέρβλητον δείκνυται: col, 2 εἰ δ᾽ ὑπερβαλλόντως κοῦφα
δῆλον ὡς καὶ ὑπερβαλλόντως ταχέα κατὰ τὴν φοράν: col. 1] καὶ ἔτι τὰς
φορὰς ἀνυπερβλήτους τοῖς τάχεσιν κέκτησθαι" our v. seems intended to
express Epicurus’ κατὰ τὴν φοράν. numine: see n. to τι 632. 180
—182=909—911. 180 Suavidicis seems not to occur except in these
two places: Plaut. capt. 56 has spurcidice versus; and Ter. Phorm. 213
saevidicis dictis. 181 182 clearly borrowed from Antipater of Sidon
who was popular in Rome a generation before Lucr.: he says in praise
of Erinna anthol. 1 p. 19 epigr. 47 7 Awitepos κύκνου μικρὸς θρόος ἠὲ
κολοιῶν Kpwypos ἐν εἰαριναῖς κιδνάμενος νεφέλαις: the gruum clamor in
aetheris is probably from Homer’s κλαγγὴ γεράνων οὐρανόθι πρό: Aen. X
264 sub nubibus atris Strymoniae dant signa grues atque aethera tranant
Cum sonitu fugiuntque notos clamore secundo: the aethera tranant per-
haps from 177 tranantibus auras and 182 in aetheriis. 182 22 aether.
qub.: see ἢ. to I 250 and τι 1115. 184 celeris, as 160 celer. 186
6 primis: 11 313 Primorum. 187 cuduntur: 1 1044 Cudere enim
cerebro possunt 1.6. plagae. 190 protelo explained to 11 531: comp. 187
188: ‘brightness is goaded on by brightness, the foremost beams ever
urged on by those behind’ J. E. M. 192 Inmemorabile per spatium
recurs VI 488: par. lost vir 113 distance inexpressible By numbers that
have name: and comp. Epicurus himself in Diog. x 46 7 διὰ τοῦ κενοῦ

240 BOOK 1V. NOTES II

φορὰ κατὰ μηδεμίαν ἀπάντησιν τῶν ἀντικοψάντων γινομένη πᾶν μῆκος
περιληπτὸν ἐν ἀπερινοήτῳ χρόνῳ συντελεῖ, 193 parvola i.e. simulacra,
has force by being thus placed at the beginning instead of after quae;
they are exceedingly small and therefore the propulsion is easier: the
ambiguity in parvola causa was quite indifferent to Lucr.: see n. to 157
_ perempta and to v 1414 ves alla reperta.—parvola must then=tenuis-
sima; as if the poet only thought of their thinness, and of no other
dimension. But Prof. Mayor says ‘they have at their back a shght
cause, not too violent which might destroy them, 1.6. succeeding images’.
Here again, as above, the immense difliculties of the theory seem to occa-
sion a vagueness in the poet’s mind and therefore his language; if indeed
we have his own words complete. I have often thought myself of a
hiatus: Susemihl I see assumes a v. to be lost between parvola and
causa: I have thought too of praevia (i.e. simulacra) for parvola.

causa: the cause behind which impels them is the body from which they
come constantly emitting from the surface images, as the sun discharges
light; this therefore 1s to be compared with 189 Suppeditatur cet.

194 prédpellat, as v1 1027 Aer ἃ tergo quasi provehat atque propellat;
which also illustrates the sense: procul seems to belong to prov. atque
prop. 195 Quod sup.: see ἡ. to 1 50. vol. lev.: comp. 745 Quae
cum mobiliter summa levitate feruntur, Ut prius ostendt; and Epic.
cited to 179. 197 guaevis must not be too much pressed, as 1f it
meant all things without exception: they can enter, not necessarily pass
through, hard things, even wood and stone, though they may get
broken in them. But then the necessity of his theory compels him to
devise the curious explanation in 150 of things at once hard and bright
throwing the images back. 198 permanare, stream clear through, not
merely penetrare. 203 γίσαγο: ν 593 Tantulus ille queat tantum sol
muttere lumen, Quod maria ac terras omnis caelumque riyando Compleat
et calrido perfundat cuncta vapore: the repetition of caelum in our vss. is
harsh; but the mare ac terras made it almost inevitable, and such repe-
titions are in the manner of Lucr. and the old writers. 204 ἐστίν:
comp. 520 and 865, and see n. to 1 419. 205 emissum is another
ἅπαξ λεγόμ. 206 to change Quone to Nonne can hardly be right:
the sense you want is not simply ‘don’t you see they ought to travel
faster?’, but ‘don’t you see they ought to travel immensely faster?’;
and why should the common formula nonne vides have been altered ?
Quo is for quanto as so often in the best writers: sometimes ne is
annexed to the relative, as in Catull. 64 180 qguemne ipsa reliqui? i.e.
patrisne quem reliquit; 183 Quine fugit? 1.6. coniugisne qui fugit?: but
here Quo is the interrogative and more resembles Plaut. cist. 1v 1 1
Nullam ego me vidisse credo magis anum excruciabilem, Quam ilaec
est: quae dudum fassa est mihi, quaene infitias eat?; Hor. sat. 11 3 295
Quone malo mentem concussa?; Lucan vil 301 Quone poli motu, quo

BOOK IV NOTES II 241

caelt sidere verso, Thessalicae tantum, superi, permittitis orue?: comp. too
Hor. sat. 11 3 316 illa rogare, Quantane?; [Ov. met. 111 476 quam cum
vidisset abire, ‘Quone fugis? remane’...clamavit: and see Ussing to
Plaut. Amph. 690.| Lach. gives a curiously inappropriate illustration
from Quintil. 1 10 3 aut quo melius vel defendet reum cet. where quo
melius has a force exactly contrary to quo citius here. 207 208 =11
163 164; and comp. what precedes; for debent nemirum/ expresses
what quo..debere! does here. .

211 dtu: with diw and divo comp. fretu and freto and n. to 1 720,

and humew and humo in Nonius p. 488: diu, abl. of dius, is found in the
best mss. of several authors. 213 the sidera mundi are the reflected
stars of the reflected heaven which answer in the water to the real stars
of the real heaven: 167 Res thi respondent simili forma atque colore: see
n. to 419. 215 accidat in: accidere ad is the usual constr. as 236:
Wak. compares Ov. fasti v 360 Accidere in mensas wt rosa missa solet.
218 foll. are placed here to shew that it is natural the sense of sight
should be affected only by images coming into contact with the eye,
since all the other senses are likewise affected solely by material objects;
but certainly the parallel is introduced very abruptly: 217—229 recur
vi 923—935 with very slight difference; they appear to have been
written for v1, and brought hither by the poet, perhaps as a temporary
makeshift: see notes 1. 220 exesor seems not to occur out of Luer.
moerorum: seen, to1 29 moenera: moerorum is found three times in the
Aeneid joined with agger: Lucr. has also noenu, poenrceus, poenibat;
Cic. pro Mil. 33 poenttus, 35 poenttor; the corp. inser. Lat. 1 has motro
moiros moerus among a hundred other instances of οὐ or oe for uw.
224 amaror: whether Virg. geor. 11 247 used this word is a moot point;
see Gellius 1 21 and the editors of Virgil. 225 flwenter seems another
ἅπαξ λεγόμ. 227 wnterdatur: 868 interdatus. 229 see notes |:
sentire sonare is by no means an unpoetical expression; and to object to
the sentire in two consecutive vss. in two senses 15 strange in an editor
of Lucr.: see 201 202 caeli, caelum, and note to1875. With reference to
the above argument of Lucr., Macrobius sat. vir 14 5 says not unaptly
ad haec renidens Kustathius ‘in propatulo est’ enquit ‘quod decepit Epicu-
rum. a veroenim lapsus est aliorum quattuor senswum secutus exemplum,
quia wn audiendo et gustando et odorando atque tang ndo nihil e nobis
emittimus, sed extrinsecus accipimus quod sensum sur moveat. qurppe et
vox ad aures ultro venit et aurae in nares tnfluunt et palato ingeritur
quod giynat saporem et corpori nostro adplicuntur tactu sentienda, hinc
putarvit et ex oculis nihil foras proficisci, sed imagines rerum in oculos
ultro meare’.

230—268: we feel a thing in the dark, and know it to be the same
as we saw in the light: if what we feel is square, what square object can
come in the light to our sight except its image, since a like effect must

M. II, 16

242 BOOK IV. NOTES II

have a like cause? images proceed from things in al] directions; but as
we only see with the eyes, we only see images where we turn our sight
to them. Again an image pushes before it the air between it and the
eye; this air all sweeps through the pupil, and lets us judge of the dis-
tance of the object seen; and all this takes place almost instantaneously :
we do not see the images singly, but we see the object by a continuous
succession of these; just as we do not feel each particle of wind, but the
effect of the whole: and so too we thump the surfaee of a stone, but
feel its inner hardness. 233 Cons. causa, since the effect is consimelis.
235 luct, 232 luce: comp. 1 976 fine, 978 fint, 979 fine. 236 ad
speciem, 242 speciem; as v 707 and 724 Ad speciem for the sight or eyes:
speciem and oculi speciem are so used by Vitruvius: 1 321 specten=
potestatem videndi. 245 internoscere curat = of course curat ut γ108
internoscamus; intern. therefore is equivalent to an acc. of the subst.: see
ἢ. to 1 331 and 418. [The ut videamus makes the internoscere = ut
internoscamus less violent: surely Ennius’ audere repressit quoted by
Lach. is more harsh: comp. too Cic. epist. xv 15 2 ut ipsum viner con-
temnerent; Plaut. Bacch. 156 hic vereri perdidit: see Draeger hist.
synt. 1 p. 305.] 255 habit making the whole appear one and the
same operation; just as in fact habit makes the seeing a solid object and
the inference that it is solid appear but a single operation, 262
unorsum: Lach. compares oinvorset in the inscr. de bacchanal. 19, and
undecim unanimus ununimitas unoculus. 266 catremum, summum,
penitus, in alto, the same thing in different words to increase the foree of
the contrast: a very favourite artifice of his.

269—323 (347): the image is seen not at the surface of the mirror,
but beyond and within it in the same way that real objects are seen
through and beyond an open door, namely by two airs: it was explained
above, 246 foll., how the distance of an object from the eye was perceived
by means of the air between it and the eye; thus you see first the dis-
tance of the open doorway by one air, then comes another air between
the doorway and the object outside, which lets you see how far it is
beyond the door: thus too the mirror and its distance from us is seen by
means of its image which propels before it the air between the mirror
and the eye, which first sees this air, then the mirror; then when we
have perceived the latter, the image which goes from us to it, comes
back to us, but drives onward an air which is seen before the image, and
makes it appear so far distant beyond the mirror. Again our image in
the mirror has the right answering to our left, the left to our right, be-
cause on coming against the mirror it is dashed straight out in the
reverse direction, like a wet plaster-mask thrown against a post. Again
a series of mirrors disposed in a certain way can bring into view all the
recesses and turnings of a building. Again concave mirrors shew our
image with right answering to right, left to left. Again the images step

BOOK IV NOTES II 243

and move as we do, because when you withdraw from any part of the
Inirror, images cannot come from that part of the mirror. 271 Quod
genus: seen. to τι 194, vere: to me it appears marvellous that Lach.
should say ‘vere non modo supervacaneum est, sed caret sensu’: it clearly
refers to the real objects seen by images coming from them directly in
contrast to the mere reflexions from a mirror, of yourself for instance:
258 res tpsae perspicrantur. 271 and 278 transpicruntur, 272 tran-
spectum occur in no other writer of authority. 274 duplict geminoque
appears a pure tautology: 451 Linaque per totas aedis geminare supellex;
766 mortis letique potitum; 1004 facies atque ora tuantur; v 5 Pectore
parta suo quaesitaque praemia; 1025 bona magnaque pars; 1085 aquam
dicuntur et imbris Poscere; 1078 genus atituum variaeque volucres; 1191
faces cael flammaeque volantes. 277 perterget: 249 Kt quast perter-
get pupillas and 252 Et nostros oculos perterget longior aura: comp. the
whole argument there. 278 et ula: and then those things by means
of the images streaming from them incessantly. 280 protrudit cet.:
comp. the quite similar argument 246 foll. 290 Jllic i.e. ab speculo
tantum semota. 291 wtrague i.e. both in the case of things seen
through the open door and in a mirror: see ἢ, to 86. Lucr. seems to
have thoroughly felt that distance was not perceived by the eye, but was
a matter of mere inference. 298 fronte=a fronte: the mask must be
dashed straight on the post so as to preserve the right lines of the fea-
tures in front: otherwise if it were struck obliquely so as to distort the
lines, the face could not keep its shape when struck back. 301 ὁ laevo
sit: 1186 ferent tuvenes subito ex infantibw parvis ; Ter. Andr. 37 fect
ex servo wt esses libertus miht; Aen. X 221 nymphasque e navibus esse
Tusserat; Pers, vi 11 Quintus pavone ex Pythagoreo; Livy 1x 39 7 fit ex
secunda prima acies. mutua: see n. to 11 76. 303 sexve: Florus 11
18 (Iv 8) sex septemve: it is possible that Lucr. wrote Qu. et. sex, on the
analogy of sex septem, which occurs in Cicero Terence and Horace, though
577 Lucr. has Sex etiam aut septem: just as Sen. Herc. Fur. 1006 has
Dis ter on the analogy of ter quater. 308 speculo: the omission of the
prep. seems harsh; and perhaps 6 should be read: but specwlo may be
the abl. instrum. 309 ruswm: seen. to 111 45. 310 eodem eddem
eaedem idem plur. and isdem, as said to 1 306, are found as disyll. in
Lucr.: the last three are never with him trisyll.

311 ‘specul. it is simpler to take as gen. after latusculad J. E. M.
313 Dextera sim. 1.6. images turned as a man would be if looking at
himself, right answering to right, left to left; whereas, as he has just ex-
plained, the image from a flat mirror is exactly inverted, right answering
to left, left to right. ea propter i.e. propterea: see ἢ. to 28: Bentl. after
Servius Virg. ecl. vir 31 reads in Ter. Andry. 959 Ego deorum vitam ea
propter ; Nonius too quotes the word from Pomponius, and hac propter
from Varro. 315 elisa bis, just as if the plaster-mask were first

16—2

244 BOOK IV NOTES II

struck out as described above, and then were struck back by a second
process to its original direction. 316 Crrcum agitur: not struck out
at all, but only twirled round so as to face its object. 317 docet: he
gives the mirror ἐνέργεια, as 579; and 153 quam meminit levor praestare
salutem. conv. ad nos ‘seems to mean simply to turn round to-
wards us. The plane mirror makes the image return back foremost, the
concave mirror makes it face round and so return fronting us’ J. E. M.
The phenomenon described by Lucr. in these last verses is quite true
and simple, whatever be said of his explanations of it, on which in-
deed he seems not himself to lay much stress. Editors are strangely at
sea about a very easy matter. From seeing my image turned upside
down in the bow] of a silver spoon I hastily concluded, as I find Gassendi
has done, that a concave mirror always gave an image thusinverted. A
distinguished mathematical friend has however proved to me both by
optical and ocular demonstration that this inversion is caused by the
vertical, not in the least by the lateral curvature. A mirror, laterally
concave, such as I have before me at this very moment, gives back your
image turned as Lucr. asserts, i.e. facing you just as if you were facing
yourself, right answering to right, left to left. Probably the Romans
had metal mirrors of this shape for the purpose of getting such an image;
the other side being convex, so as to suggest to Lucr. his comparison
‘lateris nostri’. 323 ad aequos flecus: he refers no doubt to the angle
of reflexion being equal to the angle of incidence; a fact well known to
the Greek and Roman geometers of his day; of which Lucr, therefore
would not be ignorant. How far it can be reconciled with his general
theory of images, I hardly know: an acute correspondent has pointed out
to me many of the ditticulties which such an attempt involves. But the
mathematician just mentioned shews me in what way he thinks these
difficulties may be got over ; and indeed we see in the 5th and 6th books
that Lucr. was sufficiently indifferent to discordant or seemingly discord-
ant theories standing side by side. My correspondent rightly shews I
think that in 320 vecedas refers to a person moving along a mirror paral-
lel to its plane, not stepping back from it. It must be remembered that
the ancient mirrors were but a few inches in diameter; and would per-
haps not suggest to Lucr. some difficulties which our large looking-glasses
might have done: 322 Omnia are all objects generally which can im-
pinge, a ball and the like as well as an image.

324 (299)—378: this theory of images will explain many other
things: you cannot gaze on the sun, because of the force with which
images come from it, and the seeds of fire mixed in them: the jaundiced
see all things of a greenish yellow, because of the atoms of this colour
which proceed from them and meet the images: we see out of the dark
things in the light, because a bright clear air, advancing before the
images of things in the light, purges the eye of the gross air of darkness,

BOOK IV NOTES II 245

the former air being much more minute and penetrating than the latter:
we cannot see what is in the dark, because the gross air comes behind
the bright and blocks up the sight against all images: a square tower
from a clistance looks round, because the images are blunted in their long
journey through the air: our shadow seems to follow us and move as we
clo, because it is really nothing but air without light: one part of the
earth after another being shaded from the sun as we advance, and the
parts before covered by us left exposed as we leave them. 324 tewerr
appears to be governed by fugitant as well as vitant: he has elsewhere
Sugitant relinquere, fugitabant visere. 325 tendere i.e. oculos: Virgil
has Ad caelum tendens lumina, oculos telumque tetendit; Ovid oculos et
bracchia tendens: 1 66 Nonius Lamb. and Lach. read tendere.. oculos.
326 alte, which generally means ‘on high’ or ‘to a height’ or ‘depth’,
seems here to mean ‘from on high’; so 1182 alte sumpta querella, ‘from
the depth’; [and Varro Menipp. 2728 (p. 186 Buech.) At nos caduct
naufragt ut crconiae...alte maesti in terran cecidimus:] see n. to 1 65
super, and to 11 1153 seperne. 332 Lurida, 333 luroris: Paulus
Fest. p. 120 luridi supra modun pallidi, which seems true of paleness
on a dark complexion; so Catull. 64 100 magis fulgore (fulvore
Ritschl) expalluit auri: Apul. met. 1x 30, with whom luror is a
favourite word, lurore buaxeo macieque foedata. 333 Arquati:
Nonius p. 35 arquatus morbus dictus, que regius dicitur, quod arcus sit
concolor de virore vel...Varro Humenidibus nam ut arquatis et lutea
quae non sunt et quae sunt lutea videntur: v1 526 Lucr. has the form
argue. 336 palloribus: 111 154 Sudoresque. 339 ἐγ: see n. to ΠῚ
1042. 840 candens lucidus: 11767 canos candentt marmore fluctus ; 771
candens videatur et album; v 721 candents lunwne tinctus : comp. Iv 624
Onda lingua sudantia templa. 341 discutet umbras is in Virg. geor.
1πι 357. 342 multis part.: see ἢ. to 1 735. 361 quasi ad tornum
terantur: Virg. geor. 11 444 Hine radios trivere rotis, which Servius
explains tornavere, composuere de torno: Fore. cites also Pliny nat. hist.
xxxv1 193 alud (vitrum) torno teritur: comp. Petron. frag. 29, who
seems at once to imitate and contradict Lucr., Yallunt nos ocult vagique
sensus Oppressa ratione mentiuntur. Nam turris, prope quae quadrata
surgi, Detritis procul angulis rotatur ; for see 379 Nec tamen hic oculos
fall cet.; and indeed Lucr. may have written rotentur: terantur=exactly
rotatur of Petron. who says rotatur not rotata est: the pres. expresses the
process going on as long as you look atit. ad tornum: 11378 neque facta
manu sunt Unis ad certam forman: comp. Livy 1 19 6 ad cursus lunae
an duodecem menses describit annum; xLtiv 11 5 non ad eandem crasst-
tudumem structos esse; xx1x 6 10 scalas ad editam altitudinem arcis
Jabricatas ; Caes. de bel. Gall. v 42 5 turres ad altitudinem valli; Juv. v1
324 omnia flent Ad verun. 363 adumbratim seems not to occur else-
where: Cicero says non expressa signa sed adumbrata virtutum. simu-

246 BOOK IV NOTES II

lata: see n. to1 687. Sextus adv. math. vir 208 οὐκ dv εἴποιμι ψεύδεσθαι
τὴν ὄψιν, ὅτι ἐκ μακροῦ μὲν διαστήματος μικρὸν ὁρᾷ τὸν πύργον Kal στρογ-
γύλον ἐκ δὲ τοῦ σύνεγγυς μείζονα καὶ τετράγωνον, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον ἀληθεύειν,
ὅτι καὶ ὅτε φαίνεται μικρὸν αὐτῇ τὸ αἰσθητὸν καὶ τοιουτόσχημον, ὄντως ἐστὶ
μικρὸν καὶ τοιουτόσχημον, τῇ διὰ τοῦ ἀέρος φορᾷ ἀποθρανομένων τῶν κατὰ
τὰ εἴδωλα περάτων κ.τ.λ. 366 sz credis implies an absurdity: 1 1057
Ipsum si quicquam posse in se sistere credis; where see note. 368
lumine cassus: 377 spoliatur lumine terra, Vv 719 and 757 casswm lumine
corpus: Aen. 11 85 cassum lumine, x1 935 corpus spoliatum lumine, the
sense being quite different: sec ἢ. to 1 253. 372 quod 1. eius: a
favourite constr. of Livy, as 11 14 3 quod Caesonis sodahum fuit ; xxl
41 quod agri est; xxx 20 5 quod roboris wm exercitu erat: and of
Terence, as heaut. 1048 quod dotis αἰαὶ: Catull. 22 21 manticae quod in
tergo est. {Draeger hist. synt. p. 421 for quod evus quotes Livy v 25 and
other passages: for Lucr, and Catullus see what precedes and follows
there. | 374 e regione i.e. recta linea: comp. v1 344 E regione locum
guasi in unum cuncta ferantur; and other passages of Lucr. Cicero and
Livy there cited. 376 lana trah.: fresh wool at the same time con-
stantly taking the place of what is consumed. 378 abluct wmbras:
875 sitts de corpore nostro Abluitur, an equally expressive metaphor.
379—468: in all this the eyes are not deceived; what they see, they
rightly see; it is the mind that errs in the inferences it draws: this
applies to thousands of things in which the senses seem to be mistaken;
when we are in a ship which is moving, it seems to be at rest, and things
which it passes to be in motion; the stars which are in perpetual move-
ment, appear to stand still; if you look down a long colonnade, the roof
and floor and the sides seem at the other end to converge to a point; out
at sea the sun appears to rise from the water and to set in it; the parts
of a ship under water look bent and twisted upwards; when clouds scud
across the sky, the stars seem to move the other way; if you press the
eyeball beneath, you see all things double; when fast asleep in a small
room in the dark, you often think you see daylight and are travelling
over wide distances: in all this the error lies in the opinions which the
mind superinduces upon what the senses really perceive. 383 diximus,
in 368 foll. 385 naturam rerum here=causas rerum. 386 vit. oc.
adfingere: Cic. de imp. Cn. Pomp. 10 ut neque vera laus ei detracta
oratione mea neque falsa adficta esse videatur. 387 Qua veh. nari:
see ἢ. to1 15 capta...quamque. 391 cavernis: seen. to117]1. 392
adsiduo sunt motw: elsewhere he uses the more common constr. esse v7
motu: seen. to1 999. motwesse without the adj. could hardly be said;
but adsiduo implies the state or condition of the motion; and Madvig
Lat. gram. 272 2 teaches that both eodem statu and in eodem statu esse,
manere may be said. 393 ldongos=longinquos: Servius Aen. ΧΙ 544,
quoted by Forc., ‘Sallustius et Metello procul agente longa spes auailio-

BOOK IV NOTES II 247

rum’; [auct. bell. Afr. 51 6 aquatione enim longa et angusta utebatur.]
994 suo..corpore claro: 1 38 tuo recubantem corpore sancto; 413 meo
dite de pectore; 11 102 sus perplears figuris; 730 meo dulct labore; v 876
suis fatalibus vinclis; v1 417 suasque praeclaras sedes; 618 suis radits
ardentibus: the usage is archaic; as Ennius ann. 52 aegro cum corde
meo, 55 Teque, pater Tiberine, tuo cum flumine sancto; Virg. follows
with suo tristt cum corde, tuo perfusi flumine sacro, suo cum gurgite
flavo. 397 the constr. seems to resemble some of the instances given
inn. to1 15: the Hautantis...montis is joined by attraction with inter
qguos because it is nearest: if the unter quos preceded the montis there
would be nothing harsh or unusual in the constr.; but the Hxtantis cet.
is put first to give it emphasis: it is an anacoluthon, but a natural one,
as on beginning he had not determined what should be the end of the
sentence; and not so harsh as de fin. 111 1] ceterae philosophorum disct-
plinae, omnino alia magrs alia, sed tamen omnes, quae rem ullam virtutis
expertem aut in bonis aut mn mals numerent, eas non modo nihil adiu-
vare arbitror : the corrections of Lach. and others are weak and impro-
bable. 404 ewbar i.e. solis: v 697 tremulum vubar haesttat ignis; Aetna
333 Purpureoque rubens surgat wubar aureus ostro: Apuleius by four dif-
ferent imitations shews he understood Aen. τν 130 cubare exorto of the sun.
409 Festus p. 375 veruta nila dicuntur quod.. habeant praefixa(Paulussup-
plies guod veluti veruahabent praefixa) Hnniusl. x cursus quingentos saepe
veruti; Virgil and Tibullus have the form veru, and Virg. the adj. verutus.
414 At conlectus, 436 At maris, 447 At si: at here=denique; as also
998 At consueta, 1007 At varine; 1165, 1168, v 650, 1028, 1361, 1379,
1436; this use of αὐ in transitions is common enough in Cicero; see
Mayor’s edition of Halm Phil. 117. —conedectus aquae: 111 198 lapidum
conlectum; Aetna 294 Pellit opus collectus aquae : Forc. cites from Fron-
tinus sz collectus pluvials aquue cet. digitum non altior unum; very
similar is Livy xx1 61 10 raro umquam nix minus quattuor pedes alta
tacuit, [and auct. bell. Afr. 15 1 neqguis males ab signis Iv pedes longius
procederet :| but the law is usually restricted to plus minus amplius maior
minor: Virg. ecl. τι 105 Tris pateat caeli spateum non amplius ulnas.
416 417 Il. © 16 and Hes. theog. 720, had made this notion familiar to
poets, though perhaps Virg. geor. 11 291 and Aen. vi 577 was also
thinking of Lucr., despectum.. patet suggesting patet. . suspectus.
416 inpete here denotes simply size, which seems to be derived from the
primary meaning of force and vehemence: so v 200 quantum caela tegut
empetus ingens, for there seems no allusion there to a revolving heaven;
and v1 186 Eatructis aliis alias super wmpete miro; Vv 913 tanto membro-
rum esse impete natum seems to express both force and size; Caes. de bel.
Gall. πὶ 8 in magno impetu maris atque aperto, compared with 9 7 in
vastissimo atque apertissimo oceano and 12 5 vasto atque aperto mart,
extent seems to be the chief notion expressed: Mela 111 6 Lusitanwa trans

248 BOOK IV NOTES II

Anam...primum ingentt impetu in altum abit; Stat. silv. τν 2 23 effu-
saeque impetus aulae Lrberior campr. 417 caeli.. hiatus, perhaps
with reference to Ennius’ caeli palatum after the Greek. 418 I now
think that eaelum must be corrupt ; for which we should perhaps read
volucrum, or aique avium, or the like: comp. his corpora volantum, and
pennipotentunr: the birds seen flying about among the clouds would be a
striking object: Aen. v 512 J/la notos atque atra volans in nubila fugit...
Iam vacuo laetam caelo speculatus et alis Plaudentem nigra figit sub nube
columbam. Decidit exanimis vitamque reliquit in astris Aethervs ; ΠῚ
243; x11 256 penitusque in nubila fugit. 419 mirando, because it is
wondrous strange that heaven should be there in that small puddle: v1
692 mtrando pondere saxa; ν 1171 mirando corporis auctu. See notes
l and 2 to tv 213. Shelley in the Recollection ‘We paused beside the
pools that lie Under the forest bough: Each seemed as ’twere a little sky
Gulfed in a world below; A firmament of purple light, Which in the dark
earth lay...In which the lovely forests grew, As in the upper air... There
lay the glade and neighbouring lawn, And through the dark green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn Out of a speckled cloud.’ 426
ductu; Cic. de rep. 11 1] cutus is est tractus ductusque muri; Manil. 11
287 at quae divisa quaternis Partibus aequalt laterum sunt condita
ductu; 274 In tris aequalts discurrit linea ductus; German. 237 7Z'ris
allt laterum ductus; Lucan tv 419 insolito contexunt robora ductu.

427 in perpetuum: Plaut. most. 146 non wdeor miht Sarcire posse aedis
meas gurn totae perpetuae ruant ; Creech compares Aen. vii 176 perpetuis
solitt patres considere mensis ; Ὑ1Π 183 Virgil translates by Perpetut tergo
bovis Homer's νώτοισι διηνεκέεσσι: but these all give the primary meaning
of the word. 429 trahit fastigia, poetically making the colonnade the
agent; instead of trahitur in fastigia. 436 clauda: Livy xxxvui 24 6
has claudas mutilatasque naves; but here perhaps clauda is rather the
reverse of recta, as claudicat in 515 libella si.. claudicat hilum, v1 1107
qua mundi claudrcat axrs. 437 aplustris: see n. to τι 555. 438
rorem salis: Virg. geor. Iv 431 rorent amarum, Aen. 1 35 spumas salis,
x 214 campos salis: see also ἢ. to 1496. 450 florentia : 1 900 flammai
Jiulserunt flore coorto; ‘Tertull. apol. 11 lumina floruisse’ J. E. M.:
Oehler there cites de patient. 2 florem lucis huzus; adv. Marcion. 1v 42
caelum luminibus florursset: comp. Aen. vil 804 jlorentis aere catervas,
where Servius says ‘ Ennius et Lucretius florens dicunt omne quod niti-
dum est’; he then quotes inaccurately v 1442 florebat puppibus. 451
Binaque..geminare: 274 duplict geminoque fit aere. geminare neut. as
the compound zngemino so often is. 453 sopore Somnus: m1 431 in
somnts sopitt. 458 Concl. loco: Hor. sat.1 4 76 Swave locus voci reso-
nat conclusus. 459 Mutare = ἀμείβειν : Sen. epist. 104 8 guid procdest
mare tratcere et urbes mutare?; Pliny 11 132 locum ex loco mutans
rapida vertigune. 460 severa: v 1190 noctis signa severa: the epithet

BOOK IV NOTES II 249

seems to belong to the notion of night: it appears to be the opposite to
what is gay and smiling: Ov. met. vil 184 has mediae per muta silentia
noctis. 462 comp. 590 Cetera de genere hoc monstra ac portenta
loquontur...ideo cactant maracula dictis; and v 845. 463 wiolare fidem
usually means to break your own faith; here it means to impair the
credit of others: but 505 Zt violare fidem primam convellere tota [un-
damenta, the sense is much the same as here: 1 694 Zt labefactat eos
1.6. sensus unde omnia credita pendent. 464 foll. Tertull. de anima 17
mon enim sensum mentiri sed opinionem: sensum enim pati, non opinarr;
animam enim opinarr. 465 opinatus seems a ἅπαξ λεγόμ. for opinatio:
with opinatus anime quos addimus ipsi, and 467 res secernere apertas Ab
dubvis, animus quas ab se protinus addit comp. Epic. himself in Diog. x
50 τὸ δὲ ψεῦδος καὶ τὸ διημαρτημένον ἐν τῷ προσδοξαζομένῳ ἀεί ἐστι κατὰ τὴν
κίνησιν ἐν ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς, συμνημμένην τῇ φανταστικῇ ἐπιβολῇ, διάλειψιν (not
διάληψιν) δ᾽ ἔχουσαν καθ᾽ ἣν τὸ ψεῦδος γίνεται: and comp. all that follows
with Sextus adv. math. vir 210 foll.: Epicurus shews that every percep-
tion is true; but that some opinions are true, some false, and points out
how the true are to be distinguished from the false; Cic. acad. pr. 11 45
diaitque (Epicurus) sapientis esse opinionen: a perspricuitate sevunyere:
perspicuttas is his translation of Epicurus’ ἐνάργεια. With respect to
one of the cases put by Lucr. above, Cie. 1. 1, 80 says Tumagoras eprcureus
negat sibi umquam, cum oculum torsisset, duas ex lucerna flammulas esse
visas ; opinionis enim esse mendacium, non oculorum. It appears from
this book of Cicero that the ship of 387 foll. and the bent oar of 438
were also stock illustrations in the schools: Macrob. sat. vir 14 enume-
rates others as well as these. 468 ab se=ipse: 465 addimus ipsi:
nearly the same is its force 111 271 initum motus ab se quae dividit ollis ;
Plaut. miles 940 dat nunc ab se mulier operam; trin. 182 a me argentum
dedi; and a se fectt in an inscr. Zell. epigr. 1011.

4θ0.--- 521: if a man teaches that nothing can be known, how does he
know that? how distinguish between knowing and not knowing? on the
truth of the senses all reasoning depends, which must be false if they are
false: nor is one sense more certain than another; all being equally true;
nor 1s the same sense at one time more certain than at another: all
reasoning, nay life itself would at once come to an end, if the senses are
not to be trusted; as in any building, if the rule and square are wry,
every part will be crooked and unstable, so all reasoning must be false,
if the senses on which it is grounded are false. 469 nil score cet. refers
no doubt to the academical philosophy which as said in Cic. acad. pr. 11
61 confundit vera cum falsis, spoliat nos wudicio, privat adprobatione,
omnibus orbat senstbus: comp. too Macrob. sat. νι 14 20 where the pre-
ceding illustrations of Lucr. are referred to, quae academicis damnando-
rum sensuum occasionem dederunt. But in Cie. 1. 1. 75 it is also said of
Chrysippus, gui fulcire putatur porticum storcorum, quam multa εἰ

250 BOOK IV. NOTES II

contra sensus cet. so that Lucr. may well be alluding to his paradoxes.
id quoque nescit cet.: Metrodorus of Chios a great admirer of Democritus
pushed the paradox to this extreme: Cic. ]. 1, 73 says of him initio hbra
qui est de natura ‘nego’ inquit ‘scire nos scramusne aliquid an nihil
sciamus, ne id ipsum quidem, nescire aut scire, scire nos, nec omnino sitne
aliquid an nihil sit’: the original is quoted by Sextus and Eusebius.
471 mittam=omittam: 111 961 mitte, v1 1056 merart mitte. contendere
causam is not easy to explain: Lamb. compares Cic. in Catil. 11 25
causas ipsas, quae inter se confligunt, contendere; but there contendere
is simply to compare together, as in pro Sex. Rose. 93: a sense scarcely
suitable here; unless the words can mean ‘contendere meam causam cum
illius omittam’: Gronov. obs. ΠῚ 19 compares it with cernere vitam,
cernere bellum, pugnare pugnam and the like; and this is probably right:
it will therefore=contendere et agere causam; cum contentione agere
causam. causans for cawsam would be an easy emendation. 472
Qui capite cet. appears to be a proverb: Plaut. cure. 287 Quin cadat, quin
capite sistat in via de semita; Ter. ad. 316 Sublimem medium arriperem
et capite in terram statuerem: but its precise force is not very clear:
Gronov. ]. 1. explains it by ‘qui 5101 non constat, qui se ipse evertit, qui
cernuat’: this would suit the context ; but a inan who tumbles on his
head, does not place his head where his feet were. Perhaps by a man
putting his head where his feet should be is meant that he assumes as
his premiss that nothing can be known, which is the conclusion that
ought to be, but cannot be proved by such a premiss: the man thus
inverts himself in a manner. Locke essay Iv 1] 3 uses very similar
language, ‘I think nobody can in earnest be so sceptical as to be uncer-
tain of the existence of those things which he sees and feels. At least
he that can doubt so far, whatever he may have with his own thoughts,
will never have any controversy with me; since he can never be sure I
say anything contrary to his opinion’, and ὃ ‘if all be a dream, then he
doth but dream that he makes the question ; and so it 15 not much matter
that a waking man should answer him.’

478 Invenies: whatever he may say, you will find that no other real
answer can be given, except that all truth depends first on the senses.
primis: comp. 11 1030 and πὶ 250, 484 quae tota cet.: 1 694 unde
omnia credita pendent. 493 coniuncta: 1 449 aut his coniuncta
duabus Rebus ea invenies: and see n. there: it would then mean here the
conditions, of light etc., which are necessarily connected with colour;
but this can hardly be right: it is rather to be compared with m 742
coygnoscant corpora tactu Ex ineunte aevo nullo convuncta colore; and
means simply ‘and so see the objects which are seen by colour’: anyhow
the phrase is curious. 497 ipsi repr. sese 1.6. the same sense at one
time cannot refute the same sense at another: Cic. acad. pr. 11 79 eo
enim rem demittit Epicurus, st unus sensus semel in vita mentrtus sit,

BOOK IV NOTES II 251

nulla umquam esse credendum ; and with all that precedes comp. the very
similar reasoning of Epic. himself in Diog. x 31 πᾶσα yap αἴσθησις
ἀλογός ἐστι καὶ μνήμης οὐδεμιᾶς Sextixy’ οὔτε yap ὑφ᾽ αὐτῆς οὐθ᾽ ὑφ᾽ ἑτέρου
κινηθεῖσα δύναταί τι προσθεῖναι ἢ ἀφελεῖν οὐδ᾽ ἐστὶ τὸ δυνάμενον αὐτὰς
διελέγξαι. οὔτε γὰρ ἢ ὁμοιογενὴς αἴσθησις τὴν ὁμοιογενῆ διὰ τὴν ἰσοσθέ-
νειαν, οὔθ᾽ ἡ ἀνομοιογενὴς τὴν ἀνομοιογενῆ οὐ γὰρ τῶν αὐτῶν εἰσὶ κριτικαί.
οὔθ᾽ ἡ ἑτέρα τὴν ἑτέραν᾽ πάσαις γὰρ προσέχομεν. οὔτε μὴν λόγος" πᾶς γὰρ
λόγος ἀπὸ τῶν αἰσθήσεων ἤρτηται. 500 dissolvere is a technical term
often used by Cicero and Quintilian ; and means to explain away an
objection and prove it not to be to the point. 502 rat. eg.: rationis
egentes occurs in Ovid met. xv 150 amid many other imitations of
Lucretian language. 504 the antithesis between manifesta and mani-
bus emrttere is doubtless intentional. 505 viol. fid.: see n. to 463.
507 Non modo..., vita quoque ipsa: the absence of the adversative
particle in the second clause is rare in the Latin, though so common in
the English idiom: Tacitus has on modo, etiam more than once, and
hist. 11 27 nec solum apud Caeciham..., Fabiit quoque Valentis copiae :
Livy xxvuir 39 11 ita bello affliait ut non modo nobis, absit verbo invidia,
ne posteris quidem timenda nostris esset, Madvig inserts from conjecture
sed after nobis: Sen. epist. 77 6 morz velle non tantum prudens..., etiam
fastidiosus potest, [and 85 33 non ex ebore tantum Phidias sciebat facere
simulacra, faciebat ex aere;|] Mela 111 27 nandi non patientia tantunr
illis, studium etiam est. Such sentences as Livy ΧΧΠ 27 9 nee se tempora
aut dies wmperit μην eo, exercitum divisurum; 1 25 3 nec his nec alls
periculum suum, publicum rnperium servitiumque obversatur animo,
seem like in principle. 508 n2zs2 credere cet.: Locke essay tv 11 8
‘such an assurance of the existence of things without us is sufticient to
direct us in the attaining the good and avoiding the evil which is
caused by them etc.’ ausis=velis; as often in Plautus: Men. 697
etiamne audes mea reverti gratia?; truc. τι 4 71 Non audes aliquod dare
mihi munusculum?: comp. sodes and sis. [See Ussing to Plaut. asin. 473,
and comp. Cic. epist. 1x 10 1 non sum ausus Sulvio nostro nihil ad
te litterarum dare. | 515 libella ‘consists of two sides joined at the
top by a cross bar, over which a line and plummet descends as a
pendulum’ Rich’s companion. clawdicat: see ἢ. to 436. 517 the
rhythm of this v. was perhaps suggested by 1]. ¥ 116 Πολλὰ δ᾽ ἄναντα
κάταντα πάραντα τε δόχμιά τ᾽ ἦλθον, on which Demetrius Phal. cited by
Clarke remarks μεμίμηται τῇ κακοφωνίᾳ τὴν ἀνωμαλίαν. 518 guaedam
vid. velle, ruantque 1.6. ut alia videantur velle ruere, alia autem ruant,
prodita et haec et illa cet.: comp. 652 Hsse minora ryitur quaedain
maroraque debent; ν 1237 Concussaeque cadunt urbes dubsaeque minan-
tur. vid. velle: 1 577 videtur Ive anima ac toto solur de corpore velle.
520 zgitur beginning an apodosis: see n. to1 419. ratio cet.: πᾶς yap
λόγος ἀπὸ τῶν αἰσθήσεων ἤρτηται, Says Epic. in Diog. x 32.

252 BOOK IV NOTES II

522—548; the way in which the other senses are acted upon, may
now be easily understood : sound is corporeal, since it is by striking on
the ear that it excites sensation; often too the atoms of sound in passing
through the narrow windpipe graze it and make it rough; again a long
speech spoken in a loud voice takes much strength and substance from a
man: smoothness of sound comes from smoothness of its atoms, roughness
from roughness in them. 922 quo pacto: ‘that is manifestly by
impulse, the only way which we can conceive bodies operate in’ says
Locke essay 11 8 11: what follows has many points of singular agreement
with what Lucr. says here and in parts of I. 923 scruposa: the
metaphor is obvious, though the word does not appear to occur elsewhere
in this sense; and scrupews has also this meaning, but only in late
writers. 524 foll. comp. auctor ad Heren. 111 21. 924 auditur
cet.: so Epic. in Diog. x 52 τὸ axovew γίνεται ῥεύματός τινος φερομένου
ἀπὸ τοῦ φωνοῦντος ἢ ἠχοῦντος ἢ ψοφοῖντος ἢ ὅπως δήποτ᾽ ἀκουστικὸν πάθος
παρασκευάζοντος. τὸ δὲ ῥεῦμα τοῦτο εἰς ὁμοιομερεῖς ὄγκους διασπείρεται
K.T.A, 525 pepulere.. sensum: Cac. de nat. deor. 11 144 priusquam
sensus ab his i.e. vocibus pulsus esset. 929 arteria: this neut. form
appears to occur only here. aspertora, perhaps with reference to its
technical name, the aspera arteria, τραχεῖα ἀρτηρία: see Cicero and Celsus
in Fore. 530 coorta is neut. plur.; as it appears to be also in v1 465:
comp. Livy v 12 7 seditio intestina marore mole coortd: but v1 511 turba
matore coacta, coacta must be abl. 032 quoque belongs equally to the
three words expleti ianua oris ; for the meaning is os quoque expletur et
eius tanva raditur: the Ἰταλία here is the fauces, through which the
voice enters the mouth. expleti: VI 1203 sanguis expletis nartbus ibat:
the word in these two places has doubtless its usual meaning, though
Lach. says the sense which Donatus and Ennius give it of exinanitus

would be appropriate here. 934 laedere: auctor ad Heren. 111 21
laeduntur arteriae si, antequam lent voce permulsae sunt, acri clamore
compleantur. 535 corporis: see ἢ. to 1 1039. 945 sub murmure:

785 Omnia sub verbone creat natura: sub here, as often, signifies ‘at’
‘immediately upon’, and sometimes has the same force as the simple abl.:
comp. VI 413 and 416 u20 sub tempore and ἢ. there: Livy m 55 1 sub
hac pessimi exempli victoria delectus edicitur; Ov. met. tv 523 Bacchi
sub nomane Luno Risit; Mani). 1 147 sub origine rerum; Hor. od. 1117 30
Sub cantu querulae despice tibiae; Celsus v 26 31 sub frigido sudore
moriuntur ; [Caes. Ὁ. civ. 1 27 3 sub ipsa profectione ; Hirt. Ὁ. Gall. ν1
49 2 sub discesso suo ; Nepos Attic. 12 ὃ quod quidem sub tpsa proscrip-
tione perillustre fuit; and perhaps Sen. rhet. suas. vil 11 mortem sub
aufania quaerere.| The accus. is more common: Ov, fasti 111 642 Sud
verbum querulas impulit aura fores; [Caelius ap. Cic. epist. για 4 4
statim sub mentionem et convicium obtrectatorum; Cic. epist. x 16 1
sub eas statim recitatae sunt tuae; ad , fr. 11 1 1 mense Decembri

BOOK IV NOTES II 2:

sub dies festos;| and sub haec, sub haec dicta, sub hance vocem, so
frequent in Livy: [see Draeger hist. synt. 1 p. 619 1 g for abl., and

2 c for accus. | mugit: Aen. vill 526 Tyrrhenusque tubue mugire..
clangor. 546 cata 1.6. murmure: 608 sonituque cientur i.e. loca; v 1251
canibusque crere. 547 whoever has travelled over Helicon and

seen and heard its rushing torrents, will feel the fitness of making
them the haunts of swans; and he who has not visited the place, might
well believe that they would come to sing their dirge after having, in
the words of Helicon’s own poet, λοεσσάμενοι τέρενα χρόα Περμησσοῖο Ἢ
ἵππου κρήνης ἢ OApecod ζαθέοιο: the reading of course is not certain here
or in 546, where the archetype was injured, as here, in the middle of
the v.; but cucnei torrentib. when some letters were damaged, might
easily get to necte (or nete) tortis.

049—594: as the sounds are coming out, the tongue forms them
into articulate words; every one of which is distinctly heard near at
hand; but at a greater distance the sound is indistinctly perceived, as it
gets broken in passing through the air: again a single word often strikes
the ears of a whole multitude; it must divide therefore into so many
distinct words: often too voices are echoed distinctly back, sometimes
Six or seven in answer to one: these the wonder-loving multitude
believes to be the voices and music of nymphs and woodland gods, Pan
and the rest. 550 recto ore: seen. to 11 217 and 226. 551 arti-
culat: Plat. Protag. 322 A φωνὴν καὶ ὀνόματα ταχὺ διηρθρώσατο τῇ
τέχνῃ : lexicons cite for the Latin word only late authorities besides
Lucr.: Cic. de nat. deor. 11 149 quoted by Lamb. in ore sita lingua est,
Jinita dentibus. ea vocem inmoderate profusam fingit et terminat atque
sonos vocis distinctos et pressos efficet. verborum daedala: it governs a
gen. also v 234 naturaque daedala rerum: comp. too n. to I 7.

502 Formatura, 556 formaturam: see ἢ. to 1 653, 553 Loc ubi:
so 622, 658, vi 274: 1v 1092 quwoniam, Hoc: see n. to U1 531. una pr.
Per νυ. quaeque: V 990 Unus enim tum qusque. 556 Servat cet.:

Epic. 1. 1. τὸ δὲ ῥεῦμα τοῦτο εἰς ὁμοιομερεῖς ὄγκους διασπείρεται, ἅμα τινὰ
διασώζοντας συμπάθειαν πρὸς ἀλλήλους καὶ ἑνότητα ἰδιότροπον. formaturam
and figuram must surely be synon. here. 560 dlan...ver. sen. quae
sit: seen. tor 15. 567 Obsignans seems to mean impressing on the
ears the form of the word, as the seal impresses its mark on the wax.
568 auris incidit, a rare construction: Tac. hist. πὶ 29 obrurtqgue quos
enciderat ; Marcus Aurel. rescr. ap. Vule. Gallic. vit. Avid. Cass. 2 apse
sponte... fatales laqueos inciderit; Paulus quoted by Lach. has the accus.
and Apul. more than once; Aen. 1x 721 animos deus incidit M, but
nrost mss. antmo ; in Livy there appears to be no ms. authority for the
accus.: 1 326 mare quae inpendent, where see note; Luci]. ap. Non.
p. 502 gladium incumbat: and so insinuare latebras and the like.

572 videas, possis: see ἢ. to 1 327, 575 opacos seems to mean here

254 BOOK IV NOTES II

enveloped in darkness; as Aen. πὶ 508 Sol rust interea et montes
umbrantur opaci; though it may only mean that they are lost in the
woods on the hills. 576 Quaerimus et cet.: Aen, 111 68 Condimus et
magna supremum voce ciemus; this might be added to n. to 1 253.

578 ipsi seems to be in answer, with reference to Unam cum taceres.
579 docta referrz: Lach. compares Hor. epist. 1 14 30 Afulta mole
docendus aprico parcere campo. 980 L/aec loca cet.: Milton par. reg.
11 296 to ὦ superstitious eye the haunt Of wood-gods and wood-nymphs ;
Aen. vit 314 Haec nemora indigenae faunt nymphaeque tenebant.

581 faunos: these old Italian, nay peculiarly Latin gods he joins with
Greek satyrs and nymphs and Pan, as Virg. ]. 1. and geor. 1 10
faunique...dryadesque ; to which v. Probus says rusticis persuasum est
incolentibus eam partem Italiae quae suburbana est saepe eos i.e. faunos
in agris conspict; and Varro tells us it was in the saturnian metre they
spoke in silvestribus locis; as does Ennius ann. 222 Vorsibus quos olim
faunei vatesque canebant: but Ovid and Horace likewise join the fauns
with the nymphs and satyrs; and the latter, od. 1 17 1, even brings
Faunus from Lycaeus to Lucretilis. 6886 locuntur: not a common
constr. but occurring in Virg. ecl. v 27; Aen. 1 731; Hor. epist. 1 20 21;
Tib, 1513 Ov. rem. 647; her. 16 259; fasti νι 3; Sen. epist. 58 22;
Nepos vil 7; even Ciceroad Att. 15 6, [and xv1 10 1: mecum logue with
the infinitive occurs epist. ad fam. v1 ὃ 1, x11 28 a 1: so x11 5 1 loque-
bantur omnes...in Syria te esse, habere copias cet.; Q. Cie. de pet.
50 bene te wt homines nosse—appellare—petere—esse et loquantur et
existiment; Mart. 1v 61 10 loquebaris Hereditatis tabi trecenta venisse. |
582 foll. Mart. 1x 61 11 Saepe sub hac madidi luserunt arbore fauni,

Terruit et tacitam fistula sera domum; and see what follows. 583
taciturna silentia is found in Ovid ars 11 505; and mata silentia occurs
thrice in his met.; Aen. 11 255 tacitae per amica silentia lunae. 589

Tibia: Rich in his companion gives a drawing of a simple pipe or
flageolet from the statue of a faun, exactly resembling that now used by
the Roman piferari, to whom it has doubtless come down in uninter-
rupted succession from antiquity. 587 capitis velamina: 1 930 and
Iv 5 Unde prius nullt velarint tempora musae: Ov. her. 5 137 Cornige-
rumque caput pinu praecinctus acuta Faunus. 988 Unco cet.: v 1407
Et supera calamos wnco percurrere labro; Prop. 11 (1v) 17 34 Capripedes
calamo Panes hiante canent. 589 silvestrem...musam is in Virg. ecl.
1 2. 994 avid. auric., ‘avet captare auriculas alienas’: Pers. 1 22
Tun, vetwle, auriculis alienis colligis escas ; αι 29 gua tu mercede deorum
Emeris auriculas; Mart. xiv 142 Si reettaturus dedero {ἰδὲ forte
libellum, Hoe focale tuas asserat auriculas, against a too greedy reciter :
comp. aures dare, donare, praebere, commodare: Lucr. himself attentas
AUTis TEPOSsco.

995—614: sounds will come through places, through which you

BOOK IV NOTES II 255

cannot see, because their particles can pass by crooked ways, while
images can only travel through straight passages: again one voice bursts
into many similar voices, as a spark of fire into many sparks; so that al]
the corners of a building may be filled with sound; but even sound is
deadened and broken in coming through such obstructions. 598 Con-
loguium cet.: see notes 1: there is in this a mixture of seeing and
hearing, exactly as in Hor. sat. 1 ὃ 77 tum i lecto quoque videres
Stridere secreta divisos awre suswrros: quite as harsh or harsher is 262
fierique perinde videmus Corpore tum plagas in nostro; 1 256 avibus
canere undique silvas (videmus): Aen. IV 490 maugire videbis Sub pedibus
terram ; Prop. 11 (111) 16 49 Vidistis toto sonitus percurrere caelo; Varro
Atac. ap. Victorin. 2503 Vidat et aetherio mundum torquerier axe Ft
septem aeternis sonitum dare vocibus orbes. 600 renutunt seems to
occur in no other writer of authority. 602 wtrer; see n.‘to π| 97;
probably its confusion with the adjective has saved the ez here: for the
sense comp. 147 and 152. 605 Dissulwit: see ἢ. to 11 1031 lucaunas.
606 suos in ignis: i.e. vicissim In plurimas ignis scintillulas; as is seen
especially in sparks from a wood fire. 607 abdita retro: though hidden
away from the sight, they are filled with the sounds which circle all
about them. retro: Sen. Hipp. 93 per altas invii retro lacus Vadit
tenebras ; Stat. Theb. 11 13 tpsaque tellus Miratur patursse retro; Aetna
140. 608 fervunt: for form and meaning see notes 1 and ἢ. to
i 41. cientur: 546 regio cita. [With this and the previous line
compare Lucil. xxx 48 Omnia tum endo muco (μυχῷ) videas fervente
micare. | 609 derectis; see ἡ. to vi 823 derigit. 611 at cet.
1.6. nemo non potest, understood from nemo in 610: see n. to 11 1038:
Saepem ultra, which I at once hit upon myself before I saw Bernays’
ed., seems to me to suit the sense far better than other readings; and
also to be nearer the mss.: 2, as often, became s; then with saepesupra
for saepesultra, comp. 1 846 dlis cra for ile supra.

615—632: taste is quite as easy to explain; the flavour is pressed
out from food by chewing and passes into the pores of tongue and
palate: the flavour is pleasant, if its atoms are smooth, but the con-
trary, if these are rough: when the food has got below the palate, the
flavour is no longer perceived, and the food is then indifferent, if only
it can be digested. 615 guz: seen. to V 233. 619 coépit : neither
Ritschl pref. to trinummus p. Lxxvi nor Lach. can find another certain
example of this trisyll. use: but the latter says of the former ‘quod hance
formam rationem habere negat, mihi non persuadet ; nam ab apiendo ut
fit copula, ita coipere coépisse coéptum, e quibus coepisse non minus recte
quam cetera contrahi potuit eo modo quem in coemisse notavimus libro 11
1061’: and there are at least four passages of Plautus where coépz seems
well established; as merc. 533 Ecastor iam bienniumst, quom mecum
rem coépit, where Ritsch] on no authority reads occeptavit; the other

256 BOOK IV NOTES II

passages he has not yet edited. 622 Hoc ubi cet.: that this was also
the doctrine of Democritus is abundantly shewn in Theophr. de sensu et
sensil. 65, 66, 67 and elsewhere. 624 Umeda sudantia is very Lucre-
tian: comp. candens lactews, candens lucidus; and esp. 212 serena Sidera
οὐ radiantia; v 490 altaque..fulgentia templa. templa: v 103 huma-
num in pectus templaque mentis: seen. to 1 120: the lingwar templa may
have reference to the shape and position of the palate and the Greek
οὐρανός. 627 fine =tenus, a use illustrated by Bentl. to Hor. od. 11
18 30: Neue 1 p. 222 gives many instances from Caesar, Sallust ete.: I
might add others from Plautus, Ovid ete.

633—672: I will now explain why what is one creature’s meat
is another’s poison: all creatures differ within and without; therefore
they consist of different atoms ; and the atoms being different, the pores
and passages of the whole body, and also of the mouth and palate must
ditfer; thus if food is pleasant to one creature, its smooth elements must
suit the pores of that creature; if unpleasant, then its rough elements
must more readily adapt themselves to them ; and thus in disease, what
was before sweet to a man niay become bitter. 633 almus: 11 390
liquor almus aquarum. 634 quareve: seen. tol 57 Quove. triste ;
see ἢ. to1 944. 635 perdulce appears not to occur elsewhere. 636
differitas: see n. to 1 653: this however is a most strangely formed
word: [it oecurs again and again in Arnobius.] 637 ali recurs
νι 1226 quod ali dederat; alei is found twice in the corp. inser. Lat.
and ali in one doubtful case: see also n. to 1 263 alid. fuat we
had already m 383. Democritus taught exactly what Lucr. teaches
here: Theophr. de sensu et sensil. 63 σημεῖον δὲ ws οὐκ εἰσὶ φύσει
τὸ μὴ ταὐτὰ πᾶσι φαίνεσθαι τοῖς ζῴοις, ἀλλ᾽ ὃ ἡμῖν γλυκὺ τοῦτ᾽ ἄλλοις
πικρὸν καὶ ἑτέροις ὀξὺ καὶ ἄλλοις δριμὺ τοῖς δὲ στρυφνόν, and 69 ἀπλῷς
δὲ τὸ μὲν σχῆμα καθ᾽ αὐτό ἐστι, τὸ δὲ γλυκὺ καὶ ὅλως τὸ αἰσθητὸν πρὸς
ἄλλο καὶ ἐν ἄλλοις, ὥς φησιν: G. H. Lewes’ physiol. of common life
p. 59 ‘that one man’s meat is another man’s poison is a proverb
of strict veracity’. 638 serpens: Pliny vir 15 cited by Lamb., and
xxvill 35 gives similar accounts of the power of human spittle over
serpents ; and Hardouin illustrates them from various sources. 639
mand. conf. ipsa: Lucil. xxx 50 Muell. conficat apse comestque. 640
‘Arnob. 1 11 veratrum venenum est hominibus’ I.E. M. Ρ4] coturna-
cibus: this is confirmed by Hesych.: ἐλλέβορος: βοτάνη ἣν ἐσθίουσιν oi
ὄρτυγες, Which his recent editor strangely alters to opvyes: Galen often
mentions the same fact, as de temperam. UI + at end καὶ rots μὲν ὄρτυξιν
ἐλλέβορος τροφὴ τοῖς δ᾽ ἀνθρώποις φάρμακον, almost a translation of Luer.;
Pliny too x 197 venents capreae et coturnices, ut diximus, pinguescunt :
v 899 pinguescere saepe cicuta Barbigeras pecudes, homina quae est acre
venenum ; comp. this and vr 970 foll. with Diog. 1x 80 καὶ τῇ μὲν αἰγὶ
τὸν θαλλὸν εἶναι ἐδώδιμον ἀνθρώπῳ δὲ πικρόν, Kal τὸ κώνειον ὄρτυγι μὲν

BOOK IV NOTES II 257

τρόφιμον, ἀνθρώπῳ δὲ θανάσιμον, and Sextus pyrrh. hyp. 1 57 τὸ γοῦν
κώνειον πιαίνει τοὺς Optvyas, and Lewes 1. 1. p. 62 ‘the poisons are food
to many, the rabbit devouring belladonna, the goat hemlock, and the
horse aconite’. For the quantity of cdtwrn., see n. to 1360 and 11 504:
whether the cocturn. of A is the genuine spelling or a corruption, I am
unable to decide: the former is maintained by Fleckeisen, Rhein. mus.
Vul p. 232, and Zeyss, Philolog. xxx1 p. 309; the latter by Lach.: which
would seem to be the truth, if we can trust the old grammarians, Caper
p. 2248, and one in Keil’s gramm. Lat. v p. 573 ‘coturnicem antiqui
dixerunt, nunc cocturnix’. 643 ante, 1 814, 895 and elsewhere.
647 Haut. mem. circ. we had above 11 219. 651 zpso refers to ore as
well as palato, they being singled out from the other membra, as those
which have to do with taste: comp. 1044 partis genitals corporis ipsas ;
and v1 1175 1280 venentes ore patente. 652 maroraque 1.6. quaedam
maiora: comp. n. to 518: foramina is the subject. 654 madltangula
appears to occur in no other writer of a good age. 660 contractabr-
liter too seems a ἅπαξ λεγόμ.: a, as twice in contractans. 668 corpora
1.6. the levissima of 659. 669 cetera: Aspera nimirum hamataque of
662. 671 Lachmann’s note is quite beside the point: he gains no-
thing by transposing these vss.; for, as just shewn, the quae corpora of
668 and the cetera of 669 are the very levissema and A spera respectively,
for which he makes his transposition. I now incline to rejectalso Bernays’
notion of a lacuna: the mention of honey is somewhat abrupt ; but that
is explained by the fact that it was proverbial as an illustration of the
merely relative notion of sweet and bitter: thus Sextus pyrrh. hyp. 1163
ἐκ τοῦ TO μέλι τοῖσδε μὲν πικρὸν τοῖσδε δὲ γλυκὺ φαίνεσθαι ὁ μὲν Anpo-
κριτος ἔφη μήτε γλυκὺ αὐτὸ εἶναι μήτε πικρόν, ὁ δὲ Ἡράκλειτος ἀμφότερα.
Now Lucr. has just specified fever with a flow of bile as the cause of this
change of sweet to bitter: with this coinp. Galen de simpl. med. temp. IV
17 οὐδὲν οὖν θαυμαστὸν οὐδὲ διὰ τί τὸ γλυκύτατον ἁπάντων μέλι τὸν πικρότα-
Tov γεννᾷ χυμὸν καὶ διὰ τί μάλιστα τοῖς ἀκμαζουσί τε καὶ φύσει θερμοῖς
καὶ πυρέττουσιν.. ὅταν ἀκραιφνεῖ πλησιάζῃ θερμότητι, τὸν χολώδη γεννᾷ
χυμόν: comp. too Sen. epist. 109 7. Lucr. probably got his illustration
from Hippocrates. 672 supera saepein 11 and 11: comp. 11 391—407
with 11 189—195, from which it will appear that honey has many
smooth round atoms in it whence it gets its usually pleasant flavour; but
at the same time it has a constantior natura Et pigre latices magis et
cunctantior actus than water, and therefore has more rough and hooked
atoms; so that in peculiar states of the tongue and palate, in fever for
instance, these latter atoms happen to fit the pores better than the
smooth ones, and produce a bitter flavour.

673—686: next to explain smell: it must stream on all sides from
many things; but, as in taste, one kind suits one creature, another
another; bees are attracted from tar by the smell of honey, and so on ;

Με 11. 1,

258 BOOK IV NOTES II

thus each creature is drawn to its proper food and avoids poison. 673
adiectus: this rare word is similarly used 1 689 nostros adiectu tan-
gere tactus. 674 primam cet.: so Epic. in Diog. Laert. x 53 καὶ μὴν
καὶ THY ὀσμὴν νομιστέον ὥσπερ καὶ τὴν ἀκοὴν οὐκ av ποτε πάθος οὐθὲν
3 4 9 , os” Ν > 2 Ν a , 3 ᾽ ,

ἐργάσασθαι, εἰ pn ογκοι τινὲς σαν ἀπὸ TOV TPAayLaTOS αποφερόμενοι TUp-
μέτροι πρὸς τὸ τοῦτο τὸ αἰσθητήριον κινεῖν κιτιλ.: comp. too Locke essay

11 13. 675 notice fluens, fluctus, flwere employed with his usual
indifference to such repetitions. 681 quo tulerzt 1.6. quocumque tule-
rit. promissa of mss. is well defended by N. P. Howard, Journ. of

phil. 1p. 131: in answer to Lachmann’s ‘animata et vigentia non viden-
tur promittt aut se promittere’ he appositely cites Nemes. cyneg. 269
promisst spatiosa per aequora camp, said of horses: comp. too Pliny xv1
107 nec εἶα arborum avidius se promittit. pro. can. vis: V1 1222 fida
canum vis; απ ὃ fortis equi vis; Aen. τν 132 odora canum vis. 654
nidor: not only is nidor used here and elsewhere for odor, but v1 987 he
has 2idoris odores.

687—705: one smell will travel farther than another, but none so
far as sound; I need not add as the images which excite sight; for
it travels slowly and is soon lost, because it comes with much ado froin
the inmost parts of things, as proved by this that things when pounded
or dissolved by fire smell more strongly: the atoms too of smell are
greater than those of voice, since often a wall will stop the one and not
the other; and thus too dogs often lose the scent. 688 alvo, alter :
alter thus used for alius, though unusual, recurs v 835 ex alto terram
status excipit alter: just before, 829, he had said Fa alioque alius status
excipere: so Cic. de rep. (somn. Scip.) v1 12 uterque plenus alter altera de
causa habetur: alius for alter is more common: inscr. Lat. 1 1007 Gnatos
duoscreavit: horunc alterum In terra linquit, alium sub terra locat ; Sen.
epist. 94 43 Ab alio expectes, alteri quod feceris; (Val. Flacc. 1 833
quarum altera...Ast aliam cet.;| Livy 125 5 duo Romani super alium
alius ..corruerunt; Tac. ann. Iv 48; Pliny more than once: Plaut.
capt. ὃ ahum for alterum is only conjecture; but argum. 2 and 9
alum = alterum. permittt = promissa of 681: see Gronov. obs. 1113
p. 316 and Fore. 689 guzsqgwam in the mase. thus applied to an inani-
mate thing seems as rare, as its use as an adj. agreeing with an abstract
subst. Ulustrated at 11077 quisquam locus. 693 facelis seems here to
mean readily absorbing the scent, a sense not very different from the
common one ‘ readily yielding’, 699 guam vox: see ἢ. to ΠῚ 456 cew
Jumus: this constr. being so common, ‘it is curious that two of the
greatest Latin scholars of modern times should have found fault with it:
Lamb. says here ‘Latine dici nou potest videre licet odorem maioribus
principris constare quam vox’; and Madvig opuse. pr. p. 312 makes
a like objection to 111 614 wt anguis: ‘you might have said three; for
Bentl. in ur 456 alters fumus’ J. E. Δ]. 704 calida is joined with

BOOK ΙΝ NOTES II 259

decurrunt. , nuntia: 1032 semulacra.. nuntia praeclart voltus; vI
76 simulacra feruntur .. divinae nuntia formae. [Nonius p. 215 9
‘nuntzus: neutri apud aliquos non receptae auctoritatis lectum est,
sed doctos’. |

706—721 : but in the case of the form and colours of things, as well
as smells and tastes, some are suited to one creature, unsuited to another:
thus for example the lion fierce as he is cannot face the cock. 706
hoc refers of course to the argument which ended with 686, that the
particles of a thing which excite taste and smell will often fit one crea-
ture, not another. It 15 hardly possible then to contest what Lach. says,
that this is another of the passages added by Lucr. and not properly con-
nected with the rest of the poem. 710 explaudentibus must mean:
driving off the night with their noise, as an actor is driven off the stage.
713 mem. fugar: Livy xu13 4 82 belli hostes meminissent ; 4 4 Histrorum
pauct..memores fuerunt fugae: comp. Homer’s μνησώμεθα χάρμης and
the hke: not unlike is 153 quam meminit levor praestare salutem; and
Virg. geor.1 400; but there and ecl. vit 88, borrowed from Varius, the
negative is introduced; as well as Livy x 29 2 nec pugnae meminisse nec
fuyae; Ov. met. vir 545 Non aper vrasct memintt ; ΑΒ]. hist. an. x1 12
φυγῆς οὐδέν τι peuvytat.—Pliny twice mentions what is here asserted of
the lion, vir 52 and x 48; Aehian four times; Plutarch and others refer
toit. Martha, p. 258, says that some one, Cuvier he believes, put a cock
into a hon’s den: the lion went up to his bugbear and ate him. 716
interfodiunt : ‘the idea of through...is often found with inéer in Lucr., as
Iv 716 cnter-fod- dig a passage through, νι 333 anter-fug- fly through, and
Iv 868 ziter-datus, distributed through’ Prof. Key in trans. of the philolog.
soc.: all these words seem peculiar to Lucr. 719 cdizs seems a certain
correction for 2/2s (unless Lucr. could say ibus as well asizbus): 9 times at
least he has the dat. ollis; once, v1 687, the abl. ab ollis, elsewhere abl.
ellis: here on the other hand dat. z//71s which seems to me to sound better
with penetrantebus than ollis.

722—748: the mind too receives its impressions from images flying
about on all hands, which however are much finer than those by which
we see: images are of different kinds, some formed spontaneously in the
air, Some coming from things or formed from a union of several; and
thus we see centaurs and the like, though such never existed, from the
chance union for instance of the image of a man and horse; the extreme
fineness of such images makes them readily unite, and the wondrous
agility of the mind itself at once receives them.—Luer. in this and the
following sections battles manfully and ingeniously with the prodigious
difficulties under which the epicurean theories on this question labour.
Cicero’s philosophical writings are full of clever argument and banter
cirected against them, sometimes successful, but often captious and
unfair. 724 rer. sim.: Plut. de plac. phil. 1v ὃ Λεύκιππος, Δημόκρι-

17—2

260 BOOK IV NOTES II

τος, τὴν αἴσθησιν καὶ τὴν τόησιν γίνεσθαι εἰδώλων ἔξωθεν πρωσιόντων:
Cie. ad fain. xv 16 thus jests with the new epicurean convert Cassius, Μὲ
enim. nescio qui, ut quast corum adesse videare, cum scribo aliquid ad te;
neque td κατ᾽ εἰδώλων φαντασίας, ut dicunt tur amict novi qui putant
etiam διανοητικάς φαντασίας spectris Caticnis ercitant. nam, te ne fugiat,
Catius Insuber eprcureus, qui nuper est mortuus, quae lle Gargettius et
win ante Democritus εἴδωλα, hic spectra nomunat. 726 Venvia em-
phatic from its position: see n. to 63. 727 brattea: ‘videndum est
ne barbarain consuectudinem sequantur qui scribunt bractea, ut mactea
Llacta Actius Actis auctumnus arclus furctus mulcta, quae ante quadrin-
sentos vel quingentos annos nata sunt’ Lach.: see also ἢ. 0 1. 70 urta,
729 percipiunt; W125 voluptas Percimt adque horror; 80 Perciprt huma-
nos odium ; ν 605 Aera percijnat...ardor ; vi 804 percepit: [see Ussing
to Plaut. Ainph. 1134.] 730 crentque cet.: Cic. |. 1. 2 hes autem
spectris etiam st oculi possent ferirt, quod vel rvs ips occurrunt, animus
qui possit ego non vuleo,

732 Centauros, Scyllarum are brought together v 891 foll.: comp.
too Aen. vi 286 Centaurt in foribus stalndaut Scyllaeque biformes, pro-
bably a reminiscence οὗ Lucr.; Cicero in combating this doctrine brings
together Scyllae Chimuacrue hippocentauri, 733 Cer. can. fac. 1S not
like the instances cited in ἢ. to 1474, but may resemble 1119 Per gentis
[talas hominum: the Cerbereas merely defines what the facies are.
eorum Quorum cet.: 1134 coram Morte obita quorum cet. ‘ut appareat
eum δὸς paria ac simplicissima, corwim (Quorum non improbasse, noluisse
autem quae dissimilia essent, sed non satis, coniungere, coram quorunt’
Lach. 736 sponte sua quae fiunt cet. 1.6. the συστάσεις explained 131
Sunt etiam quae sponte sua gignuntur, uere tu tpso: tpso is used here
as 1438 corpore tn tpso; Π| 128 in ipso Corpore; 483 and 506 corpore
ὧν wiso; STS in rpso corpure, 590 corpore in ipso; v1 224 in aedibus
ipsis; 579 Aut extrinsecus aut tpsa tellure; 806 terra quoque sulpur im
wpsa Gignier ; 1128 aere in ipso; 11117 radiorum lumine in ipso ; 111 6383
in ipso sanguine cresse; that is it merely poiats the contrast between the
thing spoken of and something else; in all these cases intus in pretty
nearly gives the force of tn ipso: Sen. Herc. Oet. 1364 Ji ipsa me iactate,
pro comites, freta Meditosque in ames: ipsa = medios. 738 quae con-
fiunt: v 890 Ne forte ex homine et veterino semine equorum Confiert
ercdas Centauros posse. 739 Nam certe cet.: Cic. de nat. 1 108 uses
this as an argument to overthrow the theory in question: guid, quod
eurum rerum quae numguam omnino fuerunt neque esse potuerunt, ul
Scyllae, ut Chimaerae? 736 —739 observe fiunt, confiunt, facta, fit.
741 equi atque: Lach. in his most elaborate n. to 11 954 goes through
the whole range of Latin poetry to determine who can and who cannot
thus elide the last syll. of an iambus; and this liberty he peremptorily
refuses to Lucr. 1 am not convinced: his contemporary Cicero whose

BOOK IV NOTES II 261

principles of versification much resemble his own, could write rétro ad,
leo et, modo ac; his contemporary Catullus zoco atque, ave atque. But
Luer., had he thus elided once, must surely it may be said have done so
more than once: yet he once and only once, v 849 debere, has a hyper-
metrical verse; twice and twice only he lengthens a short syll. by the
caesura, 11 27 fulget auroque, ν 1049 sciret animoque; and twice by
eaesura leaves a long vowel long and unelided, 111 374 animae elementa,
νι 755 loci ope; though in five of these six cases Lach. tampers with the
text. It strikes me that Lucr. here meant the tangled sound to reeal
the entangling of two incongruous images. 742 Haerescit: τι 477
haerescere; lexicons give no other instances of the word. ante i.e. 726.
746 prius 1.6. 176 foll. 747 Quaelbet wna, and therefore even the
most incongruous assemblage of things, if they have for the instant
formed into one image. 748 ipsa, as well as the images.

749—776: so far as what the mind sees resembles what the eye sees,
their causes must be like: now the lion we see in mind is the same we
see with the eyes, both therefore are seen by images: and thus in sleep
we see, for instance one who is dead, by images coming to the mind; the
senses and memory being then inactive and not able to detect the ab-
surdity: again images move as we see them in sleep, merely because
some are coming others going every instant, so that they appear to be
the same in different postures. 750 ‘I take quod to be the conjunction:
necessest simili ratione fieri quod videmus (i.e. videre) mente, atque quod
videmus (videre) oculis’ N. P. Howard: clearly the right explanation.
752 Nune wgitur: 11 203 and 434 Vune wgitur quonriam: the particles imply
that having established a principle, he now proceeds to apply it. docui
quoniam: Aen. V 22 superat quoniam fortuna, seguamur. ‘ Lambinus
recte dedit guoniam docui, ut in WI 203 Nune agitur quoniamst anime
natura reperta’ Lach.: an illustration not at all to the point; neither
there nor in 434 eould he have changed the place of quwonzam: he has
here written docui quoniam probably for the pleasanter sound: Ov. trist.
11 293 Pallade conspecta, natum de crimine virgo Sustulertt quare, quaeret,
Erichthonium; [Mart. x 36 7 Non venias quare; x1 75 3 Non sit cum

citharoedus:| comp. 11 547 and n, there; and 11 293. 754 mentem
cet.: Cic. de nat. deor. 1 108 vos autem non modo oculrs imagines, sed
efiam animis inculcatis: tanta est impumtas garriendi. 757 profudit:

Paulus Fest. p. 228 ‘profusus...abiectus iacens. Pacuvius profusius
gemitu murmuro’: 11 113 Effusumque racet sine sensu corpus honustum,
in same sense. 758 AMens anim: see ἢ, to m1 615. simulacra cet. :
Cic. L. 1. quzd, quod etiam ad dormientem veniunt invocatae ? tota res,
Veller, nugatoric est. 760 quenz mors pot.: but 766 ewm mortrs pot.:
so ‘clare aliquem leto’ and ‘dare letum alicui’, 761 Rellicta: see n. to
11 1001 redlatum. 768 offecti: see ἢ. to 11 156 Officiuntur. 765 me-
minisse=memoria: see ἢ. to 1 331; [and comp. Ov, her. 7 164 praeter

262 BOOK IV NOTES II

amasse. | 766 dissentit does not appear to occur elsewhere with this
constr.: ‘compounds often take the inf. or whatever constr. the simple
verb does, even where such a constr. seems unnatural in the new sense
which the compound has: senéit “feels”, dissentit “feels by way of objec-
tion” “protests”: comp. 1088 repugnat’ J. KE. M.: see 1 582 and ἢ. there.
mortis letique, another curious tautology: comp. 274 duplict geminoque,
451 Bina geminare. potitum, said of meeting with an evil, is illus-
trated by Fore. from Plautus Accius Terence and others: Plaut. capt.
144 gnatus tuus potitust hostium; {Amph. 175 Lum nune potivit pater ser-
vitutis: see Ussing there.] 771 perit: seen. to 111 1042: this ingenious
explanation resembles that given above 318—323 of the movements of
an image in a mirror: ‘there is a toy which exactly illustrates Luer.: the
same figure in different positions is painted at intervals 10 or 11 times
over on a card, which is placed in a revolving cylinder. The effect is
that of very rapid motion through the whole series of positions’ J. E. M.
772 Indé statu: above Unde scias; below Libera sponte; superbia spur-
citia; even three consonants mollia strata, manantibus stillent; nay four
pendentibus structas. 775 sensibilt quovis tempore in wno is Epicurus’
ἐν αἰσθητῷ χρόνῳ: see n. to 795 where the passage is quoted and illustrated ;
795 is a paraphrase of the one word senszbilt.

777— 817: this question offers many difficulties: why does a man
think of whatever he wishes to think, sea or earth or sky? while others
in the same place have quite other thoughts: why too in sleep are these
images seen to move rhythmically? are they forsooth trained by art? or
is it that in the least sensible time many tines are latent, in which many
images can appear? the mind again, like the eye, in order to see must
often attend and exert itself, else they will pass unheeded: again the
mind adds many false inferences to what is seen.—818 foll. are immedi-
ately connected with the passage ending at 776; and our present para-
graph discusses the same questions as that passage sometimes in the
same, sometimes in a different spirit, without the least reference to it.
Lach. is therefore incontestably right in including this among those
subsequent additions which Lucr. made to his poem, but did not live to
incorporate fully with the rest. The poet is evidently embarrassed by
the prodigious difficulties which this theory of mental apprehension
involves and struggles hard to solve them: not content with the preced-
ing paragraph, he has tried to better his argument in this one. 779
quod depends on cogitare understood from cogitet: i.e. cogitet id ipsum,
quod cogitare libuerit. ‘haec quaestio’ says Lamb. ‘quare quod cuique
libuerit, id cogitet, cum cogitatio simulacris excitetur, pendet ex supe-
riore cet.’: these words of Lamb. Havercamp with his usual diligence
prints as a continuation of the words of Cicero cited just before; and
Wak. with a no less conscientious diligence remarks ‘locus etiam Cice-
ronis nat. deor. 1 quem Lambinus apposuit Lucretiano est consimillimus

BOOK IV NOTES II 263

haec quaestio quare quod cuique libuerit id cogitet cet.’ The blunder does
some credit to their taste in Latin, as Cicero has seldom had a better
imitator than Lamb. Cic. epist. ad fam. xv 16 thus jokes with his
friend Cassius, doceas tu me oportebit, cum salvus veneris, in meane potes-
tate sit spectrum tuwm ut, simulac mihi collibitum sit de te cogitare, wlud
occwrrat ; neque solum de te qui miht haeres in medullis; sed δὲ insulam
Britanniam coepero cogitare, eius εἴδωλον mihi advolabit ad pectus? and
de nat. 1 108 he asks quid, quod hominum locorum urbium earum quas
numquam vidimus? quid, quod stmulac mihe collibitum sit, praesto est
imago?; and comp. the fuller discussion of the same question in de div.
ι|197. 783 Si, st, st=Sive, sive, sive: an archaism, occurring in two
old inscriptions,in Plautus more than onceand in the antiquarian Fronto:
see C, Τὶ W. Mueller on sive p, 7: [see also ‘si deus, si dea est,’ carm.
evoc. in Wordsworth’s Fragm. and Spec. p. 285, and his note p. 410.]

denique: see n. to 1 278. 785 sub verbo ‘est sub iussu’ Lach. who
refers to Lactant. inst. Iv 15 22 statimque sub verbo evus tranquillitas
insecuta est: see n. to 545 sub murmure. verbo: Livy has senatus

verbis, consulum verbis, praetoris verbis, dictatoris verbis; Sallust senati
verbis, senatus populique Romani verbis; Terence verbis mess; Plautus
verbis tuis, tuis verbis, with the sense of iwssis: Cic. ad Att. xvi 11, at
end, Atticae...meis verbis savium des volo, 786 Cum praesertim has here
precisely the force which we are taught by Madvig de fin. 11 25 it often
has in Cicero: ‘and that too although’; he cites pro Sex. Roscio 66
videtisne...cum praesertim deorum immortal russis atque oraculis ταὶ
fecisse dicantur, tamen ut eos agitent furiae: a good instance is Cie.
orator 32 nec vero, si historiam non scripsisset, nomen erus extaret, cunr
praesertim fursset honoratus et nobilis: [comp. also bell. Afr. 1 4 eum
praesertim ab incolis etus provinciae nuntiarentur adversariorum copie,
...tamen non deterrebatur.| The fact is that between this and the more
usual sense, there is just the same difference as between cum ‘since’
and cum ‘though’.

789 Hor. sat. 19 24 quis membra movere Mollius. 790 Molla I
now take with bracchia: in ancient dancing the arms were more impor-
tant than the legs: Ov. ars 1595 se mollia bracchia, salta; 11 805 Brac-
chia saltantis, vocem mirare canentis; {111 349 Quis dubitet quin scire
velim saltare puellam, Ut moveat posito bracchia vussa mero?...Tantum
mobilitas ula decoris habet;] rem. 334 Lac saltet, nescit siqua movere
manum ; fasti 111 536 iactant faciles ad sua verba manus; Prop. II (11)
225 molla diducit candida gestu Bracchia; Automedon 3 3, Anthol. 11
p. 208; βάλλει Tas ἀπαλὰς ἀπαλῶς ὧδε καὶ woe χέρας. [See also Hesych.
χειρονόμος᾽ ὀρχηστής. χωρονομεῖ" ὀργίζεται. χειρονομεῖ" ὀρχεῖται. Bentl.
ad Mill. ‘This dance allows no movement of the legs: the feet scarcely
stir. The performers balance themselves on their haunches, inclining
their heads right or left, make graceful gestures with their arms and

264 BOOK IV NOTES II

assume attitudes most charming and most impassioned’ 30 years in a
harem p. 108.] Afoll. mob.: Ov. am. τι 4 14 im mollt mobilis esse toro.
in num: Ov. am. 114 29 Illa placet gestu numerosaque bracchia ducit Ft
tenerum molli torquet ab arte latus; rem, 754 numeris bracchia mota
suis. 791 repetunt seems=iterant: this and the preceding v. explain
the mollia membra movere, so that repetunt has no reference to bracchia,
but merely to the presenting again and again to the eyes the same
gestum with foot moving in time to the movements of the arms and
body. 792 Scilicet introduces of course an ironical reason. madent:
Hor. od. πὶ 21 9 Socraticis madet Sermonibus well illustrates the force
of the word, because there is a play there on the literal and meta-
phorical sense: for other examples see Force. 794 Ar magis, giving
what he believes to be the most likely cause. 1795 is as we said above
a paraphrase of sensibili: Lucr. means that the smallest sensible time
is about equal to the time in which we can utter one word, and that in
that smallest time are latently contained many rational times, or times
such as the mind can conceive by its reason to exist. Thus in the
smallest thing perceptible to sight or touch are contained very many
things which the reason alone can apprehend, viz. atoms or the parts
of atoms. With Lucr. comp. the τοὺς διὰ λόγον θεωρητοὺς χρόνους and the
ἐν αἰσθητῷ χρόνω of Epic. in Diog. x 47; and with the Cum sentumus id
et cum vox emittitur una comp. |. 1. 33 ἅμα yap τῷ ῥηθῆναι ‘avOpwmos’ εὐθὺς
κατὰ πρόληψιν καὶ ὁ τύπος αὐτοῦ νοεῖται προηγουμένων τῶν αἰσθήσεων. 802
foll. the reasoning here is all very good; but neither here nor elsewhere
does he explain the all-important point how the mind is first turned to
any object of thought. When the mind is once roused and the will set
in motion, then it may be said it attends solely or mainly to the images
connected with such object: but why should one image more than any
other image first strike on the mind? this he does not explain: he attri-
buted it I presume to accident, and therefore thought it unnecessary to
enlarge upon it: comp. 885 /d quod providet cet. and what is said there.
802 quae coutendit i.e. cernere, as Wak. rightly explains it; it comes
therefore to the same thing as, nay is somewhat more emphatic than the
se contendit of Lamb. and Lach. acute Cernere: 810 cernamus acute:
Wak. compares Hor. sat. 1 3 26 Cur in anucorum vitiis tam cernis
acutum? 804 siguae ad: see n. to 1 841: {and comp. Plaut. curcul. 467 ;

>

Bacch. 174 quem ad epistulam and Ussing there.] 811 Ht tamen: see

n. to 1 1050. 813 the want of a subject to semotum fuerit seems to
me, as it seemed to Lamb., very harsh; but see ἢ. to1 1043. 815%
rebus dedttus: see n. to πὶ 647. 816 adopinamur and 817 frustra-

minis seem both to be ἅπαξ λεγόμ. With this comp. the very similar
argument of 464—468.

818—822 (826): sometimes too a woman will ie to a man, or
the like, but in sleep we do not perceive the incongruity.—As was said

BOOK IV NOTES II 265

above this passage connects itself directly with that ending at 776, and
continues the question of images which strike the mind in sleep.

823 (822)—857: pray do not think that the parts of the body have
been given us in order to be used; in truth their use arose long after
their first existence: before the eyes there was no seeing, before the
tongue no speaking; on the other hand the instruments of peace and
war we know to have been invented after their use was known; not so
the senses and the limbs, which you must not believe to have had a final
cause, as swords and shields, cups and beds had.—This passage too, as
Lach. has proved to demonstration, interrupts the regular sequence of
the argument, and must be a subsequent addition of the poet’s: see the
introductory remarks to 11 165—183, where I have stated how Lach.
brings the present into comparison with cognate passages in II and v.
823 Ll/ud cet.: the argument is well put by Lactant. inst. 11 17 with
evident reference to Lucr. of whom he was a diligent student, neque
oculr factr sunt ad videndum neque aures ad audiendum neque lingua ad
loquendum neque pedes ad ambulandum, quoniam prius huec nata sunt
quam esset loqui audire videre ambulare. itaque non haec ad usum nata
sunt, sed usus ex wlis natus est. avessis, like prohibessis habessit licessit
ausim vussim auxim spousim noxim 11 444 cohibessit, all of the 2nd
conj.: | Paul. Fest. p. 377 has vallescit which perhaps should be valessit. |
In the first conj. these forms are exceedingly common, amassis and
a hundred others. [On such forms see Westphal Verbalflexion p.
276—308 ; and Luebbert gramm. Stud. 1.] The scholiast to Lucan
Iv 265 says ‘avet i. avide cupit. sic Lucretius saepe ponit’; and this is
quite true. 824 praemetuenter, another ἅπαξ λεγόμ. 826 prof. qu.
Proc. pas.: 877 Nune qui frat utr. passus proferre queamus. §27
fastigia would usually mean the ends farthest from the fundus: Livy
XXXVII 27 7 collis est in modum metae in acutum cacumen a fundo satis
lato fustigatus. 828 ped. fundata: v 927 solidis magis ossibus intus
Fundatum, validis aptum per viscera nervis: the latter words explain
plicart, Which graphically describes the mass of sinews and tendons
in that part. 890 manus...ministras: ‘Arnob. u 17’ J. Ἐς M.:
Cic. de nat. deor. 11 150 quam vero aptas quamque multarum artiwm
ministras manus natura homini dedit, says the stoic Balbus in the
middle of his strenuous defence of final causes. No doubt the zeal
with which the stoics maintained this doctrine added vehemence to
Lucretius’ denunciations. Arist. de part. anim. Iv 10 p. 687 8 in the
midst of his long and brilliant statement on the side of the final cause
quotes Anaxagoras’ famous saying διὰ τὸ χεῖρας ἔχειν φρονιμώτατον εἶναι
τῶν ζῴων ἄνθρωπον, and retorts εὔλογον δὲ διὰ τὸ φρονιμώτατον εἶναι χεῖρας
λαμβάνειν, and a few lines after ov διὰ τὰς χεῖράς ἐστιν ὁ ἄνθρωπος φρονι-
μώτατος, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸ φρονιμώτατον εἶναι τῶν ζῴων ἔχει χεῖρας: |. 1.1 1 p.
640 19 he refutes Empedocles’ saying τὴν ῥάχιν τοιαύτην ἔχειν, ὅτι στρα-

266 BOOK IV NOTES II

φέντος καταχθῆναι συνέβη. 831 ad vitam quae foret usus: v 844 nec
sumere quod foret wsus. quae I take to be the accus.: comp. Plaut.
Pseud. 385 Ad eam rem usust hominem astutune doctum scitum et callt-
dwm; [and Amph. 501, where see Ussing:] or facere may be supplied:
for Lucr. 1268 Nec molles opu’ sunt motus, like other writers, uses the
plur. verb with a nom. plur. 832 enter guaec. pretantur: see n.
to 1 452. 836 videre, 837 orare, 843 conferre, 844 lacerare, foedare,
848 mandare, 850 sedare all=nom. subst.: see ἢ. to 1 331. 841 foret
usus: usus has here of course its ordinary sense: foret usus above with
the meaning of foret opus seems to have suggested to him the use of the
words here in another sense: comp. 1 875 latitand?...datitare, and n.
there. 843 At contra cet.: Arist. de part. anim. 1 5 and Iv 10 goes
over much the same ground as Lucr. here, and comes to exactly opposite
conclusions: he uses the tools made by a man as a proof that the tools
made by nature had the same end in view, the hand being ὡσπερεὶ
ὄργανον πρὸ ὀργάνων: the body and all its parts are made for the
functions they perform, as the saw is made for the sake of sawing: the
sawing is not done for the sake of the saw. conferre manu cert. puy.:
Lach, compares Acn. vil 604 Getis inferre mand lacrimabile bellum and
x 146 enter 8686 dure certamina belli Coutulerant: comp. too Livy xxvi
48 1] prope esse wt manus inter se conferant. 847 claret obvec.
parmar=obiceret parmain, daret, as so often, being=faceret; see n. to
4]: Aen. 11 443 clipeosque ad tela sinistris Protects obiciunt. 852 ea:
usu vitague seems to be the same as ex usu vitae, 856 procul est ut
eredere possis seems on the analogy of prope est wt; but I know no
parallel: haud or non procit esse quin is the usual expression.
858—876: the body requires food, because it loses many particles
constantly, and thus an aching void is produced, which has to be filled
up and the pain allayed; liquid too is taken into the body and quenches
the particles of heat in the stomach; thus both thirst and hunger are
appeased.—These vss. too, as Lach. p. 259 shews, are well adapted to the
general subject of Iv, but here interrupt the connexion of the argument
and are manifestly an after-thought of the poet’s. 860 fluere cet.: 11
1128 Nam certe fluere adque recedere corpora rebus Multa manus dandum
est: this with what precedes and follows is what the poet refers to in
docut, together with perhaps Iv 218—229: 1v 695 Nam penitus fluere
atque recedere rebus odores. 865 cgitur in the apodosis: see n. to 1
419. 866 Suwbructur, 867 suffulciat Lelong to the same metaphor, the
shoring up a falling structure: Hor. sat. 11 3 153 nz cibus atque Ingens
accedit stomacho fultura rwenti: comp. 111140 fulcire cibus and n. there:
Lucr. speaking of the causes of sleep says ιν 942 Fit quast puulatine
nobis per membra ruina, and then 950 Lt quontam non est quasi quod
suffulcrat artus. 868 iterdatus: 227 interdatur: seen. to 716. pa-
tentem, 869 optwret are also the same metaphor. 869 amorem edend?,

BOOK IV NOTES II 267

the ἐδητύος ἔρον of Homer which Virgil too translates by amor edendi.
875 tibz: see ἢ. to 1 797.

877— 906: this is how we walk: idols of walking strike the mind,
and rouse the will; next the soul throughout the body is stirred by the
mind, and then the body by the soul; the body too is then rarefied, and
the outer air at once enters into all the opened pores; so that the body
is pushed on as a ship by the wind; the mass of the body being moved
and steered by a few small particles, just as a big ship by the rare wind
and by the hand of the pilot: thus too a machine will easily lift a heavy
weight. [878 datum sit...movere: Pliny epist. 11 1 1 st modo senescere
datum est: ‘Kuehnast synt. Liv. 252; Hor. epist. 1 1 32’ Mayor:
dare with infin. ‘(Cic. ἃ. Caes. nicht) Liv. zweimal, sonst μέ’ Kueh-
nast. | 882 Accidere in its literal sense has in Lucr. four construc-
tions, 11 1024 ad auris, IV 215 in oras, V 608 segetes stipulamque Acc.,
here animo and v 97 res menti Acc. ante 1.6. 722 foll. 884 quam
mens cet. as sShewn 111 245 foll.: quam ante: see n. to 111 973 quam nas-
cemur ante. 885 gwoc is the conjunction: Lamb. Creech and others
have misunderstood and corrupted the passage: id and illius rei refer of
course to the same thing, viz. quad velit; and qztod has a peculiar but not
unusual force, denoting rather the effect than the cause: indeed ‘providet
id, quia eius imago constat’ would express exactly the meaning of Luer.
To translate ‘because’ would pervert the reasoning; for 881 a2imo nostro
primum cet. the images first of all strike the mind: comp. my note and
illustrations to 724 foll. and 802 foll. and Cie. de fin. 1 21 imagines quae
εἴδωλα nominant quorum incurstone non solum videamus, sed etiam cogi-
temus, and Plut. de plac. phil. τν 8 of Leucippus and Democritus μηδενὶ
yap ἐπιβάλλειν μηδετέραν (νόησιν) χωρὶς τοῦ προσπίπτοντος εἰδώλου. Quod
cet. therefore means ‘the reason why he predetermines that thing is this:
an image ete.’: the phrase is elliptical, ‘quod providet id, [hoc fit quod]
illius rei est imago’; and the full expression is seen in Catull. 68 33
Nam quod scriptorum non magna est copia apud me, Hoc fit quod Romae
vivimus: comp. 10 28 Lstud quod modo dixeram me habere, Fugit me
ratio, i.e. [hoc factum est quod] fugit m. r.: Cic. ad Att. x11 18 a 2 nam
geod non advocavi ad obsignandum, primum mihi non venit in mentem,
deinde ea re non venit quia cet. i.e. [hoc factum est quod] primum cet.:
Ov. trist. 11 1 13 Quod neque sum cedro flavus nec pumice levis, Erubur
domino cultior esse meo: Lrttera suffusas quod habet maculosa lituras,
Laesit opus lacrimis apse poeta suum; amor. I 13 33 quod erat tibi filius
ater, Materni fuerat pectoris le color; 111 5 39 Pectora quod rostro cornix
fodiebut acuto, Ingeniwm dominae lena movebat anus: Quod cunctata driw
taurum sua vacca reliquit, Frigidus in viduo destitwere toro; Sen. Oct.
752 Iugulo quod ensem condidit princeps tuus, Bella haud movebit, cet. ;
[Phaedr 11. 4 3 Nam fodere terran quod vides cotidie Aprum insidiosum,
quercum vult evertere; Mart. 11 111 Quod fronte Selium nubila vides,

268 BOOK IV. NOTES II

Rufe, Quod ambulator porticum terit seram, Lugubre quiddam quod
tacet piger vultus, Quod paene terram nasus indecens tangit, Quod dextra
pectus pulsat et comam vellit: Non alle amier fata luget cet.; vii 21 3
placidi numgquid te pigra Bootae Plaustra vehunt lento quod nimis axe
venis?; 82 2 Nos quoque quod domino carmina parva damus, Posse deum
rebus pariter musisque vacare Scimus, et haec etiam serta placere tibi.|
So Aen. 11 180 Lt nunc quod patrias vento petiere Mycenas, Arma deosque
parant, i.e. [hoc fit quod] arma cet.: Wagner's explanation and the in-
stances in Heinsius’ note to which he refers are quite irrelevant. The
old hexameter sors, inscr. Lat. 11453, Quod fuyis quod zactas trber quod
datur spernere noli, which Ritschl and Mommsen alter in various ways,
seems midway between the full and elliptical phrases: ‘Quod fugis, quod
iactas, [hoc fit] quod tibi datur: spernere noli’: an illustration of semper
ceves quod abest, praesentia temnis. rei monosyll.asu1918. 887 cor-
pore toto cet.: see n. to 11 271. 889 cont. tenetur, so fully explained
in 11; as 196 animum atque animam dico coniuncta tenert Inter se
atque unam naturam conficere ex se. 896 vebus utr. duabus seem to
be the inward movement of the body by the impulse of the animus and
anima, and the propulsion from without by the entrance of the outer
air. velis ventoque then do not correspond to this two-fold cause of
motion ; as they would represent merely the effect of the outer air on
the body. Gassendi therefore, opera 11 p. 506 b, had reason for propos-
ing reniis ventoque; as the remis would answer well euough to the anima
and its effect on the body. ‘But may not corpus and aer correspond to
velis ventogue, expressing simply the secondary cause of the motion of
the body, the air acting on the frame as the wind on the sails of a ship’
F. H. Peters. This explanation I am now disposed to adopt: the meta-
phor then will only epply to 892 Praeterea cet. not to what precedes;
and utrimque is on the one hand the rarefying of the body; on the other
the entering in of the air; and all this seems to be confirmed by v1 1031
fici.e. aer.. per crebra foramina ferri Parvas ad partis subtihter insinua-
tus Trudit et inpellit, quast navem velaque ventus: 896 I have left un-
altered, as I have doubts on the whole passage; and cannot decide
between the Corporis ut navis of Lach., the Aeque wd ut ac n. of Bern., and
other changes proposed. 899 Zantula tantum corpus corpuscula: V
993 Tantulus tlle queat tantum sol mittere lumen; Cicero and Caesar use
tantulus and tantus together in the same way: but this love of antithesis
shews itself in a hundred ways in Lucr.; 901 suptili corpore tenuis,
nagnam magno molimine ; 905 pondere magno, levi nisu. 902 moh-
mine expresses the momentum of the huge ship in motion: Livy 11 56 4
ves suo tpsa molimine gravis. It may refer however to the great force of
the impelling wind; as Ov. met. x11 356 solidoque revellere trunco Anno-
sam quercum magno molimine temptat. 904 contorquet of steering, as
900 Contorquere; Aen. 111 562 Contorsit laevas proram Palinurusadundas,

BOOK IV NOTES II 269

905 trocleas were certain arrangements of blocks of pulleys, described by
Cato and Vitruvius. tympana seem to have been wheels which revolved
by men treading on them, and raised to their places columns and other
heavy weights; both the ¢rocleas and tympana being portions of the same
machina. pondere magno: abl. of quality depending on JAfiulta: it
gains force by its position: comp. v 556 quam magno pondere nobis Sus-
tineat corpus tenuissima vis animar, and v1 548 549; Aen. 1x 512 Saxa
quoque infesto volvebant pondere; x 381 magno vellit dum pondere saxum.
907—928: sleep takes place, when the soul is scattered in the body,
and part of it has gone out, part withdrawn into the depths of the body:
only part however can go forth; else death would ensue; enough must
stay behind to let sense be rekindled, as fire is rekindled when buried
under the ashes. 907 somnas cet.: Macrob. sat. vi 1 44 compares
with this Aen. 1 691 placidam per membra quietem Inrigat, and Furius
in primo mitemque rigat per pectora somnum: comp. too Aen. ΠΙ 511
Jessos sopor inrigat artus; Pers. v 56 inriguo somno; and Conington to
Aen. 1 691. 909—911 = 180—182. 912 da tenuis cet.: 1 50
vacuas auris animumgue sagacem. . adhabe. 916 somnus fit: Epic. in
Diog. X 66 ὕπνον τε γίνεσθαι τῶν τῆς ψυχῆς μερῶν τῶν Tap ὅλην THY
σύγκρισιν παρεσπαρμένων ἐγκατεχομένων ἢ διαφορουμένων, but the next
words are clearly corrupt. 916—918 are the same in meaning as 944
foll. and 959—961 Fit ratione eadem coniectus cet. 924 corpus cet. :
url 401 Lt gelidos artus in leti frigore linquit. 926 conere multa:
Marullus says in marg. cod. Victor. ‘sic Catullus 7 γοία virum et virtu-
tum omnium acerba cinis’ and at bottom of the page ‘cinis feminino
Catullus Virg. in ceter. masculino’: he is in error as to Virgil: Nonius
says it is fem. in Caesar and Calvus; and Charisius 1, p. 101 Keil,
quotes from the latter fulva cinis and ipsa cinis. 927 reconflari seems
not to occur elsewhere: the metaphor is of course from kindling fire.
929—961: sleep is thus produced: the body is constantly beaten
upon by the outer air as well as by that which is inhaled by breathing;
thus assailed within and without the body gives way, and the soul is
disordered, part of it as has been said leaving the body, part withdraw-
ing into its recesses, while the rest cannot perform its functions: thus
the body too becomes languid and powerless: again sleep follows eating,
because the food in passing into the system acts on it as the air does;
and the disorder of the soul is then greater than ever. 934 evus 1.6.
aeris: aertis auris being the same as aeris auris, which he often uses:
see ἢ. to. 1 352, and comp. 11 174 genus humanwum quorum, and n. there:
so Cassius ap. Cic. epist. ad fam. xv 19 1 propter spectra Catiana, pro
quo i.e. Catio; Aen. 41 671 vereor quo se Iunonia vertant Hospitria: haud
tanto cessabit i.e. Iuno; Plaut. rud. 598 Ad hirundininum nidum cet.
followed by Veque eas i.e. hirundines: miles 186 the reading seems to be
ut ne quoquam de ingento degrediatur muliebrr Larumque artem cet. ;

270 BOOK IV “NOTES II

though Ritschl says ‘posterioris esse interpretamentum priorem, appa-
ret, in quo olim scriptum fuit mulerwm’. [Comp. too Pliny xxxv 5
epicurios voltus per cubicula gestant ac ctrcumferunt secum. natali errs
sacrificant: and see Mayor's n. to Juv. xiv 241.] 936 Aut etiam: see n.
to 1 1U12 Aut etiam. 939 wtrimque sccus: ‘Lucil. sat. lib. xxu Zopy-
gion labeas caedit utrimque secus’ Nonius p. 210: the expression is not
uncommon in late Latin, as in Apuleius: in Cato apparently it is fol-
lowed by an accus., secus being=secundum. comp. the use of versus and
versum with wndique, sursum and the like; and eatrinsecus wntrinsecus
altrinsecits. 040 941 comp. above 894 8995. 944 fit uti pars inde
=inde fit uti: see ἢ. to τι 1004. 944 foll. comp. above 916—918
and below 959—961. 947 mutua fungi occurred 111 801, where see
n. and references. 952 cubanti cet. i.e. quamvis cubanti, tamen saepe
cet.: comp. 987 cum membra tacebunt In somnis sudare tamen; 991 in
mollt saepe quicte Tactant crura tamen; [Prop. 11 (11) last elegy 50
Trux tamen a nobis ante domandus eris:] Livy xxix 17 13 unam,
profundam quidem, voraginem tamen patientia nostra expleremus: see
also 111 553 and ἢ. there. 953 stnanetuntur: 1 92 terram gentbus
summissa petebat; where see note. 959—961 comp. above 916 foll.
and 894 foll. where all the same symptoms are mentioned; but here,
as the sleep is heavier than usual, each symptom is aggravated: altzor,
largior, divistor. 961 divisior, distractior: these comparatives seem
unexampled; Paterculus has distractissimus; but the superl. of parti-
ciples is not so rare as the compar.: v 394 superantior, 111 397 and
v1 238 dominantior seem also confined to Lucr.; but Neue, Formen-
lehre p. 86 foll. gives pages of examples of comparatives and super-
latives of participles past and present. i test, for 957 we have Quem
satur aut lassus captas.

962—1036: the dreams of men generally turn on what has chiefly
occupied their waking thoughts, whether business or pleasure: 1t is the
same with brutes too: again the passions which are strongest in men
often display themselves in dreams, as well as other mental states.

962 foll. comp. Accius fab. praetext. 29 Hex, quae m vita wsurpant
homines, cogitant curant vident, Quaeque agunt vigilantes agitantque, ea
sicuet in somno aceidunt, Jinus mirum est: Marullus ‘hine Claudianus
maiorem partem sui exordii sumpsit’: he refers to the pref. paneg. de
sexto consul. Honor. 962 gio depends on devinctus, as shewn by the
imitation of Fronto quoted by Lach. wt, quo studio quisque devinctus
esset, aut hestrionem in somiis fautor spectaret aut cet.: Cic. epist. ad

fam. 11113 2 an v8 strdiis, quibus uterque nostrum devinctus est. 964
Atque i ea, following relative clauses: see ἢ. to #718. 966 Causi-

dict cet.: Petronius frag. xxx evidently had this part of Lucr. in his
mind: Soma quae mentes ludunt cet. and Qui casas orure solent,
leyesque forumque Et pavidi cernunt cet.: perhaps too he was thinking of

BOOK IV NOTES II 271

Lucr. when he wrote sat. 104 hine scies onquit Kumolpus Epicurum esse
hominem divinum qui eiusmodi ludibria facetissima ratione condemnat.
componere: Cic. de leg. 114 an wt stapulationum et vudiciorum formulas
componam; Juv. νι 244 Componunt ipsae per se formantque libellos.
leges: abundant examples of /eges of buying selling letting may be seen in
Cato de re rust. 145 foll. oleam factundam hac lege oportet locare, oleam pen-
dentem hac lege venrre oportet; and so of vinum pendens, vinum in doliis,
pobulum hibernum, fructum ovium, qua lege venire oportet: Plaut. capt.
177 Quast fundum vendam, meis me addicam legibus. 967 pr. obire:
Aen. vi 167 pugnas obibat; Livy 1v 7 2 obire tot simal bella. 968
Lamb. finds degere bellum inadmissible; Lach. thinks that it is un-
exampled, but may perhaps be supported by agere and peragere bellum.
969 agere hoc: see ἢ, ἴο 1 4]. 975 sens. ws.: see 1 301 Usurpare
oculis and ἢ. there. 978—981 form two consecutive rhyming coup-
lets: Cic. de cons. suo, in de div. 1 20, monebant, ferebant, cubebant,
vereri, tenert end 5 consecutive vss.; and just below morata, locata.

980 comp. above 788 un numerum procecere cum simulacra Cernimus in
somnis et molha membra movere cet. 984 refert st. at. vol.: Plaut.
Persa 593 Quae ad rem referunt; Livy 1x 9 7 ne illud quidem.. refert:
but with pronouns it is more common: lexicons cite from Pliny longitudo
refert, non crassitudo; ratio refert: Cic. ad Att. 111 19 1 non quo mea
interesset loct natura. 988 and 992 tamen: see n. to 952. 993
redducunt: Petron. sat. 98 reducto timidissime spiritu. 997 redeant:
clonec elsewhere in Lucr. takes always an indie. : see ἢ. to 1 222. 998
and 1007 Aé: see ἢ. to 414. consueta 1.6. which has lived with the
family and been domesticated; v 1334 dom domitos: Lach. compares
Plaut. asin. 221 amatores aves. Dene salutando consuescunt, compellando
blanditer: comp. also Ov. met. x1 89 Haine adsueta cohors Satyri Bac-
chaeque frequentant. catulorum blanda propago=catuli blandi: see ἢ.
to m1 741 leonum Seminium, and below to 1232; and comp. Virgil’s
Romana propago, and Nepos Attic. 18 2 clarorum virorum propagines.
1005 seminiorwm: seen. to111 741. gucaeque: the plural followed by the
gen, is rare: Hor. sat. 1 4 106 vitiorum quaeque. 1009 proelia pug-
nas: seen. to 11 118. 1010 i.e. persectantesque volantes visae sunt
edere, and other pursuing birds: Nonius p. 192 is wrong in saying acci-
pitres here is fem. though he formerly misled me: see ἢ. to πὶ 136: 11
1083 volantum, as Aen. v1 728: for position of gue see ἢ. to 11 1050.
1011 magnis motibus: it is because they are under the stimulus of some
great emotion, that in sleep they cannot get rid of it. 1014 quasz si,
a rare union: Force. quotes an instance from Plaut. Cas. ; and guaset ser
occurs in the inscr. Lat. 1, 6 or 7 times, being a ilar legal phrase:
comp. 77st sz. [See also Plaut. Amph. 1094 quasi si...veniam: Ussing
here quotes other instances from Plautus: see too Langen Beitr.
zu Plautus p. 320. 1019 Lndicio..facte: for the dat. see ἢ. to

272 BOOK IV NOTES II

vit 771; and for the gen. Roby gramm. pt. 1. p. XXX.] 1024 Wak.
compares Aen. 1x 650 Sire Padi ripis, Athesim sew propter amoenum.
1026 Puri for pueri is surely an impossible contraction in hexameters:
why should not Lucr. have written Saepe lucum pueri, as two lines
above he has written Flumen item sitiens: the Tun. quibus of 1030
seems to me to have no more reference to uri than to this sitiens; nay
less, for comp. 1097 {Ὁ bibere in somuts sitiens quom quaerit cet., Sie
in amore Venus stmulacris cet. which refers in fact to our passage: the
thirsty man and the lover alike owing to their vehement craving
see the simulacra of what they desire. My dithculty 1s that pur
ought rather to be mundi, not clean but of cleanly habits. For the
sense comp. Hor. sat. 1 3 90 Commniinet lectum potus...minus hoc
rucundus auicus St mihi. Yet 1 sce on all hands Puri is taken
for puers, and T may be in error. lacum: Lach. cites Juvenal
vi 603 Ad spurcos lacus. dolia: Macrob. sat. 11 16 15 quotes from
C. Titius ‘vir aetatis Lucilianae’ dim eunt, nulla est in angiporto am-
phora quam non inpleant. [curta: Prop. v (1v) 5 Τὸ curto vetus amphora
collo; Mart. 11 82.3 Curtague Ledae sobrius bibat testa.) 1028
imitated by Seren. Samon. 77 cc asino saccatus corporis umor; {and by
Arnob, 1 91. saccata cet.] 1029 Lubylonica: 1123 Labylonica
fiunt: Pliny vir 196 colores diversos picturae intexere Bubylon maxime
celebravit et nomen amposnit. 1032 quoque: Lachmann’s quodam is a
violent change and quite uncalled for: he says ‘ex uno quodam certo cor-
pore; Vv. 1048 /dque petit corpus cet.’: certainly not; there it is a waking
man in presence of the object loved: here he speaks of one with the
germs of love in him meeting in his sleep with stmu/acra proceeding from
any chance person, just as the sitiens has stmudacra from any chance
water whatever: quoque is indefinite exactly as 797 fit uti quovis m
tempore quaeque Praesto sint simulacra; 155 quamvis subito quoris im
tempore quamque Rem contra speculum ponas; V 1152 Carcunretit enim
vis atque iniuria quemque. 1035 transaciis: Theocr. 11 143 ᾿Επραχθη
τὰ μέγιστα.

1037---1057: 1037 ante, ic. 1030 foll. 1042 dec. corpore toto:
pic: in Diog. x 66 τό τε σπέρμα ad ὅλων τῶν σωμάτων φέρεσθαι, as
Democritus also taught according to Plut. de plac. phil. ν 3: comp. too
Hippocr, de genit. ὃ ἢ γονὴ ἐξέρχεται καὶ τῆς γυναικὸς καὶ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς

ἀπὸ παντὸς τοῦ σώματος. 1044 partly recurs v1 1207. ἐρεαβ: 69]
Omnibus 12 membris et in ore ipsoque palato. 1046 ‘Licin. ap. Non.
p. 260 per forum se in capitolium contendit’ 4. E. Δ]. 1048 Jd is
accus., corpus nomin. 1049—1056 there is an elaborate irony in
these vss.: the first three make a general statement, of which the last
five are a special application. 1049 omnes plerumque, like plerique

omnes: Caes. de bell. Gall. v 57 3 equites plerumque omnes: all fall
towards their wound, whether in the fields of Mars or Venus or else-

BOOK IV NOTES II 273

where; then 1055 is an ironical application of this, wm vulnus seems
intentionally ambiguous, meaning both the wound itself and that whieh
eecasions the wound: Aen. x 488 Corrutt in vulnus; and comp. Lucan
vil 603 tunc malle a valnera luctus Labitur with 619 letiferum per cuius
viscera vulnus Laiertt and 625 Quis cruor emissus perruperit aera venis
Inque hostis cadat arma sui: both Virgil and Lucan may have been
thinking of Lucr.: Livy 1 58 11 cultrum..in corde defigit prolapsaque
a vulnus moribunda cecidit; τὶ 46 4 telo extracto praeceps Fabius in
culnus abut. This and the two next vss. are obelised by Lamb. and
others, manifestly because they have not caught the poet’s satirical irony,
which pervades all this part of the poem. sanguis: see notes 1 to I
$53: 1t is found in Virgil, Tibullus, Sencea, Val. Flaccus and the Aetna;
and more than once in Ovid, Lucan and Silius. ectmur: ἀπ 160 icit.
1051 hostem cet.: comp. Lucan 1. 1. ruber umor is said apparently
with the same ambiguous irony as 1036 cruenteret. 1052 telis, actus,
1053 zaculatur, 1054 tuctans, 1055 feritur are all used to keep up the
play of thought about wounds and enemies. 1054 comp. Cie. Arat.
110 toto spiruns de corpore flammar.

1058—1072: when tormented by love seek distraction ; else your
passion will only be increased by the absence of the object loved. 1058
Haec refers to voluptatem, hinc to cupido of the preceding v.; and there
is the usual contrast between Venus and amor or cwpido, the gratification
of the passion and the passion itself: ‘haec voluptas nobis est Venus; ex
hac autem cupidine est nomen Latinum amoris, hoc est Cupido’: with
Haec Venus comp. 1084 1085 and especially 1073 Nee Veneris fructw
caret 1s gui vitat amorem. nomen am.: Ov. ars 1116 Nune Erato: nam
tu nomen amores habes. 1059 Line also refers to muta cupido; so
that this verse is a paraphrase of voluptatem praesagit. <illaec recurs
1083, where it is neut. plur.; 2lte illaec lune alane occur in Plautus,
1060 Stillavit gutta: Bentl. compares Eur. Hipp. 527 Ἔρως, Ἔρως...
Ὅστις στάζεις πόθον εἰσάγων γλυκεῖαν ψυχαῖς χάριν κιτιλ. [So Plaut.
Epid. 854 a, guttula Pectus avrdens mi adspersisti. | Srigida: Juv. τ
166 cur fregida mens est Creminibus, 1061 guod: Plaut. trin. 242
Nam gui amat, quod amat, cwin extemplo etus savis perculsus est ;
[curcul. 170 /psus se excruciat qui homo quod amat videt nec potitur
dum licet.| quod ames must not be tampered with: it=quod amamus;
and is another instance of that perpetual use of the potential with the
2nd pers. sing.: Cic. ad Att. xv 4 a1 nise forte, quae non ames, omnia
videntur insulse fieri; [Lael. 100 amare autem nihil est aliud nisi
eum ipsun daligere, quem ames: see Seyffert (Mueller) p. 3185] Ov.
ars 1 741 non tutum est, quod ames, laudare; amor. ΠῚ 14 7 quae
nocte latent, in luce fateri, Et quae clam facias, facta referre palam:
Publil. Syrus Cum ames, non sapias; aut cum sapias, non anes: Quod
timeus citius quam quod speres evenit: Quod nescias cut serves, stultunr est

M. 11. 18

274 BOOK IV NOTES II

parcere. Quod fugere credas : just below, 1070, in one sentence conturbes—
cures—possis. 1062 obv. ad: the dat. is the usual constr.: 978 obver-
santur Ante oculos. 1064 dAbsterrere sibi: 1233 satwm genitalem nu-
mina cuiquam Absterrent, with same sense and constr.; v 846 natura
absterruit auctum: lit. to scare away, lence =adimere. 1066 semel
cet. i.e. semel conversum in unum amore eius, with reference to 1064
alio convertere mentem: comp. too 1072 alto possis anime traducere motus.
conversum agrees of course with the subject of the sentence. 1068
vivescit: 1138 vivescit ut agnis. alendo: seen. to1 312 habendo; and
Virg. geor. 11 454 alatur vitium viritque tegendo. 1069 gravescit: 111
1022 gravescant, v1 337 gravescit; for the tzgravesco of prose. 1070
St non prima cet.: Cie. Tuse. tv 75 etiam novo quidam amore veterem
amorem tamquam clavo clavum eiciendum putant. 1071 volgivage:
v 932 Volgivago vitam tractabant more ferarum: the word seems not to
occur elsewhere; and to be intended to express ᾿Αφροδίτη πάνδημος.
vagus implies volgivaga Venus: Sen. Here. Oct. 364 quot nuptas prius,
Quot virgines dilert. erravit vagus.

1073—1120: moderation in this as in other passions affords the

truest pleasure: indulgence only increases the force of the passion which
food instead of appeasing only makes more ravenous. 1076 meseris,
1159 miseri, 1179 miser express the Greek δυσέρως, as often in Latin:
Ov. rem. 658 Aut amat aut aegre desinet esse miser. 1080 dentes inl.:
Hor. sat. 11 77 fragilt quaerens inlidere dentem, Offendet solido.
1081 Ose. adjl. i.e. adfligunt osculum osculo; for oscwlum has its literal
sense of ‘mouth’: Ov. met. 1 499 widet oscula, quae non Est vidisse satis:
[Mart. x1 91 7 Ipsaque crudeles ederunt oscula morbi.| It is curious
that here too A and B exemplify the usual confusion between adfligo
and adfigo. 1083 rabies gen.: so Enn. ann. 401 des, which form
Gellius 1x 14 6 on the authority of Caesellius and many old mss.
assigns to Cic. pro Sestio 28, and after those ‘qui scripserunt idiographum
librum Vergilii se inspexisse’ to Virg. geor. 1 208: Gellius also defends
and illustrates the forms dit fami pernicit luxurti acti. 1088 totum:
see ἢ. to 1 377. repugnat takes an infin. 1269 prohibet se concipere
atque repugnat; Ovid her. 17 137 amare repugno Illum; but there the
word means to strive not to do a thing; here it means contradicens affr-
mat: see n. to 766, and 1 582. 1091 mem. ads. antus: v1 1169 Fla-
grabat stomacho flanma ut fornacibus intus; 202 rotantque cavis flam-
mam fornacibus intus; 278 acuit fulmen fornacibus intus; 798 animam
labefactant sedibus intus; Livy xxv 11 15 sinew extguo intus inclusae;
Aen. νὰ 192 Tali intus templo cet.; culex 76 vallibus intus. 1095
Nil fruendum: above, 1078, quid fruantur; see n. to πὶ 956. 1096
quae cet.: sorry as it is, itis often snatched away before it can be enjoyed:
spes refers to 1086 1087; comp. with them 1097 1098. 1100 tor-
venti: the overflowing stream increases the force of the contrast.

BOOK 1V NOTES If 2755

1102 spectando: see n. to 1 312 habendo. 1106 praesagit gaudia:
above 1057 voluptatem praesagit. 1107 is την cost personal here, Venus
est ἴγν 60 ut; or impersonal, 1.6, res in eo est, ut Venus? comp. Livy 1
17 5 et cum...c1am in eo esset ut in muros evaderet miles, where there
seems to be the same ambiguity: so Nepos 1 7 cum tam in eo esset ut
opprdo potiretur; 1V 5 cum vam in eo esset ut comprehenderetur; Servius
to Aen. 111 286 certainly makes the verb personal, cum in eo essent ut
tam crvitatis potirentur, imitated perhaps from Nepos; and so Soph.
Elect. 21 ws ἐνταῦθ᾽ ἐμέν, Ἵν᾽ οὐκέτ᾽ ὀκνεῖν καιρός, if the reading is right:
but there is no ambiguity in Livy vit 27 3 iamque in eo rem fore ut;
τὰ" Ss axx 19°93; xagrir 41 9. 1112 facere i.e. hoc facere; as
often in Latin: 1153 Nam faciunt homines; 1195 Nam fucit ex animo
saepe: Ter. ad. 969 Denzque hic volt fierr...vin tu hoc fiert; Phorm. 121;
Plaut. Pseud. 533 sz non faxis (mss. 1d faais Ritschl); Cic. ad Att. xv1
10 1: 10 ὁ 15; cle lege 11683; Pliny epist. τν 26 1; v 1 4; vir 1 te
18 2; Livy χα 37 6; Juv. vi 14; [Sen. rhet. suas. v1 12 facet,
royabtt; controv. 1 1 3 factamgue; ib. 19 non fect; 7 14 sciebam enim
piratas non fucturos.) 1118 Cum cet.: 1.6. cam quaerunt quid cupiant
ipsi sibi cont.: Sen. epist. 31 5 eligas, guid contingere tibi velis, guid optes.
1120 comp. Ov. her. 4 20 Urimur et caecum pectora vulnus habet.
1121—1140: lovers 1uin their health and fortune; and even then
their happiness is often poisoned by jealousy. 1123 Labitur res :
Plaut. trin. 243, in the midst of a scene describing a lover’s ruin, 7160
res foras labitur liquitur. Babylonica: seen. to 1029. Babylonica fiunt
1.6. res fit or vertitur in Babylonica: 1129 bene parta patrum fiunt ana-
demata. 1125 Hutc i.e. amicae: certainly the absence of any word to
shew the change of subject would be harsh; as before and after the
lover, not the mistress, is the subject. lenta...Sicyonia: ciris 169 Cog-
nita non teneris pedibus Sicyonia servans; Cicero speaks of them as not
suitedformen. pulchra: Lucil. 111 53 Muell. ΜῈ pedibus laeva Sicyonia
denut honesta. 1126 cum duce: see ἢ. to 1 755 and 287: Cicero in his
Aratea has Vergilias tenur cum luce; valida cum luce refulgens ; larga
cum luce Bootes; claris cwm lucibus Orion; and cum lumine again and
again. zmaragdi: the z also in 11 805; Ζμύρνα is found in Greek
inscriptions, and ἕμερδαλέα in the Herculanean ms. of Philodemus περὶ
εὐσεβείας just published; Eustathius shews that this use of ¢ before μ
was very general; in Orell. inser. 2510 zmaragdi occurs seven times; and
the best mss. of Livy give Zmyrna, Zmyrnaei; of Ovid zmaraydos; of
Seneca zmaragdos and zminthea:inscr. Rhen. 1124 the name Zmuaragdus.
1127 Auroinel.: to be used probably as a fibula or brooch: includ. appears
to be the technical term: Aen. x11 210 artificis manus aere decoro In-
clusit; X 136. thalassina: some shade of purple or ἀλιπόρφυρος ; Plaut.
miles 1179 Palhiolum habeas ferrugineum, nani ts colos thalassicust.
1129 bene parta patrum: Ter. Phorm, 788 mez patris bene parta. anad.

18—2

276 BOOK IV NOTES II

mitrae: Aen. 1x 616 habent redimicula mitrae and Antipater Sid. anthol.
1 p. 31 ΓΑνδεμα δ᾽ αὖ μίτρας [and Eur. Hec. 923 ἐγὼ δὲ πλόκαμον
ἀναδέτοις μίτραισιν ἐρρυθμιζόμαν] might make us join the two words; but
they are more emphatic when separate; and Paulus in the digest has
mitrae etanudemata. The anadema then will be an ornamental band for
the head: χρυσέας κόμης ᾿Ανάδημα, says Eur. Hipp. 81; the mitra a scarf
covering the head and much of the face; though it may be the other
mitra or zona: μαλακαί, μαστῶν ἐνδύματα, pitpat, says Hedylus anthol. 1
p. 483: Lucil. 11 26 Muell. Chirodytt aurati, ricae, thoracia, mitrae.

1130 Ahdensia of mss. I now retain, agreeing so far with Wak. that it
may refer to the Carian Alinda; for I see that in Pliny v 109 Detlefsen
with the mss. gives dAlidienses (1 Alidenses) in the list of the Carian
peoples: with Alinda Alidensis I would compare Vicentia Vicétini
(Ovrxeria). [Perhaps with the quantity A/id. one night compare Plaut.
Menaech. 235 L’lurtos= Illyrios. It appears that lidiensis=Alidensis,
as Pliny x1v 16 has Verontenstum; 67 Veronrenst; xv 48 and xxxvi 48
Catulli Veroniensis: so Lucil. lib. inc. 103 mss. give pescaniensis for
Piscinensis.| 1 had thought of //aliensia, as ᾿Αλιεῖς was a seaport of some
consequence in Hermionis, mentioned by Herod. Thucyd. and Xen.
and might have been an emporium of the Laconian purple. Jessen
quaest. Lucr. p. 10 thinks that Afid. may mean ‘Elean,’ as Pliny calls
Elean byssus ‘deliciae mulicrum’; but we cannot get over thed. Cia
i.e. Keta: Lach. proves from Pliny 1v 62 that Varro mistook Aristotle’s
Cos for Ceos; Lucr. and Pliny followed him in his error; Lucr. therefore
uses Cia or Cea for Coa. —vertunt neut.: see n. to 111 502 reflerit; and
comp. V 1422 neque in fructuni convertere quisse. 1131 reste, the
coverings of the furniture and hangings of the room. ludz, ‘absurde in
apparatu convivii’ says Lach.: but they inay well come in after the feast
with the Pocula crebra, etc.: C. Titius ‘vir aetatis Lucilianae,’1n Macrob.
sat. 111 16 15 says of prodigals ludunt alea studiose, delibute unguentis,
scortis stipati; and all these preparations are here made for the scorta:
copa 37 Pone merum et talos; Plaut. eurc. 354 Postquam cenati atque
appotr, talos poscit sibi in manum, Provocat me in aleam ut ego ludam.
pono pallium, Ile suum anulum opposivit; most. 308 Age accumbe igitur
...appone hic mensulam: Vide, tali ubi sint: vin unguenta cet.; Hor.
epist. 11 2 56 venerem convivia Iudum; Juv. x1 176 alea turpis: 179
Nostra dabunt alios hodie convivia ludos; Τὰ]. Capitol. Verus 5 post
conviviwm lusum est tesseris; [Justin. xu 3 conviviwmgue wuxta regram
magnificentiam ludis exornat;| Cic. pro Caelio 39 joins non aequaliwm
studia, non ludi, non convivia, as if they naturally came together; and
46 studia delectationis, ludus tocus convivium. What too are the convi-
valia ludorum oblectamenta addita epulis, which Livy xxx1x 6 ὃ speaks
of as first brought to Rome by the army of Asia? the ud in fact
together with the things mentioned in the next v. were for the comissa-

BOOK IV NOTES II 277

tio after the feast, ‘cum furit Lyaeus, Cum regnat rosa, cum madent
capilli’. 1132 comp. Plaut. asin. 803 Zum sz coronas serta unguenta
iusservt cet.; [Turpilius 201 Coronam mensam talos vinum, haec hurus-
modi, Quibus rebus vita amantum wnvitarr solet.] coronae chaplets
for the head, serta festoons or garlands to deck the doorways or other
parts of the house perhaps; but Tib. 1 7 51 mttedo stillent unguenta
capillo, Et capite et callo mollia serta ferat; and Ov. met. Iv 7; xu 929.
1133 comp. Ov. met. vil 453 usque adeo nulla est sincera voluptas Sollici-
tique aliquid laetis intervenit. Nequiquam quomam: the fondness of
Luer. for this expression, used in this way, is very striking: we had
it just above 1110, it recurs below 1188; and it is found five times
between v 1127 and 1332, where the poet is discoursing on the vanity
of human wishes and efforts. It sounds like an echo of his own feeling,
that the things which men most desire are all vanity. Lirt. de bell.
Gall. vir 19 6 nequiquam: nam...: [comp. frustra, namin Catull. 21 7,
and frustra, namque of Horace and Martial quoted by Ellis there. |
1185 remordet: see n. to 111 827. 1136 dustris: Cic. Phil. 11 6
vino lustrisque confectus; Livy xx111 45 2 vino et scortis omnibusque
lustris per totam hiemem confectos; Plaut. σατο. 508 lustris lacerant homa-
nes. 1137 ea amb. rel.: Hor. epist. 1 16 28 Servet in ambiguo.

1141—-1191 : if there are such evils in prosperous, what must be the
evils of unsuccessful love? strive then not to fall into love; but if you
are caught, use all efforts to escape: yet men stand in their own way,
and deluded find beauties even in defects; the discarded lover will
refuse all comfort; who yet, if received back, will find out his folly and
be glad to get away again. 1141 proprio in this sense of lasting is
very common; Plaut. most. 224 fore tibet victum sempiternum Atque
illum amatorem tibet proprium futurum in vita; corp. inscr. 1010;
Accius 159; Lucil. xxvir 6 Muell.; Livy xxi 37 5. secundo and
adverso amore are illustrated by Bentl. from Tibullus and Propertius.
1142 ἱπορὶ-- ἀμηχάνῳ: ἃ δυσέρως τις ἄγαν καὶ apaxavos ἐσσι. 1148
has the look of a proverb. 1150 obvius obstes: comp. obvius obtultt,
officere atque obstare and the like. 1152 petis: Livy ΧΙ, 4 3 multis
petentibus, aspernata nuptias est; xLU 12 3 Seleucr flram duxisse eum
non petentem, sed petitum ultro; 16 9 uxoris petendae praematuram
Jestinationem fratre obiceret. vis: Plaut. trin. 1160 quod vis non duces;
Mart. 111 11 6 St non vult Quintus Thaida, Sextus ames. 1153 faciunt:
see n. to 1112. 1157 stiadené is very unusual; but in Sulpic. Apollin.
periocha to Ter. Andr. 8 the mss. have Davi sitiasw; and Plaut. cure.
508 stiadendo, Epid. 111 2 19 siiast are possible though uncertain scan-
sions: he uses swesco and suetus indifferently as dissyll. or trisyll.;
dissoliio etc. oftener than dissolvo; religiius always; v 679 conseqiie ;
v1 552 and 868 agiiae; vi 1072 agiiaa. 1160 foll. comp. Theocr. id.
v1 18 ἢ yap ἔρωτι Ἰ]ολλάκις, ὦ Πολύφαμε, τὰ μὴ καλὰ καλὰ πέφανται.

278 BOOK IV NOTES II

1160 Nigra cet.: ‘Plut. Mor. 45 a τὸν δὲ ὠχρὸν ὑποκοριζόμενος μελίχρουν᾽
J. E. M.: Theoer. x 26 Svpav καλέοντί τυ πάντες, ᾿Ισχνὰν ἁλιόκαυστον,
ἐγὼ δὲ μόνος μελίχλωρον: With this and what follows comp. the terms of
the ἐραστοῦ ὑποκοριζομένον in Plato rep. v p. 474 D: Luer. has been
imitated by Ovid ars 11 657 foll. and translated by Moliere le misan. 11 5
near end: comp. too Hor. sat. 13 43 foll.; as later on he imitates Luer.
much. melichrus oecurs more than onee as a term of praise in the
anthology, and apparently means the same as pedtyAwpos: Ovid }. 1.
fusca vocetur, Nigrior Illyrica cui pice sanguis erit; Molitre La noire ἃ
faire peur, une brune adorable. tnmunda cet.: Molitre La malpropre
sur sot... Est mise sous le nom de beauté négligée. 1161 Palladium:
Cie. de nat. 1 83 caesios oculos Minervaec; Ovid 1. |. st rava, Minervae
i.e. similis. liguea: Catull. 23 6 ΔῈ cum coniuge lignea parentis. 1162
Parvula: Ovid 1. 1. Dic habilem quaecumque brevis, merwm sal:
Bentl. quotes Afranius 30 quidquid loquitur, sal merum est: of course
neither Bentl. nor I supposed that sal here had any special reference to
speaking: it is ‘esprit,’ brilliancy generally; as in Catull. 86 4 Δα an
tam magno corpore mica salis; | Mart. vil 25 3 Nullaque mica salis nec
amart fellis in illis Gutta set. | 1165 loquacula seems not to oeceur
elsewhere. 1166 eromenzon is found in the anthology. cum vivere
cet.: Ov. 1]. 1. Sit gracilis, macie quae male viva suast; Lucil. 11 20 viz
vivo homint ac monogrammo, 1168 At twmida: Ov. 1. 1. quae turgida,
plenam: Ov. rem. 327, to cure love, Zurgida, si plena est; si fusca est,
nigra vocetur : In gracilt macres crimen habere potest. mammosa ete.:
his constant imitator Arnobius m1 10 ab Iaccho Cererem, musa ut
praedicat Lucretia, mammosam, VI 25 Ceres mammis cum grandibus:
the constr. seems to be tumida et mammosa est Ceres ipsa (tumida et
mam.) ab Iaccho: some legends made Iacchus son of Demeter and
brother of Cora; sometimes too, as here, he was represented as an infant
at the breast: so Suidas Ἴακχος: Διόνυσος ἐπὶ τῷ μαστῷ: Gerhard in his
Bilderkreis von Eleusis 1 anm. 70 and others illustrate from works of
art Demeter κουροτρόφος, suckling an infant at the breast. Jaechus is
oftener represented as son of Cora. 1169 Siena appears to be
invented by Lucr. satura: Hesyeh. caripav: καταφερῆ. labeosa
seems not to be found elsewhere: labeosa, as also labea; but labium: see
Lach. and Schuchardt vulg. Lat. 1 p. 40. 1171 esto cam: see ἢ. to
1 968 st cam. 1173 Nempe, nempe, Nempe, facit, facere: comp. Adde,
Adde and the like. 1174 eadem turpi: see n. to π| 1038. 1175
suffit: Prop. Iv (v) 8 83 quemcumgque locum externae tetigere puellae
Suffit. 1178 Floribus et sertis: strewing perhaps the lower dimen or
sill with loose flowers, and hanging the upper or lintel with festoons:
Ovid ars 11 527 Postibus et durae supplex blandire puellae Et capiti
demptas in fore pone rosas; 11 72 Sparsa nec invenies limina mane rosa;
rem. 32 At teyat ornutas multa corona fores; Prop. 1 16 7 mihi non

BOOK IV NOTES II 279

desunt turpes pendere corollae; Juv. vi 51 necte coronam Postibus et
densos per limina tende corymbos; Augustus in his res gestae vi 16
laureis postes aedium mearum vincti sunt publice coronaque civica super
vanuam meam fixa est: or it may be a hendyadis for floridis sertis :
Tib. 1 2 14 cum poste florida serta darem; Catull. 63 65 Mihi ianuae
Srequentes, mihi limina tepida, Mihi floridis corollis redimita domus erat.
postis Unguit amarac.: ‘my beloved put in his hand by the hole....I rose
up to open to my beloved, and my hands dropped with myrrh and my
fingers with sweet smelling myrrh upon the handles of the lock. I
opened to my beloved’. saperbos, haughty and unrelenting as their
mistress. 1179 foribus cet.: Aen. 11 490 Amplexaeque tenent postes
atque oscula figunt; [Callimachus (see Hermes x p. 4—6) ᾿Ελθὼν δ᾽ οὐκ
ἐβόησα, tis ἢ Tivos, ἀλλ᾽ ἐφίλησα Τὴν φλίην.] 1180 vententem follows
on the zam amm., coming after leave given; exactly as 1177 lacrimans
exclusus is weeping because shut out: a copula, instead of being
necessary, would be very awkward. 1181 modéd: see n. to πὶ 1135.
1182 cadat: Wak. compares Virg. geor. ΠῚ 138 Rursus cura patrum
cadere; but there the force of the word is not very clear; see Coning-
ton: cadat is perhaps like 11 1175 incasswm cecidisse; see Fore. 1183
Stultitia: ‘damnatur aliquis crimine vel eudicio, sed sceleris parricidii
furti wmiurie. in Ciri 188 quod habent exemplaria tanto scelere
damnare puellam neque modulatum est neque Latinum’ Lach. He
states correctly the usual Latin constr.; but N. P. Howard justly
refutes his alteration by citing Cic. Phil. x111 27 quo scelere damnatus:
comp. too Suet. Otho 2 damnatum repetundis consularem virum. The
same rule holds of arguo, convinco; yet Sen. Herc. Oet. 898 Si te ipsa
damnas, scelere te, nusera, arguis; Oed. 916 se scelere convictum Oedipus
Damnavit tpse; Suet. Nero 31 scelere convictos: Tac. ann. 1 74 maiesta-
tis postulavit; but 1 38 postulaverat repetundis; Aen. 11 229 scelus
excpendisse=X1 258 scelerum poenas expendimus. 1186 poscaenia: the
Latins often said pos or po before many consonants, pos tempus posquam
pomeridianus and the like: Ribbeck I see repeatedly introduces such
forms into Virgil; see notes 1 to 1252: Cic. orator 157 prefers posme-
ridianus to postmer., and Livy x~11 10 5 the ancient and sole ms. has
posquam.—Yet Mommsen, ephem. epigr. 1 Ὁ. 78, I find says ‘pos
quod est pro posé sequente denuo littera ¢, quem solecismum hodie
multi religiose magis colunt quam erudite, diplomata ad Marcum usque
ignorant, ab a. inde 216 perpetuo scribunt postemplum, ut hoc scri-
bendi vitium appareat monumenta publica invasisse aetate Severi et
Caracallae.’
1192—1208: yet women sometimes feel true love in return.

1195 facié ex animo: Ter. Andr. 794 ex animo ommia, Ut fert natura,
facias an de industria. 1196 spat. dec. am.: 111 1042 decurso lumine
vitae; Ov. trist. 111 4 33 pede inoffenso spatium decurrere vitae. 1199

280 BOOK IV NOTES II

Si non... quod: seen. to1 176. itlorum neut. may mean the females,
according to Lucretius’ usual practice when the reference is to different
genders volucres armenta cet. subat in good writers seems always to be
said of the female in heat. 1205 Quom tnuterea seems a harsh elision;
and none other like it is found in Lucr.; for 11 850 Quoad licet is a syni-
zesis: Virg. ecl. 11 48 Si ad eitulam, and this eclogue appears to be one
of his earliest ; in Catullus such elisions are frequent; 64 305 he has
Cum interea, as Lucr. here: 809 contendere se atque parare, the elision
seems to have a similar effect; and 1145 cavereque ne inliciaris. [Comp.
Lucil. x1 13 on contemnere se et cet. But probably guom anterea
‘while all the time’ was so common a phrase that the words could not
well be separated: for this use of qwom anterea, interim see Autenrieth
die conj. guom Ὁ. 286 E.] val. Ven. com.: 1148 validos Veneris perrum-
pere nodos. 1207 tac. in fri: 817 nos in fraudem induimus,
1209—1232: according as the seed of the nian or woman prevails at
conception, the child is more like to the one or to the other; and this is
so whether the child be male or female. 1209 comm. cet. 1.6. comm.
semine suo virili semine: but commescendlo semen would make the constr.
simpler and be perhaps more in the manner of Lucr.: comp. 1 1026,
ἯΙ 1037, vdae 1210 vem victt vi: in a very similar passage of
Hippocr. de genit. 7 éxparéero is used in the same way; comp. too Plut,
de plac. phil. v 11 where it is given asa stoical doctrine, κἄν μὲν ἐπικρα-
τήσῃ TO τῆς γυναικός, ὅμοιον εἶναι TO γεννώμενον TH μητρί, ἐὰν δὲ τὸ TOD
ἀνδρός, τῷ ἀνδρί: Censor. de die nat. 6, p. 10 13 refers this theory to
Anaxagoras: Anaxagoras autem eius parentis faciem referre liberos
audicavit, qui seminis amplius contulisset. Epicurus may have got this
as many other tings from him; but Hippocrates, whom Lucr. had
evidently studied, de genit. 7 and 8 teaches precisely the same; comp.
especially ὃ oxdrepos δ᾽ av πλέον ξυμβάληται ἐς τὸ ἐοικέναι καὶ ἀπὸ TAEOLWY
χωρίων τοῦ σώματος, κείνῳ τὰ πλείονα ἔοικε: καὶ ἔστι ὅτε θυγάτηρ γενομένη
ἔοικε κάλλιον τῷ πατρὶ ἢ τῇ μητρὶ καὶ κοῦρος γενόμενος ἔστι ὅτε κάλλιον
ἔοικε τῇ μητρὶ ἢ τῷ πατρί: Lactant. de opif. dei 12 closely copies Luer.
but attributes the theory to Varro and Aristotle: cum semina inter se
permixta coalescunt, si virile superaverit, patri similem provenire, sew
marem seu jeminam; si muliebre praevaluerit, progeniem curtusque serus
ad wmayinem respondere maternam. 1211 matrum, Ut patribus: Cie.
de fin. v 12 patri similis esse filius; where Madvig thinks patris to be
perhaps right, as Cicero and the older writers usually have a gen. of
living things, especially men and gods, while with inanimate things the
gen. and dat. are employed promiscuously: the dat. in later writers
became almost universal: 1218 Luer. has similes avorum; τι 909 sdmele
tots animalibus; τν 1230 utri similest id, neut. but referring to a living
child: Madvig 1. 1. quotes Cic. de nat. deor. 11 149 plectrt similem linguam
nostre solent drcere, chordarum dentes, nares cornibus iis qui cet. where,

BOOK IV NOTES II 281

as in Luer., both cases are found together: ‘Plaut. Men. 1089 Neque
aqua aquae neque lacte lacte (mss. lactis Ritschl), mihe crede, usquam simi-
liust, Quam hic tui est tuque huins autem’ J. EB. M.;{[Amph. 595 Negue
lac lacti mayis est simile quam ille ego similis est met. | 1213 valta:
Nonius p. 230 quotes this v. and from Ennius vostraque vulta. 1216
confi. is active in Cic. de inv. τι 126. 1217 neque utrum i.e. neutrum:
so v 839 nec wtrum; Mart. v 20 11 recuter; Orell. inser. 4859 on . nec-
utro.mihi. consto: neuter is only ne or nec uler; ne or nec being the
old negative; see ἢ. to 11 25. 1220 Propterea cet.: Aristotle, who
discusses these very questions de gen. anim. Iv 3 p. 769 1 foll., finds
then all more difficult to answer than Lucr. does: so 1. 1]. 24 διὰ τίν᾽
αἰτίαν ἐοικὸς γίνεται τοῖς προγόνοις ws ἐπὶ TO πολὺ καὶ τοῖς ἄποθεν; οὐ yap
ἀπ᾽ ἐκείνων γ᾽ ἀπελήλυθεν οὐθὲν τοῦ σπέρματος. 1225 (1227)—1228
(1226) must come in the order here given; for surely voltus vocesque
comasque are comprehended in facies et corpora membraque; and if they
were not, what reason could there be for the poet’s asserting that they
are as uncertain in their origin, as the body generally? just as if any
body were likely to think that the less essential were more unvarying
than the more essential: this indeed induced Lamb. to read minus for
mags. Again, as Lach. says himself, de semane certo is here aut virit
aut mulebri, one not both; and is opposed to 1229 duplice de semane,
and forms a contrast with it: 1225 (1227) in fact begins a new question,
which Arist. ]. 1. thinks it not easy to explain; why namely a male
child may be more like the mother, a female like the father. 1225
patrio, i.e. as well as materno. 1226 AMaterno, i.e. as well as patrio.
1227 haec, i.e. the distinctions of sex no more come certo semine, from
either the father’s or the mother’s alone, than the form and features:
Hippoer. 1. 1. emphatically asserts the same: thus 7 οὗτος ὁ λόγος αἱρέει
καὶ TOV ἀνδρα Kal τὴν γυναῖκα ἔχειν καὶ θῆλυν γόνον καὶ ἄρσενα, and 8 at end
καὶ ταῦτά μοι καὶ τοσαῦτά ἐστι ἱστόρια τῷ προτέρῳ λόγῳ, ὅτι ἔνεστι καὶ ἐν τῇ
γυναικὶ καὶ ἐν τῷ ἀνδρὶ καὶ κουρογονίη καὶ θηλυγονίη : comp. this with
Aristotle’s doubts and difficulties. 1231 possis: see ἢ. to I 327.

1232 wirwm suboles would commonly mean the whole male sex; so in
Cic. omnem ruventutis subolem=omnem iuventutem; proles lla futu-
rorum honinum=futuri homines; and Virgil has prolem parentum for
the stock to which the parents belong; Pliny Sarmatae Medorum suboles,
of the same stock as the Medes; Ov. fasti1 449 volucrum proles; Lucr.
himself 11 662 equorum duellica proles; v 856 procudere prolem = 850
procudere saecla, their race; and 111 741 triste leonum semanvwm=tristes
leones, where see note; 1v 998 catulorwm blanda propago=catuli blandi.
But here virum suboles means one out of the male sex; what Livy11 11
calls stirps virilis; and comp. his nullam stirpem liberwm, ex tanta stirpe
laberum, ex magna progente liberorum, all within a few chapters in XLy.
Exactly thus Hor. od. 13 8 Lascivi suboles gregis means one out of the

282 BOOK IV NOTES II

suboles lascivi gregis i.e. a kid; for lascivus grex cannot mean anything
but the young kids; Apul. met. x 32 tnnuptarwm puellarum decorae
suboles: in no other way can I understand sangwis meus, genus deorum,
deum gens and the like, than as meaning belonging to my blood, one of
the race of gods ete.; Aen. X 228 deum gens, Aenea seems synon. with
vill 36 sate gente deum: so too 1 understand v1 792 divi genus compared
with divum genus; and Luer. 1 42 Memmi propago compared with 1v 998
catulorum propago. erigo has here the meaning of partus or birth:
perhaps aw. or. is literally the beginning of a woman.

1233—1277: it is not the gods who grant or withhold offspring: con-
ception depends on the due assortment of man and wife. 1233 crr-
quam Absterrent: see n. to 1064. 1236 Quod cet.: v1 1015 Quod
facrt et sequitur. 1237 adolent: Aen. Vv 54 strueremque suis altaria
donis, x1 50 cumulatque altaria donis being compared, this ambiguous
word would seem to have the sense here of causing to grow, increasing,
and so piling up: Virg. geor. Iv 379 Panchaets adolescunt 1gnibus arae,
adolescunt seems to be its neut., ‘grow’ or ‘are piled up’; but in Lucr.
‘cause to smell’ or ‘burn’ would give a suitable sense ; see Conington
to Virg. ecl. vir 66. The notion of inerease would appear to be the
most natural, if the word had come to be merely one of good omen and
conveyed only a conventional meaning to a Latin ear; as it would seem
to have done to Tacitus’, who in ann. xIv 30 has cruore captivo adolere
aras; in VI 28 subire patrium corpus inque solis aram perferre atque
adolere. However Ov. met. 1 492 adolentur=simply uruntur. 1239
sortis: Juv. 1 82 sortesque poposcit: Cic. de div. 11 86 says hoc quidem
genus divinationis vita iam communis explosit. fani pulchritudo et vetus-
tas Praenestinarum etiam nune retinet sortium nomen, atque 1d in volgus:
these Praenestinae sortes he describes |. 1. 85 as in robore tnsculptas pris-
carum litterarum notis: Ritsch] Rhein. mus. ἢ. f. x1v p. 389 foll. amends
and explains some very singular old hexameters, containing a series of
sorties, such as these must have been. _fatigant: τι 1172 caelumque fatr-
gat. 1242 locis adf. adh. seems not unlike Aen. 1x 536 Lt flammam
adfixit latert; [Plaut. Amph. 858 /Zuc...adventwm adporto. | 1244
his i.e. aliis, with reference to 1240 partim. 1246 penetratum, be-
cause penetro and penetro me in are equally in use. 1250 Sae-
caipiunt: v 402 succepit A: Ribbeck admits this form four times
into the Aeneid with more or less ms. authority; and Servius thrice
repeats that succipio is the old form. «ingravescunt seems not to occur
elsewhere in the sense of becoming big with child. 1252 unde i.e.
eas ex quibus. puwellos: Nonius p. 158 quotes this v. and Ennius
Lucilius and Varro for this form. 1254 fecundae: the wife may be
able to bear and the man to beget; but they may not suit one another;
though in another marriage the man may have children. 1259 liqus-
dis et liguida; see n. to 11 452: the juxta-position here seems almost as

BOOK IV NOTES II 283

bold as Homer’s Apes "Apes which Martial 1x 11 15 thinks utterly im-
possible in Latin; Bekker finds it so in Homer as well; but the poets
seem often to feel a pleasure in such contrasts of quantity: 111 145 /dque
sibi...id sibt gaudet; Tib. 11 ὃ 27 Delos wbt...ubi Delphica Pytho; Prop.
1| 3 43 ostendet éois, Uret et Go0s; Martial himself tv 89 1 and 9 dhe 2am
satis est, he, libelle; 11 18 1 Captd tuam, pudet heu, sed captd; 1 36 1
Si, Lucane, tibi vel si tibi, Tulle; vir 60 7 Te pro Caesare debeo rogare,
Pro me debeo Caesarem rogure; [x1 12 2 Dum matrem nemo det
tibi, memo patrem.| With a short vowel before a mute and liquid
this variation is even more frequent: Iv 403—406 sdpra, sipra,
stipra; 1222 Quae pdtribus patres, as Aen. 11 663 Gnatwm ante ora
patris, pdtrem qui: in these three instances too as well as in one from
Martial the lengthening as well as the shortening is in the thesis of the
foot: v 839 interitrasque nec utrum rttrimque; 1163 sacra, sdécra; Ov.
met. Χαμ 607 volticrt mox vera volicris; V 129 ditissimus agri, Dives
dgri; Hor. od. 132 11 Lt Lycum nigris oculis nigroque: Theoer. vi 19
τὰ μὴ κἄλὰ καλὰ πέφανται; VII 19 ἴσον κάτω ἶσον ἄνωθεν; and Callima-
chus has the very same variations; for which they and their Alexandrine
compeers are bitterly assailed by Cobet var. lect. p. 396; but they have
greater crimes than these to answer for: Theocr. xvit 51 Evrexviay,
Κύπρις δὲ θεὰ Κύπρις. 1262 extenvantur: so tenvis he uses oftener
than ¢eniiis; but 1 317 adtentiari. 1271 exossato: Apuleius twice
uses exossa saltatio in the same sense. 1272 Hicet: 111 877 et ercit,
where see note. 1274 Idque moverv: comp. 111 569 moventur Sensi-
feros motus quos...haut possunt...movere; for the neut. pron. 15 equiva-
lent to a cognate accus.: v1 404 quid undas Arguit?

1278—1287: often by her own virtues, from no divine interposition,
ἃ woman without personal attractions will endear herself to her husband.
1278 Nec divinitus: οὐδὲ θεόπεμπτον εἶναι τὸν ἔρωτα 15 a Saying of Epicu-
rus recorded in Diog. x 118. 1282 insuescat te: vi 397 An tum
bracchia consuescunt; v 1368 fructusque feros mansuescere terram, a
conjecture of Lach. but I think a certain one: Hor. sat. 1 4 105 inswe-
vit pater optimus hoc me; 112 109 adsuerit mentem corpusque superbum;
Aen. vi 832 ne tanta animis adsuescite bella; Varro de re rust. 11 1 4
sulvestria mansuescerent; Titinius 46 deswevi 1.6. eum ne; Columella thus
uses consuesco and inswesco, each more than once. The passive partie.
suetus adsuetus desuetus consuetus mansuetus are much more in use; see
n.tomi772. 1283 has a proverbial sound: comp. the use of corswes-
co; and Livy ΧΧΧΙΧ 9 6 huic consuetudo cet. and 7 eo profecerat consue-
tudine capta...ut unum Aebutium imstitueret heredem: Ov. ars 11 345
Fac tibt consuescat: nil adsuetudine marcus. 1286 guttas cet. : a com-
mon-place employed by Tibullus Propertius and Ovid ; comp. too 1 313
Stelicidr casus lapidem cavat.

254 BUOK V NOTES II

BOOK V

1—54: who, o Memmius, can adequately extol the man who dis-
covered this system of true wisdom? not Ceres, not Liber, far less Her-
cules can be compared with him: they only gave to men physical
comforts or freed them from physical dangers: he bestowed on us the
blessings of right reason and freed us from the far worse terrors of super-
stition and of the passions: surely then he deserves to be ranked as a
god, the more so that he first explained the true nature of the gods.

1 Quis potis cet.: Enn. ann. 178 Quis potis inyentis orus evolvere belli?:
Lucr. omits the verb subst. with pote; but not with potis, as Ennius
Plautus ete. do. dignum pro: Cic. in Caec. div. 42 timeo quidnam
pro offensione hominum...et erpectatione omnium ct magnitudine rerum
dignum eloqut possim: nay Cicero’s words may have been in the poet’s
mind: Ter. hee. 209 an quiequam pro istis fuctis dignum te der potest? ;
Sall. Catil. 8] ὃ si digna poena pro factis corum reperitur; aud perhaps
Hor. epist.17 24 Dignum pracstabo me etiam pro laude merentis. poll.
pect.:1 414 Lingua meo suavis diti de pectore funilet; sce n. there: IV
914 Vera repulsanti disccdas peetore clicte; and, just below, 5 Pectore
parta suo cet.: Ov. fasti τὶ 120 Ve/lem, Maeonrde, pectus inesse tuum.
2 Condere, the technical word, even in prose; see Fore. ; hence Virg. 60].
114 haec incondita; and Livy tnconrdita carmina, eneondite versus, and
the like. 5 narta and quaesita appear to be synon.; see ἢ. to Iv 274:
{but Mucller Lucil. 11 30 (p. 201) says it is a ὕστερον πρότερον.
7 cognita: Tib. tv 11 cognita virtus; Livy vir 40 19 cognitae fider.

8 deus cet.: Virg. ecl. v 64 deus deus ille, Menalea; {Stat. silv. Iv
6 36 deus alle, deus:] seen. to 11 1092, and comp. Cic. Tuse. disp. 1 48
quoted there. τγιοί. Memmi: see n. to τι 1050. 10 appell. sap.:
Enn. ann, 227 Nec quisquam sophiam, sapientia quae perhibetur, In
somnis vidit priw quam sam discere coepit, imitated by Afranius in
Gell. x111 8 Sophiam voeant me Grai, vos sapientiam. quique per
artem: Virg. geor. 1 122 primusque per artem Movit agros: Aen. X
135 guale per artem; Manil. 1 51 primique per artem cet.; for
princeps belongs also to qguique per artem: artem=rationem ‘quam
licet, si volumus, appellemus artem’ says Cic. de orat. 11 148. 12
tranguillo: tranquillum is the proper term for a calm, used by Cicero
and the best writers, and often metaphorically as here: so Livy 111 14 6
nec cetera modo tribuni tranquillo peregere; xxvitl 27 11 tta aut tran-
guillum aut procellae in vobis sunt; Ter. eun. 1038 esse amorem onnem
m tranguillo: Lucil. in Nonius p. 388 has te in tranquillum ex saevis
transfer tempestatibus: comp. also Plut. max. ¢. prine. viris 3 p. 778 ©

BOOK V NOTES II 285

3 , 3 ‘ ΕἾ A , A ε ΄, ¢ ἢ ΄
Ἐπίκουρος ταγαθὸν ἐν τῷ βαθυτάτῳ τῆς ἡσυχίας ὥσπερ ἐν ἀκλύστῳ λιμένι

καὶ κωφῷ τιθέμενος. 13 Confer enim: so Cicero attende enim paulis-
per; audiamus enim Platonem and the like. diving antiqua reperta:

490 altaque caeli.. fulgentia templa; 24 Nemeaeus magnus hiatus [le ;
32 Aureaque Hesperidum fulgentia mala; 295 claraeque coruscis [ul-
guribus pingues taedae; 663 Idacis montibus altis; 1063 Inritata canum
magna Mollia ricta, duros nudantia dentes: so candens lucidus aer, mise-
randum maynopere unum Aerumnabile; also 1436 magnum versatile
templum; 117 bene quam munita tenere Edita doctrina sapientum templa
serena; Iv 212 serena sidera radiantia; 624 Umida sudantia templa:
see also ἢ. to 1 258 candens lacteus wumor: two participles are also found,
as IV 1177 lacrimans exclusus, 1180 caine ammissum venientenc. 14
Namque or nam introducing the details of a general statement is common
enough in Latin, though less so than yap in Greek. Ceres... mort. inst.:
probably imitated by Virg. geor. 1 147 Prima Ceres ferro mortalis vertere
terram Institwit; yet the exact force of anstitutsse in Lucr. is not very
clear: is it merely ‘introduced and set up’? as Cic. ad fam. x11 48 ea te
unstituere quae sequantur alii: or does 1t imply the planting also of the
vine and sowing of the corn? as Cic. de lege agr. 1 67 tugera cece, whe
institur vineae possunt: Aen. v1 69 Tum Phoebo et Triviae solido de mar-
more templum Institwam festosque dies de nomine Phoebi, the word seems
to have a similar literal and metaphorical sense. 15 Vitigent recurs
vi 1072; witigenens is the usual form of the ad}.

[22 Herculis: Nettleship (Suggestions on the Aeneid p. 40) ‘Her-
cules the god whom the Stoics, now the supporters of Roman ortho-
doxy, delighted to honour, and whose merits Lucretius on the other
hand postpones to those of Epicurus’: (n. 2) ‘on this point see Bernays
Herakl. Briefe p. 45.’| 24 Nemeaeus hiatus leonis: see ἢ. to 1 474
Alexandri Phrygio sub pectore. 25 with rhythm comp. Virg. geor.
πι 255 Ipse ruit dentesque Sabellicus exacuit sus. 27 vallata col.:
ciris 79 Piscibus et canibusque malis vallata repente est: Sen. Here.
Oet. 1193 1194 seems to refer to 24 and 27. 28 tripectora seems to
be a ἅπαξ λεγόμ.: Virgil and others have tricorporis. Geryonat: Lucil.
v 43 Muell. Zoreszaz. 29 unless Stymphala agrees with a subst. in
the lost v., it is an unusual form, like 31 Jsmara. 90 spir. n. ρ.:
Virg. geor. 11 140 tauréd spirantes naribus ignem; Aen. vil 280 gem-
nosque iugalis.. spirantis naribus ignem: Eur. Alc. 509 Hercules
promises to bit them, εἰ μή ye πῦρ πνέουσι μυκτήρων ἄπο. 31 Thracis,
the usual epithet to distinguish him from the other Diomede of whom
Virg. Aen. 1 752 says Nunc quales Diomedis equi: comp. Eur. Alc.
499 Θρῃκὸς rérpwpov ἅρμα Διομήδους μέτα: Ovid met. 1x 194 Quid quod
Thracis equos humano sanguine pinguis, in the midst of a lke enume-
ration of Hercules’ labours; and Sen. Here. Fur. 1169 curraws truces
Thracis cruenti; [Herc. Oet. 1789 si quis Ismarius greges Thracis

286 BOOK V NOTES II

eruentt vindicat;| Hor. od. 1119 16 Thracis et extitium Lycurgi. que
and atque, or que and et coupling two words as here, appear not to
be found in Cicero or Caesar; but que and δὲ are found in vi 1102
Intempestivis pluviisque et solibus; and are thus used by Terence.
Sallust, Val. Maximus, Livy and the later writers; and Wagner quaest.
xxxv 23 gives several instances from Virgil of que and atque thus used,
as Aen. vill 486 Componens manibusque manus atque oribus ora: Tae.
ann. Iv 34 opibusque atque honoribus ; Ov. met. IV 429 satisque Ac
super; [Livy xxvi 24 6 turisque ac dicionis. | 33 Asper cet.:
Macrob. sat. vi 1 30 compares Aen. IX 794 Asper acerba tuens retro
yedit: comp. too geor. ΠῚ 149 <Asper acerba sonans; Aen. vill 330
asperque tmmant corpore Thybris. 35 pelage recurs v1 619: mele
he also twice uses: Virgil has cete. sonora of Nice. is confirmed by
Stat. Achill. 1223 Gurgite Atlanteo pelagi sub valle sonora, cited by L.
Mueller in Jahn’s Jahrb. for 1866 p. 393; though it does not seem to
me quite certain, as Statius clearly could not there use severa, which I stall
think well in place here. 36 audet i.e. adire, understood from adit:
Caes. bell. Gall. tv 2.5 ad quemvis mumerum...adire audent; [1v 20
3 neque enim temere...rllo adit quisquam:| for omission of inf. comp.
Cic. ad Att. Iv 3 3 occidit homines..apsum cupirit: unless quo audet
resemble Aen. 11 347 audere an proelia: Juv. 11 2 has quotiens aliquid
de moribus wudent. [39 foll. (with reference to Conington’s re-
marks on this passage) even now in India thousands are killed yearly
by tigers and serpents, though fewer of course than in Lucretius’
time: see too Friedlaender, Sitteng. 11 p. 373, and Strabo quoted there,
who says that whole countries, cultivated in his time, had before been
uninhabited by reason of this terror. | 40 scatit, as vi 891; and
scatére three times. 41 silvasque profundas are much the same as
Virg. geor. 11 391 saltusque profundi; the saltus are the lawns and long
defiles sweeping down from the hills to the low valleys and plains; the
silvae represent these more or less covered with wood: nemora and
sivae are often found without distinction of meaning; but often too, as
here, they are used together, even by Cicero; and then Servius to
Aen. 1 310 appears to define them correctly, ‘emus composita multi-
tudo arborum, si/ra ditlusa et inculta’: thus Ovid met. 1568 Est nemus
Haemoniae, praerupta quod undique claudit Silva: vocant Tempe: this
Livy xuiv 6 calls a saltws; and Enn. ann. 557 joins silvarum saltus:
Livy 1x 2 7 saltus duo alti, angusti silvosique sunt. Whoever has
come ᾿Αρκαδίας ἀπὸ δειρᾶν καὶ πολυγνάμπτων μυχῶν, Will understand this
v. of Lucr.: the st/vae ran up to and covered much of the magni montes
of Greece and south Italy: 955 and 992 are nearly repetitions of this v.;

comp. too 1386. 42 est nostra pot.: see n. to 11 53 516 haec rationy’
potestas. 43 purgatumst pectus: v1 24 Veridicis igitur purgavit

pectora dicts. 44 quae proelia insinuandum: see n. to 1 111.

BOOK V_ NOTES II 287

45 scindunt cet.: 11 994 Aut alia quavis scindunt cuppedine curae.
47 spurcitia would seem to mean filthy lust: so Martial spurcas lupas,
spurcae Ledae of harlots; and Plaut. capt. 56 spurcidici versus in-
memorabiles. It may however be αἰσχροκέρδεια, sordid avarice: so
Martial 1v 56 3 Sordidius nihil est, nihil est te spurcius uno, Qui potes
ansidias dona vocare twas; Cic. Verr. (2) 1 94 homo avarissime et
spurcissime: Nonius p. 393 gives as the first meaning of spurcum, saevum
sanguinarium: Plaut. trin. 825 te omnes saevumque severumque, avidis
moribus, commemorant, Spurcificum immanem intolerandum vaesanum;
where it might have either of the last two meanings. 48 lux. des.
found together Sall. Catil. 53 5 postquam luau atque desidia civitas
corrupta est. desidiae is also plur. Aen. 1x 615 Desidiae cordi: Lucr.
wi 142 Laetitiae; Plautus in the trinummus has parsimoniae and
opulentiae; 1b. 509 the Ambrosian has de stu/titits meis. 49 foll.
surely then the man who has subdued all these more frightful monsters,
and delivered the mind, not the mere body, by reason and not by
mere force, deserves to be deemed a god, if Hercules gained that
distinction for the lesser exploits. 51 numero divom esse: ‘post
numero lege in’ Bentl. who refers to 123 Jnque deum numero and 180
Nec fuit in numero: and so 1 446 rerum in numero relingut, 691 in
mumero rerum constare; and Cicero we numero esse deorum, hostium,
iudicum and the like, or ex numero: [Caes. b. Gall, νι 23 ὃ in deser-
torum ac proditorum numero ducuntur:| Quintil. in numero veterum
habere, but 111 6 102 sz esset numero alienorum: Caes. bell. civ. 111 110
4 ut dato nomine militum essent numero; [111 59 1 erant apud Caesarem
equitum numero Allobroges duo: see Kraner (Hofmann) here: Ὁ. Gall.
vi 21 2 deorum numero eos solos ducunt, quos cernunt; Pollio ap. Cic.
epist. x 31 6 quod familiarem meum tuorum numero habes;| Livy iv 4
12 ut hominum, ut civium numero simus; 5611 non civium, non deni-
que hominum numero essent; XL 3 4 ute numero colonorum essent;
xxxvI 35 9 wutrum hostium an pacatorum eos numero haberet: again
Cicero says indifferently esse am loco, in numero, or loco, numero
parentis; esse aliquo or wn aliquo, nullo or 1 nullo numero; and this
sense easily shades off into the other: [see Draeger hist. synt. 1 p. 356
d.] Lactant. 11 14 quotes the v. and strangely supposes Lucr. is
praising Thales or Pythagoras. dignarier I take to be pass. according
to the usage of Cicero and the older writers: Nonius p, 281 among
other passages cites Cic. de orat. 11 25 quae tamen consimilr laude
dignentur. The infin. after dign. which is unusual, he illustrates by
‘Accius in Neoptolemo sed quem mihi iungent curque (2) dignabor darv’:
comp. 65 consistere cet., though the infin. is not usual after ratio red-
dunda, but a gen. or a prepos. or a dependent clause, as 67 foll.
51 in the fragments of Philodemus περὶ εὐσεβείας tab. 66 after a long
string of epithets in praise of Epicurus, ending with καὶ ἅγιον καὶ

288 BOOK V_ NOTES TI

ἁγιώτατον, is added διὸ καὶ μόνον μεγίστην εὐσέβειαν ἐζηλωκέναι φασὶ καὶ
δοξαζειν ὁσιώτατα περὶ θεῶν. 53 de divis: ‘quippe qui libros singu-
lares scripsit περὶ θεῶν et περὶ ὁσιότητος᾽ Bentl.: Cic. de nat. deor. 1 115
at etiam de sanctitate, de pietate adversus deos libros scrips Epicurus:
they are often quoted in that work of Philodemus. 54 pandere:
155 rerum primordia pandam; 126 rerum naturam expandere dictis.
55—-90: following in his steps I teach the inexorable laws by whieh
all things are bound: having proved the soul to be mortal and shewn
how images in sleep cheat the mind, I go on to prove the world to be
mortal and to have had a beginning, and to describe how all its parts were
formed ; what creatures sprang from the earth, what never existed ; how
fear of the gods fell upon men: the natural courses too of the heavenly
bodies I will explain, that men may not fancy they are directed by the
gods and be enslaved by religion. 55 Livy xxxvu 53 11 Eumenes
says of his father Arius ego vestigna igressus. 58 Nec valeant i.e.
quamque non valeant: but perhaps Nec rather connects what follows
with what precedes in the way illustrated in ἢ. to 1 718. validas

valeant: see n. to 826 sonitu sonanti. 09 reperta est 1.6. in 1. 6]
comp. 111 605 Von modo non omnem possit durure per aevom. 62

simulacra eet.: IV 34 foll.; comp. too 1 133 somnoque sepultis, Cernere
ntt videamur eos eet.: as far as the general theory of images is coneerned,
this topic ean form buta very small part of it; but morally speaking, to
an epicurean it is the most important of all, as the great end of physics
is to free men from religion and fear of death; hence the earnestness
with which Luer. insists upon it. Sed i.e. repertum est, understood
from reperta est: comp. ἢ. to 853. 63 cum videamur: see ἢ. to I
736 Cum subeant. quem vita relrquit is the same as qui vitam reliquit:
thus he says both ewm mortis letique potitum and quem mors et terra
potita est: Aen. VI 735 and Ov. met. x1 327 υἱέα reliquit. 64 Quod
superest begins the apodosis of the sentence which commenced at 55.
65—81: he here enumerates most of the subjects treated of in this book,
which do not however all follow in the order observed in this summary:
65 66 these questions are discussed 235—415: 67 Et quibus—Lunaique
globum, these in 416—508 and 534—563: 69 tum quae—Extiterint,
this in 783—877: 70 et gquee—natae, this in 87S —924: 71 Quove modo—
nomina rerum, this in 1028—1090: 73 Δὲ quibus—divom, this in 1161
—1240: 76 Praeterea—ratione putemus, these in 564—770.

67 Et quibus cet.: 416 Sed quibus ille modis coniectus materiai Fun-

darit terram cet. 70 et quue nullo cet.: 878 Sed neque Centaure
fuerunt, nec tempore in ullo Esse queunt cet. 71 Quove: seen. tol
1. 72 vesci: Nonius p. 415 ‘vesci etiam significat wte’: he quotes

this passage and Aen. 1 546 s2 vescitur aura Aetheria; from Pacuvius
arte hac vescimur and vescutur armis; from Aceius armis vesct and veser
praemiis; and Cic. de fin. v 57 vesct voluptatibus: vesci therefore =frui;

BOOK Ύ NOTES Il 289

and so 857 quaecumque vides vesct vitalibus anris. 75 lacus, such as
the Ampsancte valles, “1.6. onmni parte sancti’, as Servius says; the lake
of Nemi, the ‘speculum Dianae’ of Aricia: Cic. Verr. v 188 sanctisstmae
deae, quae illos Hennenses lacus lucosque tncolitis; 1v 107 LHenna...
quam circa lacus lucique sunt plurimi; Livy xxiv 38 8 of the divi-
nities of Henna, git hane wrbem, hos sacratos lucus lucosque colitis; where
lacus and (wet come together as in Luer.: Ov. ex Ponto τὶ 10 25;
[fasti 111 263 Vallis Aricinae silva praecinctus opaca Est lacus antiqua
religione sacer; Mart, 1x 58 1 Nympha, sacri regina lacus: see too Sen.
epist. 41.] 76 solis cet.: 1128 solis lwnaeque meatus Qua fiant
ratione; Aen. vi 849 caelique meatus Describent radio. 77 flect. nat.
σοι: the metaphor from steering a ship: 107 Quod procul ὦ nobis
flectat fortuna gubernans; which comes to the same thing, as the
epicurean nature is at one and the same time blind chance and inexorable
necessity ; vi 31 Sew casw sew vi, quod sic natura parasset, where casu
and vi are different expressions for the same thing. | 82—90 are word
for word the same as v1 58—66, the last two vss. recurring again and
again: indeed the whole of this paragraph 55—90 in character and
manner inuch resembles vi 26—89, 1 54—61, 127—135, 1v 26—52 and
some others: these are all introductions to what follows and have an
awkward constrained and unfinished style about them, as if written
against the grain in order to complete for the time what was wanting.
In our passage of six and thirty lines the first one and twenty form a
single long loose ill-assorted ill-constructed sentence ; the last nine are
word for word repeated elsewhere. All this is another proof that the
author left his work in an unfinished state. 82 quz didicere: Hor.
sat. 1 5 101 declares himself one of these: namque deos didict securum
agere aevum; and if we are to believe him in od. 1 34 Parcws deormm
cet., he proved the truth of Lucretius’ Si tamen interea mirantur cet. :
comp. too Ovid ars 1 639 Wee secura ques illos similisque soport Detinet.
87 dominos acris cet.: Cic. de nat. 1 54 the epicurean Velleius says
inposuistis in cervicibus nostris senipriternum dominum quem dies et
noctes timeremus ; gitis enin non timeat omnia providentem et cogitan-
tem et animadvertentem et omnia ad se pertinere putantem curiosum et
plenum negotiz deum ? 89.900 see 1 10 77:

91—109: well, as to the first question: this world and all its parts
hada beginning and wil] have an end: nay, any moment you may see it
all tumbling into ruin; may fortune avert this in our time ! 91 ne te
m prom, cet.: VI 245 neque te in promissis plura morabor. 92
Principro : see above 64 nunc huc cet. where this is the first point he
promises to discuss. 93 nat. triplicem cet.: here he again emphati-
cally dwells on the three great divisions of the world, which the poets
have so often adopted from him as he from others: Ovid met. x11 39
terrasque fretumque Caelestisque plagas, triplicis confinia mundi ; trist.

M. II. 19

290 BOOK V_ NOTES II

14295 Ewplicat ut cansas rapidi Lucretius ignis Casurumque triplex
vaticinatur opus, imitated in the epic. de morte Drusi 561 Aece necem
intentam caelo terraeqne fretoque Casurumgque triplex vaticinatur opus.
tria corpora: Ov. fasti 1105 et quae tria corpora restant, Lgnis aquae
tellus: and with the form of expression triplicem, trie corpora, Tris
species, tria cet. comp. Cicero’s vss. in de div. 115 Lentiseus traplicr
solita grandescere fetu, Ter fruges fundens, tria tempora monstrat arandi.
95 Una dies cet.: Ov. amores 115 23 Carmina sublimis tunc sunt peri-
tura Lucreti, E.vitio terras cum dulit una dies; comp. too Luer. 1000
Una dies dabat exitio; and for the general thought 111148 magne quoque
circum moenia mundi Hapugnata dabunt labem prtrisque ruinas. 96
guet moles cet.: Ovid met. 1 250 affore tempus Quo mare, quo tellus cor-
reptaque regia caeli srdeut et mandi moles operosa laboret ; Luean 1 79
totaque discors Machina «divulsi turbalit foedera mundi; Manil. 11
807 Dissociatu fluat resoluto machina mundo: [Tae. hist. 1v 28 has
machinas molemque operum in acdulerent sense.| moles et machina Ovid
]. 1. intends to express by mo/es operosu: it is not only a vast mass, buta
machina, a mass of complex and elaborate construction, formed by
nature daedala rerun. 100 ube adportes: see ἢ. to 11 41 cum videas.
102 tacere indw = inicere: see n. to1 82 /idugredi: these vss. are trans-
lated from Emped. 356 Οὐκ ἔστιν πελάσασθ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ἐφικτὸν
Ἡμετέροις ἢ χερσὶ λαβεῖν ἥπερ γε μεγίστη [Πειθοὺς ἀνθρώποισιν ἁμαξιτὸς
εἰς φρένα πίπτει. via munita: as UL 198 et sunt munita viar: it exactly
expresses Eimpedoeles’ ἁμαξιτός, a regularly paved carriage-road. Μεδὶ:
Enn, ann. 342 plenw fidét; see n. to 1 688 rez. 103 the pectus, in
which are the templa mentis: τν 624 Umidu linguar sudantia templa:
111140 Jdque situm media reyione in pectoris haeret explains the expres-
sion. 104 dabit fidem, for which Cieero says faciet fidem; and with
him (ribuere fidem = habere tidem, the very converse of this dare fulem:
but, as Luer., Ovid fasti τι 20 Vane quoque dant verbo plurima signa
fidem; Pliny paneg. 743 proinde dabut vocibus nostris fidem apud opti-
mum principem, quod apud malos detrahebat; Apul. met. 1v 9, imitating
Lucr., res ipsa denique fidem sermoni meo dabit: Ov. ex Ponto iv 8 36
pro concessa verba salute damus = faeimus. addere fidem, for which Cie.
has adiungere fidem, is common in this sense and further confirms what
is said in ἢ, to Iv 41. 107 jflect. fort. gub.: seen. to 77 jlectat natura
gubernans.

110—145: but first let me declare with more than oracular certainty
that this world and its parts are not immortal and divine: nay so far
from its being impious to say that they are not godlike, they are the
most fitting example of what is meant by inanimate and insensible: as
we shewed in 111, the soul and mind eannot exist away from the body ;
the world then being without life cannot be divine. 110 here, as
Lach, has shewn, the argument is interrupted, and it is again taken up

BOOK V NOTES II 291

at 235 Principio eet.: 110—234 therefore are, like many other passages,
subsequent additions: see what is said at τὶ 165—183, where it is shewn
that the subjeet of these vss. is elosely conneeted with those and touches
on questions not treated of elsewhere ; and comp. especially v 155 Quae
tibt posterius laryo sermone probabo, a promise never fulfilled. Observe
too that while a large proportion of these 125 verses are in the poet’s
noblest manner, about one-third of them are mere transcriptions of vss.
from former books, shewing thereby that they were left by him in a pro-
visional and unfinished state. 111 112 =1738 739, where they are
elearly more in place: here they sound somewhat pompous and inflated.
113 exp. dictis: Aen. 11 379 and vi 759 eapediam dictis. doctis dictis :
see ἢ. to 11 987. 116 Corpore divino eet.: the whole of this reasoning
is doubtless directed mainly against the stoies and their anima mundt ;
comp. the stoic Mani]. 1 247 foll. quoted by Creeeh, oc opus... Vis
anmae divine regit cet.; and Cic. de nat. 1 where the stoie Balbus
diseourses so largely on this head: 43 his eonelusion is sequitur ergo wt
ipsa, i.e. sidera, sia sponte, suo sensu ac divinitate moveantur: comp. with
this what Luer. says 78 Ne forte haec inter caelum terramque reanur
Libera sponte sua cursus lustrare perennis: Balbus continues nec vero
Aristoteles non laudandus in eo quod cet. the conclusion being restat
igitur ut motus astrorum sit voluntarius. quae qur videat, non indocte
solum, verum etiam impie faciat, st deos esse neyet. Aristotle and the
peripatetics whose teaching on these points is notorious, are doubtless
therefore joined with the stoies by Luer. and indeed Plato too who had
called the stars created gods. 117 Gigantum eet.: the stoics who alle-
gorised everything, doubtless gave this turn to the wars of the giants
and Titans with the gods: comp. Cie. 1. 1. 70. 119 Gut ratione cet.,
as the epicureans, who we have just seen cdeelared the world must one
day perish, the stoics of course maintaining its immortality. Plut. de
fac. lun. 6 says Cleanthes declared that the Greeks ought to proseeute
Aristarchus of Samos for sacrilege, ws κινοῦντα τοῦ κόσμου τὴν ἑστίαν,
because, to make theory aecord with phenomena, he taught that the
earth turned about its own axis and revolved in an annual orbit. 12]
notuntes 1.6. ignominia, like eensors or judges. 122 Quae procul :
Luer. now takes up the argument: Quae cet. =quamvis re vera haec
usque adeo eet.: the Quae cet. refutes all that precedes from 114 to 121:
the subjunctive is as regular, as 11 87 durisstma quae sint eet.; v 316
1357. [Quae...distent cet. is really connected with 114—116: ne
rearis...manere,...Quae distent eet.; 117 —121 being elearly parenthetical.
For the subjunetive distent comp. Caes. Ὁ. civ. πὶ 96 1 wt fucile eviste-
marr posset nihil eos de eventu etus diet timuuisse, qui non...necessarias
conquirerent voluptates.at hi..exercitui Caesaris luixuriem obiciebant,
cur semper omnia ad necessarium usum defwissent ; Ὁ. Gall. rv 21 9 Voluse-
nus perspectis regionibus omnibus, quantum et facultatis dart poturt, qua

19—2

292 BOOK V NOTES II

navi egredi ac se barbaris commettere non audevet; v 4 3 magni interesse
arbitrabatur eius auctoritatcm...valere, cuius tam egregiam in se volun-
taten. perspeaisset. ταὶ tulit factum graviter Indutiomarus...et, qui tani
ante tnimico in nos animo fuesset, mubto gravius hoc dolore exarsit ;
v 33 2 at Cotta, qui cogitasset haec posse. .accidere atque .. auctor non
fuisset, nulla in re communi salatr deerat. | 125 (wid sit i.e. quale
illud sit, quod est. 128—141 with the exception of a word or
two at the beginning and end, are the same as 111 784—797 where they
are clearly more in place than here. 145 vitalzter appears to be found
only here.

146—194: the gods dwell not in the world, but apart in seats fine as
themselves: their nature is not sensible to our bodily sense, but only to
the finer sense of the mind: again to say that this world was created hy
the gods and will be eternal, and that it is impiety to gainsay this,
is sheer folly: what could induce them to take such trouble? or what
harm were it tous never to have been born? whence did the gods get the
notion of man, so as to know how to inake him? nay, this world and all
in it was gradually formed by mere natural causes, as explained already.
146 foll. on the gods of Epicurus more will have to be said to 1161—
1241 where he explains how the vulgar notions about the gods arose :
comp. too what has been said at 11 646 foll. Orazis entm per se divom
natura cet. and the authorities there cited. That Epic. and Luer. be-
lieved in these gods is certain, as there observed: no less certain are the
difficulties in reconciling that belief with their general system. 147
in mundi part. uilis: the gods dwelt in μετακόσμια, which Cicero trans-
lates by inéermendia: sce n. to ΠῚ 18 sedesque quietae. 149 anim
mente: seen. to 111 615: Velleius in Cic. de nat. 1 48 says hominis esse
specie deos confitendum est. nec tumen ea species corpus est, sed quasi
corpus, nec habet sanguinem, sed quast sanguinem.....Epicurus autem
εν docet eam esse vim et naturam deorum ut primum non sensu sed
mente cernatur, nec soliditate quadam: again de div. 11 40 we have the
adversary’s sarcastic description, deos enim wpsos rocandr causa induxit
Epicurus perlucidos et perflabilis et habstantis tamquam inter duos lucos
sic inter duos mundos propter metum ruinarum; eosque habere putat
eadem membra quae nos, nec usum allum habere membrorum: but, as
Bentley says in his first Boyle lecture, ‘if Epicurus and Democritus were
in earnest about their philosophy, they did necessarily and really believe
the existence of the gods’. 150 suffugit: Aen. τι 12 horret luctuque
refugit ; [x 804 omnis campis diffugit arator; geor. 1 330 fugere ferae :]
Hor. epist. τὶ 2.171 refiigit iurgia; Sen. Herc. Fur. 1193 Quzd hoc ?
manus refigit: hic errat scelus: in all these cases the context is in
the present. 151 contingere = tangere. 152 Zaugere cet.; yet
though a finer sort of touch, it is, as he shews in 111, material touch by
which the mind is affected as well as the body. And granting his pre-

BOOK V NOTES II 293

misses, as well as what he next says, that their abodes are as fine as their
bodies, their existence as he argues in 1161 foll. is known to us only by
the images they send to the minds of men: these images must be much
finer than the bodies of the gods which emit them: are these images
immortal? if not, why are these gods, which are much finer than men
and much grosser than their own images, imperishable? a dilemma
surely, as they must be intermediate between things alike perishable:
these intermundia too, as shewn in n. to 111 18, are as numerous as the
worlds in space, that is to say are innumerable: why are they all] im-
perishable, while numberless worlds are hourly perishing? why do ‘some
rambling troops of atoms upon the dissolution of a neighbouring world’,
to use Bentley’s words ]. 1., never come in contact with them? if by their
fineness they elude destruction in this or that place through countless
ages, can they do so in countless different places through countless ages?
but there is no end to such questions: see the last chapters of Cic. de
nat. deor. 1.—In Philodemus περὶ εὐσεβείας, we find between tab. 105
and 123 many tantalising fragments which if perfect would doubtless
throw much light on the nature of the epicurean gods: thus tab. 121,
after stating that all σώματα are τὰ μὲν συνκρίσεις, τὰ δ᾽ ἐξ ὧν al συν-
κρίσεις πεπόηνται, exactly as do Lucr. in 1 483 and Epicurus there
quoted, he goes on μήτε yap ἀτόμους νομίζειν τοὺς θεοὺς μήτε συνκρίσεις
(συνθέτους), and 122 ἅπασαν τὴν σύνκρισιν φθαρτήν. Probably therefore
they attempted in regard to their gods to explain the inexplicable some-
what for instance as Lucr. 1599—634 comments on the parts of an atom,
or τὶ 216—293 on the minimum of declination: the gods were not ovy-
κρίσεις, but quasi συγκρίσεις : their atoms had not come together so as
again to be separated; but were in eternal juxta-position, ete. etc.

154 de=secundum, ‘after the model of,’ ‘in conformity with’: see Lorenz
Plaut. most. 760: Menaech. 935 de wis verbis: cave tibi: Immo Nestor
nunc quidemst de verbis, prae ut dudum furt; 266 1am aps te metuo de
verbis twis; asin. 210 meo de studio studia erunt vestra omnia; [miles
1024 de mets venator verbis; Epid. 442 Nam strenuort deterror st prae-
dicat Suas pugnas, de illius wllae fiunt sordidae, where Goetz and others
change the text wrongly: see Buecheler Rh. Mus, xxxvui p. 524 n. 1:
(Priscian 1 p. 87 agrees with mss. of Plautus).] Comp. too Apul. met.
vii 8 Thrasyllus praeceps alioquin et de ipso nomine temerarius:
de=de exemplo, de more, etc. as ad sometimes=ad exemplum, ad
normam: ‘tenwes de exemplo corporis eorum’. 155 Que tibi cet.:
this promise, as already observed, he has nowhere fulfilled.

156 Dicere cet.: again directed against the teleology of stoics and
peripatetics: so the epicurean in Cic. de nat. deor. 1 23 an haec, ut fere
dicitis, homanum causa a deo constituta sunt? cet. 158 Adlaudabile
seems not to occur elsewhere: Ritsch] has expelled it from Plaut. Persa
673: adi. and laudare are designedly brought together. 161 perp.

294 BOOK V_ NOTES II

aevo is abl. gov. by fundatum: founded on, that is, which is to exist for
everlasting: Spartian. Sever. 22 i aeternum pace fundata; edict. Dio-
clet. Maxim. near beg. wt nos..im aeternum fundatam quietem saepia-
mus; Livy xtv 19 10 regnum corum novum, nullis vetustis fundatum
opibus: but it may mean from everlasting, as tempore anfinito in Cicero
quoted to 174; Juv. 1x 16 tempore longo; [x1 152 Suspirat longo non
visum tempore matren; Virg. geor. ΠῚ 565 nec longo deinde moranti
Teupore; Ov. ars 1335 ut longo tempore duret amor; Mart. 1 88 8 Ilic
tibi perpetuo tempore vivet honor; x 367 Von ventas quare tam longo
tempore Romam, Ifuec puto causa tibi est;] Livy xxiv 97 multis enim
annis tale consulum par non futt; Ov. heroid. x1 107 Quid puer admistt
tum paucis editus horis?; Plaut. Amph. 91 and Men. 205 anno ‘a year
xgo’: and often in Caesar: paucis diebus, quibus co ventium erat; quebus
in hiberna ventunr est; quibus in conspectun adversariormm venerit ; and
the like. 163 ab amo ev.: Aen. τι 625 et ex amo verti Neptunia T'row:
comp. Livy χα 20 1 colwmnda rostrata... tota ad imum fulnane discussa
est; Hor. epist. 11 54 hace Janus summus ab mmo Prodocet; ars 254
Primus ad extremum similis sibi; Ov. ibis 179 Lugeribusque novem sum-
mus que distat ab imo; old inser. ap, Ritschl. ind. lect. aest. 1853 p. 1v
Ecce homo non totus, medius sed piscis ab imo: Lucr. therefore means
‘tota ab imo usyue ad summa evertere’: Τοῦ. sat. 11 3 308 ab amo Ad

summum totus moduli bipedalis, gives the full expression. 165 for
rhythm see n. to 11 1059, 168 post aute: Catull. 4 10 post phaselus

antea fuit; inser. Lat. 1 1009 17 Ft antecesst genita post. quictos: VI
73 plactdu cum pace quietos; Aen. IV 379 ea cura quietos Sollicitat:
Velleius in Cic. de nat. deor. 1 21 ab utrogue autem sciscitor cur mundi
wedificatores repente cxstiterint, innumerabilia saecla dormiertut. 174
an, credo, in tenebris cet.: so Velleius 1. 1. 22 si wt deus ipse melius habi-
taret; antea videlicet tempore infintto in tenebris tamquam in gurgustio
habitaverat. vitwis of course the life of the gods: Aen. 11 92 vitam im
tenebris luctuque trahebam. Lamb. seeing that 174 175 clearly referred
to the gods, placed them before 176 (174) which as clearly refers to men:
Τ now follow him, not Lach., as the .Vam of 170 has immediate reference
to the two prec. vss. Lach. reads At for “τὲ and wonders that so good a
scholar as Lamb. should have tolerated an, credo in Lucr., when in Sery.
Sulpicius’ letter ap. Cic. ad fam. Iv 5 3 he read até, credo for an,c. But
his wonder would have ceased had he referred to Lambinus’ omissa ex
annot. p. 505 a: ‘inimo ἃ Manutio dissentio et codices antiquos sequor
omnesque vulgatos, qui habent wn illius vicem, credo, doles? est enim
Ironia, atque ita saepe loquebantur veteres. Luucr. |. 5 An, credo cet.’
Perhaps Lamb. is right in holding that the one passage supports the
other; but I cannot help thinking with Lach. that an credo is a solecism.
Yet in both passages an seems eminently in place, taking up and quali-
fying preceding questions; and in Sulpicius’ mouth irony would have

BOOK ΨΥ NOTES II 295

ill suited the occasion, the death of Tullia. Sulpicius perhaps wrote ‘an
illius vicem, Cicero, doles’, the do of doles getting attached to an abbre-
viation of Cicero, For credo in Lucr. I suggest crepera: if CREPERA
became CREPA Or CRERA, 1t would pass into eredo as readily as in v 752
ereriné has been supplanted in mss. by credwnt: crepera well suits tie
metaphor of the next v. and we find in v 1296 creperi certamina belli:
the phrase an re crepera is common in the old writers; and Varro in his
Mysteria has ‘prisca horrida Silent oracla crepera in nemoribus’. Comp.
too Lucil. in Nonius p. 13 ‘Sannunt (ss. Nam tu Zach. Set nunc
Juell.: ?Sim nunc) solu’ mihi in magno maerore Tristitia in summa,
crepera re, inventu saluti’s’: for in our passage, and v1 1183 Perturbata
anime mens in maerore metuque, and 111 903 Dissoluant animt magno se
angore metuque, Lucr. may have had in mind Lucilius, whose first v.
may well be completed by zacenti or else metuque. 177 see ἢ. to 111
843. 178 blanda voluptas: so τὶ 966, Iv 1263. 179 comp. Cic.
Tuse. 1 93 nondum gustaverat, wnquit, vitae suavitatenr. 180 an
numero, vitae 1.6. Viventium. 182 by ipsa Notittes hominum Luc.
clearly means to express Epicurus’ πρόληψις: thus Velleius |. 1. 43 in
proving the existence of gods from this πρόληψις of gods in the minds of
all nations says solus enim vidit (Epicurus) primum esse deos quod in
onium aninus eorum notionen impressisset ipsa natura. quae est enim
gens aut quod genus hominum quod non habeat sine doctrina anticipatio-
nem quandam deorum? quam appellat πρόληψιν Epicurus, id est ante-
ceptam aninio rer quandam informationem, sine qua nec intellegi quicquan
nec quaeri nec disputari potest, and 44 hanc nos habere sive anticipatio-
nem, wt ante dixr, stve praenotionem deorum, (sunt enim rebus novis nova
ponenda nomina, ut Epicurus ipse πρόληψιν appellavit, quam antea nemo
eo verbo nonunarat): hanc igitur habemus cet. There is a better defini-
tion in Diog. x 33: ‘preconception (πρόληψιν) they define to be a com-
prehension so to speak or a right opinion or thought or general notion
laid yp, that is to say a recollection of what has repeatedly appeared from
without’: and comp. what follows, ἅμα γὰρ τῷ ῥηθῆναι ‘avOpwros’ εὐθὺς
κατὰ πρόληψιν Kal ὁ τύπος αὐτοῦ νοεῖται προηγουμένων τῶν αἰσθήσεων.
What exemplum then had the gods, Lucr. asks, by which they first got
this πρόληψις ἀνθρώπων like a poet, he chooses a simple word in com-
mon use, 7zolrties; just as above and in 111 he terms the internewndia only
sedes, defining them by various additions. 183 Quid cet.: 1049 Quid
vellet facere ut sciret animoque videret. 186 ipsa dedit cet.;: 1361 At
specimen sationis.. Ipsa dedit rerum primum natura creatrin. 187
—191 are repeated from 422—426, 192—194 from 1 1026 1027, with
some changes: another proof of the untinished state in which these added
sections were left; for besides that they are mere repetitions, these last
nine vss. are clearly far less to the purpose here than they are in their
original places, where they follow as a natural consequence from what

2096 BOOK V NOTES Il

has preceded: here they are mere assertion, not connected in argument
with what goes before: even in their other positions they are much
copied one froin the other. 192 tn talis disp, Dec. quoque: quoque
clearly belongs in strictness to talis, as that is the word which it brings
out in contrast with what precedes: comp. 1581 /ilud an his obsigna-
tum quoque rebus habere Convrenit i.e. Ilud quoque cet. ; 216 Lud ia his
quoque te rebus cognoscere; 281; πὶ 638; v 344; vi 317; 474; 481;
977; 906. 193 meatus i.e. paths in which their motions go on; 10 15
almost the same then as his more usual motus.

195 —234: nay, if I did not know the tirst-beginnings of things, the
imperfection of this world would prove to me the gods did not make it
for man’s use: see after all how small a part of the whole earth he can
bring under tillage, and that with the sweat of his brow; and then his
labour is often thrown away: look at all the miseries he suffers, dangers
by sea and land, diseases, untimely death; compare the helpless baby
with the young of other animals. 195—199 are the same as 11 177—
181 with very slight changes; see notes there: at 11 167 it is said that
the stoics are here chiefly aimed at with their teleology; see too Cicero
quoted at v 156 Dicere porro hominum causa cet. of which this is a refu-
tation. 195 οἱ vam: see n. to 1 968; and comp. Celsus prooem. p.
6 33 Daremb. guod si tam incidat mali genus aliquod rgnotum. 198
nobis i.e. for our especial service, as 156 hominum causa: he goes on to
shew how much worse in many respects the condition of man is than
that of brute beasts. 200 impetus: see ἢ. to 1v 416 where it is
said that tmpetus seems to denote here only size; though Luer. is ready
to allow the revolution of the heavens; 1436 mundi magnuni versatile
templum: yet Cic. de nat. 11 97 says eum autem inipetum caeli cum ad-
mirabili celeritate movert vertique videmus; and Ov. met. τι 79 adsidua
rapitur vertigine caeclunr...nec nie, que cetera, vincit Impetus, et raprdo
contrartus evehor orbi. 201 silv. fer.: see n. to 369. 202 the
rhythm of this v. was compared above with Virg. geor. 11 144 Jmplevere:
tenent oleae armentaque laeta; comp. too v1 1140 Vustavitque vias, ex-
hausit civibus urbem with geor. 111 481 Corrupitque lacus, unfectt pabula
tabo, where all that precedes and follows shews constant imitation of
what precedes and follows in Lucr. 204 duus partis, ra δύο μέρη.
205 gelt casus: as a poet he makes frost like dew come down from the
sky. gelt: v1 156 geli fragor; 530 vis magna geli; and 877 even the
ace. gelum, quod: genitives in 7 of words usually of the fourth decl. are
common in the old writers, senatt ornati sonite exercite and the like: see
Neue 1 p. 362—364. 207 sent. obd.: Virg. geor. 11 411 densis obdu-
cunt sentibus. ni vis hum.: ib. 1198 2% vis humana quotannis cet.:
208 209: ib. 45 Depresso incipiat iam tum mihi taurus aratro Ingemere,
11 237 validis terram proscinde tuvencis: comp. too duros ractare bidentis
Aut presso exercere solum sub vomere; and Tib. 11 3 6 Versarem valido

BOOK Ν᾽ NOTES II 297

pingue bidente solum: the bidens being a heavy two-pronged hoe. 210
211 =1 211 212, except δὲ non for Quue nos: the subject therefore of
nequeant, or an object to cimus must be taken somewhat harshly out of
the following clause, guaestta, omnia. 212 Sponte cet.: Virg. geor. 11
417 Sponte sua quae se tollunt in lumens oras, which at the same time
imitates 781 guid primum rn luminis oras Tollere. nequeant: see ἢ. to
1 922. 213 mag. quaes. lab.: ib. 1 197 malto spectata labore: Macrob.
compares with 213—217 Virg. geor. 1118 Mec tamen, haec cet. where
the turn of phrase is like. 218 genus horriferum cet.: Cic. acad. pr.
11 120 cur deus, omnia nostra causa cum faceret, ste enim vultis, tantam
vim natricum viperarumque fecerit? cur tam mutta pestifera terra mart-
que cdisperserit ? 221 [quare: Madv. gramm. 492 b. anmerk. 2
‘eine directe Frage...wird durch cw bezeichnet; quare wird nur in
abhingigen Sitzen gebraucht’: but see Naegler ‘de partic. usu ap.
L, An, Senecam’ Jahresbericht 1 p. 200, where he shows that quare is
often used by Seneca as here.] vagatur: comp. Rabirius (1) fragm. in
volum. Hercul. 11 col. 5 Omne vagabatur let genus, onne timoris.
Would not the very next lines tend to shew that untimely death was
rather a blessing? his inconsistency indeed is well rebuked by his
master in Diog. x 126 πολὺ δὲ χεῖρον Kai ὁ λέγων, κάλλιστον μὲν μὴ
φῦναι, φύντα δ᾽ ὅπως ὦκιστα πύλας ἀΐδαο περῆσαι" εἰ μὲν γὰρ πεποιθὼς

τοῦτο φησί, πῶς οὐκ ἀπέρχεται ἐκ τοῦ ζῆν ; 222 provectus: the regular
term for a castaway. 223 andigus seems elsewhere to govern the

gcn. but the verb sometimes takes the abl. in the best writers.
225 Viaibus: Virg. geor. 1v 199 aut fetus niaibus edunt: Wak. com-
pares Serenus Samon. 1038 Nudum hominem primum mater natura
profudrt. 226 Vagituque cet.: St Austin changes to bitter earnest
the bitter irony of the epicurean’s wt aecumst: he says, enarrat. in
psalm. 125 10, poterat ridere prius puer qua nascitur: quare a fletu
wecipit vivere? ridere nondum novit, quare plorare iam novit? quia
coeprt we im istam vitam; Lear Iv 6 carries the ‘pathetic fallacy’
a step farther and makes the baby cry, not for his own misery, but
his neighbours’ folly: Vow hnow’st, the first time that we smell the
aw, We wal and cry... When we are born, we cry that we are come To
this great stage of fools; [comp. G. Herbert’s Jacula Prudentium: J
wept when I was born, and every day shews why ;| Pliny vu at beg. takes,
as is his wont, the same dismal view: thus 2 hominem tantum nudum
et in nuda humo natali die abicit ad vagitus statim et ploratum, nullum-
que tot animalium aliud ad lacrimas et has protinus vitae principio,
and so on; St Bernard de pass. dom. is like Luer.: primam vocem
plorationis edimus, merito quidenr utpote vallem plorationis ingressi :
Apuleius and Lactantius both copy Lucretius’ words. Marullus in
marg. cod. Victor. writes λαμπρὸν: in some vss. quoted in vol. 1
p. 7 he at once imitates and refutes Lucr. 227 restet transire:

298 BOOK V NOTES II

sce ἢ. to 1 1005 restet minus wre. 228 At varice cet. so that instead
of things being made hominum causa above all, they are less favoured
than other creatures, to whom nature is far more bountiful. 238
Qui=quibus: τν 615 qui sentimus sucum, lingua atque palatum ; Plaut.
capt. 1003 aut coturnices dantur quicum lusitent; aulul. 498 vehicla gua
vehar; [Amph, 257, and Ussing there;] Ter. Andr. 511 mudta con-
currunt simul, Qui coniecturam hanc nunc facio; Apul. met. VI 7 wudicia
qui possit agnosct: 1 100 qua= quo. 234 daedala rerum: seen. to1 7
dacdala tellus, and for constr. 1V 551 verborum daedala.

235—246: first then, since earth water air tire are all mortal, the
world of which these are the parts should be deemed mortal: the world
then had a beginning and will have an end. 235 Princijno, as was
said above, has no connexion whatever with what immediately precedes,
but joins on to 109, 110—234 being a subsequent addition of the poet’s,
as explained in n. to 110 foll. terrat corpus, a favourite periphrasis, as
corpus aquar, aquat, Weptuni and the hke. 236 animae: seen. to!
715: the adject. animalis has the same sense in Cic. de nat. ΠΙ 3-4.
cal, vag: see n. to 11 δ (.. 239 codem i.e. corpore constare putart,
244 regigni, and 269 remanat in this sense at least, seem not to be
found elsewhere. 245 quoque item: see ἢ. to 11 205 quoque etiam.
246 Principiale too is a Lucretian word: 1 423 principiali levore is
smoothness of first-becinnings.

247—260: think not Iam begging the question in asserting that
earth water air and fire are mortal: tirst as to earth: some of it you see
passes away in clouds of dust; some is carried away by floods or rivers
eating their banks: again what feeds other things, is usually replenished
in return; and since earth, mother of all things, is also their tonih, the
earth wastes and grows again.—In this and the next three paragraphs
he shews in turn that earth water air and fire all decay. 247 corri-
puisse nahi: Lach. cites Varro de ling. Lat. vir 94 elepere, td est corri-
pere: ovvapralev τὸ ζητούμενον is a very common phrase in Sextus;
pytrh. hyp. 1 90 he says πρὶν ἄρξασθαι τῆς κρίσεως τὰ φαινόμενα σνναρπά-
Covow, ἑαυτοῖς τὴν κρίσιν ἐπιτρέποντες : arripere is used by Cicero in a
like sense. 249 neque duit. with an infin. in the sense of ‘to doubt’
is rare in the older writers: Nepos however opens lis work with zon
dubito fore plerosque, Attice ; and in him it is common ; it occurs too in
young Cicero’s letter to Tiro: I find frequent instances in Tacitus and
the younger Pliny: the elder in his praef. 18 writes nec dubttamus multa
esse: [and Livy xx11 55 2 has neque enim dubitabant...hostem...venturun:
see Fabri there.] 250 rvwrsus belongs also to gignt. 295] Principio,
to begin with earth. perusta Sol. ads.: Wak. compares Ovid her. v 110
adsidwis solibus usta and Hor. epod. 2 41 perusta solibus. 253 conip.
Virg. geor. 11217 Quae tenwem exhalat nebulam fumosque volucris: Luer,
again 463 Lxhalantque lacus nebulam cet. 255 ad. dil. rev.: νι 292

BOOK V NOTES II 299

Atque ita praecimtans ad diluviem revocari: Cicero thus uses rem revo-
care ad and the like, for adducere, where the re has no force; as pro
Cluent. 136 cum rem paene ad manus revocasset: comp. the use of redeo
inn. to 114] ves redibat. 258 Redditur both Wak. and Lach. explain
by ‘restituitur, retribuitur, recreatur’, and the word can have here no
other meaning; though 1 can bring no parallel instance: 322 guodewm-
que aliis ex se res auyet alitque, Deminiut debet, recreari, cun recipit res ;
and redditur therefore seems=reficitur, do again having the force of facio.
259 Omrniparens cet.: Varro de ling. Lat. v 64 haec enim Terris genteis
omnis peperit et resumit denuo...ut ait Hnvtis; Orell. inser. 4417 mater
genutt, mater recepit; Romeo and Juliet 1 3 The earth that’s nature's
mother is her tomb: What is her burying grave, that is her womb: Ex
γαίης yap πάντα Kat eis γῆν πάντα τελευτᾷ Is assigned to Xenophanes by
Stobaeus and others; Eurip. Antiop. fr. 195 Nauck ἅπαντα τίκτει χθὼν
πάλιν τε λαμβανει. com. sep.: Catull. 68 89 Trova, nefas, commune
sepulcrum Asiae Enropaeque. 260 and 294 tihr: see n. to 1 797.

261—272: the same is true of water: fresh supplies are constantly
coming to seas and rivers; but the sum remains the same, because as
much is taken away by the winds and the sun, and by filtering through
the ground, whence the water finds its way back to the river-heads.
263 Vil opus est verbis i.e. declarare, understood from declarat. mag.
dec. aqu.: 946 montibus 6 magnis decursus aquat; 1 283 magnus decur-
sus aquar; VI 609 tantus decursus aquarum. 264, 284 and 304 quic-
quid = quicque: see n. to 11 957. primum quicgud: seen, to 1 389
pramun quemque. 266 verrentes—sol recurs 388 389: νι 623 vents...
verrentes wequore. 267 Diminuwunt should probably be Dem.: see ἢ.
to 323. 269—272 recur with slight difference v1 635—638. 269
foll. see 11 474—477, and Sen. nat. quaest. mt 5. 271 agmine is thus
used by Ennius before and Virgil after him; Enn. ann. 177 Quod per
amoenam urbem leni fluit agmine flumen; so par. lost vir 805 where
rivers now Stream and perpetual draw their humid train, and what pre-
eedes illustrates Lucr. 272 pede cet.: Hor. epod. 16 48 Levis crepante
lympha desilit pede; eulex 17 Castaliaeque sonans liquido pede labitur
unda ; Silius vi 140 lento pede sulcat harenas Bagrada.,

2738—280: the air too is ever changing; for whatever streams off
from things, must pass into air; and thus unless the air gave back
as much, all things would become air. 276 Aerts...mare: Wak.
quotes Ennius trag. 6 omnem pervolat caeli fretum: [and so Shakesp.
Timon Iv 2 21 we must all part Into this sea of air.] qui nisi retribuat
recreetque, Omnia tam resoluta forent is the sole instance in Lucr. of such
a constr.: Virg. geor. Iv 116 ni...traham et.. festinem,...canerem; Tib. 1
463 nt sint,..non nituisset; 8 22 faceret, si non aera repulsa sonent ;
Catull. 6 2 Na sint.. Velles dicere nec tacere posses; Sen. Here. Oet. 1385
Von, sv..ruat.. flagret,..domaret; Mart. v 201 δὲ. liceat .., nosse-

300 BOOK V NOTES II

mus ..essent; [Plaut. aulul. 515 Compellarem (so mss.) ego illum, ni
metuam ne desinat; miles 1348 Et δὲ ata sententra esset, tibr servire
mavelim: see Autenrieth die conj. guom p. 298, whence it appears that
the present is common in old Latin where the imperfect is usual in
later. | 280 Reccidere: sce n. to 1 228.

281— 305: and so it is with fire too; the sun continually sends out
new light, as you may see when clouds intercept it; the hight beneath
the clouds at once disappears; and thus it is with lights on earth; lamps
and the like are constantly sending forth fresh lights, so that the destrue-
tion of the old is concealed by the instantaneous production of the new;

the same is the case with sun moon and stars. 281 fons daem.: 293
lucis caput ipsum; par. lost vir 364 /fither as to their fountain other
stars Repairing in their golden urns draw light. 282 Inrigat: 1v 203

of the sunlight caclumque rigare, V 594 caelumque rigando Compleat ;
Finped. 127 καὶ apyere δεύεται αὐγῇ ; Pindar ol. v1 55 boldly but beaunti-
fully Ἴων ξανθαῖσι καὶ παμπορφύροις ἀκτῖσι βεβρεγμένος ἁβρὸν Napa.
291 primum iac, ful. quemque: see ἢ. to 1 389. 294 terrestria: 1]
386 ignis Noster hic 6 lignis ortus taedaque creatus is opposed to the
caelestem fulminis ignem. 295 pend. lychint, metal lamps suspended
from the ceiling: Macrob. sat. v1 4 17 compares with Lucr. Aen. 1 726
dependent lychni laquearibus aureis, as Well as Ennius and Lucilius.
298 instant, Instant: see n. to 955 vrineccre sauepe, Vincere; and comp.
Οἷς, Arat. prog. quoted de div. 114 £¢ matutinis acredula rocibus instat,
Vocibus instat et adsiduas ractt ore querellas, which Luer. seems to have
had in his mind. 300 the constr. as so often in Lucr. is somewhat
involved: exitium adeo properanter celatur e1 luci celeri flammae origine
ab omnibus ignibus: om. ig. because however many the dychni or taedae
are, they all alike incessantly ray out brightness, so that the whole light
remains uninterrupted: Bruno (Harburg 1872) well illustrates the dat.
ez by S98 e207 Gee e. 303 subortw seems not to occur elsewhere,
at least in this sense: the verb suborivt he thrice uses with the same
force, that of rising up to supply what is wanting.

3806—317: again the hardest things, stones metals and the like are
broken up by time: they had a beginning then; else they would not

give way after enduring from everlasting. 308 fessa fatisct occurred
1 458. 309 »zotollere to advance and so defer: Plautus uses it both

in its literal sense protollere manwm, and in its metaphorical protollo
morten. mthi; Lucr. blends the two. 313 Polle, Jahn’s Jahrb. vol. 93
p. 750, argues with justice that no correction ought to neglect the proper
force of proporro: this word, peculiar to Lucr., is found also in τι 979,
m1 275 281, 1v 890, and probably in 11 137: it always means ‘then
further in turn’ or the like: our passage then seems to contain one of
those sarcasms so common in Lucy. as 11 979 where the primordia are
supposed to enquire about their own primordia, and 1 919 where they

BOOK V_ NOTES II 301

are supposed to laugh and cry. My correction then seems simple enough,
as séné would alinost infallibly fall out before senescere: cumque is then a
senseless interpolation to fill up the verse: so in Hor. od. 1 32 15 cum@ue
is a mere insertion, the genuine word amica or fausta having fallen out.
I cannot accept Lachmann’s much praised medicumque; for mihi is
called for by the whole tenor of the context, and rite vocanti requires
such a word as fwusta or amica: possibly too in Luer. 11 114 cumque is
an interpolation. [I see that Autenricth die conj. quom p. 285 Ὁ
defends cumgue in Horace, but I doubt it: see too what he says of
Lucretius.] The poet, observing what he would deem the many foolish
inscriptions on these monimenta, as in inscr. Lat. 1 1220 7} qui secura
spatiarus (sic) mente viator,... Si quaeris quae sini cet., sarcastically repre-
sents them as now asking sympathy for themselves: comp. Auson. epigr.
90 9 Miremur perrisse homenes 7 monrimenta futiscunt: JJors etiam saars
nominibusque venit; Juv. x 146 Quandoquidem data sunt ipsis quoque
fata sepuleris; Mart. x 2 9—12. 314 perferre patique : see n. to I
291 ferre patique. 316 pertolerassent seems not to be found elsewhere.
317 fragore: see ἢ. to 1 747 fragorz: the metaphor is from battering the
walls of a fortress.

318—328: if as some say the all-environing ether begets all things
and takes them back at death, then must it be mortal; for it is thus
subject to increase and decrease.—This passage is an argumentum ad
hominem: the notion pleases his poetical fancy, and he has already more
than once seized on the thought and given to it an epicurean turn; see
what has been said at 1 250, and especially 1 991 foll. which has much
resemblance to this, caelesti sumus omnes semine oriundi, and 1000 quod
missumst ex aetheris oris cet.: the consciousness of this prevents him
from giving a denial to the theory here; and he contents himself with
leaving it as hypothetical : st procreat cet. in which there is doubtless
irony mixed. The passage is a paraphrase of Pacuvius 86 Hoc vide,
circum supraque quod complexu continet Terram...Id quod nostri caelum
memorant, Grai perhibent aethera: Quidquid est hoc, omnia animat
format alit auget creat Sepelit recipitque in sese omnia, omniumque idem
est pater, Indidemque eadem aeque oriuntur de integro atque eodem occi-
dunt. 320 quzdam therefore are Pacuvius and whoever they are
whom he follows, be they stoics or scholars of Plato or Pythagoras
or Anaxagoras or whoever else chooses to allegorise in a like spirit.
Pacuvius himself was probably thinking of Zeno: he says 93 A/ater est
terra: ea parit corpus, animam aether adiugat. 929 Deminut, recre-
art, and thereby to be mortal: 111 517 At neque transferri sibi partis nec
tribur vult Inmortale quod est quicquam neque defluere hilum; Nam cet. :
A has deminwi, B diminui: 266 both have diminuunt; 389 both demi-
nuunt; 1 613 both deminui: so that probably in all places Lucr.
wrote dem.: see Wagner aulul. 163; for I believe him to be right in

302 BOOK V NOTES II

saying that diminuo or dimminuo is quite distinct from deminuo, the
former being used in phrases like dim. caput, cerebrum: he well com-
pares deseribere and discr., despicere and disp.

324—350: if the world had no beginning, why did history coni-
mence with the wars of Thebes and Troy? nay the world began but
lately; and so arts and sciences are still in progress: if it be said all
these existed before, but were destroyed by some great catastrophe, then
you must the more admit that the world will come to an end: when it
suffered so grievously, had the causes been more powerful, it must have
perished altogether ; thus we all know we shall die, because we have
the same diseases as those who are already dead. 326 fun. 770.: Hor.
od. 18 1: sub lacrimosa Trowe Punera. 330 summa: as he is speak-
ing of our mundus, summa is here huec sume or haec rerum summa :
see ἃ. to 1 1008. 331 exordia cepit: 1 149 Prinetpium curus hine
nobis exordia sumet; where see note: Virg. geor. 1v 316 Unde nova in-
gressus hominum experientia cepit? 334 organrei cet.: 11 412 musaea
mele, per chordas oryanict quae...figurant. 336 cui primis merely
strengthens primis, first of all, before all others: v1 225 subtelem cum
primis ignibus ignem : from Cic. Tuse. 1v 6 it would appear that before
him Amatinius had written popular epicurean treatises in prose. 9340
veramine seems not to occur elsewhere: see ἢ. to1 434. 342 cooperu-
asse : V1 491 the mss, have more correctly Coperiant ; v1 1068 colescere :
comp. I 977 probeat, and ἢ. there. 343 L'anto quique magis: see n.
to 11 700: the argument for the final destruction of the world is
stronger than the one for its having had a beginning ; because if it be liable
to such terrible diseases, one of these must some day be mortal according

to all analogy. 346 incubuisset: so vt 1143 of the plague Jneubwit
tandem populo cet.; Hor. od. 1 3 30 macies et nova febrium Terris incu-
buit cohors. 349 Jnter nos, one with the other, taken all in all.—

Macrobius’ comm. in somn. Seip. 11 10 is worth comparing with the
above paragraph.

351—379: again that which is everlasting must either be impene-
trable like atoms, or intangible like void, or must have nothing without
it into which it can pass or out of which destructive forces can come;
and this is the case with the universe: but we have shewn that not one
of these conditions is true of our world; it is therefore doomed to cle-
struction; and therefore it had a beginning too; for being mortal, it
could not have lasted from eternity. 351 necessust: see n. to 11 710:
v1 815 he has zecessis, gen. of necesse. 352 and 364 solido cum cor-
pore: see ἢ. to I 755. respuere ictus: 11 448 ictus contemnere: Pliny
XXXVII 57 of diamonds, respwentes ictus. 359 fit copia: 371 Deficit is
the opposite to this: Lach. compares v1 829 magna mali fit copia circunr ;
and Enn. ann. £37 Mee respirandi fit copia. 4861 sim. summa cet.: 11
303 Nec rerum summam commutare ulla potest vis. Nam neque, quo

BOOK V NOTES II 303

possit genus ullum materiar Effugere ex omit, quicquam est extra, neque
wn omne Unde coorta queat nova vis inrunpere et onmem Naturam rerum
mutare et vertere motus; and seen. to 1 1008 rerum summam; for sum-
marum summa is here the samme; and the sum of sums is opposed to 368
hance rerum suamam or this mundus of ours; and is the same as sz-
mam suinmar totius onnem and like expressions: the phrase occurs with
a different sense in Plautus, Seneca and Pliny. 362 Qut=aliqui :
you would expect alas (or guisquanr), Just as in 359 nulla loci fit copia;
and in the passage cited to the prec. v. we have neque qguicquanr; and I
1077 Nee quisquam locus est cet.: aliquis is sometimes used in the same
way: Cic. de orat. 1 14 gzet neque exercitationis ullam viam neque aliquod
praeceptum artis esse arbitrarentur; pro Sest. 32; and Caes. bell. civ. m1
73 ὃ sine aliquo vulnere=precisely sine ullo vulnere of 119 8: but qui
here hardly differs from Cie. ad Att. v 115 nec mehercule habeo quod adhuc
quem accusem meorum; for Cic. is speaking quite generally. [We have
exactly the same use of φεῦ in bell. Alex. 91 neve quam partem nocturut
temporis ritermittant ; Caes. Ὁ. Gall. Iv 13 4 ne quem diem pugnae
praetermitteret, opportunissima res accidit; Vv 57 1 ne quan occasionem
ver bene gerendae dimitteret. | 908 docu, 1329 foll. 368 Corruere:
the active is rare in this sense; Catull. 68 51 mzhi quam dederit duplex
Amathusia curam Scitis et wr quo me corruerit genere; Apul. met. vur 8
Charite.. corrutt corpus. 369 cladem pericli 1s a rare form of ex-
pression: comp. 201 silvaeque ferarum: 1193 murmura magna mina-
rum: periclt here and minarum there seem to have the force of an
epithet ; to be in fact genitives of quality, something hke 764 cond
umbras; ut 42 Tartara leti: see n. there: [ Virg. 60], 4 24 fallax herba
venent;| Juv. ul 4 gratum litus amoent Secessus; v 47 calicem nasorum
guattuor ; comp. too Catull. 23 11 Won casus altos periculorum ; and
with whole verse v1 657 Aut alium quemvis morbi per membra dolorem.
373 leti cet.: Ov. met. 1 662 praeclusaque ianua lett. 375 putet
ummant i.e. hiatu et respectat vasto hiatu: Aen. v1 237 vastoque imma-
ms hratu. 379 recurs 1217.

380—415: again since its chief members contend in such furious
civil strife, the world may perish either when fire has overcome water,
or water fire: thus, as poets fable, fire once was near conquering when
Phaeton was run away with by the horses of the sun: this story may
represent some real event; as may the flood of Deucalion some temporary
victory of water. 381 pio neq. 1.6. civil war: Aen. vi 612 quique
arma secute Impra: Livy 1 32 12, in an old formula, puro pioque duello
quaerendas censeo: such civil war cannot be. 333 vel cum cet. should
be answered by another vel: but the poet gives a dilferent turn to the
expression at 386 and never completes the construction: the best Latin
and Greek writers have like instances: Cic. ad Att. 1 16 11 nam et Wlud
nobis non obest cet.: he then, after a long parenthesis, changes the constr. ;

304 BOOK ΚΝ NOTES II

de orat. 11 48; de imp. Cn. Pomp. 17: Sen. Here. Fur. 1285 Ant omne
cet. with nothing to answer aut: comp. ΠῚ 425 Princtpio quoniam,
434 Nune igitur quoniam, and note there: equally shght changes of
constr. are v1 105 Nam cadere aut cet.; 302 Dum venit, anittens...Atque
...portat: in these two places Lach. unskilfully changes the reading.
Cicero has a hundred such, many of them harsher than any in Luer.:
de tin. 11115 sed lustremus animo non has maximas artes...sed quaero cet.
386 Tantwm is the accus. after suppeditunt. 387 diluviare seems to be
found only here. 388 389 occurred above 266 267 with slight differ-
ence. 392 spirantes bellum: Cic. ad Att. xv 11 1 fortibus sane oculis
Cassius, Martem spirare diceres; ad Ὁ, frat. τι 4 6 in primisque “Apy
πνέων Q. Scaevola; Petron. sat. 122 Civiles acres iam tum spirare putares.
392 393 obs. certamine, cernerecertant. 393 J/agnis cet.: Enn. ann. 544
Olli cernebant magnis de rebus ayentes; trag. 206 cernunt de victoria,

394 foll. though they generally contend on equal terms, yet each has
once been victorious. superantior seems a ἅπαξ λεγόμ. ; see ἢ. to Iv 961

division, distractior. 396 superdt is the perf.; see n. to 1 70 Inritat
animi and 111 1042 obit. 9897 Avia: Ovid met. 11.167 rind tritumque
relinguunt Quadriiugi spatium, 205 rupiuntque per avia currum. 9899

At pater omnipotens both in Aen, v1 592 and Ovid met. 11 304 begins the
description of Jupiter striking a man with lightning; in Ovid it is, as here,
Phaethon: Aen. vin 770 and Ov, met. 115+ Zum pater omnipoters in like
manner introduces the account of his striking down something with his

thunder. 400 Jag. Ph.: Ov. met. 11 111 magnanimus Phaethon.
repenti: there seems to be no other example of this adj. except in. the
form repens. 402 acternam: he is here speaking as a poet; zt veteres

Graium cecinere poetae. [succepit: for difference between susc. and
suce. see Nettleship, Journal of philol. vol. v p. 80.] /ampada: 610
rosea sol lampude; v1 1198 nona lumpade i.e. die: used in the same

way by Virgil and others. 403 comp. Ov. 1]. 1. 398 Colligit
amentes et adhuc terrore paventes Phoebus equos: Colligit expresses
redegrt. 404 swum: not referring to the subject of the sentence:

a usage common in the best writers, Cicero Livy Sallust οἷο. Ovid
seems sometimes very licentious on this point; as fasti 11 678 Clamato
tuus est hic ager, tlle suus, ie. Tovis; or Iv 459 Ct vitulo mugit sua
muter ab ubere rapto, sua referring to the abl. abs. 405 ut veteres
cet.: 11 600 veteres Graium docti cecinere poetae; Cic. Arat. 33 ut
veteres statuere poetae: of the passage in 11, which the v. quoted intro-
duces, Grote hist. of Greece 1 p. 33 ἢ. 3 says ‘the fine description
given by Lucr. of the Phrygian worship is much enfeebled by his
unsatistactory allegorizing’: but this moralising is the very condition of
tle existence of such passages as that one and the present; he would
not and could not otherwise have written them; and to my mind it 15
extremely interesting to see his intense love of these seductive fancies

BOOK V_ NOTES II 305

and the struggle between his instinct as a poet and his philosophical
principles. 409 revictae = perhaps victae; as 1 592 primordia rerum...
aliqua ratione revicta ; but the re may here have its proper force: comp.
Hor. od. 1v 4 23 victrices catervae, Consiliis vuvenis revictae. 410 Aut ‘or
else’: 1026 Aut genus humanum tam tum foret omne peremptum ; Ov.
met. x 52; trist.18 45; Cic. ad Att. 111 ὃ aut ne poposcisses ; xvi 11
7; Livy χη 42 9; Sen. de benef. 11 31 2; epist. 9216; Pliny τι 179,
where I think Detlefsen wrong in reading tta wt for aut of mss.: [comp.
too Mart. x1 16 Nec Musis vacat, aut suis vacaret.| exustae torr. auris :
Pacuvius 13 Flammeo vapore torrens terrae fetuni exusserit: Lach.
strangely says of this v. as rightly read in the mss. ‘ita autem ignem
superare posse, ut numquam revincatur, Epicurus negat’; when Lucr.
says at the beginning of this very passage 382 Vonne vides aliquam longi
certaminis ollis Posse dart finem? vel cum sol cet.

416—431: I will now describe how the various parts of the world
were formed: as we said above, it was not by design that atoms framed
it; but after many fruitless collisions, they chanced to fall into such
motions as produced the world and all that is in it. 416 ile is
emphatic, as 11 362. 419-431, except only 427, are all found
elsewhere: 419—422 Nam—modis multis=1 1021—1024: 422. 4206
multa modis—creare= Vv 187—191: 428=1 1026: 429—431=with
slight difference 11 1061—1063: we meet again here what we have met
already in this and former books: this passage which is the preface to
one of the grandest parts of the poem is itself ill-constructed and patched
up from various sources, shewing once more that the poem was left by
its author in an unfinished state and that he had carefully worked up
some portions, though he had not yet properly connected them with
the rest of the poem. 422 foll. comp. the epicurean passage, taken
perhaps from Epicurus himself, in Plut. de plac. phil. 1 4 τῶν ἀτόμων
σωμάτων ἀπρονόητον Kal τυχαίαν ἐχόντων τὴν κίνησιν συνεχῶς τε καὶ τάχιστα
κινουμένων εἰς τὸ αὐτό, πολλὰ σώματα συνηθροίσθη καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ποικιλίαν
ἔχοντα καὶ σχημάτων καὶ μεγεθῶν. 428 plagis Ponderibusque, by the
joint action of which, as so fully shewn in τι, the first-beginnings are
able to come into collision and union. 430 saepe: in Il semper: both
are equally appropriate; saepe=on many other occasions and also
at the foundation of our world, 7errat maris cet.

432—448: then could be seen nothing that now is seen, sun stars
earth sea or heaven, but a strange chaotic jumble of atoms unable to
combine: gradually the different parts of the world began to separate.
432 foll. comp. Emped. 72 Ἔνθ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ἡηελίοιο δεδίσκεται (1) ἀγλαὸν εἶδος
Οὐδὲ μὲν οὐδ᾽ αἴης λάσιον δέμας οὐδὲ θάλασσα. 432 solis rota: 564 Nec
nimio sols maior rota nec minor ardor Esse potest shews the rota to be
the orbis: many of the poets, beginning with Enn. ann. 548 patefecré
rads rota candida caelum, use the same phrase; see Forc.: but Vitruvius

M. II. 20

306 BOOK V_ NOTES II

also 1x 2 (4) has plena rota totius orbis, sub rotam solis radiosque and
similar expressions in a technical astronomical description: @. Cicero de
ΧΙ signis 15 has cet rota frlgida solis Mobile curriculum; Cic. Arat.
281 rota fervida solis; and Apul. met. Ix 28 cum primum rota solis
lucida diem peper it. 433 mundi i.e. caeli, as often. 436 moles: Ov.
met. 1 5 Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia caelum Unus erat toto
naturae vultus in orbe, Quem dixere chaos: rudis indiyestaque moles ;
fasti 1 106 Jgnis aquae tellus unus acervus erant, 111 Tune ego qui
fueram globus et sine wmagine moles: ars 1 467 Prima fuit rerum
confusa sine ordine moles, Unaque erat facies sidera terra fretum. Mox..

Inque suas partes cessit mane chaos. 437 I am not quite clear
whether gworwm goes with discordia or Intervalla cet. 4388489 Lnter-
valla—motus we had above 11 726 727. 443 inde loca: 741 Inde locr

sequitur; 791 inde loct mortalia saecla creavit: it is found in Enn. ann.
29, 522, sat. 3; and Cic. Arat. 327 Umidus inde loci cet.: ad rd locorum,
‘up to that time’, is a favourite phrase of Livy; and in Sallust’s Iug. we
find ad id locorum, post 1d locorum, postea loci; in Plautus postidea loet,
interea loci, postid locorum: see Ritsch! Gloss. Plaut. 444 discludere
mundum is explained by 445—448 which are a paraphrase of the
words: they mean ‘mundi partes separatim locare’: there is no real
authority for the word in Cic. Tuse. copied out of Fore. by Wak.: Virg.
ecl. v1 35 discludere Nerea ponto the sense is essentially the same.

445 Mem. div.: Ov. met. 1 33 sectamque in membra redegit. 447 448
sorsum, Seorsus: see ἢ. to πὶ 63).

449494 : the heavy particles of earth collected in the midst and
squeezed out the lighter atoms of the other parts of the world: ether
with its fires first burst forth and collecting on high formed the outer-
most sphere of the world; between it and earth the rudiments of sun
and moon and stars took up their position; the earth, rid of these lighter
particles, sank down still more where the bed of ocean is; and these
depressions were flooded with salt water; and the more the earth was
beaten upon by the heat of ether and the sun, the more it was condensed,
and thus increased the ocean by particles of moisture squeezed out of it,
and the heaven by elements of fire which flew off from it. 449
premum cet.: Plut. de plac. phil. 1 4 ἀθροιζομένων δὲ ἐν ταυτῷ τούτων Ta
μὲν ὅσα μείζονα ἣν καὶ βαρύτατα πάντως ὑπεκαθιζεν k.7.A.: comp. too
Anaxagoras frag. 8 Schorn, 10 Schaub. τὸ μὲν πυκνὸν καὶ διερὸν καὶ
ψυχρὸν καὶ τὸ ζοφερὸν ἐνθάδε συνεχώρησε, ἔνθα viv ἡ γῆ" τὸ δὲ ἀραιὸν καὶ
τὸ θερμὸν καὶ τὸ ξηρὸν καὶ τὸ λαμπρὸν ἐξεχώρησε ἐς τὸ πρόσω τοῦ αἰθέρος:
Manilius who so often imitates and at the same time tries to refute
Luecr. says 1 159, as if with reference to primum, Ultima subsedit
glomerato pondere tellus. 454 mag. moe. mundi 1.6. the ether.

455 haec 6 levibus cet.: Plut. 1. 1. ὅσα δὲ μικρὰ καὶ περιφερῆ καὶ λεῖα καὶ
εὐόλισθα, ταῦτα καὶ ἐξεθλίβετο κατὰ τὴν τῶν σωμάτων σύνοδον εἴς τε τὸ

BOOK V NOTES II 307

μετέωρον ἀνεφέρετο. 458 erumpens cet. imitated by Ovid met. 1 26
Ignea convent vis et sine pondere caelt Emicuit suimnaque locwim srbi legit
in arce, and Manil. 1 149 Janis an aetherias volucer se sustulit auras
Summaque complexus stellantis culmina caelt Flammarum vallo naturae
moenia fecit, and Milton par. lost 111 716 And this ethereal quintessence

of heaven Flew upward, who then goes on to imitate 519—521. 461
gemm. cet.: 11 319 herbae gemmantes rore recente. 402 radiati: 700
radiatum insigne diet: it is so used by Ennius Accius and others.

463 jluv. perennes: Cic. Verr. 1v 107 aquae perennes. 466 subt. nub.

cael.: νι 482 Lt quasr densendo subtexit caerula nimbis : quasi densendo
expresses exactly the Corpore concreto of this v. and 468, which desig-
nates that which has taken a consistence however fine, as these mists
and still more the light ether: Aen. 111 582 caelum subtexere fumo:
Ovid met. xiv 368 has a different constr.: Kt patrio capiti bibulas
subtexere nubes. 467 diffusilis is an expressive a7a€ λεγόμ. 468
Cor. concr. cet.: Virg. ecl. vi 34 in his brief summary of Lucr. expresses
these vss. by et ipse tenermundi concreverit orbis, where mundi=aetheris.
467—470 are thus clearly expressed in the epicurean passage in Plut. ]. 1.
ws δ᾽ οὖν ἐξέλιπε μὲν ἡ πληκτικὴ δύναμις μετεωρίζουσα, οὐκέτι δὲ ἦγεν ἡ
πληγὴ πρὸς τὸ μετέωρον, ἐκωλύετο δὲ ταῦτα κάτω φέρεσθαι, ἐπιέζετο πρὸς
τοὺς τόπους τοὺς δυναμένους δέξασθαι" οὗτοι δὲ ἦσαν οἱ πέριξ, καὶ πρὸς
τούτοις τὸ πλῆθος τῶν σωμάτων περιεκλᾶτο, περιπλεκόμενα δὲ ἀλλήλοις κατὰ
τὴν περίκλασιν τὸν οὐρανὸν ἐγέννησαν. circumdatus: comp. 1 87 ctr-
cumdata comptus and 39 Circumfusa. 470 avido complexu cet:
111066 avido complexu quem tenet aether; Emped. 185 αἰθὴρ σφίγγων
περὶ κύκλον ἅπαντα: par. lost 111 721 Zhe rest (i.e. of the ethereal quint-
essence) 77 circuit walls this universe, whence one might suspect that
Milton at the moment took cetera for a nomin.: and with this and 500
foll. comp. vir 264 expanse of liquid pure Transparent elemental air
diffused In circuit to the uttermost convex Of this great round; Shakesp.
sonnet 21 That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems. Balbus’ descrip-
tion, Cic. de nat. 11 101, of the stoical theory might serve for a com-
mentary on Luer.: ultimus et a domicilis nostris altissimus omnia
cungens et coercens caeli complexus, qui idem aether vocatur, extrema ora
et determinatio mundi.

471 Hune exordia cet.: Plut. 1. 1. τῆς δὲ αὐτῆς ἐχόμεναι φύσεις ai
ἄτομοι ποικίλαι οὖσαι, καθὼς εἴρηται, πρὸς TO μετέωρον ἐξωθούμεναι THY τῶν
ἀστέρων φύσιν ἀπετέλουν. 472 Interutrasque cet.: Plut. 1. 1. describes
the relation between these bodies and the air more precisely than Lucr.:
τὸ δὲ πλῆθος τῶν ἀναθυμιωμένων σωμάτων ἔπληττε TOV ἀέρα καὶ τοῦτον
ἐξέθλιβε: πνευματούμενος δὲ οὗτος κατὰ τὴν κίνησιν καὶ συμπεριλαμβάνων τὰ
ἄστρα συμπεριῆγε ταῦτα καὶ τὴν νῦν περιφορὰν αὐτῶν μετέωρον ἐφύλαττε.
476 viva is poetical like his aeternam lampada mundi in 403; 514
aeternt sidera mundi; and 538 quibus insita vivit ie. terra, a still bolder

20—2

308 BOOK V_ NOTES II

expression: 1 1034 vivant labentes aetheris ignes. 480 ---488 are briefly
expressed by Virgil ecl. vi 35 Zum durare solum et discludere Nerea
ponto Coeperit: Plut. 1.1. κἄπειτα ἐκ μὲν τῶν ὑποκαθιζόντων ἐγεννήθη ἡ γῆ,
ἐκ δὲ τῶν μετεωριζομένων οὐρανὸς πῦρ ἀήρ᾽ πολλῆς δὲ ὕλης ἔτι περιειλημμένης
ἐν τῇ YN πυκνουμένης τε ταύτης κατὰ τὰς ἀπὸ τῶν πυευμάτων πληγὰς καὶ τὰς
ἀπὸ τῶν ἀστέρων avpas [1 αὐγὰς] προσεθλίβετο πᾶς ὁ μικρομερὴς σχημα-
τισμὸς ταύτης καὶ τὴν ὑγρὰν φύσιν ἐγέννα. ῥευστικῶς δὲ αὕτη διακειμένη
κατεφέρετο πρὸς τοὺς κοίλους τόπους καὶ δυναμένους χωρῆσαί τε καὶ στέξαι,
ἢ καθ᾽ αὐτὸ τὸ ὕδωρ ὑποστὰν ἐκοίλανε τοὺς ὑποκειμένους τόπους: 1 have
quoted thus largely from this passage, because I believe it to be from the
pen of Epicurus. 482 fossas poetically for all hollows. 484 485
cog. terr. in artum: Aetna 109 non omnis rn artum Nec stipata coit.
485 verberibus: 1104 verberibus radiorum. extrema ad limina is of
course the whole outer surface presented to them. 487 comp. Manil.
1163 Quoque magis puras umor secessit in undas Et saccata (srecata all
mss. and editions) muyis struxerunt (so mss. rightly: strinxerunt
editions) aequora terram. salsus sudor: Plut. de plac. phil, m1 16
Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἱδρῶτα τῆς γῆς ἐκκαιομένης ὑπὸ τοῦ ἡλίου διὰ τὴν ἐπιπόλαιον
πίλησιν [εἶναι τὴν θάλατταν], and Aristotle meteor. 113 p. 357 25 observes
that the phrase may suit poetry, but is untit for natural science: 11 465
Sudor uti maris est has nothing in common with the notion here: Sen.
nat. quaest. 1115 7 sudorem aquileges vocant quia guttae quaedam vel
pressura loci eliduntur cet. 488 camposque natantis recurs v1 405 and
L142; 267 camposque natare: Virg. geor. ΠῚ 198 campique natantes ;
Aen. v1 724 camposque liquentis; Enn. ann. 584 and Manil. 1 155,
in the midst of along imitation of this part of Lucr., fluctusque natantes.
493 neque enim cet.: the rocks could not yield at all; the other parts
being more or less dense would sink more or less.

495-508: thus the earth sank to the bottom, and sea air and
ether were left separate, ether above all, which glides on its even way
and mixes with none of the lower elements. 499 liquidis: all were
pure compared with the earth, though not relatively to ether. 900
alvis alia Le. relicta sunt. liguidissimus cet.: Ovid met. 1 67 liquidum
et gravitate carentem Aethera nec quicquam terrenae faecis habentem.

502 turbantibus, 504 turbare are neut.: seen. to u 126. 503 haec
Omnia, all this troubled air that we see here below. haec: comp. Iv 132
an hoc caelo qui dicitur aer, v1 483 huc veniant in caecum extrinsecus; Cie.
pro Caelio 39 qui haec ex minimis tanta fecerunt; Livy xxx1v 24 4 ut αὖ
latrocinio quoque Aetolorum satis pacata haec relinquatis; Aen. 1x 522
consule lonye, Haec ego vasta dabo; [Sen. rhet. controv. 16 4 et haec non
putant magna, nist apparuerit ex parvis surrexisse:| and with omnia
haec comp. Livy v 44 7 nec pati haec omnia Galliam fieri; νι 40 17 cum .
praeter capitolium atque arcem onnia haec hostium erant ; [Cic. epist.
vit 201 haec omnia; Thue. τν 60 at end τάδε πάντα. 505 labens cet.:

BOOK Υ͂ NOTES II 309

this view he seems to prefer: so 1436 mundi magnum versatile templum;
though in the next passage he leaves it an open question, as one beyond
the reach of our experience and certain knowledge: 510 caelz st vortitur
orbis, 517 possit caelum onne manere In statrone. 907 Pontos cet.:
Aristotle Pliny and others attest this, and Sen. nat. quaest. 1v 2 29 ob
hoc Pontus in infernum mare adsidue flurt rapidus..in unam partem
semper pronus et torrens: Othello 111 3 like to the Pontick sea Whose icy
current and compulsive course Neer jeels retiring ebb, but keeps due on To
the Propontick and the [ellespout. 508 a fine example of sound and
rhythm adapted to sense.

509—533: the stars may move from various causes: if the whole
heaven revolves, then must we say that, while an air presses on each
pole and keeps it in its place, the heaven revolves with its stars by a
third air which either blows on it above in the direction in which it
and its stars are going, or beneath in an opposite direction; so that
the whole sphere is thus kept in motion like a waterwheel: if the
heaven does not move, then may the stars move because they have in
them fires of ether trying to escape and thus driving them on; or an
air blowing from some quarter may impel them; or they may move of
themselves whither their food invites them: it cannot be told for certain
how this goes on in our world; but in the countless existing worlds
every one of these causes is in operation ; and one must act in this our
world; but it is rash to assert that any one must be the sole cause.—
This passage too as Lach. has proved stands in no proper connexion
with what precedes and follows: 534 should at once follow 508; and at
774 he makes no allusion whatever to this paragraph: clearly then it is
an after addition of the poet’s who had observed that he had entirely
omitted this question of the stars, though he had so fully discussed sun
and moon: it was left then by him unconnected with the rest, and placed
here by his first editor.—The passage generally interrupts the fine flow
and connexion of what precedes and follows; and 510 cael2 sa vortitur
orbis, without one word of explanation, is strangely harsh after 505—508
Ipse suos ignis certo fert impete labens cet. It may be true, as Ussing
anc others have argued, that the passage would be more in place between
563 and 564; it may be that the poet would have finally put it there in
some shape or other; but as it now stands, 10 will adapt itself to no con-
text. 910 Principio: see n. to 505, and comp. 1436 mundt magnum
versatile templum. 511 Fx utraque cet.: in this case the sphere of
heaven must revolve on its axis; this axis therefore must be supported
in its position: this is done by an air pressing outside on each pole, and
keeping each fixed in its place; but then to put the sphere in motion
another force is wanted; this must be a third air; and it may act in two
ways, it may blow at right angles to the poles either above the sphere in
the direction in which the sphere has to move with its stars, or it may

310 BOOK V ΝΟΤΕΘ 1

blow underneath in the opposite direction, moving it thus as a stream of
water passing under a wheel moves the wheel, that is to say in the direc-
tion opposite to its own course. polum is the axis of the sphere of
heaven, and utraque pars is each pole, the north and the south. 514
volvenda: 1276 volvenda aetas; νι 179 glans volvenda: the gerund has
the force of a pres. partic.; see Roby gramm. pt. 1 p. LXxvit: Enn.
ann. 520 Clamor ad caelum volvendus; Virg. volvenda dies; 11 991
oriundi: comp. secundus, and perhaps fucundus iucundus etc. aeterni:
see n. to 476 viva; and comp. Germanicus phaen. 656 Declevemque tra-
hunt aeterni pondera mundi. 916 the Aaustra or austra belong to the
rotae: Nonius p. 13 ‘austra proprie dicuntur rotarum cadi ab auri-
endo’: he then cites this passage: they are therefore scoops or basins
attached to the wheel to lift up the running water: Vitruv. x 5 (10)
fiunt etiam in fluminibus rotae...circa earum frontes affiguutur pinnae
quae cum percutiuntur impetu fluminis, cogunt progredientes versart
rotana, et ita modiolis aquam haurientes et 11 summeum referentes. . ipsitus
fluminis impulse versatae cet.: the modioli answer to the haustra of
Lucr. and the contrivance gives a good picture of what he means: [see
Bleumner, Gewerbe u. Kuenste 1 p. 47 n. 2.) 521 Summania must be
genuine, though a ἅπαξ Aey. and must have reference to Summanus or
Juppiter Summanus, the god of the nightly sky, to whom as Pliny 11 138
tells us the Romans assigned nocturna fulgura, as they gave diurna to
Jupiter: the word is evidently connected with mane, Matuta, matutinus,
signifying the god who precedes the mane: Summania tenpla then I take
to be the nightly ¢empla of Summanus, the nightly sky; as Plaut. speaks
of Neptunia templa, 1.6. the sea: comp. too Vulcanius Saturnius ete. and
Acherusia templa. Bergk however in Jahn’s Jahrb. vol. 83 p. 506 says
that it is to Summanus, as manes to manus cerus; and=sublustria; as
manus originally must have meant ‘bright, shming’, and then metaph.
‘good, propitious’. 522 aliunde fluens alicunde extrinsecus, another
instance of pleonastical language: alicunde is ab aliquo loco, the opposite
of aliquo: so that ali. alic. seems to be only ab aliquo alio loco, and extrin-
secus implies the same thing, the whole phrase being simply the contrary
of the znclust aestus, the heats shut up in the stars themselves: Plaut.
trin. 758 twice uses ab amico alicunde; epid. 11 1 10 verum aliquid
aliqua aliquo modo Alicunde ab aliqui aliqua tibi spes est; 13 Quippe tu
mihi aliquid aliquo modo alicunde ab aliquibus blatis. 524 euntes must
bethenomin. 524 euntis, 525 pascentis: seen. to 692693. 523—525
seems at first sight almost a stoical doctrine; but is merely a poetical
mode of saying that the fires cf the stars are drawn on by that portion
of the ether which provides them the fuel or nutriment they need: three
out of the four causes here assigned are given by Epicurus himself in
his letter to Pythocles in Diog. x 92 tas τε κινήσεις αὐτῶν οὐκ ἀδύνατον

ΙΝ ΄ θ Ν ‘ an 3 a , vx , Ἀ ’ 2. κ᾿ a
μεν γινεσ Qt κατα THY TOV oAov Ov IaVvOU δίνην, of] TOUTOV μεν στασιν αὐτῶν δὲ

BOOK V NOTES II ne

δίνην κατὰ τὴν ἀρχῆθεν ἐν τῇ τοῦ κόσμου γενέσει ἀνάγκην ἀπογεννηθεῖσαν
ἐπ᾿ ἀνατολῇ, εἶτα τῇ θερμασίᾳ κατά τινα ἐπινέμησιν τοῦ πυρὸς ἀεὶ ἐπὶ τοὺς
ἑξῆς τόπους ἰόντος. 526 comp. Livy x 18 7 piget tamen ponere certum.
529 sequor disponere is an unusual constr. : ἴτε 420 pergam disponere:
Ov. trist. 11 263 Persequar inferius.. Posse nocere animis carminis
omne genus ; [Q. Cic. de pet. 49 hoc sequor, haec pertinere ; Hor. od. 1
23 9 non ego te.. frangere persequor; Plaut. asin. 159 tractare exequar ;
merc. 901 hoc wtiner perficere exequar; ciris 254 Persequitur..causas
exquirere; Aen. 111 31 Rursus et alterius lentum convellere vinen Inse-
quor et causas penitus temptare latentis. | 932 vegeat =faciat ut
vigeat: an archaic word. 533 ped. progred.: 1453 Paulatim docutt
pedetemtim progredientis.

The last eight verses are to be noted, as bearing not only on what
precedes, but also on what follows in this book about the sun and moon,
and in the sixth about thunder clouds and other celestial phenomena.
On comparing Epicurus’ letter to Pythocles in Diog. Laert. x 84 foll. it
will be found that master and pupil are in precise agreement on this as
on most matters. The contempt which Epicurus had for astronomers
and other system-mongers and the doctrine he held with regard to per-
éwpa form one of the most curious features of his philosophy. Whatever
could be brought to the test of sense and was confirmed by it was true;
all opinions again which could not be brought to such test and at the
same time were not contradicted by it were to be held to be equally
true. Now to apply this to the present question: he says ]. 1. 86 it is
a certain truth that the universe consists of body and void and that
atoms are indivisible: so with all things ὅσα μοναχὴν ἔχει τοῖς φαινομέ-
rows συμφωνίαν, ὅπερ ἐπὶ τῶν μετεώρων οὐχ ὑπάρχει" ἀλλὰ ταῦτα ye πλεονα-
χὴν ἔχει καὶ τῆς γενέσεως αἰτίαν καὶ τῆς οὐσίας ταῖς αἰσθήσεσι σύμφωνον
κατηγορίαν. οὐ γὰρ Kat ἀξιώματα κενὰ καὶ νομοθεσίας φυσιολογητέον, ἀλλ᾽
ὡς τὰ φαινόμενα ἐκκαλεῖται, and then he goes on to give this reason, οὐ
yap δὴ ἰδιολογίας καὶ κενῆς δόξης ὁ βίος ἡμών ἔχει χρείαν, ἀλλὰ τοῦ
ἀθορύβως ἡμᾶς ζῆν. His doctrines then of body and void and the nature
of atoms are certain truths which admit of but one explanation because
every phenomenon here on earth attests them, and by most certain in-
duction and reason they can be extended to the whole universe, alike to
what 1s below and what is beyond our sense. Again it is a certain truth
that the sun is really about the same size as it appears to us to be: see
ἔρις. 1.1. 91, Lucr. v 564-591: because from the experiments you can
make with fire here on earth and the fact that so long as it is visible it
does not diminish in size, but sooner indeed loses its brightness, you can
by reason and induction apply these facts to the sun and the stars.
Again that our world was formed nearly in the manner just described
by Lucr. is true, because earth water air and fire of which it is composed
always do and must in like circumstances act in the way they are there

ΠΣ BOOK ἡ NOTES II

represented as acting. But to say that the stars and the sun must move
from some one controlling cause, or that eclipses can admit of only one
explanation, or that lightning and clouds can be formed in only one way
is a vain unphilosophical assumption, since they are beyond our powers
of observation and there are many ways of explaining them equally pro-
bable, to which οὐδὲν τῶν φαινομένων ἀντιμαρτυρεῖ, or οὐθὲν τῶν ἐναργη-
μάτων διαφων εἴ and the like: you must not then fear τὰς ανδραποδώδεις
τῶν ἀστρολόγων τεχνιτείας : to give one explanation καθῆκόν ἐστι τοῖς
τερατεύεσθαί τι πρὸς τοὺς πολλοὺς βουλομένοις, Nay it is μάταιον, and
even pavixov. Well then all the possible reasons which Lucr. has just
given of the motion of the stars are equally unrefuted by sense; are
equally true therefore ; and though only one of them may apply to our
world, yet in the countless worlds, like and unlike ours, existing in the
universe they all may and must find their place, 1. 1. 94 ἐὰν μή τις τὸν
μοναχῇ τρόπον κατηγαπηκὼς τοὺς ἄλλους ὡς κενοὺς ἀποδοκιμάζῃ, οὐ τεθεω-
ρηκὼς τί δυνατὸν ἀνθρώπῳ θεωρῆσαι καὶ τί ἀδύνατον, καὶ διὰ τοῦτ᾽ ἀδύνατα
θεωρεῖν ἐπιθυμῶν.

534—563: the earth remains at rest in the midst of the world,
because its weight gradually diminishes and below it is another nature
closely connected with the air above the earth: thus the whole forms as
it were an organic whole, and one part does not weigh down another any
more than one member of the body another member, the whole having
been united and working together since its first formation: see too how
the light soul sustains and puts in motion the whole heavy body.

§34 Jerraque: Lucr. does not tell us what the shape of the earth is; but
he must have conceived it as presenting a surface more or less flat both
above and below. 535 Evanescere cet. i.e. below on the under-surface:
evanescere et decrescere, as 625 Evanescere, immainuz, seems a decided
ὕστερον πρότερον : for the latter must have place before the former:
(comp. Caes. b. civ. 11 3 ad timorem norarum tabularum tollendum
minuendum@ue. | 538 wvit: see ἢ. to 476 viva: yet it does
appear harsh to apply this epithet to the brata terra, the model of Quid
sit vitali motu sensugue remotum: perhaps he was thinking of it as
forming a sort of organic body with the air, like the human body with
which he proceeds to compare it. Epic. in Diog. x 74 says merely καὶ ἡ γῆ
τῷ ἀέρι ἐποχεῖται: in XI of his wept φύσεως, col. 1, vol. Hercul. 11, he seems
to be speaking to the same purpose as Lucr.; but its condition leaves it
scarcely intelligible. Plut. de plac. phil. 111 15 assigns this notion to
Anaximenes: διὰ τὸ πλάτος ἐποχεῖσθαι τῷ ἀέρι. Pliny nat. hist. 11 10
gives an account much resembling that of Lucr.: spiretus quem Graecr
nostrique eodem vocabulo aera appellant, vitalem hune et per cuncta
rerum meabilem totoque consertum; huius vi suspensam cum quarto
aquarum elemento librari medio spati tellurem cet. A stoic might
perhaps have pointed to his fierce attack on their cosmical system 1 1052

BOOK V NOTES II τ΄

LIllud in his rebus longe fuge credere cet.: and argued that after all his
mode of supporting his earth in space did not so much differ from theirs;
but what he objected to in them was their making the universe finite,
our one mundus in fact, which he argues could not be held together
amid an infinite void: atoms infinite in number are always streaming
up on all sides to supply our world. The stoic Manilius 1 194 from
the earth argues to the mundus, his universe: Nee vero tei natura
admiranda vidert Pendentis terrae debet, cum pendeat apse Mundus

et in nullo ponat vestigiu fundo, 545 guid obeat i.e. quod munus obire
debeat, what its proper and regular function 18. 556 foll.: comp. Iv
898—906.

564—591: the sun, the moon whether it shine by its own or borrowed
light, and the stars are about the same size as, it may be a very little
greater or less than, they appear to us; just as fires here on earth so
long as they are visible do not increase or diminish in size to any great
extent. 507 Adicere: 1 688 ret quae corpora mittere posstt Sensibus et
nostros advectu tangere tactus. 569 ad speciem: see ἢ. to πὶ 214,

O71 mulcent: 1 141 haec loca circum Laetitiae malcent. 572, 581
and 589 jfiluwm: see ἢ. to 11 341. 574 pl. aut m.: 1 240 minus aut
magis indupedita: [comp. Hirt. b. Gall. virr 20 1 guae non longius ab
ect caede abesse plus minus octo milibus dicebantur.| 575 Lunaque cet.:
you can tell for certain that the moon is of the same size as it looks;
but you cannot tell whether its light is its own or borrowed; whercas
unphilosophical astronomers assert that its light must be borrowed,
and that it is thousands of times larger than it appears: see remarks
added after 533. notho: Catull. 34 15 notho es Dicta lumine luna.
978 Quam 1.6. figura, gua cernimus, esse videtur. 583 wé est cet. 1.6.
necesse est videatur nobis e terra talis qualiscumque est oris notata
et quantacumque est: the use of utcwmque here closely resembles that
of ut in 1 442 ertt, wt possunt; and 1 901 εὖ debent: see ἢ. there.
584 Quanta quanta: Cic. ad Att. x11 23 3 quuntiquants ‘at what-
ever price’; Donatus to Ter. ad. 394 ‘quantus quantus, id est quantus-
cumque’: comp. gwisquis=quicumque, guoqguo=quocumque; guamquam,
utut, ubrubt, undewnde. 585 is immediately connected with
590 Scire lecet, 586—589 being a parenthetical illustration from
earthly fires. 988 mutare neut. as often in prose; see Fore.: per-
parvom quiddam being a cognate neut. 589 Alteram utram 1.6.
maiorem aut minorem: see ἢ. to 11 904 for elision: alteram utram, as
well as alterum utrum, alterius utrius are found in Cicero: altera utra
nom. and abl. in Livy and others: Lucr. uses elsewhere alterutra@ and
alterutrum. 990 perquam pauxillo, exigua parte brevique, as Perpar-
vom guiddam, his favourite accumulation of terms to shew the extremely
small amount of increase or decrease. The above passage exactly agrees
with Epic. 1. 1. 91 τὸ δὲ μέγεθος τοῦ ἡλίου τε καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν ἄστρων κατὰ

314 BOOK V NOTES II

μὲν TO πρὸς ἡμᾶς τηλικοῦτόν ἐστιν ἡλίκον φαίνεται" (τοῦτο καὶ ἐν τῇ ἑνδεκάτῃ
περὶ φύσεως. “εἰ yap’ φησὶ “τὸ μέγεθος διὰ τὸ διάστημα ἀποβεβλήκει,
πολλῷ ἂν μᾶλλον τὴν χρόαν)" ἄλλο γὰρ τούτῳ συμμετρότερον διάστημα
οὐθέν ἐστι" κατὰ δὲ τὸ κατ᾽ αὐτὸ ἤτοι μεῖζον τοῦ ὁρωμένου ἢ ἔλαττον μικρῷ ἢ
τηλικοῦτον ἡλίκον ὁρᾶται: οὕτω γὰρ καὶ τὰ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν πύρα ἐξ ἀποστήμα-
τος θεωρούμενα κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν θεωρεῖται. καὶ πᾶν δὲ τὸ εἰς τοῦτο τὸ
μέρος ἔνστημα ῥᾳδίως διαλυθήσεται, ἐάν τις τοῖς ἐναργήμασι προσέχῃ, ὅπερ
ἐν τοῖς περὶ φύσεως βιβλίοις δείκνυμεν : Lucr. doubtless had before him
the 11th book of the περὶ φύσεως which Diogénes quotes in the middle of
this extract, and of which such imperfect fragments are published in the
volum. Herculan.; the τὴν χρόαν there is the claram speciem certamque
figuram of Luer.: Cicero does not lose this opportunity of jeering, as in
the acad. pr. 182, and de fin. 1 20 sol Demoecrito magnus videtur, quippe
homini erudito in geometriaque perfecto; huic pedalis fortasse; tantum
enim esse censet quantus videtur, vel paulo aut matorem aut minorem.
591 maioris: the -7s is common in comparatives: the carmen arvale has
an pleores once, tn plearis twice; the best mss. of Cicero Virgil and others
give occasionally the same form; Charisius 1 p. 137 Keil attests maiorezs
on the authority of Pliny as used by Cicero.

592—613: the great amount of heat and light proceeding from so
small a sun may be explained in several ways: the sun may be the well-
head to which the light and heat ef the whole world flow; or the air
about it may be of a nature to catch fire; or much unseen fire may exist
in the neighbourhood of the visible sun. 994 rigando: see ἢ. to IV
202. 598 Largifluum seems not te occur elsewhere; there is no
authority for the word in the passage of Pacuvius quoted by Cic. de or.
πὶ 107. lumen is the object of ernmpere. 604 etiam quoque: see n.
to πι 208. 605 perempiat: see ἢ. to IV 729 perciprunt oculos, 609
Accedere: for form see τὶ 1025; for accus. after 10 comp. Plaut. Stichus
δ mihi paternae vocis sonitus auris accidit: Lucilius and Accius have
accumbere mensam: comp. toe the constr. of adeo, accedo ; Virgil’s urbem
adferimur, advehitur Teucros; and Ov. met. 111 598 adducor litora.
610—613 Tyndall quotes what he calls ‘this remarkable passage’ before
his essay on radiation, Frags. of Science p. 170; and in the course of the
essay shews that the sun’s invisible rays far transcend the visible in
heating power; and that about 98 per cent. of the whole radiation from
our fire consists of invisible rays. 613 it is not clear whether fantum
is ‘only’ or ‘so much’.

614—-649: it is by no means clear how the sun performs its annual
course, and how the moon in a month goes through the same journey:
Democritus may be right who says that the nearer any bedy is to the
earth, it 1s carried on less swiftly by the revelution of the heaven; now
the moon is nearer than the sun, the sun than the signs of the zodiac;
theretore the moon seems to travel faster than the sun, the sun than the

BOOK V NOTES II 315

signs, because in truth they in their revolution with the heaven cateh up
the moon which is slowest first, and then the sun: or two airs may blow
in turns in eross clireetions, one of which drives the sun from the summer
to the winter signs, the other drives it from the latter to the former: and
so with moon and stars. 616 and 640 jflexus are the same as metas.
617 solstitialis: the best writers contine this term sometimes to the
summer solstice ; Cie. de nat. 11 19 solis accessus discessusque solstitiis
brunusque cognosci. 619 Annua cet.: Manil. m1 515 Annua quod
lustrans conswumit tempora mundum: but comp. this v. and 691 Propter
signiferr posituram totivs orbis, Aninua sol in quo concludit tempora ser-
pens, Obliquo terras et caelum lumine lustrans with Cic. Arat. 318 Orbem
signiferum perhibebunt, 332 Llaec sol aeterno convestit lumine lustrais,
Annua conficiens vertentt tempora cursu: Luer. we have seen twice uses
aeternus in this way with poetical ineonsisteney : and then eomp. 644
Quae volvunt magnos in mugnis orbibus annos, 648 per magnos aetheris
orbes, 635 ad signum quodque reverti, 636 ad hanc quia signa revisunt,
111 316 Quorwm ego nunc nequeo caecas exponere causas, 1 992 sub caeli
tegmine, 11 663 sub teymene cael, V 1436 mundi. . templum Sol et luna
suo lustrantes lumine, 688 nocturnas exaequat lucibus umbras, 432 and
564 solis rota, 616 Brumals adeat flecus, 640 Brumals usque ad flexus,
612 quer sit fulgore notatus, 665 conficere orbem, τν 171 and vi 252 caeli
complesse cavernas, with Cie. Arat. 232 MHaee faciunt magnos longingur
temporis annos, Cumredeunt ad idem caelt sub tegmine siynum, Quarum
ego nunc nequeo tortos evolvere cursus, 236 magnos edemus gentibus orbes,
239 caelt sub teqmine, 237 aeterno listrantes lumine mundum, 242 Tam
magnos orbes, 337 signa revisunt, 288 Exaequat spatium lucis cum tem-
pore noctis, 281 rota fervida solis, 282 brumali tempore flexus, 249 fulyens
candore notatur, 250 conficat orbem, 252 caelt lustrare cavernas. It is
evident Luer. had studied this translation of Cicero; other parts of whieh
are imitated in other parts of this poem.

621 vel cum primis, as if this seemed the most plausible theory,
where al] must be uncertain. 022. πὶ 31]. 624 cum σαοἰὲ tur-
bine: 510 magnus caelt si vortitur orbis; which Luer. also appears to
think most probable. 625 Lvanescere, Inuninur: eomp. 535 Lranes-
cere, et decrescere, and n. there. 627 cum poster. sig.: it is overtaken
and passed by one sign of the zodiae after another and thus left with the
hinder ones, which pass it in turn, until the whole zodiac has gone by it
in the opposite direction to that in which it has appeared to go through
the zodiae. 628 fervida signa i.e. of the zodiac whieh are higher and
therefore carried on in more rapid revolution. 629 mays hoc i.e.
lunam magis quam hune relinqui. [6380 abest.. propinquat is an intru-
sion of oratio recta in the midst of oratio obliqua; in 632 the construc-
tion passes wholly into the former. A very similar instance is Cie. de
fin. u1 49 Drogenes autem censet...non idem facere eas in virtutibus neque

316 BOOK V_ NOTES II

in ceteris artibus, ad quas esse dux pecunia potest, continere autem non
potest. .. neque ab ulla re. .contineri potest ..nulla ars divitiis contineri
potest.| 6381 tendere cursum seems to be no more than fendere iter, or
cursu tendere, which Sallust and Virgil use: Aen. x11 909 avidos ex-
tendere cursus: Livy ΧΧΠῚ 34 5 has tendere cursum and Virg. Aen.
v 834 contendere cursum for a ship keeping on its course. 632 fertur
cet.: he now passes to the oratio recta, which he had partially adopted
in 630 abest, propinquat. 636 ad hane revisunt: 11 359 revisit Ad
stabulum, where see note. I do not find Democritus’ name elsewhere
attached to this theory: Geminus elem. astr. 10, though he condemns
it, gives a lucid account of it; λέγουσί τινες, he says; and he illustrates
it by this comparison: if twelve runners are going round in ἃ circle
at the same pace and a thirteenth is going the same round at a
slower pace, he will appear to be running through those behind him,
while in truth they are all passing him: the sun or the moon is this
thirteenth; the twelve runners the signs of the zodiac which are really
passing the sun and moon, while these seem to be going through them in
the contrary direction. 637 aer...a/ter cet. i.e. duo aeres, alter Quz queat
aestivis cet., alter qui reiciat. 641 frigoris umbris: Wak. quotes Virg.
geor. 11 357 Tum sol pallentis haut umquam discutat umbras. 644 Quae
volvunt cet, refers of course only to sfellas: Lucr. imitates Cicero quoted
above. volvunt annos i.e. volvendo faciunt; Cicero less poetically Haec
(Hae) faciunt magnos longingur temporis annos; Aratus himself 458
Maxpot δὲ σφέων εἰσὶν ἑλισσομένων ἐνιαυτοί. 645 Aeribus: see ἢ, to 11
1097 caelos. 647 supernis dat. gov. by diversas: Hor. epist. 1 18 5
Est huic diversum vitio vitium: Ovid met. 1x 321 forma est diversa
priori; Juv. x 3 ahs multum diversa: this constr. is common in Quin-
tilian; see Bonnell’s lexicon. Our sentence is a very common kind of
conciseness of expression for 77 partis contrarias ws partibus in quas
superna eunt, and resembles 111 1038 eadem aliis sopitw quietest and the
like. 649 sidera here, as above 623, means all the heavenly bodies,
sun moon planets and fixed stars.

650—655: night comes, either because the sun 1s extinguished, or,
if that is not so, because he passes beneath the earth in the same way as
he passed above it.—In this and the following paragraphs he leaves you
your choice between the hypothesis that the sun dies daily and a new
one takes its place in the morning, and theories more resembling the
ordinary belief of astronomers; experience being unable to decide: just
so his master in Diog. x 92 ἀνατολαὶ καὶ δύσεις ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης Kal τῶν
λοιπῶν ἄστρων καὶ κατ᾽ ἄναψιν γίνεσθαι δύνανται καὶ κατὰ σβέσιν... καὶ
καθ᾽ ἑτέρους δὲ τρόπους, ὥστε τὰ προειρημέν᾽ ἀποτελεῖσθαι" οὐδὲν γὰρ τῶν
φαινομένων ἀντιμαρτυρεῖ κ.τ.λ. 651 de: see ἢ. to vi 290. 652
efflavit lan. ignis: comp. 758 Solque suos etiam dimittere languidus rgnis
cet. and 11 832 prius omnem efflare colorem. _ efflare therefore = dimit-

BOOK V_ NOTES IL Ἴ17

tere, not its usual sense. 653 ztere: on the other hand vi 339 ¢tiner:
iteris or itere appears to be used by Naevius Pacuvius Accius Varro ;
atiner by Plautus Ennius Pacuvius Accius Manilius 1 88.

656—679: daylight returns at stated hours, either because the same
unchanged sun passes under the earth and comes above it again, or
because the fires of a new sun collect every morning at the proper time:
this may well be; for many things, such as puberty in man, come at a
certain time; and many things such as snow rain and lightning return
pretty regularly: so it has been from the beginning and so it continues
to be.-—The alternative here allowed is the same as that given in the
preceding passage; see [picurus there cited: the old sun returns, or a
fresh one is born every day. 659 Anticipat governs caelum: comp.
Cic. ad Att. virt 14 2 dices, quid agitur proficts que anticipes erus rer
molestiam quam triduo sciturus sis ? 663 Jdaeis cet.: Diodorus Sic.
xvul 7 6 gives the same curious story more fully than Lucr.; as well as
Mela 1 94 and 95: the Trojan Ida is spoken of. The stoic Cleoiedes de
subl. 11 87 scoffs at this theory of Epicurus: καίτοι πρὸς ἅπασι τοῖς εἰρημέ-
νοις GTOTWTATOLS οὖσι ETL καὶ τὰ ἄστρα ἀπεφήνατο ἀνατέλλοντα μὲν ἐξάπτε-
σθαι, δυόμενα δὲ σβέννυσθαι, and he cleverly remarks that this is like say-
ing that men while they are seen are alive; as soon as they are out of
sight are dead. 664 orienti: 887 fugrente 1. vita; v1 126 Turbine
versanti; ΤΥ 914 Vera repwlsante: the abl. in ὁ is rare, when it is a real
participle; common where the partic. is rather an epithet, as 1074
Horents aetate; 1 282 Flumine abundanti; v1 1197 Octavoque fere can-
denti lumune. 670—673 certo tempore, tem. certo, in cer. tem.: see n.
to 1 99. 673 anpubem cet.: 888 ewventas Occiprt et molli vestit lanu-
gine malas: Aen. vill 160 Zum mihi prima genas vestibat flore vuventas.
674 pariter malis: 188 Kx utraque pari malarum parte profusast. [Sen.
rhet. suas, 3 1 Arellius Fuscus says of the moon, splendensque pariter
adsurgit in cornua.| 676 Non nimis in this sense is common enough
in Cicero, 678 Atque ita cet. is like Epicurus’ expression I. ]. 92 κατὰ
τὴν ἀρχῆθεν ἐν TH TOD κόσμου γενέσει ἀνάγκην ἀπογεννηθεῖσαν. 679 Con-
sequé: comp. n. to 1 560 relicuo, of which the principle is the same; and
see Lachmann’s very learned note: he shews that adsecué is used more
than once by Plautus: the old writers never contracted the last two
syllables into one in any of these words, any more than in ingenuus
perpetuus ambiguus and the like.

680—704: days and nights lengthen and shorten time about, either
because the sun continuing the same chooses to run in unequal curves
above and below the horizon, his course above being as much more or
less than a semicircle, as his course below is less or more, until at each
equinox the two are equal: all this you may see marked on a map of
heaven: or else the air is denser in some parts than in others, so that he
travels more slowly through the former: and thus tle winter nights are

318 BOOK ΝΥ NOTES II

longer: or else a new sun is always born, and in successive parts of the
year his fires collect more or less quickly and so rise in particular quar-
ters.—Again three courses are open to your choice, the first most
resembling the theory of vulgar philosophers. 681 cum sumant: sce
n. to 11 736 Cum subeant. 682 sol idem, as 658. 683 amfracte-
bus: this word is used by Cicero more than once for the annual course
of the sun; see Fore.: but Lucr. here employs it for the unequal daily
curves it makes above and below the horizon. 686 *rclatus: if the
other part is from east to west, relatus expresses the return from west to
east. 687 anni Nodus must here mean the intersection of the ecliptic
and equator at the two equinoxes, though rodus in astronomical Latin
and σύνδεσμος in Greck have also other meanings: Cic. Arat. 237 Jn
quo autumnali atque iterum sol lumine verno Exaequat spatium lucis cum
tempore noctis. 689 czrsz 1.6, solis. medio governs flatus; comp.
Caes. bell. Gall. 1 34 1 aliquem locum medium utrrusque; Ovid met. Vv
409 Est mediam Cyanes et Pisaeae Arcthusae...aequor; 564 medius fra-
trisque sui maestaeque sororis; 644 medium cacli terraeque per aera vecta
est; v1 409 Qua locus cst ingali medius summique lacerti; Aen. 1v 184
volat caeli medio terraeque; Hor. epist.1 18 9 Virtus est medium vitiorum
et utrimque reductum. Cic. in his Aratea often has aurae aquilonis,
austvt, and the like to denote the point from which the wind blows, as
Luer. here uses flatus: 280 a clarisonis auris aquilonis ad austrum Ce-
dens, 272 ab infernis austre convertitur auris, 253 Quorum alter tangens
aquilonis vertitur auras: Lucr. has probably taken the notion from him.
When the sun is midway between the two solstices, the heaven Disttrvet
aeqg. diser. metas: 617 Cancri metas solstitiales was the tropic of cancer;
and it would be natural therefore to take mctas here for the two tropics,
as editors have generally done. But the sentence is then a sheer truism,
when the sun is midway between the tropics he is midway between them.
Lucr. has been speaking of the inequality of day and night and account-
ing for it by the path of the sun, imparibus currens amfractibus, in par-
tis non aequas dividit orbem, until anni Vodus nocturnas exaequat lucibus
umbras: here too I take him to be speaking of the daily revolution of
the sun, when day and night are equal. metas can of course be used for
the points where he rises and sets; as Ovid met. 111 145 £¢ sol ex aequo
meta distabat utraque; 11 142 Hesperio positas in litore metas Umida nox
tetigit; ars 11 724 Inque pari spatio vesper et ortus erant: the heaven
keeps his two goals, the points where he rises and sets, at an equal dis-
tance from north and south, i.e. speaking roughly he rises and sets due
east and west: 683 we had amfractibus for the diurnal course, which
Cicero uses, as was said, for the annual. 690 aequato discr.: he no
longer tn partis non aequas dividit orbem. 691 sign. orbis: Cic. Arat.
317 Zodiacum hune Graeci vocitant nostrique Latini Orbem signiferum
perhibebunt nomine vero; the same name he and others give to it in prose

BOOK V NOTES II 319

as well: 712 signorum per orbem. 692 serpens, 693 lustrans: see
notes 1 for three other instances in which Lach. has corrupted his author
from a vain objection to two participles in such a connexion as this:
Cicero in his Aratea again and again has examples of this, and in the
parts most imitated by Lucr. as 237 Quattuor aeterno lustrantes lumine
mundum, Orbes stelligert nortantes signa feruntur, Amplear terras caeli
sub tegmine fultz; 260 recedens, devitans; 264 consistens, distinguens ;
332 lustrans, conficiens; 379 depellens, pandens ; progn. fr. 3 Cana fulrix
Sugiens, clamans, fundens: Lach. in support of his violent and clumsy
changes has these words ‘nam via solis obliqua est, totus obliquus zodia-
cus, lumen solis nequaquam semper obliquum est’; the point of which
so far as Lucr. and the latitude of Rome Berlin or Cambridge are con-
cerned I have in vain attempted to see. 699 noctes cet.: Virg. geor.
11 482 vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet; if the meaning indeed be the
same. 700 radiatum: 462 radiate lumina solis. ensigne: Cic. de
nat. 1 100 cam ipsum mundum, cum evus membra, caelum terras maria,
cumque horum insignia, solem lunam stellasque vidissent: the sun is day’s
chief ornament: orator 134 simzlia ellis quae in anplo ornatu scaenae
aut fore appellantur insignia, non quod sola ornent sed quod excellant.
701 Aut etiam cet.: he must provide as usual for the hypothesis that a
fresh sun is born every day. 8106 refers of course to 696 guia crassior
est cet. 703 certa parte: a particular quarter which varies every day
throughout the year. certa desurgere parte: Hor. sat. 1 2 76 wt palls-
dus omnis Cena desurgat dubia; 1431 nequid Summa deperdat metuens;
112 105 Non aliquid patriae tanto emetiris acervo; epist. 1 6 21 dotalibus
emetat agris: Lucr. himself 11 703 egzgnt corpore vivo; v1 7161 quibus
effiant causis. 704 see what is said in notes 1 to prove that a v. is
here lost: unless it be so, there is nothing to indicate that he is speaking
of the daily creation of a new sun, as he manifestly must be doing; comp.
too the similar way in which he concludes his discussion of the moon in
the next paragraph, 748—750 Quo minus est mirum sv certo tempore
luna Gignitur et certo deletur tempore rusus cet. Among those who thus
‘seem to speak the truth’ was Heraclitus, who held like Epicurus that
it was evpos ποδὸς ἀνθρωπείου.

705—750: the moon may borrow its light from the sun, increasing
as it recedes from him, until, when directly opposite, it shews its full
face ; and again diminishing as it again approaches: in this case the
moon must be a round ball moving below the sun: it may shine too
with its own light, and its partial or total concealment may be caused
by an opaque body invisible to us getting between it and us in various
ways: or thirdly it may be a ball half bright half opaque which presents
to us all these various phases, as the Chaldees assert in opposition to the
first hypothesis, that of the astronomers: or lastly a new moon may be
born daily, each successively presenting a different phase; thus many

320 BOOK V_ NOTES II

things, for instance the four seasons, come round in regular order.—
Epic. 1. 1. 94 reasons in just the same way, κενώσεις τε σελήνης καὶ πάλιν
συμπληρώσεις καὶ κατὰ στροφὴν τοῦ σώματος τούτου δύναιντ᾽ ἂν γίνεσθαι Kai
κατὰ σχηματισμοὺς ἀέρος ὁμοίως, ἔτι τε καὶ κατ᾽ ἐπιπροσθήσεις καὶ κατὰ
πάντας τρόπους καθ᾽ ots καὶ τὰ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν φαινόμενα ἐκκαλεῖται εἰς τὰς
τούτον τοῦ εἴδους ἀποδύσεις.. ἔτι τ᾽ ἐνδέχεται τὴν σελήνην ἐξ ἑαυτῆς ἔχειν τὸ
φῶς, ἐνδέχεται δὲ καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἡλίου: καὶ γὰρ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν θεωρεῖται πολλὰ μὲν
ἐξ ἑαυτῶν ἔχοντα πολλὰ δ᾽ ἀφ᾽ ἑτέρων... δ᾽ ἔμφασις τοῦ προσώπου ἐν αὐτῇ
δύναται μὲν γίνεσθαι καὶ κατὰ παραλλαγὴν μερῶν καὶ κατ᾽ ἐπιπρόσθησιν καὶ
κατὰ πάντας τρόπους ὅσοι ἂν θεωροῖντο τὸ σύμφωνον τοῖς φαινομένοις κεκτη-
μένοι. The reasoning is quite the same as in the preceding sections:
any of these theories may be true, and as none can be proved not to be
true, none being opposed to sense, all are equally true; any one therefore
μαχόμενος τοῖς ἐναργήμασιν οὐδέποτε δυνήσεται ἀταραξίας γνησίου μεταλα-
βεῖν: the attainment of this ἀταραξία γνήσιος being the end Epicurus and
Lucretius had before them in writing their physics, and not the vain
ambition to propagate idle mathematical and other theories. 707 and
724 Ad speciem =ad visum: see ἢ. to 1v 236. 708 pleno bene: this
use of bene 15 ἃ favourite one with Cicero. 712 stgnorum per orbem :
see n. to 691 signiferi orbis. Lucr. here gives a lucid statement of the
true cause. 714 cursus ram: 1124 ater viar and 11 626 iter ome
viarum seem not unlike: Vitruvius 1x 2 1 (4 17) cursum ttinerts sui
peragens. 715 L£st quare possit = est ut possit, so common in Luer.:
see ἢ. t01 620 Nid erit wt distet: it means therefore simply potest; and is
not used as 730 set cur, where cur has its usual meaning ; it has in fact
much the same force as gua re in 11 960, and should perhaps be written
as two words; see also ἢ. tov1 132. Plut. de plac. phil. 11 28 mentions
Anaximander and Antiphon as holding that the moon shone with its
own light; but who hit upon this notion of the parasitical opaque body
in order to explain its phases, I don’t know. The observant Thales
taught that its light was derived from the sun.

720 sz forte = fortasse, εἰ τύχοι, and used parenthetically, is found in
Cicero, as de orat. 111 47; de off.11 70; pro Mil. 104; ad Att. xiv 13 2;
ad Q. frat. 1 2 7: see Madvig emend. Liv. p. 123: it serves there-
fore here as a connecting particle in passing to a new hypothesis,
and is the same as Est etiam ut versari posstt, ut globus cet. 723 eam
partem i.e. the dimidiam partem just mentioned. 726 glomera-
minis atqgue pilai seems a hendiadys for the globus pilat of 720.
727 Babyl. Chald. doct.: he speaks of the theory of Berosus, of which
Vitruv. 1x 2 (4) gives a full account: 1 will quote the beginning,
Berosus qui a Chaldaeorum civitate sive natione progressus in Asia
etram disciplinam Chaldaicam patefecit, ita est professus, pilam esse
ex dimidia parte candentem, reliqua habere caeruleo colore. cum autem
cursum itinerts sui peragens subiret sub orbem solis, tune eam radits

BOOK V NOTES II 321

et empetu caloris corripy convertique candentem, propter eius proprie-
tatem luminis, ad lumen. cum autem evocata ab solis orbi superiora
spectet, tune inferiorem partem etus, quod candens non sit, propter aeris
similitudinem obscwram videri, and so on: hence his followers were called
Chaldaer. Chaldaewm is of course the gen. plur.: 1063 canun Molos-
sum; 405, νι 754 and τι 600 Graiwm; 186 Danaum; vi 642 Siculum ;
1 1 deneadum: Romanom occurs on one of the oldest coins. 728
Astrol. artem is the system of the astronomers who held the first men-
tioned theory. 729 quod pugnat, a constr. common enough in Cicero:
de nat. 175 illud video pugnare te; pro Sex. Rose. ὃ si hoc solum pugna-
tur: so gut id pugnant and the like. 733 aborisct seems to be found
nowhere else: 111155 he has aborirt: Lach. compares wlcisct pacisct nan-
cisct proficisct etc. 734 e¢lhus in parte: this use of pars in the sense of
locus comes perhaps from the sense it has in partes or partem suscipere :
reparari in loco illius et partem eius suscipere: the expression therefore
comes to the same as Livy 111 18 9 ipse in locum vicemque consults pro-
volat: but I know no parallel, as elsewhere τη) parte esse means either ‘to
have a share of’, as Ov. ars 1 566; amor, 11 16 14; trist. v 14 9: or ‘to
be a part of’, as ex Ponto τι 2 104; Juv. x1 29. [But now I find in
Plaut. asin. 907 μέ viginti minas det, in parte hac amanti ut liceat
ev poterter: ‘that he may enjoy her in his turn’: where Lamb. followed
by Ussing reads without cause im partem, which does occur ibid. 672
Age sis tu in partem nunciam hune delude. Compare too Livy tv 35 6
ad spem consulatus in partem revocandi (see Madv. emend. Liv. 99);
VII 22 9 censuram quoque in partem vocart plebes volebat.| 7385 vincere
verbis: 99 Et quam difficile id mihi svt pervincere dictis: Virg. geor. m1 289
verbis ea vincere magnum Quam sit; but there the words are the same,
the sense different. 737—747 seem to depict some pantomimic re-
presentation of the four seasons. 737 Ven. praen.: τιν 1057 Namque
voluptatem praesagit muta cupido, aptly cited by N. P. Howard. 738
Pennatus, i.e. Cupido: 1075 Pinnigeri.. amoris; Apul. met. Iv 30
puerum suum pinnatune ulum, and again wt meae Venert Cupido pinnatus
adsistam tibi; so 22 we have the volatilis der pinnae roscidae. Let
the ‘sibili’ of Lachmann then fall on his own prosaic head. 739 Flora
following on the steps of Zephyr, in advance of Spring, Venus and
Cupid, strews the path with flowers: comp. 1 7 and 11: Zephyr unlocks
the winter ground and flowers at once spring up: comp. too the worship
of Psyche, in the character of Venus, in Apul. iv 29. 741 Inde loci:
see n. to 443, 742 etesia flab. aguil. recurs vi 730: 715 Aut quia
sunt aestate aquilones ostia contra, Anni tempore eo qui etesiae esse ferun-
tur. 743 Euhius and euhoe are the only well-attested spellings ;
probably Luhan should also be read; for Aen. v1 517 the best mss. have
ewhantis: Mommsen inser. reg. Neapol. 2913 Hic. PHOEBUS. FUIT. AC.
SUPERBUS. EUHAN: the Latins naturally expressed the Greek aspirate in

M. 17. 2]

322 BOOK V NOTES II

the middle of the word. 745 Altttonens here must mean merely loud-
roaring, though applied to Jupiter by Cicero and Ennius it signifies
thundering on high; and ‘on high’ is the usual force in altevolans altiso-
mus and the like. 746 bruma may be used here in its proper sense of
the shortest day: it again brings baek the cold which spring had dispelled,
and winter returns in earnest. 749 certo tempore, every day, that is:
see n. to 704.

751—770: solar eclipses may be caused by the moon intereepting
the rays, as the astronomers say ; but some opaque and invisible body
may just as well be the cause; or the sun may lose for the time his own
light in passing through spots inimical to it: lunar eclipses may simi-
larly be explained, mutatis mutandis ; thus in the first case it will be
the earth which keeps from it the sun’s rays.—The three theories here
offered to explain the eclipses of the sun and moon are quite parallel to
those given just above to shew how the moon may receive her light.
Epic. }. 1. 96 gives us a similar choice, ἔκλειψις ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης δύναται
μὲν γίνεσθαι kai κατὰ σβέσιν, καθάπερ καὶ παρ᾽ ἡμῖν τοῦτο θεωρεῖται γινό-
μενον" καὶ δὴ καὶ κατ᾽ ἐπιπρόσθησιν ἄλλων τινῶν, ἢ γῆς ἢ οὐρανοῦ ἡ τινος
ἑτέρου τοιούτου : and Diogenes adds just below ἐν δὲ τῇ δυωδεκάτῃ περὶ
φύσεως ταῦτα λέγει, καὶ τὸν ἥλιον ἐκλείπειν σελήνης ἐπισκοτούσης, σελήνην
δὲ τοῦ τῆς γῆς σκιάσματος" ἀλλὰ καὶ κατ᾽ ἀναχώρησιν. 751 comp. Virg.
geor, 11478 Defectus solis varios lunaeque labores. latebras does not
appear to occur elsewhere with this application. 754 a terris, admon-
ished by Mr Pearman of Toronto, I take to be ‘on the earthward side’:
a very common sense of αὖ: see n. to vi 1111 Quattuor a ventis; and to
ν 1332 ab nervis. obstr. altum caput is to put her own high head in
the way of the sun, δὲ : this is not a common use of obstruo ; but comp.
Livy v 19 frons in Etruriam spectans auxiltis, siqua forte inde venirent,
obstruebatur. 756 and 765 Tempore eodem: so 1045 Tempore eodem
alu fucere id non quisse putentur. 757 Corpus quod cet.: comp. 717
—719. 758 comp. 652 atque suos eflavit languidus ignis. 761
interstingut, a very rare word, hardly occurring elsewhere in classical
Latin, unless in Apul. met. Iv 12. 763 super =insuper: see ἢ. to
1 649. 764 rigidas..umbras: old poet in Cic. Tuse. 1 37 wht rigida
constat crassa caligo inferum: ‘even darkness which may be felt’. cont,
the cone of the earth’s shadow ; so that conz would seem to define the
umbras, as 369 pericli does the cladem: considering what Epicurus’ and
Lucretius’ conceptions were of the shape of the earth, they must surely
have blindly accepted from astronomers this faet of its conical shadow:
the force of JMenstrua is not at once apparent, as she has to pass most
months without any eclipse; yet these do depend on her monthly revo-
lution ; and if her orbit lay in the plane of the ecliptic, there would of
course be an eclipse every full moon. 765 succurrere=succedere, used
in this its literal sense is almost or quite unexampled; Fore. compares

BOOK V_ NOTES II 15}

its metaphorical use in Cic. pro Sex. Roscio 31. 768 Lt tamen: see
n. to 1177 and 1 1050. 769 Cur cet. as 758 foll. of the sun. 770
per: seen. to1 841 Jgnebus ex.

¢(71—782: having thus explained how all that goes on above in the
heaven may take place, the movements of sun and moon and their
eclipses, I now come back to the infancy of the world and the earth and
proceed to shew what then came to pass. 773 quacquid = quicque, as
so often in Lucr. — resolvt: v1 46 Pleraque ressolur, where he is talking
of the same questions: a rare use of the word, not unlike that in Quintil.
inst. vil 9 14 nee refert quomodo sit facta amphibolia aut quo resolvatur.
774 Virgil says obscurely caelique vias and caelique-meatus, with refer-
ence probably to this passage. 776 offecto: see ἢ. to 11 156 Offictun-
tur. (77 neque opinantis: in 3 other places he uses the more usual
nec opin.: neque opinans, which appears to be very rare, occurs more
than once in the bell. Alexandr. and the more homely bell. Africae: see
Nipperdey Caes. p. 27, who refers to the epist. ad Brutum 1 4 4: it is
found too in Lucil. 1v 41 Muell. 779 convisunt keeps up the meta-
phor of contvent and aperto lumine: 11 357 Omnia convisens oculis loca.
780 Nunc redeo cet. from which he had digressed after 501. 781 in
lum. oras cet.: see n. to 212 and Virgil there quoted. 782 crerint =
decrerint, is somewhat archaic and used by Cicero in imitating old legal
language: yet Catull. 64 150 germanum amittere crevi. Aen. x1 560
quae nunc dubwis committitur aurvs.

783—820: first herbage sprang up, then trees, then living things;
in the newness of creation the earth produced the larger creatures, birds
first, even as now it produces spontaneously worms and the like; then
lastly man, whom it fed from its pores with a moisture resembling milk:
in the perpetual spring of the new world the children needed nothing
more than what the earth thus supphed. 783 Principio cet.: in their
account of the first production of things the early philosophers would be
likely to agree more or less: Zeller says that Anaximander, Parmenides,
Anaxagoras, Diogenes of Apollonia and Democritus, all taught the pro-
creation of living things from earth. Lucr. probably had a special eye to
Empedocles; thus we are told in Plut. de plac. phil. v 26 and Galen that
Empedocles πρῶτα τῶν ζώων τὰ δένδρα ἐκ γῆς ἀναδῦναί φησι, plants with
him being imperfect animals. Virgil in geor. 11 has frequent allusions
to Lucr. in return: comp. too the conclusion of his brief epicurean cos-
mogony, ecl. v1 39 Incipiant silvae cum primum surgere, cumque Rara
per ignaros errent animalia montis. 786 per auras cet.: Virg. geor.
11 363 dum se laetus ad auras Palmes agit laxis per purum tmmissus
habenis. 788 and 780 primum seems to have this force: birds have
the rudiments of feathers, quadrupeds have hairs or bristles as soon as
they are born before they begin to perform any of the functions of life;
so the earth as soon as formed began to put forth its hairs or feathers,

21—2

324 BOOK ΝΥ NOTES II

herbage and plants, before it yielded any other production. 791 mor-
talia saecla here =793 animalia, every living thing. 793 Nam neque
cet. in refutation of the stoical belief: 11 1153 //aud, ut opinor, enim
mortalia saecla superne Aurea de caelo demisit funis in arva. 795
merito cet.: comp. 821, and 11 998 Quapropter merito maternum nomen
adepta est: he loves to inculcate this truth. 797 Multaque cet.:
this too he is fond of dwelling upon, as an important confirmation
of his theory as to the beginning of sense and life: 11 871 Quwippe
videre licet vivos existere vermes Stercore de taetro cet. and elsewhere.
800 nova, when their powers were in their vigorous freshness: 907
tellure nova caeloque recent. 801 gen. al. var. vol.: another poetical
tautology; repeated 1078. 802 tempore verno: comp. 818 819: there
was then perpetual spring ; ver allud erat, ver magnus agebat Orbis.

803 Folliculos: this word, meaning originally a small sack, is used for
any light envelope rind or husk. teretis: comp. Iv 58 Cum teretis
ponunt tunicas aestate cicadae, and ἢ. to 1 30. 804 victum vitamque
recurs 1080; and is found in Cic. Brut. 95; de leg. 111 32: Nepos
Alcib. 13 splendidus non minus in vita quam victu; |Cic. epist. πὶ 10 9
delectatio vitae atque victus; Vil 23 4 vitae victusque nostri; Ix 24 ὃ
ad communitatem vitae atque victus; Plaut. capt. 492 victu et vita.}
805 mortalia saecla is here of course men, of whom as distinguished from
all other living things he continues to speak to the end of the paragraph.
Lach. strangely misunderstands and corrupts the passage: it is true that
791 mortalia saecla means all hving things; and so it does probably
111153; but Lucr. has never any hesitation in using a word or phrase
in different senses, when the language perinits him to do so, and he quite
disregards any consequent ambiguity. mortalia saecla is generally with
him synonymous with mortales; as 988 mortalia saecla Dulcia lingue-
bant labentis lumina vitae ; 1169 divom mortalia saecla Egregias animo
facies vigilante videbant; 1238 se temnunt mortalia saecla. Euripides in
a well-known fragment of the Melanippe keeps the same order as Lucr.:
earth and ether Τίκτουσι πάντα κανέδωκαν εἰς φάος, Δένδρη πετεινὰ θῆρας
οὕς θ᾽ ἅλμη τρέφει, Τένος τε θνητῶν, which may have suggested to Lucr.
his mortalia suecla, as he was so familiar with Euripides. 806 wor
superabat: Virg. geor. 11 331 superat tener omnibus wmor: the long epi-
curean cosmogony in Diod. Sic. 1 7 is well worth comparing with this
part of Luer. 808 wterz: Censorin. de die nat. 4 9 Democrito vero
Abderitae ex aqua lamoque primum visum esse homines procreatos. nec
longe secus E'picurus ; is enim credidit limo calefacto wteros nescio quos
radicibus terrae cohaerentes primum increvisse et infantibus ex se editis
ngenitum lactis umorem natura ministrante praebrisse, quos ita educatos
et adultos genus hominum propagasse. apti=adepti: 501 448 and v1 1235
apisct, Nonius p. 234 quotes instances of aptus thus used from Accius
Pacuvius Lucilius: add Plaut. capt. 775 hereditatem sum aptus. 809

BOOK V NOTES IL 325

aestus seems to be the commotion caused by the growing size and conse-
quent heat of the infant; Marullus’ aetas is possibly right. 810
petessens: see ἢ. to 111 648 caedesque petessit. 811 262 Creech refers to
809 wht: in which case it must be temporal, ‘thereupon’; but comp. 815
Impetus in mammas convertitur; so that 1t is better to make 2bi mean,
to the spot where the infants lay, to the opened womb; and Lambinus’
tbus is not needed. 815 Impetus alle which went to feed the child
before it was born. With this description comp. Diog. Laert. 11 17 yev-
νᾶσθαι δέ φησι [᾿Αρχέλαος] τὰ ζῷα ἐκ θερμῆς τῆς γῆς Kat ἰλὺν παραπλησίαν
γάλακτι οἷον τροφὴν ἀνιείσης" οὕτω δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ποιῆσαι. 810
Wak, well compares the rhythm of Ovid ars 11 475 Silva domus fuerat,
cibus herba, cubilia frondes: for there are other traces of imitation of
Τοῦ. in this part of Ovid. 818 foll.: comp. Virg. geor. 11 336 Non
alios prima crescentis origine mundi Inluxisse dies aliumve habuisse
tenorem Crediderim. ver rllud erat, ver magnus agebat Orbis et hibernis
parcebant flatibus eurt, Cum primae lucem pecudes hausere virumque
Terrea progenies duris caput extulit arvis.. Nec res hune tenerae possent
perferre laborem, Si non tanta quies iret frigusque caloremque Inter.
820 Omnia enim, and therefore cold and heat and winds too. roo.
sum.: 895 and Ov. trist. v 2 7.

821—836: thus mother earth produced in the beginning every kind
of living thing, till she left off bearing from age; for she and the world
change like everything else: all things havea time of vigour and decay.
821 etram atque etiam, I cannot too often repeat this. 823 animal is
nowhere else used by Lucr. in the sing. as a subst.: anvmans is his word:
and here omne animal seems equivalent to omnia animalia: he says
animalem formam, animale genrs, corpus; but animantum genus, natura,
saecla, volgum turbamque and the like: see notes 1 to Iv 740 talis natura
anvmantis. fudit: 917 tellus animala fudit; Virg. geor. 113 Fudit
equom magno tellus percussa tridentt; Aen. vill 138 quem candida
Maia..fudit. 825 Aerias: 112 Aeriae primum volucres. variantibw

Jormis, as he elsewhere uses variae, simply to express the different
species: see ἢ. to 1 589; and comp. just above 786 Arboribus variis.
827 Destitet cet.: 11 1150 effetaque tellus Vix animalia parva creat quae
cuncta creavit Saecla deditque ferarum ingentia corpora partu; Diod.
Sic. 17 6 τὴν δὲ γῆν ἀεὶ μᾶλλον στερεουμένην ὑπό τε τοῦ περὶ τὸν ἥλιον
πυρὸς καὶ τῶν πνευμάτων τὸ τελευταῖον μηκέτι δύνασθαι μηδὲν τῶν μειζόνων
ζωογονεῖν κιτ.λ.: [comp. Mayor Juv. xv 69 and 70.] 8ραΐϊο def. vet.: comp.
11 1174 spatio aetatis defessu vetusto, and n. there. 828 829 comp. 834
835. 881 vertere: see n. to 111 502 refleatt. 832 Namque cet.: 11 77
Augescunt aliae gentes, aliae minuuntur cet. 835 ex alio—alter = 829
Lx alo alius: see n. to 1v 689 Lst alio—alter. 836 is in apposition
with what precedes: the earth ceases to be fit for one function in order
to be fit for another: the decrease of one thing is needed for the increase

326 BOOK V_ NOTES II

of another. ote could hardly stand for potest: ferre is understood to
nequit and possit from tulit. The stoical moral is as usual much the
same as the epicurean: M. Anton. 1x 28 ταὐτά ἐστι ra τοῦ κόσμου ἐγκύκλια,
ἄνω κάτω, ἐξ αἰῶνος εἰς aiwva.

837—854: at first the earth tried to produce monsters of all kinds,
half-men half-women, creatures without feet or without hands or mouths,
or with limbs not separated ; so that they could not grow up nor continue
their kind: they all therefore perished off. 839 Androgynun: Livy
ΧΧΥΙ 11 4 et Sinuessae natum ambiguo inter marem ac feminam sexu
infantem, quos androgynos vulgus, ut pleraque, faciliore ad duplicanda
verba Graeco sermone, appellat; but ΧΧΧΙΧ 22 5 he uses the Latin com-
pound semimarem; as does Ov. met. Iv 381, who also calls it semivir
and hermaphroditus which became the usual name. tnterwtrasque: see
n. tom 518. nec utrum i.e. neutrum; as IV 1217 neque wtrum: see n.
there and to 1 23. Ov. met. Iv 378 nec femina dict Nec puer ut
possint ; newtrumgque et utrumqgue videntur; Mart. xtv 174 Masculus
intravit fontes, emersit utrumque: comp. too Hor. epist. 1 18 9 medium
vitiorum et utrimque reductum. Lucr. in this passage imitates and
partly refutes Empedocles: 235 Πολλὰ μὲν ἀμφιπρόσωπα καὶ ἀμφίστερν᾽
ἐφύοντο, Βουγενῇ ἀνδρύπρωρα, τὰ δ᾽ ἔμπαλιν ἐξανέτελλον ᾿Ανδροφυῇ βού-
κρανα, μεμιγμένα τῇ μὲν ἀπ᾽ ἀνδρῶν, Τῇ δὲ γυναικοφυῇ, σκιεροῖς ἡσκημένα
yviows: With the beginning and end of this passage Lucr. is quite in
accord; the Bovye7—Bovxpava he wholly disallows, as we shall see 878
foll. where he triumphantly refutes such notions. The βουγενῇ avdpo-
mpwpa was very famous: the great champion of the final cause Aristotle
phys. 1 8 and his commentators Themistius and Simplicius assail it.
840 Orba pedum partim: Virg. geor. 1v 310 Trunca pedum primo.
manuum: the gen. after vzduata is strange, and apparently after the
analogy of acjectives like in meaning, expers etc.; though τι 843 he has
secreta teports: it is possible that the evyides ὦμων of Empedocles 233,
whom he here imitates, may have suggested the genitive. [Comp.
Silius vir 590 desolataeque virorum Eridani gentes: and see Draeger
hist. synt. 1 p. 454.] 840 841 here too Lucr. seems to be imitating
the manner of Empedocles, while differing entirely in the matter: 232
“He πολλαὶ μὲν κόρσαι avavyeves ἐβλάστησαν. Τυμνοὶ δ᾽ ἐπλάζοντο Bpa-
χίονες εὔνιδες μων, ΓΟμματά τ᾽ οἷα πλανᾶτο πενητεύοντα μετώπων: such a
wandering about of single organs and limbs and their subsequent union
Lucr. would have thought absurd; for Empedocles continues Αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ
κατὰ μεῖζον ἐμίσγετο δαίμονι δαίμων, Ταῦτά τε συμπίπτεσκον ὅπη συνέκυρσεν
ἕκαστα, ἼΑλλα τε πρὸς τοῖς πολλὰ διηνεκὲς ἐξεγένοντο: and so Censorinus
4 7 Empedocles autem egregio suo carmine, quod eiusmodi esse praedicat
Lucretius ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus, tale quiddam con-
Jirmat. primo membra singula ex terra quasi praegnate passim edita
deinde coisse et effecisse solidi hominis materiam igni simul et wmore per-

BOOK V_ NOTES II B27

mictum. 844 quod for. us.: seen. to Iv 831 quae foret uss. 846 adbster-
rut has the same force as Iv 1234 curquam Absterrent and 1064 Absterrere
sibi, where see note. 847 comp. 1 564 guzbus possint aevi contingere
Jlorem. 849 debere, the sole instance in Lucretius of a hypermetrical v. ;
once only too, Iv 741 γι atque, he elides an iambus: both these licences
are far commoner in Virgil. The elision at the end of a v. is absolutely
unknown to Homer: indeed οὐκ οἶδ᾽ in an epigram of Callimachus seems
the only certain instance in Greek hexameter verse. Whoever, Greek
or Latin, introduced the practice, must have done it through misappre-
hending Homer; for surely his verse is a dactylic hexam. catal. 850
and 856 procudere: seen. toi 1115. 852 remissis gives an excellent
sense: Iv 1114 Jlembra voluptatis dum vi labefacta liquescunt: comp. its
use in Prop. v (tv) ὃ 53; Ov. her. xrx 197; met. 1v 229; Sen. Oed. 442
Thyrades oestro membra remissae ; Thyest. 634 st metu corpus rigens
Remittet artus. 853 habere i.e. utrumque: wterque is in the dependent
clause according to a favourite habit of Lucr.: seen. to1 15 capta..
quamque. With the constr. ut sint—habereque comp. 446 Hoe est, a
terres altum secernere caelum, Et sorsum mare utr secreto umore pateret.
855—877: many races of regularly organised creatures must have
died off, because they wanted either some natural power by which to
protect themselves, or could not be turned to use by man and be saved
thereby: these fell a prey to others and disappeared, unable to endure
the struggle for existence. 855 antmantum are opposed to the mon-
strous abortions last spoken of: it was not a natural unfitness for life,
but outward circumstances that prevented their continuance. Granting
Lucretius the premisses from which he starts, his subsequent deductions
are eminently able and logical. 856 prépagando, 850 prdpagando: he
has 6 five times, 6 twice; but always the subst. propago: v1 1027 ργῦ-
pellat, 1029 prépellat; 11 276 réfrenavit, 283 réfrenatur: he appears to
seek variety of this kind. prolem, their breed or race=850 saecla.
857 vesci vit. au.: see n. to 72 vesci: Aen. 1546 st vescitur aura Aetherra.
858 denique here is not a mere idiomatical redundancy as in 1 278 and
the passages there cited, but means, ‘at least’; if no higher quality, well
then agihty: Hor. sat. 1 2 133 Ne nummi pereant aut puga aut
denique fama; Caes. bell. Gall. 11 33 2 nostros praesidia deducturos aut
denique indiligentius servaturos crediderant. 860 ex util. manent
is probably imitated in the culex 64 lapidum nec fulgor in ulla Cognitus
utilitate manet, as what precedes and follows abounds in paraphrases of
Lucr. 862 genus acre le.: Ov. fasti Iv 215 cur huic genus acre,
leones cet.: a passage shewing much imitation of 11 600 foll.: Virg.
geor. Ill 264 genus acre luporum, τὶ 151 saeva leonum Semina. 864
levisomna, an elegant ἅπαξ λεγόμ. cum pect.: see n. to 1 755. 865
veterino: 890 veterino senine equorum: see Force. 5. v. 866 comp. VI
1237 Lanigeras tamquam pecudes et bucera saecla; 11 662 Lanigerae

328 BOOK V_ NOTES II

pecudes et equorum duellica proles Luceriaeque greges; Ov. met. v1 395
Lanigerosque greges armentaque bucera. 869 pab. parta are accus.
873 guave=quamobrem, or ut ob eam rem: 11 970 quorum=ita ut
eorum; IV 116 quorwm=ut ecorum; V 3 qui=ut is; v1 821 quo semul
ἐς τε οὗ, simul atque eo: Livy xxix 15 13 nihil se, quare perire merito
deberent, admisisse. 875 praed. luc. tac.: Sen. Here. Fur. 1186 Cai
praeda tacui? [Livy xxvii 44 4 castra invadere praedae relicta.|) N. P.
Howard compares Homier’s €Awp καὶ κύρμα.

878—924 : but centaurs and the like with twofold natures cannot
exist: the horse has reached maturity when the boy is scarcely yet
weaned ; and is worn out ere the other is grown to manhood: and so
with Scyllas, half-maid half-fish : then since fire burns lions like other
creatures, how cana chimera exist breathing out flame: earth in its fresh-
ness produced many things, but not these figments of poets or philoso-
phers.—This passage is extremely well and acutely reasoned out: he
covertly refutes Empedocles’ notion of the Bovyevn ἀνδρόπρωρα and the
ἀνδροφυῇ Bovxpava which are as impossible as the centaurs Scyllas and
chimeras of the poets. The man-woman or hermaphrodite is possible
enough, because the natures of man and woman are not incompatible;
and doubtless it and other monstrous things tried at first to continue
existence; but the creatures here described never could begin to come
into being. 881 potissit: see ἢ. to 1 665 potesse. 882 occurred Iv
D3. 885 Ub. mam. qu.: Ov. met. vir 321 lactantiaque ubera quaerit.
886 and 896 aet. sen.: see n. to 11 772. 888 puero alli, the puer of
884. 889 comp. Aen. vill 160 Zum mihi prima genas vestibat flore
eurventa: and x 324: lan. malas occurs in Ovid more than onee. 891
Confiert, esse: Lucr. is fond of such unions; 111 787 crescat et insit; 788
oriri, esse; 791 esse, tnnasci; 795 esse et crescere; 797 durare genique:
and here Conf. et esse would be more natural; but neque connects the
two inseparable notions just as in Aen. x1 43 Invidit fortuna mihi ne
regna videres Nostra neque ad sedes victor veherere paternas: comp. too
Ov. met. 111 116 Ne cape.. nec te civilibus insere bellis, ‘don't take, and
so get involved in civil war’: Hor. od. 1 11 1 Tu ne quaesieris . . nec
Temptaris cet. i.e. temptando: comp. too 1 479 constare neque esse and
the often recurring Non radii solis neque lucida tela diet. 892 rabidis
cet.: Wak. compares Sen. Med. 350 Siculi virgo Pelori Rabidos utero
succincta canes; Ov. amores 111 12 21 Scylla...Pube premit rabidos
inguinibusque canes. succinctas: comp. Tib. (Lygd.) πὶ 4 89; Virg.
ecl. vi 75. 894 discordia: Lach. after Heinsius quotes Colum. v1 36
2 ut discordantem utero suo generis alieni stirpem insitam facile recipiat
ac perferat, 897 unis: see ἢ. to 111 616; and Cic. pro Flacco 63 unis
moribus, quoted to 11 159 ipsa, una. 898 neque swnt i.e. 115: comp.
n.to1718. 899 cicwta cet.: see ἢ. to 1v 641, where hellebore is said
to do the same, and passages there quoted. 905 906 translated from

BOOK V NOTES II 329

Il. Z 181 Πρόσθε λέων, ὄπιθεν δὲ δράκων, μέσση δὲ χίμαιρα Δεινὸν ἀποπνεί.
ουσα πυρὸς μένος αἰθομένοιο. 906 Ore foras occurs four times in Lucr.
907 comp. Juvenal vi 11 Quippe aliter tunc orbe novo caeloque recent.
908 gut fingit: he must allude chiefly to Empedocles, as we have shewn
above: for the βουγενῇ avdporpwpa is so much spoken of that we must
have heard, had any other physiologist of note held similar language :
11700 Nec taimen omnimodis conecti cet. he touches on the same question
as here, 702 centaurs, Senuferas hominum species, 704 Scyllas, conecti
terrestria membra marinis, 705 flammam taetro spirantis ore Chimaeras.
911 Aurea tum dicat cet.: yet Virgil ventures to say atque auro plurima
fluxit, which may be an unconscious reminiscence of Lucr. 913
impete: see n. to Iv 410. 913 foll. comp. 1199 cur homines tantos
natura parare Non poturt, pedibus qui pontum per vada possent Transire
cet. 919 compactaque, as 880. 92] is made up of 1 889 LHerbarum
genera et fruges, and τι 699 Llumanum genus et fruges arbustaque laeta.
922 complexa is of course passive, as 11 154 complexa meant inter se;
just like implexus perplexus: Cic. pro Sex. Rose. 37 quo uno maleficio
scelera omnia complexa esse videantur ; Vitruv. x 2 (6) 11 complectit et
compegit ; [Plaut. Amph. 286 Qui conplexus cum Aleumena cubat. |

923 Sed res quaeque cet.: comp. 11718 Sed ne forte putes animalia sola
tenert Legibus hisce, ea res ratio disterminat omnis. Nam veluti tota
natura dissumiles sunt Inter se genitae res quaeque, ita quamque necessest
cet. which seems to confirm 768 in our passage.

925—987: but men were then much hardier than they are now: they
lived like the beasis of the field; ignorant of tillage, they fed on what the
earth supplied of itself, acorns and berries ; and drank of the running
waters: they were without fire or clothes or houses, without law govern-
ment or marriage: they slept on the ground, not fearing the dark, to
which they had been used from childhood; they rather dreaded real
danger from the fiercest beasts. 926 Durius cet.: Virgil’s homines
durum genus and Terrea progenies. quod is of course the relative, =
quippe guod cet. or ut pote a tellure productum as Creech interprets.
928 Fundatum cet.: 1v 827 fastigia posse Surarum ac feminum pedibus
fundata plicari, Bracchia tum porro validis ex apta lacertis: Arnob. II
16 imitates Lucr. as his wont is. 931 volventia: νι 345 Omnia coni-
ciens in eum volventia cursum: Virgil has volventia plaustra, volventibus
annis; culex 161 volvens, 193 volventia membra draconis ; Ovid volven-
tem annum: [comp. Livy ap. Sen. rhet. suas. vi 17 caeco volvente
fluctu; Cic. pro Quinct. 40 anno vertente; Plaut. asin. 400 quassante
capite, to which Ussing cites Bacch. 301 capitibus quassantibus; Caecil.
271 quassante capite. See Roby gramm. pt. 11 Ὁ. Lxvil at top.] ‘ Vol-
ventia=quae volvuntur: Virg. saxa rotantia; Cic. de fin. 11 31 voluptate,
stante an movente: so pascentes capellas; vehens invehens praetervehens;
Sall. Iug. 79 6 and 93 4 gignentium: Caes. bell. Gall. 111 12 1 may not

330 BOOK V NOTES II

minuente aestu be so explained?’ R. Shilleto. 932 Volgivago: 1v 1071
Volgivagaque vagus Venere. 934 scibat: he has serbant thrice, accibant,
saevibat, hauribant, poenibat, the last in vi 1241, all the rest in the latter
part of this book. mol. arva: Virg. geor. 1 494 tcurvo terram mohtus
aratro: Aen. νὰ 157 humili designat moenia fossa Moliturque locem,
the word appears to have pretty much the same force, ‘carefully pre-
pares for the purpose in hand.’ 935 Nec nova cet.: 1366 Lt nova
defodere in terram viryulta per agros. 937 Quod sol cet.: Macrob.
sat. νι 1 65 compares Virg. geor. 1 500 Quos rami fructus, quos ipsa
volentia rura Sponte tulere sua, carpsit, 938 plac. pec.: Horace more
coarsely sat. 112 17 cum sale pants Latrantem stomachum bene leniet; ὃ ὃ
Quae prima iratum ventrem placavertt esca. 939 cur. cor.: 11 31 tu-
cunde corpora curant: acorns and arbute berries are thus joined by Virg.
geor. 1 148 cum iam glandes atque arbuta sacrae Deficerent silvae et
victum Dodona negaret; and Ov. met. 1 102 per se dabat ommea tellus...
Arbyteos fetus.. £t quae deciderant patula Tovis arbore glandes. 940
nune hiberno tempore cet.: and at the present day in December you may
see large tracts of the Peloponnese covered with the arbute trees laden
with their bright scariet fruit. 944 ampla: Wak. quotes Hor. sat. 11
2101 Divitiasque habeo tribus amplas regibus. 946 decursus aquatr
or aquarum is a favourite phrase which he uses four times. 947
Clarw’ citat is a very graphic expression: the clear rills tumbling down
from the high hills in those climates are audible from a great distanee,
especially Per loca pastorum deserta atque otia dia: Lach. in his sareastic
and most unsatisfactory note says ‘feras decursum aquae, qui vix audiri
potest, frustra clare audire iubet’. Whatever it may be with the
waters from the high hills of Berlin, those from the hills of Greece and
Italy ean be heard tar enough. Ritschl opuse. 11 434 shews that Clari-
gitat of Lach. is not legitimately formed from clarigo, and, 1f 1t were,
that clurigo, which denotes in Pliny’s words an ambassador's ‘res raptas
clare repetere’ from an enemy, ill suits our passage. But I must say
he quite fails to convinee me when he reads /argus for clarus ‘quod non
ea est clecurrendi notio quae suapte natura cum auditione coniuncta sit,
ut cum vox clara vel tuba dicitur cet.’: to me the point of the passage
greatly depends on clarus: it means, to use Cicero’s words, pro Cluent.
134, ‘clara voce, ut omnis contio audire possit’ citare: Hor. od. 11 13
15 unde loquaces Lymphae desiliunt tuae; epod. 16 47 montibus altis
Lewis crepante lympha destlit pede, are almost comments on Lucr.:
surely there ‘decurrendi notio cum auditione coniuncta est’: then is not
largus weak, followed in 950 by proluvie larga? and the alliteration of
moment? Clarw’: Aen. vii 141 ter caelo clarus ab alto Intonuit.

948 selv. templa Nymph. must be such rocky haunts as he describes
Iv 580 Haec loca capripedes satyros nymphasque tenere Finitimi fingunt
cet. and as Virgil paints in Aen. 1166 Fronte sub adversa scopulis pen-

BOOK V_ NOTES II Bel

dentibus antrum, Intus aquae dulces vivoque sedilia saxo, Nympharum
domus: templa here, like Acherusia templa, mentis templa, is a secondary
meaning derived from the primary caelestia templa: Theocr. id. vir 136
τὸ δ᾽ ἐγγύθεν ἱερὸν ὕδωρ Νυμφᾶν ἐξ ἄντροιο κατειβόμενον κελάρυζεν : comp.
too Pacuv. 309 scrupea saxa Bacchi Temple prope adgredite. 950
um. saxa, Um. sa.: see n. to 11 955; and notice the fine effect of this
repetition and the alliteration of the liquids ὁ and γ. 955 Sed
nemora cet.: 992 Lt nemora uc montis gemitu silvasque replebat: sce nv.
to 41 Per nemora ac montes magnos silvasque profundas. 958 neque
ullis Moribus cet.: Aen. vir 316 Quis neque mos neque cultus erat, amid
other traces of imitation; and with this v. and 961 Sjonte sua cet.
Aen. vil 203 Saturn gentem, haut vinclo nec legibus aequam, Sponte sua
veterisque der se more tenentem. 965 866 ἢ. ἴο πὶ 551. 968 pon. cl.:
Sen. Herc. Oet. 787 clavae pondus; [Silius 11 246 nodosae pondera
clavae. | 969 pauca: 985 Spumigerr surs adventu validique leonis.
970 sec=sicut erant: comp. Ov. fasti v1 331 Vesta iacet placidamque
capt secura quietem, Sicut erat, positum caespite fulta caput: so Aen. I
225 sic vertice caelt Constitit, sic=sicut erat i.e. Despiciens mare cet.
where Conington refers to vil 668 ste regia tecta subibat, 1.6. pedes,
tegumen torquens cet.: but at the same time it may have the other
meaning into which this so readily passes, ‘sic pro leviter ct negli-
genter, quod Graeci οὕτως dicunt’ Donatus to Ter. Andr. 175: thus
in Ovid 1. 1. δέοι evat=sic temere: sic will then have much the force
of Horace’s sic temere, positum sic; of Sen. Hipp. 394 Sic temere iactae
comae; of Persius’ sic poeta prodirem; of the mimetic οὕτως in Greek ;
and of sic in many passages of Plautus and Terence, as Amphitr. 117
ego huc processi sic cunt servilt schema. 973 Nec plangore cet.: the
stoic Manilius, who often attempts while imitating to refute Luer.,
appears to allude to this passage in 1 66 Nam rudis ante illos nullo dis-
crimine vita...Tum velut amissis maerens, tum laeta venatis Sideribus ;
vartosque dies incertaque noctis Tempora, nec similis umbras tam sole
regresso, Lam propiore, surs poterant discernere causis: Lucr. is assuredly
the more reasonable; Stat. Theb. 1v 282 foll. harps on the same theme:
[Tt lucis stupuisse vices noctisque feruntur Nubila et occiduum longe Titana
secuti Desperasse diem; so that Lucr. on his part is probably assailing
some well-known theory. 975 respectabant =expectabant: vi 1234
Funera respectans ; Catull. 11 21 Nee mewm respectet, ut ante, amore ;
Cic. pro Plane. 45. som. sep.: see ἢ. to 1 133 somnoque sepultis.

979 Von erat ut fiert posset=non poterat fieri: see ἢ. to 1 620 Nel erit
ut distet. mirarier, diffidere, as so often in Lucr. = nomin. subst.: see
n. to 1 331 Quod tibi cognosse. 983 Infestam fac.: 1124 wer anfestum
jecere viai: it is a favourite phrase of Livy; who also has znfestum
efficere, reddere, habere. 985 validique: see n. to 11 825 uno varioque;
the plur. Hospitibus is in favour of the que of mss. 956 wntempesta :

332 BOOK V_ NOTES II

see Conington to geor. 1 247; and comp. Apnl. met. 11 25 cum ecce
crepusculum et nox provecta et nox altior et dein concubia altiora et iam
nox intempesta.

988—1010: inen then died much about the same as now: here
and there they were mangled by wild beasts and perished from want
of help; but then many thousands did not fall in battle in a single
day; ships too and therefore shipwrecks were unknown; want and
ignorance then caused some deaths ; as now do luxury and malice.

988 nimio plus is generally used absolutely for ‘too much’; but some-
times comparatively as here; Plaut. Bacch. 122 Quem sapere nimio
censur plus quam Thalem: 150 nimio satiust; Livy 12 3 nimio plus
quam satis tutum esset; 11 37 4 nimio plus quam velim; ΧΧΙΧ 33 4
nimio maior: Lucr. v1 1196 Nec nimio post: see Draeger hist. synt. 1
p. 521 at top. mortalia saecla = mortales, as 805, where see note, 1169
and 1238. 989 ling. lum. vitae: 1 542 Lumina qui lincunt; 1025
Lumina...reliquit ; Cic. de suo cons. 24 vitalia lumina liquit; frag. de
glor. lumina linquens ; Naev. 31 lino lincunt lumina. 998 Veva eet.:
Accius 226 natis sepulero ipse est purens; Ov. met. v1 664 Hgerere inde
dapes demersaque viscera gestit: F'let modo seque vocat bustum miserabrle
nati; x11 865 Viscera viva traham; xv 525 Viscera viva traht; Enn.
ann. 141 Vadlturus...miserum mandebat homonem. Hew quam crudeli
condebat membra sepulero; Spenser fa. qu. 11 ὃ 16 70 be entombed in the
raven or the kight ; [Macbeth 111 4 72 our monuments Shall be the mazes
of kites: see Furness var. n.;] Pope essay 111 162 Of half that live the
butcher and the tomb: before them all Gorgias γύπες ἔμψυχοι τάφοι.
There is no reason for understanding viscera in any but the sense it
always has in Lucr. viz. the flesh, or all between the skin and bones,
either here or Tuse. 11 34: this sense it has too in Ovid 1. 1.: v often in
alliteration expresses indignant pity; as Aen. v1 833; Cic. pro Sest. 48
fortissimum virum, ne videret victorem vivus inimicum, eadem sibi
manu vitam exhausisse, and just before this the same effect 1s produced
by the union of p and v: 59 vivus, ut aiunt, est et videns cum victu ac
vestitu suo publicatus. 997 Donique as 708, 723 and 11 1116: the
pluperf. after donec is quite unexampled in Lucr.: perhaps privarunt
should be read, unless the pluperf. is caused by the attraction of servarat
and accibant. vermina: Paulus Fest. p. 374 ‘vermina dicuntur dolores
corporis cum quodam minuto motu quasi a vermibus scindatur. hic dolor
Graece στρόφος dicitur’. 998 vellent i.e. poscerent: Bentl. compares
Sil. ΧΙ 166 medicinam vulnera poscunt. 999 sub signis ducta: Cic. ad
Att. xv1 8 2 Antonium cum legione Alaudarum ad urbem pergere...legio-
nem sub signis ducere; Plaut. Pseud. 761 Omnis ordine ego sub signis
ducam legiones meas Ave sinistra: it means ready for battle; and is a
very favourite expression of Livy; who also says sub signs venire, ince-
deve, subtre, trrumpere, in acie stare, urbem intrare: Tac. hist. 11 63 non

BOOK V_ NOTES II 11}

sine cdlecore, sed sub signis veatllisque: [comp. Marquardt R. St. mp. 350:
the soldier followed after (swb) the signa. | 1000 comp. 95 Una dies
dabit exitio: Ov. fasti 11 236 Ad bellum missos perdidit una dies; Enn.
ann. 297 [Mila] multa dres in bello conficit unus. LOGE VIN. Te.
Howard appositely quotes Labb. gloss. ‘lido xpovw, laedo βλάπτω᾽ in
support of the ms. lidebant: I strongly incline now to think he is
right; as Luer. prob. had in mind Accius 33 Flucti immisericordes iacere
tactra ad saxa adlidere: |allido seems the regular word: Caes. Ὁ. civ. 111
27 2 pars ad scopulos allisa interficeretur. | 1002 temere cet.: see II
1060 and n. there. 1003 manas pon.: Prop. iv (111) 10 6 Ponat et in
sicco molliter unda manas. 1004 1005 comp. 11 559 Subdola cum ridet
placidr pellacia ponte. 1006 I keep, as I have corrected it: for Manil.
187 δὲ vagus in caecum penetravit nuvita pontum, seems a reminiscence
of Luer. 1007 Zrum dernde: see n. to 111 529: Sen. epist. 101 4 tam
deinde; 95 35, 115 4 and Val. Flace. νὰ 109 ture detrude; Sen.

epist. 74 23 and 117 1 dewnde tune. 1008 copia mersat: v1 1176
sitis arida corpora mersans is another bold application of this word:
mergo is used as meso here; see Mayor to Juv. x 57, 1010

nurui, for the sake of her money; Juv. xiv 220 Hlatam iam crede
nurum, 81 limina vestra Mortifera cum dote subit: nuptae would do as
well for the sense; or patri: Varro sat. men. 496 Buech. nwne quis
pairem decem annorum natus non modo aufert sed tollit—nisi veneno ;
Sen. epist. 119 6 gusa propter sllas aulli venenum filius, nullt uxor
wmpegit; or matri: Hor. sat. 1 ὃ 131 Cum laqueo uxorem interenvis
matremque veneno: but the ductus litterarum is in favour of ww.
ipst, Which as a nomin. is quite meaningless, thus gains much point,
adding at the same time emphasis and denoting ‘in the stead of’:
comp. V1 659 oculos invadit wm ipsos; 1126 Aut in aquas cadit aut fruges
persidit wn wpsas; Livy 1 37 2 cum hostem effugissent, im flumine ipso
periere; Xxv11 13 5 omatto ex quibus gloriari potestis: cuius et ipsius
pudere ac puenitere vos oportet, referam; perhaps Aen. v 410 Quid si
quis caestus ipsius et Herculis arma Vidisset: or it may mean ‘to her to
whom it least should be given’: Aen. x1557 Alma, tibi hanc...Ipse pater
famulam voveo ; and with one or other of these meanings it may join that
of singling her out of all people; comp. 1v 651 ipsoque palato; 1044 and
vi 1207 partis genttalis corporis wpsas; v1 1175 ipso ore patente, and n.
there: Ov. met. 1694 Ortygiam studiis ipsaque colebat Virginitate deam.

[The following sentences are extracted from a correspondence
dated April 1884 with Professor Palmer of Dublin. Prof. Palmer
had conjectured medici nunc dant sollertius usi: see Hermathena
vol, v p. 306. ‘Your suggestion is very attractive. I have long
thought that zpst at the end of the line has no proper sense... Lucr.
would probably write wssi which might be easily confused with
ist, written issi, a very ancient vulgarism. I do not pronounce an

334 BOOK V_ NOTES II

opinion at present for or against meddic?.... Perhaps Lucr. may have
written something like munc dant sollertius arte medentes; or saepe
medentes, which might help to explain the loss at the end of the v. if it
was confused with the preceding verse.’]

1011—1027: next the use of huts and skins and fire softened their
bodies, marriage and the ties of family their tempers; then neighbours
made treaties of friendship and alliance, which mostly they observed,
though not always. 1012 foll. as said in notes 1 I feel surea vy. has
fallen out here; as Ov. ars 1 473—478 has imitated Lucr.: comp. with
Cognita sunt, and 1014 Zum genus cet. Ovid's Tum genus humanum
solis errabat in agris...Silra domus fuerat, cibus herba, cubilia frondes,
Tamque diu nalli cognitus alter erat; for he here imitates as well 816
Terra cibum pueris, vestem vapor, herba cubile Praebebat. 1015 /gnis:
Darwin, dese. of man 1 p. 137, calls the discovery of fire the greatest
probably excepting language ever made by man. Lucr. sees all the im-
portance of language and fire. —alsia: the comparative alsius 15 found
in Cicero, alsiosus in Varro and Pliny. 1016 caeli sub teymine: 1 988
sub caeli tegmine, 11 663 sub tegmine caeli. 1018 ing. frey. sup.: Ovid
tristia m1 14 33 with a different force Zngentum fregere meum mala,
1020 nec laed. nec viol. is inculeated again and again by Epic. in Diog.
x 150 τὸ τῆς φύσεως δίκαιόν ἐστι σύμβολον τοῦ συμφέροντος εἰς TO μὴ
βλάπτειν ἀλλήλους μηδὲ βλάπτεσθαι. ὅσα τῶν ζῴων μὴ ἠδύνατο συνθή-
κας ποιεῖσθαι τὰς ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ βλάπτειν ἄλληλα μηδὲ βλάπτεσθαι, πρὸς
ταῦτα οὐθέν ἐστιν οὔτε δίκαιον οὔτ᾽ ἄδικον. ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ τῶν ἐθνῶν
ὅσα μὴ ἠδύνατο ἢ μὴ ἐβούλετο τὰς συνθήκας ποιεῖσθαι τὰς ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ
βλάπτειν μηδὲ βλάπτεσθαι κιτιλ. Lucr. presents only the fair side of
the theory: the speaker in Plato de rep. 11 2 gives a harsher explanation
than even Epicurus does why men think λυσιτελεῖν ξυνθέσθαι ἀλλήλοις
μήτ᾽ ἀδικεῖν μήτ᾽ ἀδικεῖσθαι. 1022 balbe seems here to denote mere
inarticulate cries. 1025 bona magnaque pars: Wak. quotes from
Terence and Valerius Max. instances of this pleonasm: Lucr, as we
have seen loves the like. 1027 comp. 886 and 850. propago =‘ propa-
gatio: gloss. vetus propago ἡ ἐπίδοσις τοῦ γένους᾽ N. P. Howard: comp.
Columella’s propagine proveniunt arbores, the literal sense of the term.

1028—1090: nature and need prompted men to the use of speech ;
for all creatures feel their natural power; the calf will butt before his
horns protrude; and so with other beasts birds etc.: it is absurd to sup-
pose that one man could have invented speech; for how could he himself
know what he wanted to teach, or persuade others to learn? and why
should not man take to applying ditlerent sounds to denote different
things, when brute beasts use different cries to express different passions?
as we see in the case of dogs horses seagulls crows and other creatures. —
He now comes to the question ‘quaeri solitum’ says Gelhus x 4 ‘aput
philosophos φύσει τὰ ὀνόματα sint ἢ θέσει. Epic. himself in Diog.

BOOK V NOTES II 335

Laert. x 75 says τὰ ὀνόματα ἐξ ἀρχῆς μὴ θέσει γενέσθαι, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὰς τὰς
φύσεις τῶν ανθρώπων καθ᾽ ἕκαστα ἔθνη ἴδια πασχούσας πάθη καὶ ἴδια
λαμβανούσας φαντάσματα ἰδίως τὸν ἀέρα ἐκπέμπειν κιτιλ.: Plato in the
Cratylus appears to agree pretty nearly with Epicurus and Luer. as well
as Lucretius’ contemporary the learned pythagorean Nigidius Figulus:
Gellius 1]. 1. nomina verbaque non positu furtuito, sed quadant vi et ratione
naturae facta esse 10, Nigidius in grammaticis commentaris docet, rem
sane in philosophiae dissertationibus celebrem. Comp. Darwin’s desc. of
man Ip. 54—62: his views are much in accordance with those of Luer.
Democritus and Aristotle seem to have held the contrary view. 1029
util, expr.: nature forced them to utter general sounds; experience of
their use made them give definite terms to definite things. so. rerum:
Hor. sat. 1 3 99—111, an epicurean passage, has clearly had Luer. before
him: with this and 1058 Pro vario sensu varia res voce notaret comp. 1. Ἰ.
103 Donec verba quibus voces sensusque notarent, Nominaque invenere ;
then with Hor. 1. 1. 99 Cwm prorepserunt primis animalia terris, Mutum
et turpe pecus comp. 791 foll.; with glandem atque cubilia propter Ungui-
, bus et pugnis, dein fustibus, atque ita porro Pugnabant arnis quae post
fabricaverat usus comp. 1416 Sie odiwm coepit glandis, sic illa relicta
Strata cubilia sunt obiret, 1283 Arma antiqua manus ungues cet. ;
with Oppida coeperunt munire comp. 1108 Condere coeperunt urbis ; with
109 raprentis more ferarum comp. 952 vitam tractabant more ferarum;
with 111 Jura inventa metwu comp. 1144 Zuraque constituere and all that
follows; then Horace concludes with the favourite Lucretian expression
Jateare necesse est.

1031 infantia in its primary sense; Cicero uses it metaphorically,
but with much the same force; see Fore. 1033—1035: comp. Ov.
hal. 3—9. 1038 guwoad or quod, as τι 248 quod cernere possis = quate-
nus. abuti=uti: vim; but 11 653 nomine abute: see ἢ. to m1 956:
Plautus and Terence too have the accus., [and so has Cato. | 1035
inurget occurs also in Apul. met. ναὶ 10. 1036 scymnz: a curious use
of the Greek synonyme of catula, 1040 awarhatum: lexicons cite no
other instance of this word. 1041 tum, when speech first came into
use. 1045 Yemp. eod.: comp. 765 and 756. 1047 unde ensita cet.:
182 Notities divis hominum wnde est insita prumum, Quid vellent facere
ut scirent animogue viderent, where see notes: notitres here, as there, is
a poetical substitute for Epicurus’ technical πρόληψις. 1049 scirét: see
notes 1, where this reading is shewn to be necessary; and ἢ. to 11 27
Sulgeét. 1057 vigeret: Livy ΧΧΧΙΧ 40 7 nec is tantum curus lingua
vivo eo vigueri. 1061 gaudia gliscunt: Pacuv. 294 gliscit gaudium.
1063 foll.: Darwin desc. of man 1 p. 54 ‘the dog since being domesti-
cated has learnt to bark in at least four or five distinct tones’.
1063 Jnritata, magna, Mollia, nudantia: seen. to 18. Jnritata, recta,
1065 vestvicta: Plaut. capt. 485 Ve canem quidem inritatam volurt quis-

336 BOOK V_ NOTES II

quam imitarier, Saltem, st non acdrulerent, dentes ut restringerent :
Donatus to Andr, 597 ‘inritatus. dueitur autem verbum a eanibus qui
restrictis dentibus hane litteram r imitantur’: Lueil. 1 32 Muell. /nritata
canes, quam homo, quam (1.6. litteram r) planiw’ dicit. 1064 ricta:
vi 1195 rictum; and so Cic. Verr. Iv 94: τιν 1213 wulta. restricta by
drawing back the soft lips: Apul. apol. p. 392 Lestrictes forte sz labellis
riser is, 1066 Μ᾽ cum, 1071 £t cum, 1077 Lt cum, 1082 Lt quom: see
n. to 1 281 Lt cum mollrs. 1069 Suspensis: 111 196 aura suspensa
levisque: so suspenso pede, gradw and the like: it seems to mean, hardly
allowed to fall. teneros is proleptic; they make a pretence of biting,
but so as to shew at the same time that they mean no harm. [Comp.
the last two verses of an imitation of Catullus’ third poem quoted in
Hermes vol. 1 p. 68 Wee sevire potes nec insilire, Nec blandis mihi
morsibus renides.| 1070 gannitu, adulant, 1071 baubantur all express
primarily sounds made hy dogs, as Nonius explains 5. vv. with reference
toLucr. 1074 equus iuvencus: Pliny x 146 iwvercae=iuvenes gallinae:
Hor. od. 11 8 21 7)6 suts matres metuwnt iuvencis, of young men, 1075
Pinn. am.: 738 Pennatus: Virgil has aligerwm amorem. 1080 an
salso: often as salsus is an epithet to mare, gurges, fluctus and the like,
I clo not elsewhere tind it, as here, used for a subst. vic. vit.: see n.
to 804. 1084 cornicum cet.: Virg. geor. 1 388 foll. and 410 foll. has
some resemblance to this passage. cornices and corvi are elearly used
here with poetieal licence, and between them include the whole erow
kind: greges would be singularly inappropriate to the primary sense
of corvi. 1088 Jata, as 1059, pecudes mutae, has its proper foree,
uttering inarticulate sounds.

1091—-1104: lightning first gave tire to men; or else the frietion of
trees rubbing together: cooking they would learn from the sun, whieh
they would see softening and ripening things.—Every one will agree
with Lach. that 1091—-1160 are subsequent additions by the poet, of
the same nature as those we have already so often had: these three para-
graphs have no connexion with the context, either before or after: 1161
Nune quae naturally follows 1090; for at 73 he promised to discuss the
question of the gods immediately after that of the invention of speech;
again in this our present passage he speaks of the first discovery of fire,
though 1011 it was already in general use; again 1105—1160 he men-
tions cities kings magistrates and laws, though not till 1361 does he
treat of the beginning of agriculture; and then 1440 he speaks of
fortresses and the division of lands, though 1108 all this and mueh more
was assunied. 1091 tacttus requiras; Ov. her. πὶ 12 Quaerebant tactte ;
Hor. sat. 1 9 12 aiebam tacitus; epist. 112145 mecum loquor haec tacitus-
que recordor: tacitus =teeum. 1095 Fulgére: see n. to 11 41 Fervére.
1096 Et tamen: see ἡ. tor 1050, and to v 1177. 1097 Aestuat of the
swaying movement of a tree in the wind is natural enough ; not unlike,

BOOK V NOTES II ei

Catull. 25 12 “Lt insolenter aestues velut minuta magno Deprensa navis
an mart, or Cic. Verr. 11 74 aestuabat dubitatione, versabat se in utram-
que partem non solum mente, verum etiam corpore: the sense of ‘ grows
hot’ seems not so suitable here, as that is an after result.

1105—1135: every day men of genius invented improved methods
of life: cities were built, lands and cattle allotted at first according to
merit ; but soon the discovery of gold gave all power to the wealthy:
men would not learn how little was needed for happiness ; they there-
fore sacrificed everything for power and eminence, often when they
had reached the summit, only to be again dashed down: let men thus
struggle on along the path of ambition, since they have no true enjoy-
ment, being really the slaves of their own dependents. 1107 corde:
cor habere is a common phrase; see Fore. 1111 facre= 1116
pulchro corpore, and means personal appearance, εἶδος, generally. [1112
comp. Enn. ann. 481 viresque valentes.] 1118 foll. as Epicurus
himself so often inculcates: Diog. x 144 ὁ τῆς φύσεως πλοῦτος καὶ
ὠρισται καὶ evTopioTos ἐστιν, ὁ δὲ τῶν κενῶν δοξῶν eis ἄπειρον ἐκπίπτει:
130 τὸ μὲν φυσικὸν πᾶν εὐπόριστόν ἐστι, τὸ δὲ κενὸν δυσπόριστον : with
whom the epicurean agrees in Cic. de fin. 146 natura dirmtias quibus
contenta sit et parabilis et terminatas habet cet. 1119 penuria parer:
so Democr. Mullach p. 170 26 πενύ), πλοῦτος, ὀνόματα ἐνδείης καὶ κόρου"
οὔτε ὦν πλούσιος ὁ ἐνδέων, OUTE πένης ὁ μὴ ἐνδέων. penuria is written
with ὁ by Augustus too in his res gestae. 1120 claros vol. se: a
constr. not uncommon in Cicero: see Madv. de fin. 11 102 and Mayor
Phil. τα 14: ib. 19 cnpit se audacem: Plaut. trin. 664 cum te maxume

clarum voles. se atgue: for rhythm comp. Iv 809 contendere se atque
purare. claros atque pot.: Salil. Cat. 38 1 ἐέα tpse clare potentesque
fierr. 1124 iter viat: see ἢ. to 11 626. 1127 waporant is used here

in a peculiar sense, analogous to that in which he always uses the subst.
vapor: Livy vil 31 7 invidiam tanquam rwgnem summa petere; XLV 30 5
intacta invidia media sunt; ad swmma ferme tendit; Ov. rem. 369
Summa petit livor ;...Summa petunt deatra fulmina mrssa Lovis.

1130 reyere imp.: an expression found in Aen. vi 851; Livy 11 157;
vil 23 9; Sen. Phoen. 374; Hipp. 621; Med. 216; Pliny epist. v1 16 4.
1131 sanguine sudent: this fine expression is used literally νι 1147
Sudabant etiam fuuces.. Sanguine: Enn. trag. 213 terra sudat sanguine;
Livy xxvul 4 14 quattuor signe sanguine multo diem ac noctem sudasse ;
and such a notion as this may have given occasion to Lucretius’ use of
the word. 1133 sapiunt al. ex ore: cannot therefore know the true
nature of things, and must always animt incerto errore vagari.
1134 ex aud.: Plaut. Bacch. 469 vidi, non ex audito arguo.

1135 Nee magis cet.: he recalls himself from his digression into the
matters of his day to the subject in hand, the early state of the
world.

M. 11. ie)

338 ROOK V NOTES II

1136—1160: thus kings were overthrown, and anarchy followed ;
till nations weary of violence established laws and constitutions: then
fear of punishment restrained men, as injustice generally recoils on the
wrongdoer, and if he escape punishment, he cannot escape the terrors of

conscience. 1136 “ryo reg. occ.: because they had attained supreme
power, and therefore had attracted the lightning of envy and been dashed
to the earth. 1138 cap. insiyne: Livy xtv 19 10 nomen regium et

praecipuum capitis insigne gerat; XXIV 31 7 cum cruentam regiam
vestem atque insigne capitis ostentarent; Xxv11 31 4 populariter dempto
capitis instgnt; Sen. Phoen. 40 sanguinewm yerens Insigne regni; epist.
8010. . 1140 metutum: I find no other instance of this partic. though
metuendus is So common ; but so it is with ¢?7meo horreo and some other
verbs of fearing. 1141 es cet. I formerly took, as it is generally
taken, to mean ‘summa res’ or ‘summa imperil ad infimum vuleus
redibat’, a sense the words, as I shewed, could doubtless bear, and which
would accord with the common metaphorical use of fuex. But now 1 see
the meaning is ‘matters were falling into utter confusion and disorder’:
this suits best with ¢urbas, the imperf. red2bat and the whole context.
redibat = simply zbat; as so often in the phrases res ad rastros, ad
restim, ad interregnum, ad gladios, ad triartos, redit, etc.: comp. with the
expression Petron. sat. 78 δαί res ad summam nauseam; and with the
sense what Priscian quotes from Sulla’s rerum suarum ΧΧῚ vd summam
perniciem rempublicam perventurum (sic) esse. faecem: Varro sat. men.
452 Buech. hunc vocasset e liquida vita in currae vestrae faecem ; Sen.
epist. 75 18. 1142 summatum: I find no other instance of this word.
1143 partim i.e. er tts hominibus partim or aliqui docuere: a use
common in the best writers; 1083 δὲ partem mutant; 1510 partim prae
se misere leones; 111 Τὸ Intereunt partim; vi 1172 partim...Membra
dabant ; 1208 partim...Vivebant ; 1211 perdebant...partim: see Neue 1
p. 205 for its use in other writers. 1144 Jura, legibus, 1147 leges
artaque wura: in the former case these words are probably synonymes ;
in the latter tautological; though of course 2148. has a wider meaning
than dex and includes all which is or ought to be legally right: Horace
too when he wrote Qui consulta patraim, qui leges iuraque servat, had
probably no accurate distinction in his mind between the last two words,
as ture comprises strictly speaking consz/ta, leges and many other things
besides; and so Juy. 11 72 te leyes ac iura ferentem. {For arta comp.
Hor. ars 423 artis Litibus implicitum; Pliny xvi 12 additae leges artae. |
1145 and 1150 colere aevom: so Plautus and Terence vitam colere for
vivere, 1152 quemque i.e. every one who perpetrates the vs and z1iuria,
1153 prob. alludes to the well-known verses of Hesiod Οἵ αὐτῷ κακὰ
τεύχει «.T.A., SO often imitated. [1154 placid. ac pac. deg. vitam:
comp. Lucil. x1v ὃ Quin potius vitam degas sedatw quietam ?] 1156
there is probably some sareasin in the divom; though it may be a mere

BOOK V NOTES II 339

conventional forn of speech, and said with reference to the offender’s
thoughts. 1157 ad fore clam: Plaut. trucul. tv 3 21 clam quae speravi
fore; Ter. hee. 261, 568 and 577 clam me est; adel. 71 δὲ sperat fore
clam; Livy v 36 6 mec ad clam esse potuit; Fronto ad amie. 1 15 quod
clu ceteris esse τοίην: seen. to 1 568 palan est: one might take the
last words of Cicero quoted below for a conscious paraphrase of this
verse of Lucr. Here again we may notice, as was observed at 1020,
that Luer. softens and tones down what Epicurus himself expresses in
all its naked harshness, Diog. x 151 9 ἀδικία ov καθ᾽ ἑαυτὴν κακόν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν
τῷ κατὰ THY ὑποψίαν φόβῳ εἰ μὴ λήσει τοὺς ὑπὲρ τῶν τοιούτων ἐφεστηκότας
κολαστάς. οὐκ ἔστι τὸν λάθρα τι ποιοῦντα ὧν συνέθεντο πρὸς ἀλλήλους εἰς
τὸ μὴ βλάπτειν μηδὲ βλάπτεσθαι, πιστεύειν ὅτι λήσει, κἂν μυριάκις ἐπὶ τοῦ
παρόντος λανθάνῃ" μέχρι γὰρ καταστροφῆς ἀδηλον εἰ καὶ λήσει: Sen. epist.
97 makes much of this theme, eleganter itaque αὖ Epicuro dictum puto
potest nocenti contingere ut lateat, latendi fides non potest...twta
scelera esse possunt, secura non possunt, and more to the same purpose :
timere semper et expavescere et securitatt difidere: and so the epicurean
in Cie. de fin. 1 50 guamvis occulte fecertt, numquam tamen rd confidet
fore seniper occultum cet. 1159 protraxe: see ἢ. to 1 233 consumpse,
and comp. 111 650 abstraxe.

11601-- 7198 : men believed in and worshipped gods, because they
saw with their waking minds and still more in sleep shapes of preter-
human size and beauty and strength: as these shapes were ever present
and as their might appeared.so great, they deemed them to be immortal;
and to be blessed, because they could do such deeds and had no fear of
death: they saw too the seasons change, and all the wonders of the
heaven ; they therefore placed their gods in heaven and believed all
things to be governed by their providence. 1168 sdera, 1164 sdcra:
see n. to IV 1259 liquadis et liqueda. 1169 divom cet.: something has
been said already of the gods of Epicurus, 146 foll. and 11 646 foll., and
many passages quoted: Sextus adv. math. 1x 25 exactly agrees with
Luer., “Eaixoupos δὲ ἐκ τῶν κατὰ τοὺς ὕπνους φαντασιῶν οἴεται τοὺς ανθρώ-
mous ἔννοιαν ἐσπακέναι θεοῦ, μεγάλων γὰρ εἰδώλων, φησί, καὶ ἀνθρωπο-
μόρφων κατὰ τοὺς ὕπνους προσπιπτόντων ὑπέλαβον καὶ ταῖς ἀληθείαις
ὑπάρχειν τινὰς τοιούτους θεοὺς ἀνθρωπομόρφους. 1170 anmo vigilante,
1171 om sommes: Velleius in Cic. de nat. deor. 146 @ natura habemus
omnes onium gentium speciem nullam aliam nisi humanam deorum.
quae enim ala forma occurrit umquam aut vigrlanti cuiquam aut
dormienti ? all this part of Cicero wil] Ulustrate Luer. who means to
say that all these sensible impressions of the form size and beauty of
the gods are true, even that of their immortality: it is only the mental
inferences added to these impressions which are false, that of their power
and providence. 1177 Lt tamen: comp. 1125 and n. to 1 1050; and
v 768 Ht tamen ipsa cet.; 1096 Et ramosa tamen cet.; ‘putting all the

22—2

340 BOOK V NOTES II

previous considerations aside, this that’: Cic. Cato 16 supplies a good
instance of this force, notum enim vobis carmen est ; et tamen wpstus
Appii extat oratio, i.e. and even if the verses of Ennius were not known
to you, yet Appius’ own speech is extant to inform you: I am astonished
that Halm says to et tamen of all mss. ‘malim eteam’: ad Att. 1x 10 ὃ
et tamen spes quaedam; Χ 6 1 meas cogitationes omnes explicarre δὲ
superioribus litterts ; quocirca hae sunt breves ; et tamen quia festnabam
cet.: the latest editor Boot says ‘pro inepto et tamen recepi Malaspinae
etiam’: vill 12 a 2 (Pompey’s) ex quibus tamen cet.; x 8 6 et tamen cet. ;
x1 3.1; xiv 5 2 vides tamen; x11 42 1 aes, inquit, alenum, et tamen ne
viaticum quidem; de fin. τι 84 Et tamen: see Madvig: Livy xxx1x 36
12 quorum tamen maxima pars nihil pertinet ad nos; Ov. fasti πὶ 573;
τιν 699; her. 14 62; Plin. epist. vir 3 2; 21 4: Sen. Troad. 534 gives
the full phrase, Lt, st taceret augur haec Calchas, tamen Dicebat Hector,
[Comp. also Cic. epist. 19 10 haec cum ad me frater pertulisset et cum
tamen Pompeius ad me cum mandatis Vibullium misisset ; Dolabella ap.
Cic. epist. 1x 9 3 et meas tamen preces cet.; X 1 3 et, praeterquam quod
rei publicae consulere debemus, tamen (etian. Wesenb.) tuae dignitati rita
favemus ; Plaut. Stich. 730 mec ubri est, tecum est tamen, Tecum ubr
autem est, mecum ea itidem est: where tamen exactly =itidem. | 1178
Non tem. ulla: vi 1219 Nee tamen omnino temere..ulla cet.: the
expression is common: Livy 11 61 4; Suet. Aug. 16 and 53; Cal. 36;
Florus 1 33 (11 18); Hor. sat. 11 2.116 .Von temere.. Quicquam ; [Caes.
Ὁ. Gall. 1v 20 3 neque enim temere..illo adit quisquam ; Nepos Attic.
30 2 nullus dies temere intercessit, quo non cet. ] convinci: he
has often used vinco for conrvinco; here he uses convinct for vine ;
and I can find no second instance. putabant, 1179 putabant, 1181
videbant, 1176 manebat, 1170 videbant: this monotony of termina-
tions is common in the older poets who were more careless on such
points than the later. 1180 mortis timor which Lucr. and Epicurus
so often insist on as the main cause of man’s misery. vexaret: the
subj. of course expresses their thought. 1182 cap. lab. occurs in Ter.
Andr. 719; 870; hec. 344; Plaut. trin. 271. 1183 caele rationes cet.:
Sextus ]. 1. ἔνιοι δὲ ἐπὶ τὴν ἀπαράβατον καὶ εὔτακτον τῶν οὐρανίων κίνησιν
παραγινόμενοι φασὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν ταῖς τῶν θεῶν ἐπινοίαις ἀπὸ ταύτης γεγονέναι
πρῶτον. 1187 tradere, facere=accus. subst.: see ἢ. to 1 418.

1188 deum templa seems here to have much the same force as 948
silvestria templa Nympharum. 1189 nox et luna, Luna dies et nox
et noctis signa: Lach. to support his weak alteration says ‘si poeta
in utroque ἐπανάληψιν voluisset, debebat scribere nox et luna, Nox et
luna, dies; quibus non poterat subici...e¢ noctis signa’; but it was partly
perhaps in order that he might add et noctis that he has made this
variation ; and though Lach. says ‘debebat scribere’, the poet thought
differently, supported as he was by the great exemplar of poets, who

ROOK V NOTES ΤΙ 341

says Il. B 837 Τῶν αὖθ᾽ Ὑρτακίδης ἦρχ᾽ “Actos, ὄρχαμος ἀνδρῶν, “Actos
Ὑρτακίδης ὃν, 870 Τῶν μὲν ap’ ᾿Αμφίμαχος καὶ Νάστης ἡγησάσθην, Νάστης
᾿Αμφίμαχός τε, Νομίονος ἀγλαὰ τέκνα : comp. too Ter. Ph. 352 353:
Catull. 34 1—4; 42 11 and 19; 58 1 and 2; 66 75 and 76; Ov. met.
vi 299 and 300; [111 206 207 and 208; v 129; x11 172;] her. 8 80;
9 7; 12 59 and 60; Cic. 2 in Catil. 25; Pliny epist. νι 6 5; Luer.
himself 1327 Tela infracta suo tinguentes sanguine saevi, In se fracta
suo tinguentes sanguine tela; and Catullus there quoted. Nay it
is to be noted that the oldest extant Latin writer on rhetoric ex-
plains conduplicatio, as he translates ἐπανάληψις, to be etwsdem wunius
aut plurium verborum iteratio, hoc modo tumultus Gracchi, Gracchi
tumultus domesticos et intestinos comparant. ten commotus non
es, cum tibi pedes mater amplexaretur, non es commotus. item nunc
audes etiam venire in horum conspectum, proditor patriae, proditor

inquam patriae, venire audes in horum conspectum. 1190 comp.
Aen. vil 138 tum aoctem noctisque orentia signa. severa: 1V 460
severa silentia noctis. 1191 WNoctivayae cet.: 11 206 Nocturnasque

faces caeli sublime volantis cet.; see n. there: noctivagus is found in
Aen. x 216, which Macrob. sat. vi 5 12 compares with Egnatius de
rerum natura 1 noctivayis astris cet. 1193 mernwra minarum seems
like in principle to 369 cladem pericli; see n. there: Sextus |. 1. 24:
ὁρῶντες yap, φησί [Δημόκριτος], τὰ ἐν τοῖς μετεώροις παθήματα οἱ παλαιοὶ
τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καθάπερ βροντὰς καὶ ἀστραπὰς κεραυνούς τε καὶ ἄστρων
συνόδους ἡλίου τε καὶ σελήνης ἐκλείψεις ἐδειματοῦντο, θεοὺς οἰόμενοι τούτων
αἰτίους εἶναι.

1104. 1240: what misery men brought on themselves by assigning
to the gods such powers and passions! the ceremonies of superstition shew
not genuine piety which consists rather in despising such things: true
when we look up to heaven and think of its beginning and end, this fear
of the gods is apt to seize on us: nay who does not ἽΕΙ the thunder,
lest it be a presage of divine vengeance? think too of generals and
armies whelmed in the sea; of all men’s glories dashed down to the dust
by some hidden power: no wonder that men abase themselves before the
gods. 1194 O genus cet.: the form of expression recalls Emped. 14
Ὦ πόποι, ὦ δειλὸν θνητῶν γένος, ὦ δυσάνολβον, Οἵων ἐξ ἐρίδων ἔκ τε στονα-
χῶν ἐγένεσθε. 1195 tras cet.: neque tangitur ira was an essential of
the divine nature according to Epicurus and Lucr. 1197 Volnera:
11 63 haec vulnera vitae; Cic. de off. 111 85 hune tu quas conscrentiae
labes in animo censes habuisse, quae vulnera ? 1198 velatum refers to
the Roman custom of praying velato or operto capite, the Greek custom
being aperto capite: Dionysius and Plutarch as Greeks both dwell on
this to them curious fashion: it was traditionally traced back to Aeneas
by them and others as well as by Virg. Aen. 111 405 Purpureo velare
comas adopertus amictu: [comp. Ovid fasti 11 363 (of Numa) caput

342 POOK V NOTES II

niveo velatus amicti. | 1199 Vertier refers to another habit of
Roman worship: the suppliant approached in such a way as to have the
statue of the god on his right and then after praying wheeled to the
right so as to front it, ancl then prostrated himself: προσκυνεῖν περιφερο-
μένους: Suet. Vitell. 2 capite velato circumvertensque se, dernde procum-
bens; Plaut. curc. 69 quo me vertam nescio. PA. Si deos salutas, dextro-
vorsum censeo; Val. Flaccus vil 243 sacrificas cum coniuge vent ad aras
Aesonides, wnaque adeunt pariterque precart Inciprunt...dextrum pariter
vertuntur in orbem: vertuntur being reilexive, as Vertier here, and Iv
295 convertitur, 317 convertier. Livy has convertentem se; Pliny cor-
nus circumayere. ad lapiden would seem to be most simply taken
as said contemptuously of the statue. But since we find lapis, sacer
lapis, lapis unctus, wnguine delibutus, coronatus and the like, said
especially of the termint which were solemnly worshipped, but also of
stones set up in the streets and roads, etc. occurring so often in all
periods, Lucr. may refer to them: comp. Tib. 1 1 11; Prop. 1 4 24;
Ov. fasti 11 641; Sen. Hipp. 528; Apul. flor. 1; Sic. Flaccus p. 141 1. 4
Lach.; Prud. c. Symm. 11 1006; Arnob. 1 39; August. civ. dei xvi 38:
and, in Greek, Luc. Alex. 30 καὶ εἰ μόνον ἀληλιμμένον που λίθον ἢ ἐστεφα-
νωμένον θεασαιτο, προσπίπτων ἀεὶ καὶ προσκυνῶν: Clem. strom. vil p. 713
πάντα λίθον, τὸ δὴ λεγόμενον, προσκυνοῦντες. These lapices were generally
mere stones; but Min. Fel. 3 has dapides, effigiatos sane et unctos et
coronatos, referring to a simulacrwm Serapidis in the open air; which
again would leave the meaning of Lucr. uncertain. 1200 procumbere:
see Suet. 1. 1. pandere palmas: Aen. πὶ 263 passis de litore palmis
Vumina magna vocat: so tendere palmas, manns duplices, ete. ete.
1202 vota are here the votivae tabulae or tabellae, hung up on the wall
of a temple or elsewhere, Aen. x11 766 on an oleaster; Ov. met. vil 744
on a quercus: vittae mediam memoresque tabellae Sertaque cingebaut,
voti argumenta potentis: comp. too Apul. met. v1 3 and 29; in fulfilment
of a vow on recovery from sickness or for escape from some disaster,
especially shipwreck: Tib. 1 3 27; Cic. de nat. 111 89; and so Virgil
Horace Juvena] Persius and others; but vows were also thus offered
prospectively, before the danger was past: Prop. v (Iv) 3 17; Juv. x1
98. Lucretius’ vague words may refer to either practice or to both. vot.
nect. vota: Prop. Iv (111) 5 12 armis nectimus arma nova; Apul. met.
Vill 7 variis exemplis multivagi casus solacia nectere. 1203 pacata:
1154 pacatum degere vitam.

1204 Nam: it is true piety, not to perform these ceremonies, but
to have a mind at ease; for it requires great strength of mind and a
knowledge of the true being of the gods, not to be overpowered by the
grandeur and terror of nature. 1205 fixum only means fast in its
place and abiding, for he grants it to be probable that the sphere of ether
ancl the stars revolve: Ovid met. 11 204 altoque sub aethere fixis Incur-

BOOK V_ NOTES TI 343

sant stellis, was thinking doubtless of Lucr.; Lucr. as we have seen
supposes the stars to be above the sun and moon; probably therefore in
the lower part of ether. With this and all that follows comp. Democri-
tus quoted at 1193. 1207 in pectora caput errgere 1.6. assurgere et
invadere pectora. 1208 caput: 164 Quae caput a caelt regqoonibus
ostendebat. 1209 nobis: the dat. ethicus: see n. to 1 797. 1213
finis quoad: comp. 1433. 1214 Solliciti: if this be the true reading,
comp. 1 343 Non tam sollicito motu privata carerent; v1 1038 Sollacato
motu semper ractatur. 1215 comp. Tib. (Lygd.) πὶ 1 21 meritam
longa donate salute. 1216=1 1004. 1217:Ξ570. 1219 Con-
trahitur is the opposite of diffunditur, expands with joy: Cic. de nat. 11
102 tum quasi tristitia quadam contrahit terram, tum vicissim laetificat ;
{Lucil. xxix 111 non tu Contraheris, vel qui in nuptis vel vergine pecces,
(nupteris velse seneces te mss.) Nec sine permitie?| correpunt, like a worm
or other reptile drawing itself together: ‘tralatio est mirabilis et
audax’ says Lamb. 1220 tellus—caelum: vi 287 Inde tremor
terras graviter pertemptat et altum Murmura percurrunt caeum.
1222 populi, regular πόλεις of civilised Greeks Italians or Poeni: pop.
gen. reg.: Οἷα. de domo 73 summim est populi Romani populorumque et
gentium onnium ac regum consilium senatus; Livy ΧΙ 19 1; xxi 33
Ilr 1223 Corripiunt=contrahunt, but is stronger: v1 1161 Corripere
assidue nervos et membra; Iv 83 correpta luce diet. 1225 Poenarum
solvendi, a constr. found not only in Plautus and Terence, nominandi
astorum copia, capt. 1004 lucis twendt copram, novarum spectandi
copram; truc. 1 4 19 tut (fem.) vedendi copia, hecyra 37 etus (uxoris)
videndi, but also in Cicero: facultas agrorum condonandi; exemplorum
eligend potestus ; revciunds trium vudicum potestatem ; earwum rerum neque
infitiands rationem neque defendendi facultatem: it 15 curious that in all
these instances the subst. governing the gerund is the same or has the
same meaning: de fin. v 19 eorum adipiscendi causa. [Comp. Fronto
ad amicos I 24 tantus usus studiorum bonarumque artium communs-
candz: see Klusmann emend. Fronton. p. 31: see too Roby granim. pt. 11.
p. Ixviii.] 1227 Induperatorem...Cum leg.: Enn. ann. 552 Cum legioni-
bus quom proficiscitur induperator, 1229 divom pacem, grace, favour,
pardon of the gods, is copiously illustrated by Force. from Virgil and
others: dewm pacem exposcere, tnventa pace dewm and the like are
common in Livy: xu 2 3 pacemque deum peti precationibus: I find
two instances of pax thus used in inscr. Lat. 1. adit: Cicero has
deos, aras adire; Apul. met. v1 3 adire cuiuscumague det veniam. quaesit:
this old form, always retained in the familiar guaeso and in quaesivi
guaesitus, is found in Ennius several times and in Plautus; Cic. Arat.
18 st quaesere perges: Sallust has quaesere, quaesit and quaesitur.
1230 must certainly be retained; for repetitions like pacem, paces are
very common in Lucr. and the older writers: Hor. epist. 11 1 102

344 BOOK V NOTES I

Hoc paces habuere bonae ventique secundi looks like a reminiscence
of Lucr.: the plur. paces is common enough. anlinas: see ἢ. to 1715.
1231 8.606 appears to be idiomatical, as in Aen. 1 148, where see
Conington: Lucr. does not mean to say ‘in vain, since he often perishes
none the less’; but what he means is this ‘since in every case a man
perishes none the less for all his prayers, as we see by many examples’ ;
saepe therefore means id quod saepe fiert videmus: though less marked,
it has essentially the same force in such passages as 11 δῦ and Iv 34,
where cum saepe means cum, ut saepe fit: 111912 ubi discubuere tenentque
Pocula saepe homines 1.6, ut saepe fit. turbine corr.: νι 395 Turbine
cuelestt subito correptus; Aen. 1 45 Turbine corriprt. 1232 vada
seems to be used at once in a literal and metaphorical sense: comp.
1289 belli Miscebant fluctus. 1233 vis abdita quaedam, the secret
power and working of nature; the effect of which in particular
cases no man can foretell, however unvarying and inexorable her
laws: v1 26 Quidve mali foret in rebus mortalibw’ passim, Quod freret
natural. varieque volaret Sew casu sew vi, quod ste natura parusset.
Bayle art. Lucréce n. F accuses Lucr. of gross inconsistency in speaking
of this vis abdita quaedam, when at the same time he attributes all things
to the necessary movement of atoms, ‘cause qui ne sait ou elle va ni ce
qu'elle fait’; but this very ‘cause’ is the vs abdita quaedam: it 15 true
that as far as form and expression are concerned there is a struggle
between the poet’s imagination and the philosopher's creed. Lucretius
is here speaking of course generally; but it is not unlikely that his fancy
may have been caught by reading of some striking disaster of this kind,
such as that of M. Claudius Marcellus who perished in this way just
before the third Punic war, as he was going on an embassy to Masinissa:
M. Marcellus, qui ter consul fuit, summa virtute pretate gloria militar,
peritt in mari, says Cicero in Pison. 44; he several times refers to his
fate by which he was greatly impressed: Livy epit. L Claudius Marcellus
coorta tempestate fluctibus obrutus est. 1234 fascis cet.: see ἢ, to ΠῚ
996. 1237 dubiaeque: comp. 985 validique leonis; 1v 518 ruere ut
quaedam videantur velle ruantque; and n. to τὶ 825 uno varroque colore.
[1238 se temnwnt: Lucil. x1 13 Non contemnere se et reges odisse super-
bos. | 1239 relingunt: Madvig at end of Henrichsen de frag. Gottorp.
‘non quaeritur quid relinquant, nihil enim tollunt, sed quid necessarium
putent et propterea excogitent. scrib. requirunt’: but relingunt here
means, to admit, hold, believe, a sense it has again and again in Lucr.
with or without an infin.: 1 742 motus exempto rebus inant Constituunt
et ves mollis rarasque relinquont: [and see ἢ. to 1 515 and 703; πὶ 40. ]

1241—1280: the metals were discovered through the burning of
woods which baked the earth and caused the ore to run; with these
they made arms and tools: copper at first was rated more highly than
useless gold and silver; now it is the contrary; thus things in turn

BOOK V NOTES II 345

flourish and decay. 1242 plumb. pot.: so venti, animae, anim, corporis
potestas and the like: a favourite periphrasis, with the same force as vis.
1243 foll.: ‘comp. Arist. mir. ause. 87’ H. Nettleship. 1246 form.
ergo: 11 78 statwarum et nominis ergo; Livy xxi1 38 4 fugae atque
formidinis ergo. 1248 pandere must mean, to open up and clear of
trees. pascua is the adj. 1251 saepire...crere: Virg. ecl. x 57 and
geor. 1140 canibus circumdare saltus. 1256 argente cet.: Virg. geor.
11 165 argent rivos aerisque metalla Ostendit venis atque auro plurima
Jluait: Milton too par. lost x1 565 has imitated all this passage, two
massy clods of iron and brass Had melted, whether found where casual
fire Had wasted woods on mountain or in vale Down to the veins of earth;
thence gliding hot To some cave’s mouth etc. 1262 penetr. cos i.e.
penetrabat in animos eorum: I do not find an exactly similar instance,
but Wak. quotes Tac. ann. 111 4 nihil tamen Tiberium magis penetravit
quam cet. 1266 cdavent i.e. hae res, possent 1.6. ipsi. 1268 tere-
brare, pertundere, perforare: I do not know if Lucr. meant accurately to
distinguish these words, or whether he uses them tautologically more or
less. terebru appears to mean gimlet and auger and drill; and I find
terebra pertundere, and terebra perforare in good authors: perhaps ¢ere-
brare is to bore with a gimlet, the oldest sense of terebra ; pertundere to
pierce with a punch; perforare to bore with auger or drill. 1270
vrolentis, applied to copper is poetical. 1275 v2 sum. swce. hon.: 11238
ad summum succedere honorem. 1276 volvenda: seen. to 514 volvenda
sidera. tempora rerum 18 much the same as statum rerum: Wak.
compares Aen. VII 37 quae tempora rerum, Quis Latio antiquo fuerit
status: comp. too Cic. ad fam. 11 18 ὃ tempora autem recpublicae qualia
futura sint, ques scrt? 1276 foll.;: comp. 831 Omnia commutat natura
et vertere cogit. Namaque aliut putrescrt et aevo debile languet, Porro aliut
clarescit et e contemptibus exit.

1281—1307: for arms men used at first hands nails teeth clubs,
then fire, then copper or brass, at last iron; horses next, then chariots,
then elephants were employed in war, strife begetting one horror after
another. 1283 Arma cet.: Hor. sat. 1 3 101 Unguibus et pugnis, dein
fustibus, atque vta porro Pugnabant armis. 1289 Aere cet.: doubtless,
as Lamb, says, he was thinking of Hesiod works and days 150 Τοῖς δ᾽ ἣν
χάλκεα μὲν τεύχεα, χάλκεοι δέ τε οἶκοι, χαλκῷ δ᾽ εἰργάζοντο μέλας δ᾽ οὐκ
ἔσκε σίδηρος. 1290 Miscebunt: there is perhaps in this word a blend-
ing of the notions of miscere jluctus and nuscere proelva. fluctus: we
have the same metaphor in 1435 belli magnos commomt funditus aestus,
vasta seems to unite the ideas of huge and ugly, misshapen. _ serebant :
it is not clear to me from which of the two verbs this comes: 10 may
mean ‘scattered broadcast’, a stronger term than spargebant: conip.
lumine consertt arva ; or, as Livy and others have leva certamina serens,
certamina serebunt, etc. with the force of conserere, Lucr. may extend

346 BOOK V NOTES Π

this meaning to serere rulnera, they joined, applied or the hke: but
sermones, colloquia, circulos, haec sermonibus, Haee inter sese vario
sermone serebant, seem equally ambiguous: Livy xx1 6 1 writes certa-
intna cum finitimis serebantur, marime Turdetanis. quibus cum adesset
idem qui litis erat sator: such apposition could scarce fail to confuse in a.
Latin’s mind the two meanings of serebantur. Fronto ad Verum 8 has
quam libenter conseviste sermonem. 1294 Versaque cet. may refer, as
Bentl. says, to its use in magical and unlawful rites: Aen. 1v 513 Fale
bus et messae ad lunam quaeruntur aenis Pubentes herbae; Ovid met. ΝῊ
227 Partim succidit curvamine faleis aenae; her. v1 84 Diraque cantata
pabula falce metit: Macr. sat. v 19 9 compares Virg. 1. 1. with Soph.
ῥιζοτόμοι: γυμνὴ χαλκέοις ἥμα δρεπάνοις : [see ibid. χαλκέοισι κάδοις
δέχεται :] this would explain the curious variant obscenum. But Luer.
inay merely mean ‘went out of fashion’, ‘fell into disgrace’. 1296
Exaequata, by the equality of weapons. 1297 conscendere and the
following infinitives as 1250 venarier, are all used as substantives: see
ῃ. ἴοΙ 29]. 1298 dex. vig.: while guiding the horse with the left,
to have the free use of the right. [1301 escend. currus: Livy xxu1 14 2
equum escendere; the older writers generally have esc. in cet. | 1302
bores lucas, 1339 boves lucae: Pliny nat. hist. v1 16 elephantos Itaha
primum vidit Pyriri regis bello et boves lucas appellarit in Lucania visos
anno urbis 472: Varro de ling. Lat. vir 39, in trying to controvert, really
confirms this tradition: the expression is found in Naevius, Sen. Hippol.,
Silius and others, [and appears now to be the true reading in Plautus
Casin. 704. Pausanias 1x 21 2 calls the rhinoceros bos aethiops (Friedl.
Sitteng. 11 p. 530); and x 13 2 the bison ‘Paeonian bull’ (ib. p. 532).}
turrito, thus applied in prose: see Fore. taetras: Isid. orig. x 270
‘tetrum enim veteres pro fero, ut Ennius tetrosque elephantos’. 1303
Anguimanus: see n. to 11 537.

1308—1349: bulls boars and lions too were tried in war; but they
often turned upon their owners, as elephants are sometimes seen to do
now: probably they were employed by the weaker side only in despair.
1310 partim: see n. to 1143. 1313 =11 632, except undique for
numine. undique refers to nullo discrimine of 1312. caprtum cristas :
partly for defence perhaps, partly to strike terror: comp. Livy xxxvi1 40
4, of Antiochus’ Indian elephants, tngentes ipst erant: addebant speciem
frontalia et cristae et tergo impositae turres cet.; [bell. Afr. 86 2
elephantosque LX ornatos armatosque cum turribus ornamentisque captos
ante oppidum instructos constituit.| They were given to men for the
same purpose: Livy 1x 40 3 galeae cristatae, quae speciem magnitudini
corporum adderent ; x 38 12 his arma insignia data et cristatae galeae
ut inter ceteros eminerent; 39 12 non enim cristas vulnera facere.
1318 tac. cor. sal.: Aen, 11565 corpora saltu Ad terram masere. 1321
deplexne appears not to occur elsewhere, but expresses very vividly the

BOOK V NOTES II 347

action in question, ‘de eis pendentes eisque implicatae’ Turneb. adv. xxx
92. 1324 lat. ac v. haur.: 991 dentibus haustus: this use of the
verb, found in Virgil and often in Ovid, we meet with in prose as early
as Claud. Quadr. ap. Gell. 1x 13 17 Hispaneco pectus hausit: Livy vit 10
10, Tacitus and Curtius also have it. 1325 men. fr.: Ov. amor, 11113
15 vitwli norndum metuenda fronte minaces. 1327 13238 an ézava-
ληψις; as in Catull. 62 21 Qui natam possis compleau avellere matris,
Complean matris retinentem avellere natam: In se fracta then defines
more precisely infracta of 1327, ‘broken off, yes broken off in their own
body’: seen. to 1189. 1327 Jela infr.: Aen. x 731 wifractaque tela
cruentat. 1330 exibant adactus: v1 1205 Profluvium porro qu...
Ewierat ; 1217 ut acrem exetret ocdorvem: Virgil Terence and others have
the same constr.: Vitruvius uses the personal passive in the sense of
passed through or over: x 9 (14) 3 quantum diurni ttineris miliarrorum
numero cum raeda posset exirt; and so Paulus Fest. p. 28 ‘ad eartam
aetatem, ad ultimam aetatem’. 1332 seccisa, the technical word for
ham-strung: Livy xiv 28 14 nervos succiderwnt im lritore Macedones.

ab nervis =a parte nervorum, where the tendons were: Cic. in Verr.
v 32 ne denudetur a pectore; Caes. bell. Gall. v1 28 5 ab labris argento
corcumcludunt cet.; νι 95. 2 scorpione ab latere dextro trurectus ; Q. Cic.
comm. pet. 10 sinistra capillum eius a vertice teneret; Livy vii 7 11 αὖ
iugulo .. terrae adfixtt; Caelius ap. Quintil. 1v 2 124 ὦ cervictbus tolle-
bant; Suet. Tib. 68 latus ab wmeris et pectore; Plaut. Men. 1011 te ab
amero qui tenet. 1333 tervam const.: Aen. x11 543 late terram con-
sternere tergo. 1334 dome domitos, an intentional assonance: see n.
to 1 826 sonitu sonanti. [13836 comp. Caes. b. civ. 111 69 4 omniaque erant
tumultus tumoris fugae plena. | 1338 varewm genus omne: γι 909 Lum
variae causae concurrunt fulmrnis omnes. 1339 male mactae: some
editions and lexicons refer mactae to macte without shewing what con-
nexion in form or sense there is between the two; others make it the
same as mactatae without any explanation: I take it for the partic.
of a verb macére: Mueller Festus p. 397 seems rightly to restore a frag-
ment of Naevius thus, vamque nullom Peius macit homonem quaniule
mare saevum, and to defend permacére in Ennius: mactae then will be
‘mauled’ ‘hacked about’: comp. macellum.—-Conington in an excursus
on the word macte, Aen. 1x 641, explains male mactae ‘by a reference to
such expressions as mactare malo, infortunio, etc. Lucr. was using a
word which in his time was probably obsolescent, and he well may have
wavered between a conception derived from the expressions just quoted,
and one founded on the later use of mactave in the sense of slaughtering
ὦ victim’. I see that the latest editors of Pliny and Curtius read muacti
in the passages he refers to. 1340 jera facta N. P. Howard well
defends by Ov. met. πὶ 247 velletque videre, Non etiam sentire canum.
Jera facta sworum: comp. too Livy epit. 92 Q. Sertort: multa crudelia in

348 BOOK V_ NOTES II

suos facta contriret. dedere, as 1329 dabant ruinas: see n. to Iv 41.
1341 adducor ut for adducor ad credendum ut, though not from Lucr.,
is good Latin: comp. Cic. de fin. 114 tllud quidem adduci vix possum ut
ea quae senserit alle tihr non vera videantur, and Madvig there who gives
other instances. 1345 = 528. 1348 comp. Livy 1x 14 15 perdere
prius quam perire optantes,

1350—1360: weaving came into use after.iron which is needed for
the instruments employed in it: men first practised it, afterwards

women.—See Bluemner Gewerbe u. Kuenste 1 p. 121 ἢ, 1. 1350
Newilis vestis would be a garment of skins fastened on the body by
tying. 1351 the web 15 prepared with iron, 1.6. cannot be woven

without instruments of iron; the next two verses explaining this.
1353 Jrsia might be supposed to be connected with imszlzo and to
answer to the treacle, pressed by the weaver’s foot: but Creech perti-
nently remarks that devia is not then an appropriate epithet: and iron or
steel could hardly be needed for such a purpose: Schneider in his index
to the script. rei rust. thinks they are the heddles or leash-rods which
open the warp, as Rich records; and this is probable enough. The
word is not found elsewhere and its meaning must be guessed. radiz
seem to have performed the office both of shuttle and batten or pecten or
κερκίς: See Rich’s companion: comp. Sen. epist. 90 20 stamen secernit
arundo, Inseritur medium radiis subtemen acutis, Quod lato paveunt in-
secti pectine dentes. 1359 cerium, 1360 in duro durarent: 1402
Duriter et duro; [comp. Sen. rhet. controv. 11 21 durum sensum vide-
batur non dure posuisse. |

1361—1378: nature first taught to sow plant and graft: then one
kind of culture after another was discovered, and more and more ground
brought under tillage. 1361 spectmen cet.: 186 ipsa dedit specimen
natura creandt. 1364 pullorum: Cato de re rust. 51 ab arbore abs
terra pilli qui nascentur, cos in terram deprimito: the verb pullulo is
more common in this sense. eramtne T do not find elsewhere thus
applied; though of course the word has various metaph. applications; as
may be seen in the lexicons: comp. too Aetna 373 ventorum examina ;
503 Emicat examen. suboles proles propago are similarly transferred
from plants to animals. 1367 foll. comp. Virg. geor. 11 35 proprios
generatim iliscite cultus, Agricolae, fructusque feros mollite colendo.
1368 mansiescere terram: seen. ἴον 1282. 1369 indulgendo, colendo:
men are the subject of these gerunds, ferram of manswescere: see n. to
1 312 habendo. 1374 Caerula, the γλαυκᾶς φύλλον ἐλαίας. 1377
Omura: 1066 latrant et vocibus omnia complent. 1378 Arbustis: see
ἃ, to1 187: Lucr. uses arbusta continually for arbores, never arbustis
for arboribus which suits his v.: arbustis therefore has here its usual
meaning, and is nowhere else found in his poem. opsita circum and
intersita are of course set in contrast. Wordsworth in his scenery of the

BOOK V NOTES II 249

lakes quotesel 370—1378 and says of them ‘Lucretius has charmingly
described a scene of this kind’. The description is likewise eminently
true of Italy, and is singularly graphic and compressed.

1379—1435: birds taught men song; from the whistling of the
zephyr through reeds they learnt to blow through stalks; next the pipe
came into use, with which they amused themselves mid other kinds of
rustic jollity ; with such music watchers would while away the time, and
derive no less pleasure than now is gotten from elaborate tunes: then
acorns skins and beds of leaves were given up; though fought for once
as eagerly as men now strive for purple and gold; lust of gain and cares
_ came next to vex life. 13880 devia: Quintil. inst. 115 9 quae levis et
quadrata, sed virilts tamen compositio; ν 12 18 he shews whence the
metaphor comes, dwm levia sint ac nitida, quantuns valeant, nihil interesse
arbitramur : levitas and λειότης are used in the same way. 1381
Concelebrare seems to have the sense it has in Cic. de inv. 14 mihi viden-
tur postea cetera studia recta atque honesta, per otiwm concelebrata ab
optimis, enitursse ; see also n. to 14 Concelebras: the sense of often prac-
tising or resorting to a thing readily comes from its primary sense:
comp. Livy 1x 30 8 per speciem celebrandarum cantu epularum; [Lucil.
xxx 7 Multis indu locis sermonibw’ concelebrarunt; Q. Cic. de pet. 44 est
in convivrs, quae fac ut et abs te et ab amicis tuis concelebrentur et passim
et tributim; 50 ad rumorem concelebrandum valent. | 1383 cicutas:
Virg. ecl. 11 36 disparibus septem compacta cicutis Fistula. 1386
nemora, silvas, saltus: seen. to 41. 1887 [loca past. des.: comp. Virg.
geor. 111476; Aen. x1 569; Wordsworth, song at the feast of Brougham
Castle, 9th 1. from end The sleep that is among the lonely hills.| otia dia:
the meaning of dia here is not easy to determine; see ἢ. to 1 22 dias in
lum. oras: does it denote that strange preternatural silence and repose,
which you find for instance at the present time in passing on a fine day
over the higher table-lands of Arcadia, so eminently now as always loca
pastorum deserta’ or is it ofva sub divo, if indeed dia can bear that
meaning? dia may indeed have much the same sense as divinus in Aen.
Wi 442 Divinosque lacus; Prop. 1 18 27 divini foutes. 1391 Cun sat.
οὐδὲ 1.6. ἐπεὶ πόσιος καὶ ἐδητύος ἐξ ἔρον ἕντο. nam tum, for then, and not
till then, ‘they have leisure to think of mental pleasures. 1392—
1896 = 11 29—33, with slight changes. 1394 habebant, 11 31 curant:
Plaut. capt. 314 75, ute tu me hic habueris, proinde illum allt curaverit.
1398 Virg. ecl. v1 8 Agrestem. .. musam. 1399 plexis cet.: Catull. 64
283 Hos (i.e. flores) indistinctis plexos tulit ipse corollis, with another
constr.: comp. the various ways in which circumdatus and so many
similar words are used in Latin. 1401 catra numerum, the opposite
of 7 numerum, is found in Cicero: parad. 111 26 histrio si paulum se
movit extra numerum: see ἢ. to 11 631 and 636 τη numerum: orator 195
extra numerum has another sense. 1402 Duriter: Ov. fasti π| 537

350 BOOK V NOTES II

duras .. choreas. terram cet.: Hor. od. 111 18 15 Gaudet iAvisam pemu-
lisse fossor Ter pede tervram. 1405 vigilantibus, whether because they
could not go to sleep or because they were obliged to watch. solacta
somnt: Lach. well compares Aeschylus’ ὕπνου ἀντίμολπον ἄκος: but as
somnus here=somnus negatus anyhow, I am not sure that the somno of
mss. will not stand; but the judgment of Lamb. and Lach. on such a
point when they agree is very weighty. [But for somno comp. Livy
xxv 16 20 eum decus eximium, egregium solacium suae morts inven-
turum: see Draeger hist. synt. 1 p. 406 on this passage. | 1406
Ducere, flectere appear to be technical terms: culex 5 ducam voces ;
Aen. Iv 463 longas in jfletum ducere voces; Ov. amores u 4 25 Haec
quia dulce canit flectitque facillima vocem; Pliny xvi 171 speaking of
tibiae says apertioribus carum lingulis ad jflectendos sonos: Tib. 1 7 37

voces tnflectere cant. 1407 comp. 1v 588 Unco saepe labro calamos
percurrit hiantis. 1408 vigiles must be official watchmen, whether of
the camp or the town. 1414 Wak. gives us the choice of two con-

structions: illa melior res posterior reperta perdit sensus, which he pre-
fers; and, posterior res melior perdit illa reperta; but there is a third
course open to us, posterior res melior reperta perdit illa 1.6. priora; and
that 1 doubt not is what Lucr. meant: he is sufficiently indifferent to
such ambiguities; comp. 1382 Δ zephyrt, cava per calamorum, sibila;
and two lines below, ala velicta Strata cubilia sunt herbis, and 1418
vestis coming between /elis and ferinae, and tv 193 parvola (neut.)
causa, and 1414 ne tarda prius per membra senectus Serpat: in all these
cases we are left to the sense alone to guide us. 1421 £t tamen, and
after all when they had killed the owner, they got no good from it.
1422 convertere: comp. IV 1130 vertunt, and n. to m1 502 reflexit: Cic.
Brutus 141 hoc vitium huic uni in bonum convertebat; pro Plancio 50
non dubito quin omnis ad te conversura fuerit multitudo. 1428 auro
cet. 1.6. large figures worked in with gold. 1429 pleberw: 11 36 17
plebera veste: Hor. sat. 13 14 toga quue defendere frigus, Quamvis crassa,
quect, 1432 hab. Finis: culex 84 finem transcendat habendi. 1498
quoad crescat, after which it becomes excess. 1434 provextt, a techni-
cal expression for carrying a ship out to sea. 1435 see n. to 1290.

1436—1439: the sun and mooon taught men the seasons of the year.
1436 magnum versatile: for the double epithet see ἢ. to 13 and 1 258.
versatile: see ἢ. to 505: Lach. observes ‘versatile non magis templum
esse potest quam locus’; but 1 1105 Neve ruant caeli penetralia templa
superne ; V1 285 displosu repente..templa: if a thing can tumble down
or burst in pieces, 1t surely can revolve. 1437 lustrantes cet.: comp.
Cic. Arat. 237 Quattwor aeterno lustrantes lumine mundum Orbes stelligeri
cet.

1440—1447: then came walled towns, division of lands, ships,
treaties between states; and, when letters were invented, poetry,

°

BOOK V NOTES II 2:1

1442 florebat: 1 255 laetas urbes puerris florere videmus; Val. Flaccus 1
537 Iam pridem regio... Undat equis floretque viris; VIL 77 armata flores-
cant pube novales; see also n. to Iv 450. 1445 foll.: comp. 326 foll.
14481457: thus by degrees experience taught men all the useful
and graceful arts, one advance suggesting another, till perfection was
attained, 1450 Praemia: 111 956 Omnia perfunctus vitai praemia.
1452 Usus cet.: Virg. geor. 1133 Ut varias usus meditando extunderet
artes Paulatim; Manil. 1 61 Per varios usus artem experientia fecit,

Exemplo monstrante viam. 1458 ped. progr.: 533 hautquaquamst
pedetemtim progredientis. 1454 Protr. In med.: Aen. 11 123 Protre-
hit in medios. 1456 εἰ ordine shews in what way one thing after

another is to come into the light: it=the paulatim of 1454.

BOOK VI

1—42: Athens first gave mankind corn and Jaws; but better than
all him who, when he saw that men had all the necessaries and refine-
ments of life and yet were miserable, taught them true wisdom and the
way to true happiness and rid them of empty cares and fears. 1 Pro-
mae cet.: of many similar panegyrics take Cic. pro Flacco 62 adsunt
Athenienses, unde humanitas doctrina religio fruges cura leges ortae atque
in omnes terras distributae putantur; {Aristotle in Diog. Laert. v 17
(quoted in Bernays’ Phokion p. 94).] mortalibus aegris is found in

Virgil more than once. 4 solacia cet.: so Vv 20 of Epicurus Lx quo
nune etiam per magnas didita gentis Duleia pernmulcent anrimos solacia
witae. 5 cum corde: see ἢ. to 1 755, 7 et: there is no real} distinc-

tion between et for etiam, and, as Lach. explains it, οὐ evus extoncti: it is
in vain to dispute Lucretius’ use of οὐ for etiam; even the auctor ad Heren
who wrote many years before Lucr. says Iv 3 hoe igitur ipsum maximum
artificium est in arte sua posse et alienis exemplis ute. 8 ad caelumr: κλέος
οὐρανὸν ἵκε. 11 proquam: seen. tot 1137. 198 excellere seems used
in the sense it has in Cato, cited by Gellius twice, scio solere plerisque
hominibus rebus secundis atque prolixis atque prosperis animum excellere
cet.: and in Livy v137 11 quippe ex illa die in plebem ventura omnia, quibus
patrici excellant, imperium atque honorem, gloriam bells, genus, nobilita-
tem: comp. the use of celsus for swperbus. [Or excellere may have here
and Livy |. 1. the same sense as in Cie. epist. x11 12 2 quam maxime
eius excellat industria. | 14 Vee cet. 1.6. et tamen hemini minus esse.
15 ingratis: see ἢ. to 1 930 gratis. anime ingratis; Plaut. mere. 479
tneis ngratieis; Cas. 115 7 Vobis anvitis atque amborum ingratiis.

anxia corda is the subject of vexure: in spite of the animus, or con-
trolling reason, the anxia corda vexes life with its fears and cannot

4

352 BOOK VI NOTES 1

help (coge?) giving vent to the bitterest complaints: for the contrast of
animus and corda comp. Plaut. aulul. 380 Postguam hance rationem
ventri cordique edidi, Accessit animus. 16 Puusa we have had already
five times. infestis has pretty nearly the force of saevis: they are
complainings expressing hatred and hostility towards nature and the
condition of things. 17 Jntelléyit: the best mss. of Sallust have
intellegit in Tug. 6 2, and intelleyerint in hist. 1 41 23: Cat. 51 24
Jordan on good authority gives neglegeris; and Tug. 40 1 neglegisset.
vas cet.: 01 936; Hor. epist. 1 2 54 Sincerwm est nisi vas, quodcumque
infrndis acescit. Here again stoic and epicurean meet: Gellius xvi 19
ἄγθρωπε, ποῦ βάλλεις ; σκέψαι εἰ κεκάθαρται τὸ ἀγγεῖον: ἂν γὰρ εἰς τὴν
οἴησιν αὐτὰ βάλλῃς, ἀπώλετο: ἣν σαπῇ, οὖρον ἢ ὄξος γένοιτο ἢ εἴ τι τούτων
χεῖρον. nil profecto his verbis gravius, nil verius, quibus declarabat maai-
mus philosophorum (i.e. Epictetus) ltteras atque doctrinas philosophiae,
cum in hominem falsum atque degenerem, tamquam m vas spurcum
atque pollutum, influxissent, verti nuritart corrumpi et, quod ipse κυνι-
κώτερον ait, urinam fiert aut st quid est urina spurcius. 19 conlata
foris and commoda are opposed to allius vitio corrumpier intus: they
come from without and they are too in themselves good and salutary ;
therefore it is the vas zpsum alone that is in fault, and not the things
which come into it: thus the heart of man is to blame, not what nature
gives to it: the copula οὐ adds much to the force of the antithesis. 20
fluzum which means loose, falling to pieces and the like, applied to an
earthen vessel can hardly have any other sense than leaky: ur 1009
laticem pertusum congerere in vas, Quod tamen expleri nulla ratione
potestur. 23 with the position of zztus comp. V 572 videri, Nil adeo,
ut possis plus aut minus addere, vere: on itus see ἢ. to 11 171; there
and 1 223, 11 711 and Iv 1091 intus has its proper force; though here to
join zntws with receperat would be the more natural collocation of the
words ; and even Lamb., though he suggests the punctuation which
Lach. and 1 have adopted, adds ‘aut iztus pro intro accipiendum quod
huic scriptori non esse inusitatum iam ante admonuimus’: Ovid met. x
457 Lamque fores aperit, iam ducitur intus, wntus must surely =intro ;
yet Quintil. 15 50 says pointedly ‘eo tamen intus et intro sum soloecis-
mi sunt’; and before him Lucilius rx ‘Jrtro nos vocat ad 5656, tenet
intus apud se’.

24 purgavit: V43 At nisi purgatumst pectus, quae proelia. . Quantae
éum scindunt hominemcuppedinis acres Sollicitumcurae quantique perinde
timores: Epic. Diog. x 142 says more harshly εἰ τὰ ποιητικὰ τῶν περὶ τοὺς
ἀσώτους ἡδονῶν ἔλυε τοὺς φόβους τῆς διανοίας τούς TE περὶ μετεώρων καὶ
θανάτον καὶ ἀλγηδόνων, ἔτι τε τὸ πέρας τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν ἐδίδασκεν, οὐκ ἄν TOT
εἴχομεν, ὅ τι μεμψαίμεθα αὐτοῖς πανταχόθεν εἰσπληρουμένοις τῶν ἡδονῶν
x.7.A.: Hor. epist. 116 65 qui cupiet, metuet quoque: Seneca has many
similar commonplaces, 428 fimem within which they may be indulged;

BOOK VI NOTES II 353

beyond which peace of mind cannot exist. 26 bonwm swmmum, being
in great measure the finem cupp. atque tim. of 25: Epic. 1. 1. 128 refers
this ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ σώματος ὑγίειαν καὶ THY τῆς ψυχῆς ἀταραξίαν, ἐπεὶ τοῦτο τοῦ
μακαρίως ζῆν ἐστὶ τέλος...τὴν ἡδονὴν ἀρχὴν καὶ τέλος λέγομεν εἶναι τοῦ
μακαρίως ζῆν. But, like Lucr., he goes on to explain that, when he says
pleasure is the end and chief good, he does not mean such pleasure as
the ignorant or malevolent allege he does, but, 1. 1. 131 τὸ μήτ᾽ ἀλγεῖν
κατὰ σῶμα pyTE ταράττεσθαι κατὰ ψυχήν, and 152 νήφων λογισμὸς καὶ Tas
αἰτίας ἐξερευνῶν πάσης αἱρέσεως καὶ φυγῆς καὶ τὰς δόξας ἐξελαύνων k.7.d.,
but above all φρόνησις ἐξ ἧς αἱ λοιπαὶ πᾶσαι πεφύκασιν ἀρεταί, διδάσκουσαι
ὡς οὐκ ἔστιν ἡδέως ζῆν ἄνευ τοῦ φρονίμως καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως, οὐδὲ φρονί-
pws καὶ καλῶς καὶ δικαίως avev τοῦ ἡδέως: συμπεφύκασι γὰρ ai ἀρεταὶ τῷ ζῆν
ἡδέως καὶ τὸ ζῆν ἡδέως τούτων ἐστὶν ἀχώριστον: When to this is added what
the stoical Seneca records epist. 66 18 Eprcurus quoque art saptentem, si
an Phalaridis tauro peruratur, exclamaturum ‘dulce est et ad me nil
pertinet’, we may doubt whether a stoic could go much farther. 27
tramte parvo, by a short and straight cross-cut, which the vulgar cannot
find: 11 9 passumque videre Errare atque viam palantis quaerere vitae ;
Hor. sat. 11 3 48 μὲ passim Palantes error certo de tramite pellit cet.: we
have here three ablatives together: see ἢ. to1 183. 31 Sew casu sew vi
are two expressions for the same thing, the inexorable chance or neces-
sity, called v 77 naturu gubernans, 107 fortuna gubernans, by which all
things go on; ὅλως πρόνοιαν μὴ εἶναι μηδὲ εἰμαρμένην, ἀλλὰ πάντα κατὰ
αὐτοματισμὸν γίνεσθαι, says Hippol. ref. haer. 1 22 of Epicurus: see ἢ.
ον 77; and 1253 vis abdita quaedam: the auctor ad Heren. and Cicero
join casu et natura, natura casuque: the κατ᾽ αὐτοματισμὸν is naturali
casu; or 11 1059 Sponte sua forte offensando semina rerum Multimodis
temere incassum frustraque coacta. nat. par.: 1. 1. hic stt natura factus
1.6, orbis, and yet by mere chance at first. 382 quibus e portis cet.: an
obvious military metaphor. 34 Volvere cet.: 74 magnos trarum vol-
vere fluctus; 111 298 Nec capere trarum fluctus in pectore possunt, where
see n. 35—41] =11 55—61. 42 comp. 1 418 ut repetam coeptun
pertexere dictis, where see n.

43—95: once more [ mount my chariot, to tell what remains to be
told of the things which go on above us, and to dispel the causeless fears
of men who believe such things to be tokens of divine wrath: the gods
will indeed plague you, if you so believe; not that they will themselves
do you any hurt, but the images proceeding from their holy bodies will
stir up these vain fears and poison existence, I have now therefore to
sing of thunder, of tempests, of other things that take place in the sky.
43 docur cet., v 91—415., 46 ressolui: see notes 1 and ἢ. to v 773
resolvi: dissolut cannot be defended by 1v 500 dissolvere causam, which
has there « technical and quite different force; yet it is to be noted that
Luer, once, 11 381, uses exsolvere in this sense, and he seems to be singu-

M, Π, 235

354 BOOK VI NOTES II

lar in so using it. [But now I find dissolwz supported by Arnob. 1 11
hoc et tllud est in mundo malum, cuius explicare, dissolvere neque
originem valeas neque causam: the dis- is omitted in the old editions. |
percipe porro occurs Aen. 1x 190. 47 comp. Manil. v 10 Cum
semel aethereos iussus conscendere currus Summum contigerim sua per
fastigia culmen; for he is commencing his last book: insignia curry
is in the culex 127: [on the metaphor of a chariot for poetry as opposed
to the πεζὸς λόγος, sermo pedestris, see Bergk Gr. Lit. Gesch. 1 p. 389 ἢ.

221. ] 47—49 see notes 1. 48 ex tra ut plac.: Aen. νι 407
tumida ex ira tum corda residunt. 51 comp. Cic. Tuse. disp.
iv 35 exanimatusque pendet animi. saepe here too seems to mean
ut saepe fit: see n. to Vv 1231. 52 Ht (quae) faciunt: the nom.

quae supplied from the quae of 50; just as in 45 qwaecumgue im eo
fiunt fierique necessest, the accus. is supplied from the nomin. : see Madyv.
de fin. v 26; and comp. v 898: Aen. v1 283 is very similar, quam sedem
somnia volgo Vana tenere ferunt foliisque sub omnibus haerent ; but
harsher, as the forms of the cases there differ: where they are the same,
the constr. is very common. 90 foll. comp. Epic. in Diog. x 78 foll.
esp. 79 τοὺς φόβους ἔχειν τοὺς ταῦτα κατιδόντας, τίνες δ᾽ αἱ φύσεις ἀγνοοῦν-
τας καὶ τίνες αἷ κυριώταται αἰτίαι κ.τ.λ. 859 Depressos, premunt: per-
haps the difference of form makes this tautology less harsh; the meta-
phorical force too is more prominent in depressos, the literal in premwnt.
58—66 are repeated word for word from v 82—90: see the remarks to
those vss.; much that is there said applies here as well: 35—41 are we
saw likewise a mere repetition; as are 57-89 below; and the whole
paragraph has much of that disjointed character of which we there spoke,
as characteristical of so many of his introductory passages; nor in
stating, 83 foll., what 1s to be the subject of this book does he refer to
one half of the questions really discussed ; though a little before, 50
Cetera quae fiert in terris caeloque cet., he seems to promise the rest of
the book, nay a good deal more than he fulfils: 56 57 and 90 91 may
have been inserted by the interpolator; or they may have been marginal
annotations of the author, who felt this portion of his poem to be
unfinished, and thought that these vss. which come from 1 153 154, might
in the end adapt themselves to one of these places. θ6 rationt: comp.
11 520 mucrone: I find in the inscr. Lat. 1 the abl. conventionid deditions
proportions sanctiont, also hereditatz heredi marmort nomini and salutei
virtuter faenitsrcei, aS well as the more common parti parter luuci luci
sorti suict. 69 putare is for an accus. subst.: see ἢ. to 1 418 repetam
pertexere and 331. wndigna putare alienaque 15 not a common construc-
tion, but Lach. illustrates it from Cic. Cato 4 qguzs coegit eos falsum
putare and Aen. vill 522; Force. from Virgil and Terence: comp. too
Cic. pro Sest. 22 quantum tpse cum republica sensi, numquam putari;
ad Att. 1x 18 1 dla fefellerunt, facilem quod putaramus; xiv 10 2

BOOK VI NOTES II 355

in quibus plus virtutis putarunt, quam experts sunt; Ov. trist. v
10 41 22 me aliquid...putant. 70 Delibata, used in a sense
naturally flowing from what the word has 111 24, 1088, vi 621: Hav.
well compares auctor ad Heren. Iv 68 zlle nulla voce delibans insitam
virtutem concidit tacitus. 72 petere inbibat: 111 996 Qui petere a
populo fasces saevasque secures Imbibit. 73 cum pace: see n. to 1 287
validis cum viribus. Martha, p. 42, comments well on the perpetual cry
of Lucr. for peace! peace!: here, he says, within 10 vss., 69—78, the
word occurs three times: comp. also 11 647, 111 24, v 1155, 1203, 1229,
1230. 74 volvere cet.: 34 Volvere curarum tristis in pectore fluctus:
see note there; and Virgil and Livy cited to 111 298. 75 plac. cwm
pectore: comp. 5 talt cum corde, and ἢ. to 1775; though perhaps this
resembles more the use of cam illustrated at 1 287 validis cum viribus,
being a modal abl. rather than one of quality; as 73 cum pace. 76
semulacra cet.: comp. v 1169 and explanations given there. 83 ratro
caeli speciesque means both the internal causes and the external aspect
of what takes place above our heads: comp. his oft-repeated formula
naturae species ratiogue. tenenda=intellegenda: see ἢ. to 11 1173 Nec
tenet; and comp. Cic. pro Sest. 22 etzam sermones ansas dabant, quibus
reconditos evus sensus tenere possemus, which well illustrates how the
word got this meaning which exactly suits our passage. 86 caelr div.
par. cet.: comp. Cic. de div. 11 42 quid est igitur quod observatum sit in
fulgure? caelum wn sedecom partis diwiserunt Etrusct. facile id quidem
fut, quattuor quas nos habemus duplicare; post 1dem iterum facere ut ex
60 cicerent, fulmen qua ex parte venisset; 45 caelr enim distributio quanr
ante dra et certarum rerum notatio docet unde fulmen venerit, quo con-
cessertt; quid significet autem nulla ratio docet: Pliny 11 143 is even
more precise, 7 sedecim partes caelum in eo respectu divisere Tusci.
prima est a septentrionibus ad aequinoctialem exortum cet. itaque plurimum
refert unde venerint fulmuna et quo concesserint, optimum est cet.: comp.
too 381 foll. where these vss. are repeated. [See Mayor to Juv. x11 62.]
87 2 utram appears to be explained by Pliny]. 1. ex quibus (i.e. sedecim
partibus) octo ab ortu sinistras, totidem 6 contrario appellavere dextras:
it will mean, whether into the half on the right or that on the left;
unless it is rather into which of two disputed quarters. 88 partum,
as 384: 866 ἢ. to1 1111; inscr. Lat. 1 187 aidiles vicesma parti Apolones
dedert 1.6. vicesimam partim Apollinis dedere: it is found even in
Livy xxv1 46 ὃ partim copiarum ad tumulum expugnandum mittit,
partim ise ad arcem ducit. quo pacto, 89 wt; because on minute
observation of all the above points hung the interpretation of what
the lightning portended: to get a notion of the subtleties connected

with this art read Sen. nat. quaest. 11 49, 50. 89 donunatus:
224 Ht celert flamma doninantur in aedibus ipsis. 92 praescribta:

489 elabsa: contrary to what many seem to suppose, this retention

23—2

356 BOOK VI NOTES II

of ὁ for p in such words is very rare in our oldest authorities; thus
the inser. Lat. 1 always has scriptus: the b seems to have become
more common in the silver age, artificially recalled no doubt: the best
mss. of Virgil however have sometimes the ὦ, as geor. 1 200 sublabsa
M P and the new frag. A published by Pertz: the above remarks apply
to adque for atque; seen. tom 881. calcis: see Force. and Seneca and
Pliny cited by him; and comp. Varro sat. men. 288 Buech. Nemini
fortuna currum ὦ carcere intimo missum Labi inoffensum per aequor
candidum ad calcem sivit. 93 call. musa Calliope: Empedocles in a
new frag. in Hippol. ref. haer. vit 31, which probably was at the begin-
ning of the third and last book of his poem, has apBpore potoa...viv αὖτε
παρίστασο, Καλλιόπεια, κ.τ.λ. 95 ens. laude: Livy vir 38 3 sequente
Decio insignia cum laude donisque; Aen. 1 625 insignia laude ferebat.
cum l. c.: Hor. sat. 1 10 49 //aerentem capriti cum malta laude coronam.
96—120: thunder coines from the collision of clouds; the denser
they are, the deeper the rumbling; sometimes the noise is hike that of a
sheet of canvas blown about, sometimes like the crackling of paper;
sometimes the clouds graze each other sideways and occasion a dry pro-
tracted sound.—We again come to matters beyond the certain test of
sense; of which therefore many cxplanations may be and consequently
are equally true: the remarks appended to v 533 will apply here and to
what follows. 99 Vec fit cnam 1.6. nec enim, or neque enim fit.
105 Nam cadere aut for nam aut cadere, an idiomatical irregularity such
as all Latin and Greek writers allow themselves, and which cannot be
refused to Lucr.: indeed 11 393 Aut guia cet. is of much the same
character; and v 383 vel cum sol is more violent; see ἢ. there. bruto:
Paulus Fest. p. 31 ‘brutum antiqui gravem dicebant’. 108 aeg. mun.:
Accius 223 Sed quid tonitru turbida torro Concussa repente aequora
caeli Sensumw sonere. 109 Carvbasus cet.: comp. Iv 75; and see note
there, 112 commeditatur seems not to occur for certain anywhere
else; it must mean, to get up and practise a subject, and thus represent
or imitate it. 112—115: the punctuation must be noted: in 112
fragilis denotes the scraping rasping noise made by tearing papyrus: in
Virg. ecl. vimt 83 it denotes the crackling noise of burning laurel; in
Prop. ν (1v) 7 12 the rattling made by a skeleton’s hands; words denoting
sounds being vague in Latin: soztws of course is uncertain. Then 114
115 have the appearance of a subsequent addition; for 116 seems to
refer to 113: the kind of thunder resembling the noise of torn paper or
canvas. As they stand, it seems you must take the constr. to be ‘Aut
ubi. . per auras, id quoque genus cognoscere possis’; unless it be better
to refer the Aut to 109 ‘ut carbasus, aut ut suspensa vestis chartaeque
volantes, ubi eas cet.’ so that it would be an instance of that Lucretian
idiom illustrated in n. to 1 15; in 114 que need not be changed to ve:
566 π. tOM 0, 119 Aridus—ducitur: the sound well represents the

BOOK VI NOTES II 357

sense. Avridus: Virg. geor. 1 357 aridus altis Montibus audiri fragor ;
Homer has αὖον avtevy and καρφαλέον avoev: the aridus sonus seems to
be the sound which 15 like torn paper or canvas.

121—131: sometimes the thunder makes a noise like the crack of
doom, when a storm of wind eddies round within a cloud and hollows

it out, until at last it explodes with a frightful crash. 123 andi
must = caeli, or aetheris: see ἢ. to 1 73. 124 ven. proc.: 293 ventique
procella. 125 wntorsit is more emphatic than zxvolvit. 127 spisso
cava, the greater the hollow, the denser the crust. 129 perterricrepo:

see Introd. to notes 2 p. 1617. scissa i.e. nubes: Isidor. orig. x11 8
paraphrases this passage ; he too seems to have read missa ; see Lach.:
Pliny nat. hist. 11 113 posse et...spiritum nube cohibitum tonare, natura
strangulante sonitum dum rixetur, edito fragore cum. erumpat, ut in
membrana sprritu intenta, might also seem in favour of the ms. reading
missa; yet Lach. must I think be right. 130 cum..dat: comp. 140
and see n. to 1 566: to see with what indifference the indic. and subj.
are used in such cases, comp. Catull. 66 47 Quad facient crines, cum
ferro talia cedant, with Virg. ecl. 111 16 Quid domint faciant, audent
cum talia fures and Ov. ars πὶ 655 Quid sapiens faciet, stultus cum
munere gaudet: Virgil being a reminiscence of Catullus, Ovid of Virgil.
131 torvum son.: Aen. vit 399 torvumgque repente Clamat; Sil. x1 99
torvum exclamat Marcellus; Apul. flor. p. 79 voce hominis et tuba rudore
torvior cet.: the first blunder of our archetype is tergis for pergis ; comp.
too 237 tellens for pellens, and 11105 tonetralia for penetralia: torvum
answers to perterricr. of 129.—Epic. himself in Diog. x 100 foll. gives a
brief summary of the possible causes first of thunder, then of lightning,
and then of the other heavenly phenomena, πρηστῆρες etc. which Lucr.
discusses: the two are generally in close accordance.

192. 159: thunder may hkewise come from winds blowing through
rough branchy clouds; or from the wind bursting the cloud by a direct
onset ; or waves may break in the clouds, like those on the sea; or the
hot bolt may fall into a wet cloud and hiss like hot iron; or into a dry
one and make it crackle like bay-leaves in the fire; again the crash of
hail and ice in the clouds compressed by the wind may be the cause.
132 Hst ratio, ut: 639 Nunc ratio quae sit, per fauces montis ut Aetnae
ELupurent ignes: a very rare constr. which Wak. calls ‘pervagata dicendi
formula’; not needing then illustration, as he gives none: v 715 on the
other hand L'st etcam quare possit = est etiam ut possit ; and is not used
as 730 sit cur, where cur has its proper force. 140 cum haurit: see
n. to 130 and 1 566 cum constant and 11 29. 141 evolvens = eruens :
see Seneca Lucan and Plautusin Fore. 147 ¢rucidet, a bold and telling
metaphor. 148 Ué calidis cet.: Pliny 11 112 cum vero in nubem
perveniunt, vaporem dissonum gigni ut candente ferro in aquam demerso
et fumidum vorticem volvi ; hinc nasct procellas : the words are very like

358 BOOK VI NOTES II

those of Lucretius ; he just before uses stridunt, as Lucr. Stridit ; but
this form of the verb was always in common use: Luci]. vir 32 Muell.
reads fulgit uti caldum ec fornacibw ferrum. Ut..olim, δὲ: ut olim is
found in Lucil. πὶ 5 and vir 14 Muell.; Hor. sat. 11 25: olzm, δὲ in
Aen. v 125: olim, cum is often so used. 1492mbrem: seen. to1 715.
154 Delph. 1. described by Pliny xv 127: see Cato de re rust. ὃ 2, and
133 2, 155 flamma cet.: Aen. vil 74 flamma crepitante cremarr.
156 geli: see ἢ. to ν 209. 158 confercit: except in the partic. con-
fertus, this verb is rare: for the constr. of this v. comp. ἢ. to 11 843;
and Catull. 44 7 expult tussim, Non inmerenti quam mht meus venter,
Dum sumptuosas appeto, dedit, cenas; 6618 Non, ita me dwi, vera
gemunt, iwerint; Lucan 113 parari Hoc, quem civiles hauserunt, sanguine,
dextrae.

160—172: the flashes of lightning are struck out by the collision of
clouds: the flash is seen before the clap is heard, because light travels
faster than sound.—From 96 to 159 he has been speaking of the tonitru,
the clap of thunder: he now, 160 to 218, explains the fulgur or flash of
lightning: then 219—422 he discusses the fu/mzna, the actual strokes or
bolts or fires of thunder, or whatever it is to be called: comp. Sen. nat.
quaest. 11 12 tria sunt quae accidunt, fulgurationes fulmina tonitrua
quae una facta serius audiuntur. fulguratio ostendit ignem, fulminatio
emittet, alla, ut rita dicam, comminatio est, conatio sine rctw; rsta
iaculatio cum actu; and 16 fulguratro est late ignis explicitus, fulmen est
coactus ignis et impetu tactus; and 21 he says the fulgurateo would be
Sulmen, si plus hausisset virium. non natura ista, sed impetu distant ;
and 57 3 fulmen est fulgur intentum. βροντή, ἀστραπή, κεραυνός are the
corresponding Greek words. 160 Fulgit: Sen. 1. 1. 56 2 alo verbo
utebantur antique correpto, quo nos producta una syllaba utemur ;
dicimus enim ut splendére sic fulgére. at illis ad significandam hanc e
nubibus subitae lucis eruptionem mos erat correpta media syllaba uti, ut
dicerent fulgére. Lucretius’ practice seems to bear out what he says:
160, 174, 214, 218 fulgit; 165 fulgére: also v 1095 Fulgére, cum cael
donavit plaga vapore, is virtually in point: but 11 27, where see note,
V 768 fulget; νι 213 quae faciunt flammae fulgere colores; 11 800 refulget.
I confess that on a point like this I prefer the authority of Seneca backed
up by our mss, to that of Lachmann who arbitrarily changes the 2nd
conj. of the mss. to the 3rd just in those cases where Seneca and com-
mon usage support the former. Epic. 1. 1. 101 foll. treats of ἀστραπή or
lightning. 164 tonitram: Sen. 1. 1. 56 nos tonitrua pluraliter dic-
mus, antiqui autem tonitrum dixerunt aut tonum. 166 there is a
slight anacoluthon here: viswm quae moveant for ad visum; so that you
must supply adveniunt [res quae aures moveant] guam [ad visum| visum
quae moveant res. Wherever the point depends on an inference from
personal observation, Lucretius, as here, puts it well and clearly and

BOOK VI NOTES II 359

truly. Pliny 1 142 fulgetrum prius cernt quam tonitrua audiri, cum
simul fiant, certum est, nec mirum, quoniam lux sonitu velocior. 168
arboris auctum seems a poetical periphrasis for arborem ; but it probably
implies at the same time a large object ; as 11 482 enfinito corporis auctu ;
v 1171 mirando corporis auctu. 170 fulgorem: Lach. quotes Cic. de
div. 11 82 fulgoribus in a translation from Homer, and Aen. vii 524
JSulgor for lightning; but he adds that Lucr. here and 217 uses it in its
literal sense, rather than in that of lightning: the latest editor reads in
Cicero’s prose 1. 1. 43 fulgoribus, 44 fulgores, 49 fulgoribus ; but in each
case the reading seems doubtful: Ov. met. vir 619 notam fulgore dedit
tonitruque. 171 pariter—eodem: Pliny 1. 1, expresses by cwm simul
Jiant what Lucr. emphasises in a line and a half.

173—203: I explained before how the wind eddying about within
a cloud would hollow it out: well the rapid motion heats this wind ; and
when it escapes from the cloud, it scatters about its seeds of fire: thus
you first see the flash, and then hear the noise: this takes place when
the clouds are piled up high one on the other; the winds within these
make a great roaring and gather flame within them, as in a furnace, till
at last they burst out. 176 Fecit ut ante cavam docur: Lamb. com-
pares for the involved structure 1 758 quid a vero iam distet habebis :
see also v1 158 cum confercit franguntur in artum Concrett montes; and
n. to 11 843. anie, ie. 124 foll. spissescere, a rare word found also in
Celsus. 177 AMobilitate cet.: another acute inference drawn from per-
sonal observation. 179 volvenda: seen. tov 514, diquescit: Sen.
nat. quaest. 11 57 2 sic liquescit excussa glans funda et adtritw aeris
véelut igne distillat; Ovid met. xtv 825 lata plumbea funda Missa solet
medio glans intabescere caelo; Lucan vii 513 ut calido liquefactae pondere
glandes: Virg. Aen. 1x 588 must mean the same thing by lquefacto
plumbo; nay Arist. de caelo 11 7 οἷον καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν φερομένων βελῶν ταῦτα
yap αὐτὰ ἐκπυροῦται οὕτως ὥστε τήκεσθαι τὰς μολυβδίδας. [See too Bergk
Roem. Schleudergeschosse p. 97.] 182 nictantia: the fitful force
with which the seeds are driven out causes this bickering. 184 twice
before we have had ocworum lumina, and once oculorum lumane.
186 ampete: see n. to iv 416. 187 frude: 11 187 frudem B, per-
haps from Lucr.; Aen. 1v 675 frude P; ecl. τιν 31 frusdis R: for
frudare and defrudare in Terence and Plautus see Ritschl trin. 413
and parergon p. 541. 188 lata, extructa: on these neuters referring
to nubibus comp. 757 Quadripedes, 759 si sent mactata: and ἢ. to
1 352 totas, referring to arbusta: on the other hand 215 eas, though

nubila, not nubes, immediately precedes. quid = quantum. 189
Contemplator enim, cum occurred 11 114. adsimulata, and simulata
in same sense, always spelt in our mss. with w. 191 cumul. Insuper

alus alia: 521 altts aliae nubes nimbique rigantes Insuper. . feruntur ;
1283 suos consanguineos aliena rogorum Insuper extructa . . locubant;

360 BOOK VI NOTES II

Aen. 1x 274 Insuper his; Livy xx11 2 § sarcinis insuper incumbebant ;
auctor dirarum 170 Purpureos flores, quos wmsuper accumbebat: for
insuper with accus. and ab]. in Cato and Vitruvius see Fore.: inser, Lat.
1577 of the year v.c. 649 has insuper with an accus. several times.

193 sepultis: Cicero has more than once bellum sepultwm. 195 Spe-
luncasque: Ennius(?) in Cic. Tuse. disp. 137 Per speluncas saars structas
asperis pendentibus ; Aen. 1 166 scopulis pendentibus antrum. 197

for rhythm comp. n. to 1059. = magno cet., 199 fremitus: Aen. 1 55
Illi indignantes magno cum murmure montis Circum claustra fremunt.

199 fremitus, keeping up the illustration of wild beasts. 201 convol-
cunt: comp. Sen. epist. 94 67 turbinum more qui rapta convrolrunt, sed
apst ante volynntur et ob hoc matore impetu incurrunt. 197—203

are a good example of Lucretius’ powers of graphic description.

204—218: fire of a clear gold colour sometimes darts down to the
earth, because the clouds have in them many atoms of fire, and draw
many from the sun; when therefore they are compressed by the wind,
they emit these seeds of tlame without noise or disturbance. 204 /fac
etiam fit uti de causa =hac etiam de causa fit uti: comp. 727 and n. to
11 1004. 205 liguidi ignis compared by Macrob. with Virg. eel. v1 33
Et liquidé simul ignis: 349 liquidus quia transvolat ignis. 206 ipsas
opposed to the Quen etiam solis of 209. 211 contrusit, Compressit,
cogens his favourite pleonastical assonance; followed by expressa which
answers to compressit. 213 fulgére: see ἢ. to 160 Fulget, and τι 27
Julget: Lach. to maintain his own consistency in regard to the conjuga-
tion of fulgere forces on Lucr. a monstrous inconsistency; for fulgore can
only mean that the atoms of fire produce the colour of flame by their
own brightness, though Lucr. in 1 took such vast pains to prove that
atoms could not have colour or any other secondary quality: the atoms
by their action 182 factunt nictantia fulgura jflammae, and 217 factunt
Sulgorem ; so here too faciunt flammae fulyere colores, which is the same
thing. 215 eas: sce n. to 188.

219—238: the marks left by the thunderbolts themselves prove
them to be of the nature of fire: this fire consists of atoms of extreme
fineness, which nothing is able to stop; they are far more powerful than
those of the sun.—He now, as we observed at 160, comes to the
Julmina, having discussed first the fonitru or clap, and then the fulgur
or flash: see n. to 160, where this was fully illustrated. 220 ictus,
hike vudnera and cognate words, sometimes denotes the result of the
stroke as well as the stroke itself: indeed if the results are lasting, as in
the cases here specified, it is impossible to separate the two meanings.
221 halantis is best taken as the nom. plur.: notae halantes gravis auras
sulpuris. sulpuris: Pliny xxxv 177 fulmina et fulgura quoque sulpuris
odorem habent, ac lux ipsa eorum sulpurea est; Sen. nat. quaest. 11 53 2
guocum@ue decidit fulmen, ἐδὲ odorem esse sulpuris certum est, qui quia

BOOK VI NOTES II 361

gravis est cet.: comp. too Isid. de rer. nat. 30 4, 224 dominantur :
89 and 385 hinc dominatus ut eatulerit se. 225 cwim primis egnibus
is the same as cum primis. Plut. sympos. Iv 665 F τὸ κεραύνιον πῦρ
ἀκριβείᾳ καὶ λεπτότητι θαυμαστόν ἐστιν, αὐτόθεν περὶ THY γένεσιν ἐκ καθαρᾶς
καὶ ἁγνῆς ἔχον οὐσίας κ-.τ.λ, 228 Transit cet.: comp. 1 489 Transit
enim fulmen caelt per saepta domorum, Clamor ut ac voces with 354
Inter saepta meant voces et clausa dom. Transvolitant: it must be
admitted that the words repeated from I are not fit examples of the
extreme force of lightning: if they do come from the poet, it may have
been an inadvertence which he would have corrected. 11 384 caelestem
fulminis ignem Suptilem magis e parvis constare figuris Atque ideo
transire foramina quae nequit ignis Noster hic cet. 230 liguidum
cet.:; Sen. nat. quaest. 11 31 loculis integris conflatur argentum. manente
vcugina gladius ipse liquescit cet.; and so Pliny 11137 aurwm et aes et
argentum liquatur imtus cet. 231 Curat cet.: Pliny 1. 1. fulminwm
ipsorum plura genera traduntur...tertium est quod clarum vocant, mirt-
Jicae maxime naturae, quo dolia exchauriuntur intactis operimentis nullo-
que alio vestiyio relicto: ‘see Dio Cass. 57 14 and Fabric. there’ J.E.M.
Curat, Diffugiant is a constr. sufficiently attested, as by Hor. od. 138 5
mihil adlabores Sedulus, curo; sat. 116 38 Imprimat his cura; [Lueail.
xxx 46 curate domi sint. | 233 Conlaxat seems not to be found else-
where. rareque facit: comp. 962 οὐ facit are. lateramina does not
elsewhere occur except in Marcianus Capella’s quotation: the meaning
must be guessed, but can hardly be doubtful. 236 wetatem thus used
is common in Plautus and Terence, and occurs more than once in
Lucilius: it appears to have been a conversational idiom like our ‘an
age’: comp. too 111 986 Perpetuam aetatem. 237 pellens f. δ. is well
illustrated by Pliny xiv 136 Campaniae nobilissima (i.e. vina) eaposita
sub diu in cadis verberari sole luna imbre ventis aptissimum videtur: to
such a custom Lucr. seems to refer.

239—245: now to explain the origin and prodigious force of thunder-
bolts. 240 discludere: 111 171 Ossibus ac nervis disclusis intus.
242 monm. vir.: Aen. vill 311 singula laetus Exquiritque auditque
virum monimenta priorum; 356 Reliquias veterumque vides monimenta
vrrorum. demol, atque crem.: Livy xxvii 19 12 cremata et diruta
urbe; 20 7 ignem deinde tectis iniciunt ac diruunt quae incendio absumt
nequeunt : to burn what will burn, and throw down what will not: vu
27 ὃ oppidum dirutum atque incensum; 1x 45 17 quorum pleraque
diruta atque incensa; Suet. Nero 38 quaedam horrea...ut bellicis ma-
chints labefacta atque inflammata sint, quod saxeo muro constructa sint:
the atque (ac) binding the two notions together in Luer. Livy and Suet.
alike to my mind adds probability to my cremare. [Comp. also Cie.
epist. xv 4 10 omnibus partibus urbis disturbatis wut incensis. | 245
neque cet.: V 91 ne te in promissis plura moremur.

362 BOOK VI NOTES II

246—322: that thunderbolts are formed in dense masses of clouds
our eyesight tells us; the wind gathers the seeds of fire in these clouds,
and gets ignited by them and the heat from its own rapid motion, till
it bursts forth with flashes and loud rattlings followed by heavy rain:
sometimes a wind from without bursts a cloud charged with thunder ;
sometimes the wind gets fired on its journey, losing some of its own
atoms and gathering from the air atoms of fire ; sometimes the mere
force of its blow strikes out fire, as cold steel strikes fire out of a stone ;
though the wind after such rapid motion can never be quite without
warmth. 250 Quod introduces not the cause, but merely an illustra-
tion of the case in point, as πὶ 208 //laec quoque res etiam naturam
dedicat eius,...Quod simul atque cet.; see ἢ. there: IV 211 Quod sumul ac
primum sub diu splendor aquar Ponitur cet.; v 285 zd licet hine cognos-
cere possis, Quod simul ac primum nubes cet.: v1 335 Dende, quod cet.
is also essentially similar. 251—254 = 1v 170—173. 255 commio-
iri tempestas fulmina probably suggested to Virgil Fulmina molitur in
the passage quoted to Iv 172. 257 Ut picis cet.: 426 tamquam
denissa columna In mare de caelo, and 433. 258 trahit atram cet.:
Virg. geor. 1 323 Et foedam glomerant tempestatem imbribus atris
Collectae ex alto nubes. 259 tempestatem comprises all ingredients of
the storm; procellis are furious winds: 124 valida venti conlecta procella;
293 discadto nubis ventique procella; Livy xxx1x 46 3 tempestas cum
magnis procellis coorta; Sen. nat. quaest. v 12 2 et erumpit in ventum
qui fere procellosus est. 266 venientes i.e. nubes, understood from 268
nubibus in the dependent clause: a favourite usage of Lucr.; see ἢ. to
115: with venientes comp. 1 285 venrentis aquar: the object of opprimere
is terras of 264. 267 cam. nat.: see ἢ. to v 488. 268 extructis
Soret nubibus: with this ab]. comp. 11 909 Aut similt i.e. sensu totis anima-
hbus esse putart; 11 620 Atque tta multimodis partitis artubus esse; Hor.
sat. 15 58 tua cornu Nt foret exsecto frons. 271 supra, i.e. 206 and
209. 276 cim eo: seen. to 11 404. 278 acurt, poetically treating
it as a bolt, βέλος, telum. forn. intus: see ἢ. to τιν 1091. 279 sua
cum Afobil.: see n. to 1 287. 285 sonitus cet.: 294 ardenti sonitus
cum provolat ictu; comp. 11 1100 caelique serenu Concutiat sonitu, and
n. there. 287 tremor pertemptat: Virg. geor. 11 250 Nonne vides ut
tota tremor pertenptet equorum Corpora. 290 de=ex: both after and
in consequence οὗ: v 651 ubi de longo cursw sol ultima caeli Impulit ;
Ovid met. x 49 incessit passu de vulnere tardo; trist. 11 3 82 Deque
tuts lacrimis umida serta dato; see too n. to 1 384 de concursu. 291
Omnis cet.; Virg. geor. 1 324 ruit arduus aether; Aen. v 695 ruit
aethere toto Turbidus imber aqua; Martial 111 100 3 Imbribus immodicis
caelum nam forte ruebat ; see also π΄ to 1 250: just above, 268 extructis
foret alte nubibus aether. in im. v.: Lucil. 11 36 Muell. Terra abit in
nimbos imbremque. 292 comp. v 255 Pars etiam glebarum ad dilu-

BOOK VI NOTES II 363

viem revocatur. 295 Hst cum, ἐστὶν ore: his elder contemporary the
auctor ad Heren. 11 30 est cum complextone supersedendum est...est cum
exornatio praetermittenda est; Iv 36 est cum non est satius, si cet.;
M. Aurel. to Fronto 11 13 erttne quom te videbo?; Plaut. capt. 324 Fst
etiam ubi...praestet; Cic. Tusc. disp. v 23 est ubi rd esto modo valeat ;
Hor. epist. 1 1 63 Interdum vulgus rectum videt, est οὐδὲ peccat ; [ibid.
11015 Est ube plus tepeant hiemes? ubi...Hst whe divellat sonnos minus
invida cura 3] 297 zgneus ile Vertex appears to be forked lightning.
298 quem: see n. to 111 94. 299 quoc. tultt 1.6. se: comp. sz forte eo
vestigia ferrent of Livy and the like; [and Cic. epist. v 2 3 meae enim
rationes ita tulerunt. | 301 Jgniscat: the mss. of Cicero and Virgil
write ignesco. 302 Dum venit, amittens, 304 Atque..portat: a
change from the participle to the finite verb, an idiom so common in
Greek: see also ἢ. to v 383. 306 plumbea cet.: Ovid met. τα 727
cum Balearica plumbum Funda iacit. volat ulud et vcandescit eundo ;
comp. too ἢ. to 178 plwmbea cet. 313 ex alla quae tum res: see n. to
115. 316 ad ictum: comp. 1 185 Semines ad coitum, and n. there.
319 tem. om. plane: see n, to 11 1060 temere incassum frustraque.
323—378: the thunderbolt derives its velocity from a union of
causes: it acquires momentum within the cloud; as it bursts out of it,
this is increased on the principle of missiles discharged from an engine;
its atoms are extremely fine; add to this the natural tendency down-
ward, which increases continuously ; perhaps too it is aided by blows
from atoms which it gathers to itself in the air: its subtle atoms pass
through the pores of some things; burst asunder others; melt others.
In autumn and spring thunder is most frequent, because then there
is a mixture of heat and cold, of fire and wind, as well as moisture ;
all of which are needed to forge it. 324 percurrunt, 1.6. usque ad
finem currunt: this absolute use of the word which is rare enough, is
most learnedly illustrated by Lach.: v 1407 supera calamos unco percur-
rere labro; but 1v 588 Unco saepe labro calamos percurrit: v1 668 Perque
mare ac terras rapidus percurrere turbo; Propert. πὶ (11) 16 49 Vidistis
toto sonitus percurrere caclo; Aetna 99 Per tota errantes percurrunt
corpora vende. 326 con. sumit: 1041 partem in vacuam conamina
sumpsit. 327 inpetis he uses only here, fond as he is of umpete: observe
327 unpetis, 328 impete, 334 empete, 337 impetus, 340 rnpete. 333 77
remorando has the force of a pres. partic., remoratur et haesitat: τν 720
in remorando Laedere ne possint ex ulla lumina parte; ur 491 in rac-
tando membra fatigat ; 706 in manando dissoluuntur ; vi 143 Dant in
Frangendo ; Cic. pro Font. 39 (29) ὧν appellando significare ; [pro Mil.
79 in confitendo ab tisne poenam timeret?;] Ov. trist. 11 14 (13) 9
Inque relinquendo, which ought not to be tampered with: auctor bell.
Africae 63 4 quae in repugnando erat commorata; [Caes. Ὁ. civ. τι 9 8 an
struendo reliquerunt. | 335 guod does not assign the cause, but

364 BOOK VI NOTES II

merely states the fact, and is like in principle to the cases given in n.
to 250, 111 208. 339 itiner: see n. to V 653 ttere. 341 Mobilitatem
cet.: Aen. 1v 175 Mobilitate viget viresque adquirit eundo. 344 #
regione: IV 374 6 regione eadem nos usque secuta: comp. also vi 742,
823, 833; and Cic. de fin. 1 19 and de fato; where ad lineam and
rectis lineis are given as synonymes for it; also Livy xxxvil1 5 2
tria...admovit, unum e regione Aesculapii; 7 7 fossam...e regione evus
operis...ducere instituunt: it is merely an extension to a thing in
motion of the common meaning, ‘over against’, ‘directly opposite’.
345 volventia: comp. Vv 931 per caelum solis volventia lustra, and n.
there. 347 ecendunt is much more poetical than the old vulgate
intendunt; Wak. and Lach. cite Virgil’s pudor encendit vires, [Mam
incendentem luctus: comp. too Tac. ann. 1 23 wncendebat haec jfletu ;
and Livy xx1 58 6 cum eo magis accensa vis venti essel. 350 per-
fringit, because it falls on all the joinings of the thing, and so breaks
it up into its constituent atoms: perfigit clearly can have no such
force. 351 textw is here the partic. agreeing with corpora rerum
rather than the subst. which elsewhere he uses. 352 Dissoluit: see
230. 853 Confervefactt seems not to occur elsewhere. 357 st. fulg.
apta: Enn. ann. 30 Que caelum versat stellis fulgentibus aptum; 162
Caelum suspeait stellis fulgentibus aptum; 343 nox processit stellis arden-

tibus apta: the last phrase is twice used by Virgil. 358 cael domus:
see ἢ. to 11 1110. 359 comp. 1 10 semel ac species patefactast verna
diet; and Manil. 11 182 alter florentia tempora veris Suffictt. 364

jretus expresses at once the strait joining two seas and the swell and
surging common in such cross-seas: Varro de ling. Lat. vir 22 dictum
fretum a similitudine ferventis aquae, quod im fretum saepe concurrat
aestus atque effervescat: for the form see n. to 1 720 fretu. 865 Lach.
compares Manil. 1 852 Sunt autem cunctis permixtc partibus ignes, Qui
gravidas habitant fabricantes fulmina nubis, 868 foll. comp, Chrysip-
pus’ similar definition of spring and autumn in ἰοῦ. ecl. 1 p. 261 262.
368 for the expression comp. Ov. her. x1v 22 Ultama pars lucis proma-
que noctis erat. 369 quave: therefore in the spring as there is this
mixture of heat and cold, there must be going on the struggle which
produces thunder. Lach. refines, nor is his refinement true: ‘quaeritur’
he says ‘quare calor et frigus inter se pugnent: id enim non fit quia ver
est, sed quia Prima pars caloris est postrema rigoris’: the second guia is
at least as untrue as the first: heat and cold fight because they are to-

gether; and therefore in the spring, as also in the autumn. 370 tur-
bare is neut.: see ἢ. to 11 126, [373 confligunt aestatibus: ‘der Dativ

nur bei Luer.’ Draeger hist. synt. 1 p. 383.] 374 Propterea freta
cet. refers to 364 Nam fretus tpse anni cet. nominitanda: this word
five times used by Lucr. seems scarcely to be found elsewhere: [see
corp. inser. Lat. 1 1011 swnm Aurelia nominitata. |

BOOK VI NOTES II 365

379—422: such is the true explanation of thunder, not the follies
taught in the Tuscan rolls: if the gods do hurl the bolts, why do they
pass over the guilty and so often strike the innocent? why does Jupiter
thunder only when the sky is clouded? why does he waste his bolts on
the sea? why not tell us to beware, if he wishes us to escape? why
thunder, if he wishes to take us unawares? how can he hurl at once in
so many places? why destroy his own temples and statues? why so
often strike the mountain-tops? 379 Hoc, ‘what I have just said’:
Wak. prefers to take hoc as the abl. ‘ut magis Lucretianum’; so that es¢
will be for licet, a sense it never bears in Lucr. and the older writers:
see notes 1 to Vv 533. 380 Perspicere and videre have, as so often in
Lucr., the force of substantives: see 415 416 and n. to1 331: Perspicere
cet. est hoc, non...perquirere cet. ipsam, in its reality. 981 Tyrrhena
cet.: see Cicero and Pliny quoted in notes to 86 foll. and Sen. nat. quaest.
1 32 quid, quod futura portendunt cet. hoc inter nos et Tuscos quibus
summa est fulgurum persequencdoriune scientia interest: nos putamus, quia
nubes conlisae sunt, fulmina emittt. ipst existemant nubes conlidi ut
fulmina emittantur. nam cum omnia ad deum referant, in ea opinione
sunt, tamquam non quia facta sunt significent, sed quia significatura suit
fiant: Cic. de div. 172 speaks of the Hiruscorwm et haruspicim et fulgu-
rales et rituales libre. retro volventem ‘shew that in his time the Etrus-
can books were still read in the original, from right to left, retro’
Niebuhr hist.1 p. 111 ἢ. 341: IT should have thought it simply meant un-
rolling, volumina evolventem, retroversum volventem; [comp. Sen. rhet.
suas. vi at end ut librum velitis usque ad umbilicum revolvere:] though I
confess to having no certainty on the matter. What does Val. Flaccus
1782 mean by iam iam exorabile retro Carmen agens? ‘I will remark by
the way that by indicia mentis Lucr. means to explain indigitamenta’
ibid.: but I do not find that the Etruscan books, which are here in
question, had anything to do with these indigitamenta; which appear
on the contrary to have belonged to the purest form of the old Roman
worship. 382 Jnd. mentis: Ov. met. vil 620 felicra mentis Signa
tuae i.e. Iovis. 383—385 =87—89, which were copiously illustrated.
386 de caelo: see n. to 11 51.

388 comp. Terence quoted to 1 1100. 390 gquibus incautwm
scelus est i.e. qui non caverunt scelus: Sall. hist. inc. 46 repente encautos
agros invasit; Livy xxv 38 14 quia quod neglexeris, incautum atqre
apertum habeas; Tac. ann. 150 hostibus ancautum 1.6, iter; Silius 11 98
rueretque inopina sub ictu Ante fera incauto, quam sibila poneret arcus.
aversabile seems to occur only here. 392 perfixo: see n. to 11 360:
with this and 395 Jurbene cet. comp. Aen. 1 44 Lllwm expiruntem trans-
fixo pectore lammas Turbine corripuit. documen seems to be in apposi-
tion with the preceding sentence: Socrates in the clouds 399 feels the
same difficulty, Εἴπερ βάλλει τοὺς ἐπιόρκους, πῶς οὐχὶ Σίμων᾽ ἐνέπρησεν

366 BOOK VI NOTES II

Οὐδὲ Κλεώνυμον οὐδὲ Θέωρον ; καίτοι σφόδρα y εἴσ᾽ ἐπίορκοι. 393 sabi
conscius in ve appears to be like Cic. ad Att. 118 1 mihi in privatis om-
nibus conscius; [Prop. 1 10 2 vestris conscius in lacrimis:| he is self-
conscious in the thing, that is conscious that he has done it: Cie. ad
Att. 1 24 3 has his de rebus conscium; Sall. Cat. 35 2 conscientia de
culpa. 395 comp. v 1231 violento turbine saepe Correptus. 390—
396 are expressed more briefly 11 1102 foll. 396 Cur etiam loca sola
cet., 404 Im mare qua cet., 421 Altaque cur plerumque cet.: Cic. de
div. 11 44 is so like in expression that he would seem to have had
Lucretius’ lines in his memory: scilicet 8ὲ ista Luppiter significaret,
tam multa frustra fulmina emitteret ! quid enim proficit, cum an medium
mare fulmen vecit? quid, cum in altissimos montis, quod plerumque fit?
guid, cum in desertas solitudines? 397 consuescunt: see n. to 1v 1282
insuescat te. 402 simul ac nub. succ.: V 286 simul ac nubes primum
succedere soli Coepere. 403 [ prope: Mart. 149 29 veniet tibi Conviva
clamatus prope.| determinet, mark the point to which they are to go.
404 guid may be called the cognate accus.: this use of the neut. pron.
is of very extended application in Latin: N. P. Howard compares
Plaut. trin. 96 δὲ id me non accusas; Amph. 859 sic me insimulare
falso facinus tam malum. 405 cam. nat.: seen. tov 488. 410 concit:
see ἢ. to 1 212 cumus. 411 comp. Cic. 1. 1. esset mirabile quomodo id
Iuppiter totiens iaceret, cum unum haberet; nec vero fulminibus homines
quid aut faciendum esset aut cavendum moneret. 413, 416 uno sub
tem.=eodem tempore: comp. Ov. fasti v 491 haec tria sunt sub eodem
tempore festa; met. 1 494 cam sub luce; 603 Sub nitido die; Aetna 190
sub exiguo tempore; Manil. 111 249 vario sub tempore; 245 luce sub
omni; 671 sub utroque tempore ; V 635 sub tali tempore; [Livy xxv 24 7
sub luce Hexapylo effracto:| see n. to τν 545 sub murmure, where the use
of sub is essentially the same. 415 pluere, 416 7.671 are used as subst. :
see 380, v 979 Non erat ut frert posset mirarier; and n. to 1 331: just
above he has factum, Ut fierent, the usual constr.: notice the indifference
with which he repeats jieri, fiert; factwm fierent: 727 he has fit uti frat,
729 fit uti fiant; 1v 448 fit wti videantur...fierr; Cic. orator 202 ita fit
ut..... fiat; Livy is not averse to wt fierent factum est and the like;
Ov. ex Ponto 111 137 di faciant, copia fiat; 6 15 facts ut frat. 417
foll.: 11 1101 more briefly fulmina mittat et aedis Saepe suas disturbet ;
Socrates 1]. 1. ᾿Αλλὰ τὸν αὐτοῦ ye νεὼν βάλλει καὶ Σούνιον ἄκρον ᾿Αθηνών;
Cic. 1.1. 45 ἀπά τ 19 quotes his own verses, Vam pater altitonans stel-
lanti nixus Olympo Ipse suos quondam tumulos ac templa petivit Et
Caprtolinis iniecit sedibrs igiis. Tum species ex aere vetus...Lt divom
simulacra peremirt fulmiuis ardor. 421 ecius is the gen. after, not
agreeing with ignis.

423—450: presters are thus formed: if the wind cannot break the
cloud, it forces it down in the shape of a column to the sea, where it

BOOK VI NOTES II 307

bursts and causes a furious boiling and surging: sometimes the whirl-
wind will gather up atoms of cloud and wrap them round, and will so
imitate a real prester: this will shew itself sometimes on land, but
oftener on the sea.—Epic. in Diog. x 104 explains these presteres: Pliny
11 131—134 will throw more light on Luer. [429 deprensa: Catull.
25.13 Deprensa navis in mari, and Aeneid quoted there by Ellis; Hor.
od. 1116 1 in patents Prensus Aegeo.| 480 Navigia cet.: Pliny 1.1. 132
praccipua navigantium pestis, non antemnas modo verum ipsa navigia
contorta frangens; Sen. nat. quaest. v 13 3 totae naves in sublime tol-
lantur. 431 Hoc fit cet.: the wind having become fiery by its rapid
motion in the cloud cannot burst it; if it could, it would then be fwlmen,
as explained above so fully; but not being able to-break the cloud, it
pushes it down to the sea in the way described: Lucr. seems to assume
that the word πρηστήρ will indicate its fiery nature without further
specification. With this, and what follows, 488 Versabundus enim
turbo cet., 443 venti—Vertex, 447 Turbinis—procellae comp. Pliny
1.1. 183 quod st marore depressae nubis eruperit specu, sed minus lato
quam procella nec sine fragore, turbinem vocant proxuma quaeque proster-
nentem, idem ardentior accensusque dum furit, prester vocatur amburens
contacta pariter et proterens...quod st simul rupit nubem exarsitque et
ignem habuit, non postea concepit, fulmen est. distat a prestere quo
flamma ab igni; hic late funditur flatu, tllud conglobatur impetu. vertex
autem remeando distat a turbine et quo stridor a fragore; procella latitu-
dine ab wtroque, disiecta nube verius quam rupta: Seneca 1, 1. hic ventus
circumactus et eundem ambrens locum ac se wpsa vertigine concitans turbo
est. qui st pugnactor est ac diutius volutatur, inflammatur et efficit quod

prestera Graect vocant. hic est _greus turbo. 432 coepit: see ἢ. to I
55 incipiam, and comp. coeptwim. 438 Versabundus: 582 Versabun-
daque portatur. 439 cum: see ἢ. to 1 755. 440 semul ac grav-
dam, the only instance in Lucr. of ac before a guttural; for the reason
of this exception see ἢ. to 1 281. 443 involvaé cet. i.e. does not get
enclosed in the dense clouds, but eddying about catches up stray particles
of cloud and makes a case for itself. 446 Hic refers to prestera of

445; though it may include the imitation, as well as the genuine prester.
447 Turbinis and procellae as well as vertex are discriminated by Pliny
cited above: turbinis then will denote the tornado in the neighbourhood
of the place where the prester bursts; procellae the storm of wind spread-
ing itself far and near. provomit appears not to occur elsewhere.
450 Prosp. maris im magno i.e. in mari quod late prospectum praebet:
Ovid her. x 27 atque ita late Aequora prospectu metior alta meo; Sen.
epist. 89 21 en vastum terrarum marisque prospectum.

451-494: clouds are thus formed: first many particles in the sky
get entangled and form small clouds; and then these unite, until the
sky is overcast: thus high mountains are seen to smoke with mist,

368 BOOK VI NOTES II

because the small particles of cloud are first carried to these by the
wind: then moisture steams up from the sea and rivers; and the pres-
sure of the ether above condenses it; finally many atoms, flying as I
have shewn through space, come into this heaven of ours, and increase
the mass from all sides.— Epic. in Diog. x 95 gives a brief explanation
of clouds, agreeing essentially with this of Lucr. 458 moris, properly
whatever holds or detains, and thence it has the force of nevus: Lach.
compares 531 mora quue jluvios pussim refrenat euntis; Aen. x 485
Loricaeque moras; and refers to Gronovius Sen. de benef. v 12 2 com-
aussuras eorum et moras: in addition to his and Gronovius’ instances
comp. Plaut. Stichus 309 jures fucite ut puteant: removete moram ;
Aen. χα 541 clipet mora; Sen. Thyest. 762 ducertorum moras; Phoen.
246 Uterique nondum solveram clausi moras; Lucan vi 217 moras ferra
ον rumpit; Stat. Theb. x1 244 portarwm moras. 456 haec is fem.
plur. as it appears to be πὶ 5385; but see ἢ. there: hae does not
oceur in Lucr., and in his time haec must have been the usual form,
and is sometimes preserved in the best mss. of Cicero Caesar Varro
Virgil Livy and Ovid as well as Plautus Terence and others. —com-
prenduut inter se=mutuo se comprendunt: comp. 1 787 tuter se muture,

and n. there. 458 temp. sueva co.: Virg. geor. ΠῚ 478 miseranda
coorta est Tempestas, with quite another sense. 460 Quam quoque
magis: comp. πὶ 700 Tanto quique magis, and ἢ. there. 465 coorta

in neut. plur. here as in 1v 930, and I now think in vi 253: m1 15
divina mente coortd, the constr. is the same: v1 5011 coacta seems the abl.
sing. 474 quoque clearly belongs in strictness to multa or e salso
momine; sec ἢ. to Υ 192. 475 wm. ol.: the clouds and the sea. 482
comp. V 466 Corpore concreto subltexunt nubila caelum. 483 hc, into
the heaven of our mundus from some other part of space. 485 rw0e-
gum, of corpora or atoms. inn. um: UW 1054 Seminague innumero
numero summaque profunda Multimodis volitent; where see note: but
here swmmam profundi refers to infinite space; as spatiwm profundi

more than once. 486 docut, the former point 1 1008—1051; the
latter 988S—1007. 487 ostendi, 11 142 foll. 488 comp. Iv 192
Inmemorabile per spatium transeurrere posse. 490 Mont. tam mag.:

comp. 189 montibus adsimulata Nubila; and 1v 140 magni montes cet. :
491 inpensa=quae inpendent: see n. to 11 363.

495—526: rain comes in this way: many particles of matter rise
with the clouds from all things; then the clouds suck up much moisture
from the sea and rivers; thus the clouds both by their own weight and
the pressure of the wind emit rains; and these are inereased by the sun
helping to dissolve the clouds: rains are heavy and lasting, when these
causes combine, and the reeking earth sends its moisture back: the rain-
bow comes from the sun shining right upon a mass of cloud. 496 ut
amber: 1099 Aut extrinsecus ut nubes nebulaeque cet. 499 utrumque

BOOK VI NOTES II 369

Et nubis et aquam, like the ἀμφότερον of Homer and the Greeks: Plaut.
eistell. 13.1 Utrumaque haec et multiloqua et multrbiba est anus; Gratius
cyneg. 333 Utrumque et prudens et sumptis umpiger armis: sometimes
utrumque is put at the end; as Plaut. trin. 461 Nam et stulte facere et
stulte fabularier Utrumque, Lesbonice, in aetate haud bonumst; Lucil. x1
Et formosus homo furt et famosus utrumque; dirae 96 Sive eris, et si non,
mecum morieris utrnmque: comp. too 111 658 and my note there. 503
Conciptunt i.e. nubila, understood from the accus. nubila of 505: see n.
to 1 15. 907 bene cet. i.e. bene multa semina, 511 coacta appears
to be the ablative. 912 de supero: comp. de subito and the like:
it is the older and correcter form of desuper. 913 rarescunt cet.:
214 Fulgit item, cum rarescunt quoque nubila caeli; Nam cum ventus
eas leviter diducit euntis Dissoluitque cet. 514 super =insuper: see
n. to 1 649, 517 utraque, as in Iv 86 and 291. 518 σἱ cumulata
=511 Copra nimborum turba maiore coacta: with the expression comp.
734 aubes cogurutur vique premuntur. 919 tenere: Lach. compares
Livy xx111 44 6 amber continens per noctem totam usque ad horam tertiam
cliet nsequentis tenuit; and refers to Duker on tv 7 7 and vi 35 10 who
quotes several other examples of the same use, 11 3, 111 19, χχιν 47, xxv
99, XxX 22, xxxvi 43: add νι! 39 11, xxv 15 16, 27 6 qua (1.6. venti) teem
tenebant, xxvil ὃ 15, xxxtx 22 3, xt 8 20; Ov. ars 1 445. 521 alvs
aliae...Insuper: comp. 191 cumulata videbis Insuper esse alris alia; and
n. there. 923 redhalat seems not to occur elsewhere: for form comp.
redhibeo: rehalo of old eds. is a barbarism. 925 Adversa asp. =aspar-
gine nimb. ex adverso. aspargine: comp. 1 719 aspargit, and ἢ. there.
926 arguz: the best mss. of Cic. de nat. 111 5] have the same form; and
Nonius cites from Varro the nom. plur. arci: see Neue 1 p. 543.

927— 534: all other like things, whether existing by themselves or
formed in the clouds, snow wind hail and frost, may be all easily
explained, if you understand the properties of atoms. 927 sorsum
crescunt is intended to be a verbal as well as real antithesis to con-
crescunt. 930 σοὶ: seen. to ν 205. mag. dur. ag. and 531 ΑῚ
mora cet. are different expressions for the same thing and are both
explanations of the vis geli; the iteration is designed to be emphatic:
Virg. geor. 1V 136 glacie cursus frenaret aguarun. 591 mora: see
n. to 453. 922 tumen: notwithstanding their number and variety,
they may yet be all readily explained. 533 quareve = quareque: see
n. tol 57.

039—956: earthquakes have more than one cause: underground are
caverns rocks rivers and lakes: well, when any of these caverns tumble
in, Whole mountains may fall and shake the earth; or if a mass of earth
tumble into the large pools of water, the oscillation of the water may
make the earth reel_—Epic. in Diog. x 105 106 attributes earthquakes
to somewhat similar combinations of causes, and adds in his usual way

M. IL. 24

370 BOOK VI NOTES II

καὶ Kat ἄλλους δὲ τρόπους πλείους Tas κινήσεις ταύτας τῆς γῆς γίνεσθαι:
Seneca devotes the whole of the sixth book of his nat. quaest. to the
same subject ; chap. 20 recounts first the theories of Democritus, and
then of Epicurus: Seneca here and in what precedes and follows illus-
trates Lucr. better than Epicurus does, having had access of course
to larger works of the latter: veniamus nunc ad eos qui omnia ista
guae rettuli in causa esse dixerunt aut ex his plura. Democritus
plura putat. ait enim motum aliquando spiritu freri, aliquando aqua,
aliquando utroque, just as Lucr.; then 20 5 omnes istas posse esse causas
Epicurus ait pluresque alias temptat et alios qui aliquid unum ex istis
esse adfirmaverunt corripit cet.; he then proceeds to employ wind and
water in much the same way as Lucr. does. 038 and 552 lucunas:
see n. to 111 1031. 938 Jucunas, to distinguish it from laces, may
mean here chasms not filled with water, a sense it often bears, though
552 he says in magnas aqtiae vastasque lucunas; which would also shew
that /weunas cannot well mean small pools in contradistinction to lacus;
so that in fact it may be a mere poetical tautology, as 539 rupes derup-
taque saxa: comp. 1115 vastasque lacunas and ἢ. there. 542 semilem
cet.: this appears to follow from Epicurus’ ἰσονομία or as Cicero de nat.
1 50 translates it aequabilis tributro ; ut omnibus omnia paribus paria
respondeant. 543 subi. supp. must surely have their literal sense,
referring to what he has just said is below ground. Creech plainly and
Lamb. apparently take the meaning to be, ‘these points being assumed
and taken for granted’: the latter says τούτων by ὑποκειμένων καὶ ὑποτε-
θέντων: but I find no authority whatever for giving the Latin words the
metaphorical meaning which these Greek words have, and Lamb. may
have used them too in their literal sense. 044 superne tremit cet.: so
Epic. according to Seneca |. 1. fortasse aliqua pars terrae velut columnis
guibusdam ac pilis sustinetur, quibus vitiatis ac recedentibus tremit pon-
dus umpositum. 547 disserpunt I find only here. 949 non magno
pondere and tota gain point and force by being placed together and
divided from plaustr: and Tecta respectively ; but yet the wide separa-
tion of plaustri and non magno pondere is harsh: but see ἢ. to 1v 905
pondere magno. Sen. epist. 90 9 longo vehiculorum ordine vicis intre-
mentibus. 950 eaultant ut scrupus is assuredly near the ductus litte-
rarum of exultantes dupuis, ut being passed over after nt: wt, ‘where’,
is used before him by Lucil. ὙΠ 18 Muell. fumen uti adque tpso divortio
[aguae sunt]; by his contemporary Catullus, 11 3 and 17 10; by Virgil
Aen. V 329 ut forte; Cic. Verr. v 30 in ipso aditu atque ore portus, ut
(mss. wbz editions) primum ex alto sinus ab litore ad urbem inflectitur :
Haupt ind. lect. 61 62 p. 6 shews that Ov. met. 115 probably wrote
Uique aer, tellus cet., as Cicero certainly translates Aratus 230 ἧχί περ
ἄκραι χηλαὶ x.7.r., by ué prius tllae Chelae, and Germanicus by Ut Chelae,
candens ut balteus Orionis: [comp. too Plaut. Amph. 1083 U¢ iacui

BOOK VI NOTES II 371

exurgo: and perhaps 237 Quesque, ut steterat, tacet optinetque ordinem ;
for see ibid. 1079 Ubt quisque institerat, concedit crepitu.| Lucr. may
well then have written wé cwmque for whicumque, as does Mela 1 86
utewmque (so all mss. and Parthey rightly) oniam vocant. scrupus
viai would be a rough loose stone on the public way: with this and
what precedes and follows comp. Sen. |. 1. 22 1 prius ergo de motu
quatiente dicamus. st quando mayna onera per vices vehiculorum plurium
tracta sunt et rotae niaiore nisw in salebras weciderunt, terran. concuti
senttes cet.; 23 hutus motus succutrentis terras haec erit causa; | Pliny
paneg. 51 non..ammanium transvectione saxorum urbis tecta quatiuntur. |
551 Virg. geor. 11 361 has jferratos sustinet orbes, just following an
imitation of Lucr. succutit: Ovid met. τι 166 Succutiturque alte
similisque est currus inant. 552 aqiiae: so 868 agiiae, 1072 agqiiar:
‘similiter Horatius, isque unus inter omnes, séduae tribus syHabis dixit’
Lach.: but there is a difference there in quantity, and sz/iiae more
resenibles the soliio dissoliio which so often in Lucr. alternate with solvo
dissolvo: he also compares lariia larva, nuliius milvus: his examples of
agiia from Plautus and others are very uncertain; neither Ritsch] nor
Fleckeisen I see recognises the one from the mil. glor.: Ritschl T now
see in his opusce. 11 p. 600 denies this form to Plautus, and questions
it in Luer.: it is true that in 868 daticis may come from Lucr. and
aquae be the gloss; but yet the 3 passages seem to me to lend each
other great mutual support. [See too Bergk in Philologus vol. 33 p.
277.] 594 aquae fluctwu quoque, as well as the other causes given
above: but this second guwogwe is not wanted.

557—576: again when the wind underground presses on these
caverns, the earth above leans in the same direction, so as to bring
things within an ace of destruction; a presage of the earth’s total ruin,
which must come one day.—With this and the next paragraph comp.
Seneca 1. 1. 30 7 nudlam tamen illi (1.6. Epicuro) placet causam motus
esse matorem quam spiritum. nobis quoque placet hunc sprritum esse qui
posstt tanta conare. 561 extr. dom.: seen. to 1283 ahena rogorum
extructa. 562 i.e. quantoque magis cet., tam magis inclinata cet.
563 tument, as a wall does on the side towards which 1t leans: Pliny 11
163 an poculis repletis media maxime tument. prodita = proiecta, or
procumbentia: 606 it has the same meaning, but is there more emphatic.
565 Ht metuunt = et dubitant: Catull. 64 146 Nal metuunt iurare, nihil
promittere parcunt; Juv. v5 Quamvis wrato metuam tibi credere testi;
[Plaut. Amph. 112 Von metuo quin cet.:] comp. Virg. geor. 11 433 Et
dubitant homines serere atque impendere curam?; Aen. v1 806 Lt dubita-
mus adhuc virtute extendere vires!; [Sen. rhet. controv. 1 praefat. 23 et
putant dlum homines hac virtute caruisse !] 568 respirent, 570
resprrant;: Cic. pro Quinct. 53 respirasset cupiditas atque avaritia paulun;
Phil. γα 20 ne punctum quidem temporis..oppugnatio respiravtt ;

24—2

372 BOOK VI NOTES II

Annaeus Florus ap. Jahn praef. ad Flor. p. xii hic cum ego respi-
rassem, statin. Baeticus: Lucr. picturesquely unites the literal and

metaphorical meanings of the word. vs nulla cet.: 1 850 neque
ab exitio res ulla refrenat. 569 reprehendere: 111 583 Extremum

cupiunt vitae repraehendere vinclum: a common sense, as Cie. acad. pr. II
139 revocat virtus vel potius reprendit manu; Livy xxxtv 14 8 adeo
turbatr erant dextrae alae pedites equitesque, ut quosdam consul manu
ipse reprenderit et aversos in hostem verter. 070 Wunc: see n. to
1 169. 571 all the terms are military. 973 facit: 1 T40 fecere
ruinas: it is the same as dat ruinas. recellit=reclinat: Festus p. 274
‘recellere reclinare, et excellere in altum extollere’; Marullus in marg.
cod. Victor. ‘recello sicut excello et antecel/o’: Livy xxiv 34 10 thus
uses the word. 574 prolupst answers to tnclinutur, recimt sedes in
poudere to retro recellit: falling forward out of its place is the natural
force of prolapsa: see Fore. and comp. 1006 primordia ferri In vacuum
prolapsa cadunt coniuncta: recipit sedes in pondere then is a proper
expression, not prolapsa im pondera; a thing prolabitur trans pondera,
tumbles beyond its balance or centre of gravity; thus Livy has rem
prope prolapsam restitwit ; prolapsam eam erexisse ; prolupsum impervum
retentum ac recuperatum esse, and the like. Lach. illustrates this sense
of the plur. pondera: but when he adds ‘sed pondus singulari numero
ita dici non posse Turnebus [advers. τν 17] recte observavit’, he and
Turnebus are both greatly mistaken: Ovid met. 1 12 writes δες circum-
fuso pendebat in aere tellus Ponderibus librata suis, and Lucan 1 57
Sentiet axis onus; libratt pondera caeli Orbe tene medio; but then with
precisely the same force Manil. 1173 has Quodn librato penderet pondere
tellus, Petron. sat. 124 v. 264 Sentit terra deos mutataque sidera pondus
Quaesivere suunr: Hor. epist. 1 6 δ] says cogat trans pondera dextram
Porrigere ; but then with just the same meaning Petron. 136 fracta est
putris sella, quae staturae altitudinem adiecerat, anumque pondere suo
deiectam super foculum mittit; Pliny paneg. 26 wt desectum corpore caput
nutaturumque instabilt pondere ; Sen. Thyest. 697 Nutavit aula dubia
quo pondus daret; Stat. Theb. v 374 winstabili procumbens pondere ;
x11 435 insae etiam commoto pondere paulum Secessere trabes; Aetna 324
and 346: for the plur. comp. Sen. Hipp. 973; Stat. Theb. 111 37: reason
and ms. authority then are both for pondere; as pondus and suas sedes
are almost synon.: recipit suas sedes vel pondus, et manet in suis
sedibus vel pondere. In fact Lucr. thus uses the sing. only: see my
note to 11 218. 576 perhilum seems a ἅπαξ λεγόμ.

577—607 : again when wind and air enter from without or rise up
from the ground into these caverns, after eddying about they sometimes
cleave the crust of earth and swallow up whole towns; or, if they do not
break through, yet they cause the earth to quake, and excite in men a
feeling that the world will one day perish.—Epicurus in Seneca 1. 1. seems

BOOK VI NOTES 1 373

briefly to refer to the same cause: potest terram commovere impressio
spiritus: fortasse enim aer alio intrante aere agitatur. 977 haec
eiusdem qiuoque: quogue seems manifestly to belong to haec; haec quoque
causa est eiusdem cet.; seen. tov 192: he appears not to avoid allowing
one or more words to come between guoque and the word to which it
belongs; see also ἢ. to Iv 932, 579 ipsa: see ἢ. to Iv 736. 084
concinnat hiatum: he has also concinnat fervorem, amorem, rd. 085
In Syria Sidone probably refers to the earthquake which Strabo p. 58
recounts on the authority of Posidonius, καταποθῆναι πόλιν ἱδρυμένην ὑπὲρ
Σιδῶνος, καὶ αὐτῆς δὲ Σιδῶνος σχεδὸν τὰ δύο μέρη πεσεῖν...τὸ δ᾽ αὐτὸ πάθος
καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν Supiav ὅλην διέτεινε. Aegi: he refers to the famous earth-
quake of b.c. 372 which swallowed up Helice and Bura and ten Lacedae-
monian triremes moored off the coast: Ovid met. xv 293 Si quaeras
Helicen et Burin, Achardas urbes, Invenies sub aquis: itis mentioned by
many Greek and Latin writers, by Seneca |. 1. more than once, as 23 4
Callisthenes in libris quibus describit quemadmodum LHelice Burisque
mersae sunt, quis illas casus in mare vel in illas mare immersit, dicit id
quod wm priore parte dictum est, ‘spirits intrat terram per occulta fora-
mana cet.’: Lucr. mentions Aegium no doubt because it was in his time
the chief town of Achaia and is near the two in question ; Sen. 1. 1. 25 4
lla vasta concussio quae duas compressit urbes Helicen et Burin, circa
Aegium constitit: Lucr. probably had read Callisthenes, 587 Dis-
turbat: see ἢ. to 1 70 Lnrvtat. 591 2st=s1 non: see ἢ. to1 1012
nisi terminet. 595 tremere atque movere: 1190 nervi trahere et tremere
artus; where Lach. attempts to define when you may or may not use
trahere or movere for traht or moverz: if a man’s limbs are moved by
himself or by a sensible external cause, you must use the passive membra
moventur ; if no cause be apparent, then you may say membra movent;
and thus terra movet, because it has no power of moving itself nor do you
perceive why it moves: on this principle he will not in 111 571 tolerate
the movere of mss. but reads movert with Lamb.: the same reasoning
applies to trahere for traht: how far does this rule suit 1 397 7956 in se
trahere? of course in all cases the passive may be used. 60] Proinde
licet quanwis, 603 Lt tamen: 620 Proinde licet quamvis cet. tamen ; Cic.
de nat. 111 88 quamvis licet menti delubra et virtute et fider consecremus ;
tamen cet.; Tusc. Iv 53 guwamvis licet inmsectemur istos ; where Bentl.
‘bene quidem, quod lectionem hane quamvis licet in textum recepisti.
sed dum utramque particulam eiusdem potestatis esse credis, erras cum
aliis quibusdam viris doctissimis. guwamvis enim hic valet quantemvis,
non quamguan’: ‘they may as much as they please’ is the force of the
words. 602 aet. mand. sal.: 11570 neque in ueternwm sepelire salutem.
604 Subdit cet.: Sen. Agam. 133 J/ixtus dolori subdidit stimulos timor.
qu. de parte: 820 Ut spatium caeli quadam de parte venenet. 605
comp. 11106 Terraque se nedibus raptim subducat. 606 rerumque

374 BOOK VI NOTES II

cet.: 11104 Μὲ ne cetera consimili ratione sequantur, 1107 Inter per-
mirtas rerum caelique ruinas: rerum summa here = haec rerum summa,
or mundus, as the context shews: see n. to 1 1008.—He loses no oceasion
of reminding us how great the delusion of many is in supposing that our
world is eternal: this he has refuted at great length in the early part of
Vv: our mundus and every other mundus will perish as certainly as the
universe, the swmmarun sunima, will be immortal and unchangeable for
everlasting.

608—638 : the sea does not grow larger, because its size is enormous
compared with the supplies from rivers and springs and rains; the sun
and winds too and clouds all draw off much, as they act upon so wide a
surface; then as water comes through the porous earth into the sea it
passes in like manner from the sea back to the earth.—Manifestly, as
Lach. shews, this paragraph has no connexion in language and not much
in meaning with what precedes and follows, and must bea later addition
of the poet’s, not properly embodied with the rest. 612 rigant in
sense ean only apply to terras. 613 ad cet.: comp. 679 Nil sint ad
summam ; and ἃ, there: Cic. Tuse. 1 40 terram...ad universi caeli com-
plexum quast puncti instar optinere. 614 adawymen: another ἅπαξ
Acyou.: seen. to1 435 Augmine. 615 magnum seems intended by its
position to be emphatic, utpote magnum: then magnam immediately

follows with his usual inditlerence to such repetitions. 619 pelage:
v 35 pelageque sonora. 626 comp. Virg. geor. 111 360 Concrescunt

subitue currentt im flumine crustae, with a quite different application ; as
so often in his imitations. dutt concer. crust.: Frontin. de aquis 122
aut enim lemo concrescente qui interdum im crustam indurescit cet.

627 docur, 473 foll. and 503 foll. 630 Cum cet.: Aen. x 807 Dum
pluvit im terris; where Servius ‘si iunxeris Dum pluit in terris, erit
archaismos, debuit enim dicere ἐγ ¢erras. tamen sciendum hemistichium
hoe Lucretii esse cet.’: it is better with Lach. to look upon zn ferris asa
pleonasm natural in an old writer. 631 cum: seen. to1755. 632
coniunctast, i.e. cum mari. 635—638 = v 269—272, except that for
637 Conjluit, redit v 271 has Convenit, fluit: the reason of the change
to redit is obvious.

639—646: now to explain the eruptions of Aetna, one of which
struck neighbouring nations with such fear and awe. 639 faces:
702 he says that fweuces and ora are the proper Latin terms for craters.
642 dominata: dominantur, dominatus, dominantior he has already
applied in this book to the power of lightning. 643 gentibus: for the
dat. see n. to 729. 646 moliretur: Cic. de nat. 11 59 nec ea quae
agunt molrentium (i.e. deorum) cum labore operoso ac molesto. Cicero
i. 1. 96 thus describes an eruption, nos autem tenebras cogitemus tantas
quantae quondam eruptione Aetnacorum ignium finitimas regiones ob-
scuravisse dicuntur, ut per biduum nemo hominem homo agnosceret cet.:

BOOK VI NOTES II 375

what the eruption is or whether it is the same to which the two refer,
I do not know.

647—679: to understand such eruptions, reflect that our world is a
smaller fraction of the universe than a man is of the whole world: now
we are not surprised when a man is seized with any one of numerous
diseases, the seeds of which our world supplies; why then wonder that
out of the universe should rise up the seeds of these or any other great
natural convulsions? if you say the conflagration is here too great to
comprehend, I reply that its rarity only makes it so appear ; as we are
creatures of habit, and wonder at what is strange and cease to wonder
at what is common. 649 summam rerum has here its proper force :
seen. to11008. profundam: sec ἢ. to Iv 63. 651 mellesima pars
is quoted by Nonius p. 136, as ‘nove posita’: Lucr. has formed it on the
analogy of mzllesimus, with the sense of πολλοστός. 652 tote pars,
quota is found in Manil. 111 420: tétus is a very rare word having the
same relation to guotws, that totvens has to quotiens. 653 coutweare
means perhaps the act of examining, and vdeas the seeing and under-
standing which thence results; otherwise the phrase would be very
tautological. 660 comp. 1167 wt est per membra sacer dum diditur
ignis; Celsus v 28 4 sacer quoque ignis malis ulceribus adnumerart
debet ; he proceeds to describe at length two kinds: above, 28 31 and 33,
he had described what ἐρυσίπελας Graect nominant; so that if the latter
correspond to our erysipelas, the sacer egnis must be different: Celsus by
sacer ignis appears to understand one kind of the ἕρπης of the Greek
physicians ; others certainly make it to be erysipelas, as Isidore orig. Iv
8 4 erysipelas est quem Latina sacrum ignem appellant, 1d est execrandum
per antiphrasim. 665 Sic igitur cet.: as this world is sufficient to
supply endless disorders to man, so can the whole universe furnish the
materials for endless disorders to our world, such as earthquakes, vol-
canic eruptions and the like. 666 La inf. cet.: 1996 suppeditantur
Ex infinito cita corpora matertat; 1035 nisi matervai Kx infinito suborire
copia posset. 669 Jg. ab. Aetn.: Sen. nat. quaest. 11 380 Aetna ali-
quando multo igne abundavit. flammescere is found in no other writer
of authority. flam. cael.: Aen, 1 574 Attollitgue globos lammarum
et sidera lambit: but fammescere caelum and ardescunt caelestia templa
strike me as somewhat frigid hyperboles in what is intended for a philo-
sophical description, as no one could take the flaming heaven to be
anything more than a mere ocular deception; unless indeed Lucr. refer
to something like what Seneca 1. 1. records of the eruption of Aetna:
illo tempore atunt tune plurima fuisse tonitrua et fulmina quae concursu
aridorum corporum facta sunt, non nubrum quas verisumile est in tanto
fervore aeris nullas fuisse. The ‘caelum ardere visum’ was common
among the ancient prodigies and may have inspired a traditional terror.
671 coortu:; this word, which occurs 11 1106, is also Lucretian. 672

376 BOOK VI NOTES II

tetulerunt: this form is common enough in the older writers, 678
omnia cet.: not only this fire of Aetna, but all things in the world
together with the world itself are as nothing compared with the
universe; and should therefore excite no wonder. 679 Nal stint ad:
comp. 613; and Cic. de orat. τι 25 quem cognovimus virum bonum et non
allitteratum, sel nihil ad Persinm; pro Deiot. 24 credo, Cuesar, nihil ad
tuum equitatum; Ter. eun. 361 at nihil ad nostram hanc; Cic. de fin. 1
85 quid ud utilitatem?; Plato Hipp. ma. 281 D φαύλους πρὸς ἡμᾶς: ‘to’
is often so used in old English: ‘war is no strife To the dark house and
the detested wife’. [Comp. also Eurip. frag. 96 ᾿Αλλ᾽ οὐδὲν ηὐγένεια πρὸς
τὰ χρήματα ; Plaut. trin. 723 Credo ad summos bellatores acrem—fugito-
rem fore; Bacon (Spedding vol. 7 p. 230) for what are the sands of the
sea to the sea, earth, heavens? and all these are nothing to thy mercies.
See Draeger hist. synt. 1 p. 539 ¢.]

680—702: Aetna emits its flames in this way: caverns of rock run
under it, full of wind which heats first itself and then the rocks and
earth with which it comes in contact, and then bursts out with flame
ashes smoke and huge stones: again caverns reach from the sea to the
mountain; through these pass from the sea water and wind mixed; this
wind and water force up flame and rocks and clouds of sand. 680
tamen, after this digression or preface. 681 Aet. forn.: Virg. geor. 1
472 undantem ruptis fornacihus Aetnam. 683 fere: seen. tor 14
γα (fere). 689 rectts: see ἢ. to 217. 690 foll.: geor. 1 471
foll. and still more Aen. 111 571—577 shew many traces of itnitation.
697 hac ire cet.: Justin 1v 1 will throw much light on the meaning here
and shew the nature of the hiatus: est autem terra ipsa (i.e. Siciliae) tenuis
ac fragilis et cavernis quibusdam fistulisque ita penetrabilis ut ventorum
tota ferme flatibus puteat; nec non et ignibus yenerandis nutriendisque
soli ipsius nuturalis materia, quippe intrinsecus stratum sulpure et bitu-
mine traditur: quae res facit ut spiritu cum igne in materia luctante
Jrequenter et compluribus locis nunc jflammas, nunc vaporem, nunc fumum
eructet. «inde denique Aetnae montis per tot saecula durat incendium, et
ubit acrior per spiramenta cavernarum ventus incubutt, harenarum moles
eyeruntur...eadem causa etiam Aetnae montis perpetuos ignes fucit. nam
aquarum ule concursus raptum secum spiritum in imum fundum trahit
aique tbr sufjocatum tam diu tenet, donec per spiramenta terrae diffusus
nutrimenta rgnis incendut. 698 penetrare penitus, a favourite asso-
nance: 1529 penitus penetrata retexi; 11539 Ut penitus nequeat penetrari:
Lachmann’s remark ‘hoc enim (i.e. penitus) ad penctrare pertinere non est
veri simile’ strikes me as very strange; as well as the union of contidence
and ill-success with which he treats the whole passage. 700 arenae:
comp. Justin and Seneca quoted above. Luer. shews here his habitual
accuracy of observation and vividness of description: all the principal
features of an eruption are brought into clear relief, Virg. geor. 111 241

.

BOOK VI NOTES II 377

nigramque alte subiectat harenam with a quite different application.
701 crateres gives a lively picture of the thing, which neither fauces nor
ora does.

703—711: in the case of many things you must state several causes,
to be sure of including the actual cause: for instance if you see a dead
body at some distance, you may have to suggest this and that cause,
though you are sure only one has occasioned the death.—Such an intro-
duction to a series of cases which admit of more than one explanation is,
as has often been remarked above and as may be seen in Epicurus’ letter
to Pythocles, very characteristical of this philosophy: τὸ δὲ μίαν αἰτίαν
τούτων ἀποδιδόναι, πλεοναχῶς τῶν φαινομένων ἐκκαλουμένων, μανικόν K.T.r,
says Epic. 1.1113. 704 satis est can hardly in sense apply to pluris:
opus est or the like seems to be required. una tamen sit 1.6, causa,
though you are not able to determine it. 707 wna, compared with
704 und, appears to be the adjective: ut dicatur un’ causa leti illius
hominis: the ellipse is harsh anyhow, and it might be simpler to take wna
as the adverb, ‘that among these various causes the cause of his death
may be stated’. 710 genere ex hoc, the whole class of causes of death.

712—737: the Nile may rise from various causes: from the etesian
winds blowing up the stream and stopping the waters; or from sand
accumulating at the mouth; or perhaps rather from the rains at its
source caused by these winds collecting the clouds there against the high
mountains; or from snow melting on the lofty Ethiopian hills. 712
in aestatem: 875 in lucem tremulo rarescit ab aestu: ‘every summer’,
‘every day’: [Lucil. xxvit1 26 Cur saepe mille imposui plagarum in
diem; Plaut. aul. 322 (316) in nonwm diem solet wre coctum i.e. nono
quoque die: see Ussing there who cites Stichus 635; Ter. eun. 540:]
Hor. od. 111 29 42 in diem Diaisse ; sat. 11 6 47 in diem et horam; Juv.
v1 183 angue diem septenis oderit horis; Livy xxx1 29 15 mutabslibus on
diem causis; Tac. ann. ΠΙ 71 new saepius quam bis eundem in annum:
Lucr. has the more usual ingue dies at least 8 times: v 274 privas
mutatur in horas. 714 comp. Manil. 111 271 oras, Quas rigat aestivis
gravidus torrentibus amnis Nilus. saepe: you would expect semper;
Bentl. in consequence thinks the v. spurious; but saepe seems some-
times to be used vaguely by Lucr. as if it were almost an expletive;
v 430 saepe answers to 11 1062 semper. 715 Aut quia cet.: Sen. nat.
quaest. Iv 2 22 st Thaleti credis, etesiae descendenti Nilo resistunt et
cursus evus acto contra ostia mare sustinent; and so Diodorus 1 38 2, who
gives a very detailed account of the causes assigned. 716 both
Greek and Latin lexicons give copious references to the authors who

speak of these etesian winds, the name given as Lucr. says to the aqut-

fones at midsummer: 730 and v 742 etesia flabra aquilonum. qui: see
n. to 11 404. eltestaé esse: 743 Remigi oblitae; Cic. orator 152 sed
Graeci vidervit: nobis ne st cupiamus quidem distrahere voces conceditur...

378 BOOK VI NOTES II

at Ennius semel Scipio invicte, et quidem nos Hoc motu radiantis etesiae
in vada ponti. hocidem nostri saepius non tulissent, quod Graect laudare
etiam solent, Virgil brought the bad habit somewhat more into fashion;
see Wagner quaest. x1 3. 717 comp. Mela 1 53 sive quod per ea tem-
pora fluntes etesiae.. venienti obviae adverso spiritu cursum descendentts
impediunt, 718 Cogentes, cogunt: see ἢ. to 1 875, and comp. Aen. vi
684 tendentem, 685 tetendit. 725 comp. Mela 1. 1. aut harenis, quas
cum fluctibus litort adplicant, ostia obducunt: our verse is obscure:
formerly I took Mluct. adv. of the river’s stream met by the opposing
sands; and this is possible. But now I understand. it of the waves of
the sea blown in by the etesian winds and therefore right against the
river’s current: then both in Cic. Phil. 11 21 and Cato de re rust.
100, the only other passages cited for the word, oppilo is active, and so
it may be here; the sand bars up the mouths against the opposing waves
of the sea, contra being an adv.: if, as Lamb. says, oppilo is neut. here,
then ostia contra is used as in 715. but in the passage cited for the
simple pilo: hastam pilans prae pondere frangit from the Histrian war of
Hostius: it is also active. 726 vuet: Virg. geor. 1 105 in the opposite
sense cumrlosque ruit male pinguis harenaz: ‘ruit, levels, whereas ruam
acervos Hor. sat. 11 5 22 means to heap up’ Conington. 727 Quo fit
wtt pacto=quo pacto fit uti: comp. 204 and ἢ. to 11 1004: fit uti has
become so entirely a single particle in force, that he here says fit wti fiat
for fit, 729 Pet uti fiant for punt: see n. to 415, 729—734 he gives
the theory of Democritus which is narrated with much clearness and
fulness by Diodorus 1 39, who throws great light on Lucr.: Democritus
intended to refute the common opinion, which Lucr. gives last: the
snows melted in summer not on the Ethiopian mountains, but at the
north pole, and were carried by the etesian winds all the way up to the
sources of the Nile where they were stopped and collected by the high
mountains and descended in rain. 729 caput ei: 636 and v 270 cape
amnibus; (Ter. Andr. 458 illic est huse ret caput; Livy vii 4 5 Romam
caput Latio esse; Xxut 10 2 brevt caput Ltaliae omni Capuam fore;| Luer.
vi 643 Finitimis ad se convertit gentibus ora; Vv 1390 LHaec animos ollis
arulcebant; 1319 venientibus ora petebant; 1v 364 and πὶ 129 nobis.
730 et. fl. ag. occurred ν 742. 7385—737 he concludes with the common
theory: Sen, 1. 1. 17 Anaxagoras ait ex Aethiopiue cugis solutas nives ad
Nilum wsque decurrere. in eaden opinione omnis vetustas furt. hoe
Aeschylus Sophocles Euripides tradunt. sed falsum esse plurimis argu-
mentis pateé: Lucr. having never journeyed to the sources, is less
positive than Seneca: comp. the opening of Eurip. Hel. and Valekenaer
ciatr. p. 30. 737 Tabificis is a common enough word, but hardly
occurs elsewhere in this sense.

738—768: Avernian districts are so called because birds cannot live
there: there is one at Cumae, another in the acropolis of Athens, another

BOOK VI NOTES II 379

in Syria: the etfects are quite natural, so that you need not look on them
as the gatesof hell. 740 quod Averna cet.: quod has here much the same
force as in Iv 885 Ld quod providet and the passages quoted in ἢ. there:
‘the explanation of why they are called by the name of Averna is this’:
without Avera Lachmann’s quo for quod would be very well; with it his
reading is scarcely intelligible. 742 loca venere: the accus. after venzo,
except in the case of domwm or the name of a town, is not common: Aen,
τι 742 Quam tumulum antiquae Cereris sedemque sacratam Venimus; 781
terram Hespervam venies; and 60]. 1 66. 743 Remigi: see n. to 716
etestae: this licence also he employs only twice; seen. totv 741. Hem.
pen.: Aen. I 301 Remigio alarum, v1 19 Remigium alarum; Ov. ars τι 45
Remigium volucrum .. pinnas: πτερύγων ἐρετμοῖσιν ἐρεσσόμενοι. 744
profusae: Festus p. 229 ‘profusus...alias abiectus iacens, ut Pacuvius in
Teucro Profusus gemitu cet.’ [745 comp. Caes. Ὁ. Gall. vir 46 ὃ
ut natura montis ferebat; Hirt. Ὁ. Gall. vitt 12 4 celerius quam consue-
tudo fert equestris proelit. | 747 Is locus cet.: there is no reason to
doubt what he and Virgil say of the Avernian lake when it was sur-
rounded by thick wood: see Servius Aen. 1n 442. ‘No bones existed
in the valley at the time I visited it, excepting of some birds who in
crossing the valley had been arrested on the wing by the noxious effluvia
as at the lake of Avernus of old’ Prof. Daubeny quoted in Murray’s
hand-book for south Italy, speaking of what is supposed to be the Amp-
sancti valles: exactly the same is told of some marshes in the Carolinas
surrounded with thick woods, by a traveller Bosc in the early part of this
century. 750 comp. Philostr. Apollon. 11 10, speaking of the “Aopvos
πέτρα near Nysa, ἐν κορυφῇ τῆς πέτρας ῥῆγμα εἶναί φασι τοὺς ὑπερπετομέ-
γους τών ὀρνίθων ἐπισπώμενον, ὡς ᾿Αθήνησί τε ἰδεῖν ἐστιν ἐν προδόμῳ τοῦ
Παρθενῶνος καὶ πολλαχοῦ τῆς Φρυγῶν καὶ Λυδῶν γῆς : for such Averna loca
or Plutona or Charonia comp. Cic. de div. 1 79 ué et Ampsancte im
Hurpims et in Asia Plutonia quae vidimus; Strabo p. 244; Pliny u
207. 753 fugitant non i.e. non fugitunt cet., Sed natura cet. : comp.
Cicero quoted to v 383. 754 Pervigilt is the gen. of pervigiliam: he
alludes to the famous story told at length by Antigonus of Carystus
quoted by Lamb. and Ovid met. τι 542—565, how the daughters of
Cecreps disobeying the orders of Pallas opened the chest in which the
infant Erichthonius was shut up, how the watchful crow espied them and
flew away and told it to Pallas, who in anger at the bad news expelled it
and all other crows for ever from her acropolis: [see Pliny x 30;
Aelian v 8; Apoll. hist. mir. vir] ‘As to the crow, the explanation
seems to be that these birds, which are seen in great numbers around
the rocks of the aeropolis, seldom rise to the summit’ Leake Athens 1
p. 206: at all events no Avernian exhalations are now perceived there.
To what Greek poets Lucr. refers I do not know. [But see Schneider's
Callimachus τι p. 98.] 755 loca ope: seo ἢ. to Wt 374 animae

380 BOOK VI NOTES II

elementa, and τν 741. ope suapte 1.6. sua ipsius opera: Festus p. 310
‘suopte suo ipsius, ut meopte meo ipsius, twopte tuo ipsius’: suopte,
suapte are found in Plautus Cicero and others; Plaut. miles 391
appears to have swwmpte amicwm; Priscian attests meapte, twapte,
suapte, nostrapte, vestrapte. 756 fertur esse videri i.e. ut ferunt,
videtur esse: videtur esse is almost a periphrasis for est, is seen,
found to be, φαίνεται wv: so 977 videtwr, and elsewhere. 757
Quadripedes quoque, as well as birds. 758 vis ipsa, without anything
else. 759 mactata, 1.6. haec animalia: see 188. lata, extructa, with
nubes for antecedent; and ἢ. to I 352. 761 effiant: see n, to 11 1004.
762 his reg. ie. in all these various places, not at the Avernian lake
alone; for instance at the Plutonia of Cicero 1. 1. and Ampsanctus, of
which Aen. vir 568 [ie specus horrendum et saevi spiracula Ditis Mon-
strantur, ruptoque ingens Acheronte vorago Pestiferas aperit fauces.

762 ne forte, 764 forte: Cic. ad Att. xv 6 has sz forte, ne forte in two
consecutive clauses of a sentence. 763 post hinc: see ἢ. to 111 529
post inde: Aen. vit 546 Post hine ad navis graditur. 765 Naribus
cet.: Aelian Pliny and others relate this or similar stories; Martial x11
29 5 Cervinus gelidum sorbet sic hulitus anguem. Creech observes that
there is a manifest scoff in this illustration. 766 ferarum: Hyginus
also applies this word to serpents, Martial vi 15 2 to a formica.

769—780: let me repeat that the earth has atoms of all shapes,
some pleasant, some offensive to the taste, and to all the other senses,
769 saepe ante: especially 11 898—477, and Iv 522—721. 770 and
776 figuras are atoms: see ἢ. to τι 385. 771 cibo quae sunt: 1095
quae sint morbo mortique necessest Multa volare; [tv 1019 Indicioque
sui facts persaepe fuere; tv 783 and v 1391 cordi est, sunt; v 539 non
est oneri;| Virg. geor, ΠῚ 511 Mox erat hoc ipsum eartio; Ov. her.
17 (16) 147 1,86 malo metus est; 167 Fama quoque est oneri: the
double dat. is more usual, as 1229 2106 altis erat exitio, [and 1 759
veneno (sunt) [psa sibi. | 774 ante: 1v 633 Nune alits alius qué sit
cibus cet.: he adopts the language of 1v 677, where smell is spoken
of, Verum als alius magis est animantibus aptus Dissimilis propter
formas. 778 zactu: see notes 1, and comp. 11 846 Wee tactwit
ullum proprium de corpore odorem; tv 673 adiectus odoris is the same
thing: naris adiectus odoris Tangat: comp. too 11 1047 anime cactus =
aniectus. 780 tristia: see ἢ, to 1 944 Zristior: Auson, epist. 15 ὃ
Et quae sapore tristia.

781—817: then many things are noxious, often fatal, either to men
generally or to men in certain conditions of health; as the shade of
certain trees, steam of hot water, fumes of charcoal, sulphureous exhala-
tions, still more so those from mines. 783 Arboribus: Pliny xvit 89
mentions the walnut and juniper; Marullus in marg. cod. Vict. ‘Virg.
luniperi gravis umbra’, 787 Floris odore: Plut. sympos. ur 1 p. 647 If

BOOK VI NOTES II 381

ἱστοροῦσι γὰρ ὅτι καὶ σκιὰ σμίλακος ἀποκτίννυσιν ἀνθρώπους ἐγκαταδαρ-
θόντας ὅταν ὀργᾷ μάλιστα πρὸς τὴν avOyow: Dicaearchus frag. 60 in
Mueller frag. hist. Graec. 11 p. 261 tells the same of a plant on Pelion,
τοὺς δ᾽ ἁψαμένους αὐτῆς ἀναιρεῖ TH ὀσμῇ. 789 Multa cet., 790 Quod:
Lucr. seeks emphasis by placing many words before the introductory con-
junction; as v 440 Propter dissimilis formas variasque figuras Quod non
omnia cet.; 1 751 quae cernere non quis Extremum quod habent: so with
the relative, as 1557 longa diet Infinita aetas anteactt temporis omnis
Quod fregisset ; 1v 607; νι 980: and so Iv 430 Tecta solo iwngens atque
omnia dextera laevis Donecin obscurum cet. 793 describes one labour-
ing under epilepsy or morbus comitialis; comp. 111 487 foll.: Lachmann’s
treatment of this v. 15 quite preposterous ; some diseased condition is
clearly required, as a healthy person is not acted upon in the way stated.
795 man. effl.: Ovid met. 111 39 Lfluxere urnae manibus. 796 st
od.: see n. to 11 404. 797 per artus here is simply per totum corpus,
or membra per artus=omnia membra; see also ἢ. to τὶ 271. 799
lavabris is to labris, as lavatrina to latrina. 800 solo, which properly
means the seat in the bath on which the bather sat, here, as often, seems
to denote the whole basin which held the hot water. But in Lucretius’
time it was prob. only a tub or pan for a single bather; as Celsus vi 26
5 in solium is aquae calidae resupinus denittendus est; 1 4 ti soliwm non
descendere. soliwm seems synon. with davabrum; though in later times
the soliwm became a large piscina holding many bathers at once. Yet
soliwm may be the piscina here ; comp. Petron. sat. 92 cerca solium seden-
tibus. 804 membra domus: Gronov. obs. 11 5 p. 467 quotes Cic. ad
Q. frat. 111 1 1 nec habere poterat adiuncta cubicula et eiusmodi membra,
and Pliny epist. 11 17 9 dormitorvum membrum: comp. also v 6 15 multa
an hac membra; atrium etiam ex more veterum; Apul. met. 111 28 singula
domus membra cingit armata factio. But as said in notes 1, the reading
is very very uncertain: 1 doubt whether [am right even in adopting viri
for vint; for Lach. is certainly wrong in saying that A¢ proves he has not
passed to a new question: Lucr. like Cicero often uses αὐ to introduce a
fresh illustration ; see the many instances given in n. to Iv 414 Aé con-
lectus: comp. too Hor. sat. 11 4 51 Afassica si caelo suppones vina sereno
...decedet odor nervis inimicus, which will support nervis, perhaps vine as
well. 805 mactabilis is another ἅπαξ λεγόμ.: Lach. compares Accius
421 leto tabificabils. 810 Scaptensula is the σκαπτὴ ὕλη of Macedo-
nian Thrace: Lach. explains the strange Latin form with much proba-
bility : the s he supposes to be like the s in si/vu, and to represent an
older form of the Greek ὕλη, always retained by the inhabitants of the
place ; the m then in Latin merely marks the lengthened vowel, as in
thensaurus Termenstwm and the like: comp. too tutiens toties, vicensimus
vicesimus, and the numerous instances in which the Greeks express the
Latin -ens by -ys, shewing the pronunciation of the former: Lach. then

382 BOOK VI NOTES II

conjectures that the short «is due to the Roman soldiers confounding
the end of the word with one of their own diminutives, But as in the
age of Lucr. a Roman soldier was incapable of making a false quantity
in his own language, I am unwilling to assume his being guilty of the
same offence in Greek. As we know then from Horace’s siliiae, that the
4 of silva was short by nature, and as in Il. E708 and H 221 the Boeo-
tian and therefore Aeolian Ὕλη has ὕ, the old Greek word in question
may well have been ciAa. Qualis cet. depends on Nonne vides of course.
[812 colores: Silius 1 233 redit infelix effosso concolor auro; Stat. silv.
Iv 7 15 Pallidus fossor vredit erutoque concolor auro. | 815 [iis] Quos :
see ἢ. to 1 883. mecessis is gen. of necesse; Lach. compares and amends
Donatus to Ter. eun. 998, and quotes from the senatus cons. de bacchan.
inser. Lat. 1196 4 necesus esse ie. necessus, the old gen. for necessis.
817 prompta caeli: 1267 populi loca prompta,

818—829: in the same way these Avernian spots send up a poison-
ous steam, so that birds on coming across it are disabled and tumble
down ; and when they reach the sources of it, are quite killed.—He
dwells at such great length on these Averna because they illustrate so
many of his favourite first principles ; the poet as usual having to give
place to the philosopher, when the two characters come into collision.
821 Q@uo=et eo, and connects impediatur with Ut of 820: see n. to V
873. 823 derigit is neuter and = derigit se; see n. to 111 502: auctor
belli Hisp. 29 hine derigens proxima planities aequabatur ; which is
very similar to its use in Lucr.; that work too represents the homely
style of a contemporary of the poet: 11 198 Derecta; 1v 609 wits derectis:
from Ribbeck’s edition I find that the mss, of Virgil are ten times in
favour of derigo, once only of dirigo; Caesar’s best mss. also as well as
those of the auctor belli Alex. (1 Hirtius) as a rule have derectus, which
Halm restores from P in Cic. pro Caelio 38 and 42; the ancient and sole
ms. of the last books of Livy too has derectus; the palimps. Ver. of Pliny
ΧΙ 58 derigunt. Comp. too now Schuchardt’s vulgar Lat. 11 p. 73, who
gives many other instances of de- from inscriptions and old mss.; so that
this was probably the only genuine ancient form and the distinctions
drawn by Isidore and others between derigo and dirigo unreal and
fanciful. 826 aestum: 11 173 mentis qua gignitur aestus. 828
vonenda; Aen. 1X 349 vont ile animam. 829 comp. Vv 359 guia
nulla loci fit copia circum.

830—839 : sometimes this exhalation causes a partial void, so that
the bird cannot support itself on the wing, but falls down and perishes.
836 nixari: see ἢ. to 111 1000; it is almost or quite a Lucretian word,
and is the frequentative of ni¢i, which is properly said of a bird on the
wing: 834 pinnaruwm nisws inanis. 838 zacentes, because unable
maxare tinsistercque alis; it has much the same force as 744 molli cervice
profusae.

BOOK VI NOTES II 383

840 —847: the water of wells is colder in summer, because they let
out their seeds of heat through the earth which is then rarefied by heat:
the contrary is the case in winter for the contrary reason. 845
Frigore—concrescit: see ἢ. to 111 20 nia acre concreta pruina.

848. -878: the fountain by the temple of Hammon is cold by day,

warm by night, not, as 15 absurdly said, because the sun below the earth
warms it, but because the earth about it condenses at night and so
squeezes into the water its seeds of heat ; and then by day receives these
back again.—Curtius Arrian Pliny Mela and others speak of this pro-
perty of the fountain: Ovid met. xv 309 medio tua, corniger Hammon,
Unda die gelida est, ortuque obituque calescit. Curtius Iv 31 gives the
fullest and most precise account. 854 and 863 corpus aguat: Emped.
285 ὕδατος τέρεν δέμας ἀργυφέοιο. 858 satrare: Cic. Arat. 364 Cum
supera sese satiavit luce, where mss. have sociavit; Germanicus 588
Siderea vie tum satiatus luce, the words of Aratus being ὁ δ᾽ ἐπὴν φάεος
κορέσηται. 864 roriferis cet.: Aen. IV 351 guotiens wmentibus umbris
Nox operit terras. 868 aqiiae: see ἢ. to 552. 869 dimovit appears
to haye the same force as in Virg. geor. 11 513 Agricola incurvo
terram dimovit aratro. 875 in lucem: see ἢ. to 712 in aestatem.
877 quasi, in the sense of ‘as’, is very common in Lucr. 878 nodos:
a bold continuation of the metaphor involved in exolvit: Hor. epist. 1 3
3 Hebrusque nivali compede vinctus; Petron, sat. 123 v. 188 undarum
vincula rupit; comp. too 531 mora quae fluvios passim refrenat euntis.

879—905: there is also a cold fountain which ignites tow or pine-
wood put over it: it contains many seeds of latent fire, which rise up
and set on fire this tow or wood, as flame will light a freshly extin-
guished wick, before actual contact.—Pliny 11 228 and Mela 11 43 tell
this fact of a fountain at Dodona, to which Lucr. probably refers.

890 endo: see ἢ. to 1 82 Indugredi: Ennius in ann. has Lndu mari
magno, <Aradiv: Aradus or Arvad a populous island on the coast of
Phoenicia: this fountain was very famous; see Strabo p. 754 for the
use the inhabitants made of it; it is said to be used in the present day.
891 scatit in v 40 too takes a gen. 892 multis alits cet.: Pliny 11 227
dulcis haustus in mari plurimis locis, ut ad Chelidonias insulas et
Aradum et in Gaditano oceano: Leake numism. Hellen. insular Greece
p. 72 ‘opposite to the fountain [Arethusa] at the distance of about
200 yards a large submarine stream of fresh water rises in the sea, of
which the Arethusa itself is apparently a branch’; Sir E. Tennent
describes similar springs in Ceylon. 894 entervomit appears not to
be found elsewhere. 896 sem. quae: see ἢ. tor 15. 900 noc. ad
ἤμην.: Aen. vit 13 Urit odoratum nocturna in lumina cedrum: with
Circe the cedrus served for tire and candle. 901 the language of
Pliny 1. 1. is very similar, in Dodone Jovis fons...st extinctae admoveantur
(1.6. faces) accendit, ubi admoveas: see n. to τι 41 foll. 904 imbuat

334. BOOK VI NOTES II

ignis, an expressive metaphor, though less bold than 1176 sates arcda,
corpora mersans: 896 he uses scatere of the seeds of fire, but they may
be said to be part of the fountain. 905 fiert quoque in illo fonte: he
means fieri in illo quoque fonte; see n. to v 192.

906—916: to discuss now the magnet, a stone which has the power
of attracting iron, and communicating this power to a series of pieces of
iron. 908 Mugneta: Plato Ion p. 533 Ὁ ἐν τῇ λίθῳ ἣν Evpuridys μὲν
Μαγνῆτιν ὠνόμασεν, οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ “HpaxAetay: what follows is so like Luer.
that Lamb. thinks he had Plato before him. Plato however seems to
misrepresent Euripides: see Hesych. and Photius 5. v. Ἡρακλεία λίθος:
ἡρακλεία (ἡράκλεια) λίθος was the regular Greek name for the loadstone,
the older Greek writers, as Eurip., usually denoting by μαγνῆτις λίθος
a quite different stone: see Theophr. 7. λίθων 41, Hesych. Photius and
the other lexicographers. 909 Afagnetum of Lydia, our extant autho-
rities unanimously declaring that the names come from the Lydian
Magnesia and Heraclea: Sophocles indeed, the oldest of them, calls it
the ‘Lydian stone’, the name usually given to the touchstone: see
Hesych. 5. vv. Ἡρακλεία, and Λυδικὴ λίθος σίδηρον τηλόθεν προσηγάγου.
Comp. Salmas. exerc. Plin. p. 775 776, and esp. Buttmann in the Mus.
d. alt. Wissensch. 11. p. 5—52, who makes it probable that the local
derivations of both the magnet and the Heraclean stone were mere
fictions and that the latter meant originally ‘Hercules’ stone’, to denote
its attractive power. Pliny xxxvi 128 names the Thessalian Magnesia
as one of the districts where the loadstone was found; so that some
connected the name with it perhaps. [Μὲ ortus: comp. Cic. de leg. 111
19 cuius primum ortum.. inter arma civium.. procreatum vidimus: so
mss. and Halm, procreatam Manutius. | 916 permananter appears to
be a ἅπαξ λεγόμ. Plato 1. 1. ὥστ᾽ ἐνίοτε ὁρμαθὸς μακρὸς πάνυ σιδήρων
καὶ δακτυλίων ἐξ ἀλλήλων ἤρτηται’ πᾶσι δὲ τούτοις ἐξ ἐκείνης τῆς λίθου ἡ
δύναμις ἀνήρτηται.

917---920: but many points have to be cleared up, before we come
to the actual question. 917 Hoc genus: comp. id genus, quod genus,
omne genus, multa cet.: he dwells on the magnet at what appears so
disproportionate a length, because the phenomena seem to him to illus-
trate so many of his favourite first principles. The elaborate criticism
in Galen de nat. facult. 1 14 of Epicurus’ theory of the magnet, extend-
ing over many pages, proves that the latter must have dwelt on the
subject at as great length as Lucr. does, and that he explained the phe-
nonena in a similar manner. 919 lon. amb.: 1081 Nec tibi tam longis
opus est ambayibus; Aen. 1 341 longae Ambages; geor. 11 46 Atque per
ambages et longa exorsa; Ov. met. IV 476 non longis opus est ambagibus.

921—935: we have said already that particles are constantly stream-
ing from all things, which affect in various ways all the senses. 923
—935 are with scarcely any diflerence a repetition of Iv 217—229.

BOOK VI NOTES II 385

936— 958: let me repeat that all things in being are of rare and

porous bodies, so that particles can and do pass through them in all
directions: this is proved by the whole of nature. 936 rep. Comm. :
see ἢ. to1 418. 937 primo, 329 foll. 942 speluncis cet.: 1 348
In sawis ac speluncis permanat aquarum Liquidus umor et uberibus flent
omnia guttis: Wak. compares Lucan tv 301 Antra nec exiguo stillant
sudantia rore. 944 J/anat cet.: Enn. ann. 399 7m timido manat ex
omni corpore sudor; Aen. 111 175 Tum geltdus toto manabat corpore
sudor. 950 cum poc. cet.: 1 495 retinentes pocula rite ; 111 912 tenent-
que Pocula saepe homines. 951 dissaepta: the subst. hardly occurs
elsewhere, at least in this sense, though the verb is not uncommon.
952 vapos: Nonius p. 487 ‘vapor et vapos et timor et timos et labor et
labos ita sunt ut color et colos. Lucretius lib. vi Pervolitant, permanat
oclos frigusque vaposque : Augustus in his res gestae still keeps honos ;
Livy xxvii 26 14 has colos: see too Neue 1 p. 167 foll. 954 Galh
lovica: Lach. cites Varro de ling. Lat. v 116 lorica, quod e loris de corio
crudo faciebant. postea subcidit Galli e ferro sub id vocabulum, ex anulis,
Jere 1am tunica; Tac. ann. 111 43 guibus more gentico continuum ferret
teyumen: this correction of Lach. seems to me certain; Lucr. had
doubtless seen or heard how in sieges fire in various shapes had taken
effect on such steel cuirasses. coercet : in Iv 647, 657 and Livy τι ὅδ
7 nec pudor nec metus coercebat, it is used absolutely as here, where gua
defines the object. 955 956: by the simple transposition of these
vss. I flatter myself I have made this passage clear: et cum tempestas
in terra caeloque coorta est, cumque simul cum ea morbida vis extrin-
secus insinuatur, tum haec tempestas et haec vis, terra coortae in caelum
remotae, caelo coortae in terram remotae, iura facessunt. My reading
is illustrated and confirmed by 1098 Atque ea vis omnis morborum pesti-
litasque Aut extrinsecus ut nubes nebulaeque superne Per caelum veniunt
aut cet.: in these tempestates are the nubes nebulaeque which bring the
morbida vis; comp. too 1119—1124, and 1141 foll. 956 as said in
notes 1, though the mss. are in favour of ὕμιν, I have returned to iura,
admonished that f/acesso seems to have the sense of ‘to be off’ only as an
imperative, or quasi imperative: Plautus’ play on the two meanings,
rudens 1061, well illustrates this: eyo opinor rem fucesso.—si quidem
Sis pudicus, hine facesse: I find, it is true, facesso, facessit, facessunt,
Jucesset, one or other, at least a dozen times with this sense in the meta-
morph. of Apuleius; but he, an ape of the older writers, probably
generalised from the instances of the imperative he found in them.

959-978: again particles emitted from bodies act very differently
on different things: fire hardens one thing, melts another; and so does
water ; what is pleasant to one creature is hateful to another. 962
facet are: Iv 28 ordia prima: Varro de re rust. 1 41 2 has facit putre ;
he also uses conswe quoque faciunt, excande me fecerunt, perferve tha fil ;

M. I, 25

386 BOOK VI NOTES II

Cato has ferve bene facito: Haupt in Hermes! p. 403 justly says that
Sen. de beata vita 26 2 is hardly Latin unless you read obstupe faciant,
not obstupefaciant. 965 posta: 111 871 posto, 857 and 1 1059 posta ;
vi 999 praeposta: he also has ampostus dispostus and oppostus, as well as
repostus which the metre requires. 968 condurat seems not to be found
elsewhere. ab igni: τι 99 vexantur ab ictu: this use of ab, ‘after’,
‘just after’, is common in Ovid, as met. πὶ 273; Iv 329; 465; xiv 352;
ars 111 226; her. 18 (17) 69; ex Ponto πὶ 4 73; Iv 5 26; trist. 1v 10
122 ab exequiis, an imitation of Prop. Iv (im) 1 24: in Livy I have
noted down very many expressions such as these, ab seriis rebus ludi-
crum fecit; ab his praeceptis, ab hoc sermone, ab hac oratione, ab hac voce,
ab hac contione digressi, dimisst ; a primo colloquio extemplo missi sunt.
971 comp. Odyss. ει 359 ᾿Αλλὰ τόδ᾽ ἀμβροσίης καὶ νέκταρός ἐστιν ἀπορρώξ.
Effluat I now take as said of the oleaster: Pers. 111 20 efluis amens; where
Jahn well compares Petron. sat. 71 me (i.e. amphorae) efluant vinum ;
Claud. cons. Probi et O1.151 Quantum stagna Tagi... EU ffluxere-decus,
an imitation no doubt of older writers; and observes that this and
similar words, mano espec., are said of the thing out of which a fluid
comes as well as of the fluid itself, with or without an accus.: Pliny xiv
122 arborum suco manantium. vero = vere, 15 common in Plautus:
in Jahn’s Jahrb. 91 p. 48 are cited Aimph. 964, 678, capt. 567, Pseud.
1191, trin. 210, mere. 685, Cas. 1v 2 11, truc. 11 2 47: Sall. hist. fr. 1v
11 mss. have vero an; Livy x 23 5 vero gloriaretur, where Madvig reads
ex vero. 973 amarac.: see ἢ. to 11 847: Gellius praef. 19 vetus
adagium est, nihil cum fidibus graculo, nihil cum amaracino sui: is
it a fact that perfumes poison swine, or did the proverb suggest the
notion ? 977 videtur, φαίνεται ὧν, not εἶναι: so 756.

979—997: once more, the pores of things differ, as well as the
particles which things emit; so that by different kinds of pores the
different senses receive each its own object: thus too one thing will
pass through a metal, another through wood, and so on; and one thing
will pass more quickly than another through the same pore or opening,
979 quam, priws: see ἢ. to 111 973. 986 «alvo 1.6. in alium sensum:
1 683 Nidor enim penetrat qua fucus non vt im artus, Fucus item
sorsum, sorsum sapor insinuatur Sensibus. 991 legnis, Argento, vitro
= per ligna, cet.: ‘dignis, de resina lignis manante accipiendum’ Lach. :
to me it seems to be used more generally. 994 transmttere is neuter.
996 ante, 1.6. 981 foll.

998—1041: and now we can easily explain the magnet’s attraction :
particles streaming from it cause a void between it and the iron; these
particles in a united mass fill the void, and as the particles of iron are
very closely packed, the whole ring must follow, when a certain number
have thus advanced: this takes place on all sides, as particles stream
from the magnet all round, if not by their own motion, yet by impact :

BOOK VI NOTES II 387

as there is a void too on one side of the iron, the air on the other side
helps to push it on as well as the air in motion within the ring. 998
confirmata, locata, praeposta, parata, a curious agglomeration of partici-
ples, though praeposta seems to have almost the force of a subst., ‘points
laid down beforehand’. 1003 sive: comp. 1 955 Seu locus. 1009
primoribus = primis: see Fore. 1011 horror: τι 410 serrae stridentis
accrbum Horrorem: horror in these two places = quod facit horrorem.
1012 tbus: 11 88 a tergo vbus obstet: here, as there, tl:e obsolete form has
occasioned a corruption: ex elem. depends on corpora, e ferro on coorta: ;
though Lucr. does not avoid two prepositions in the same clause: Iv 694
Ex alto primum quia vix emittitur ex re: see ἢ. to 1 412: [comp. also
Caes. b. Gall. 126 3 ad multam noctem etiam ad impedimenta pugnatum
est; 1125 3 cum pro se quisque in conspectu imperatoris etiam in extremis
suis rebus operam navare cuperet ; 111 29 3 in Aulercis..in hibernis con-
locavit; 111 20 4 quas in convalle in insidius conlocaverant; 1vV 1 4 pagos..
ex quibus quotannis singula milia armatorum bellandi causa ex finibus
educunt; VI 18 3 in publico in conspectu patris adsistere; b. civ. 111 101 6
qui ex veteribus legionibus erant relictt praesidio navibus ex numero
aegrorum ; auctor bell. Afr. 8 5 cum civibus in patria in suis fortunis
esse rncolumes; 19 1 ex adversarus perfugere plures ex ont genere
hominum; 42 3 in acie in cornu dextro ac sinistro ex tniguiore loco
pugnare: the repetition seems a peculiarity of this writer’s homely style. ]
1016 compagibus: 1071 Quam laxare queant compages taurea vincla.
1017 unde cumque appears here to have the sense of wbicumque. 1020
nec ipsa cet. i.e. nam ipsa quidem sponte sua non possunt. 1022
quare—iuvatur : Lucr. is fond of parenthetical clauses like this: comp.
111 1068, 790 and v 134, in all which passages, as here, the text is made
clear by this simple method without any change whatever: such paren-
theses are a very marked feature of Livy’s style. [2d...Haec quoque res:
Catull. 76 15 Una salus haec est, hoc est tibt pervincendum, Hoc facias
sive vd non pote sive pote. | 1023 adewmento implies something which
adds its assistance to the forces of the thing itself. [1025 vacuatus:
Mart. x1 56 Elystwm liceat st vacuare nemus. | 1027 prépellat :
Iv 195 ὦ tergo quae provehat atque prépellat, perhaps the only examples
of this quantity: 1029 prdpellat, as elsewhere. 1032 Parvas here
appears to be emphatical, ‘to the very smallest parts’. 1036 vebaus
crrcumd.: 187 circumdata comptus, a different constr.; see ἢ. to 1 38.
adpositus: Sen. nat. quaest. 11 6 aer continwus terrae est et sic adpositus
wt statm ibe futurus sit unde wla discesserit. 1040 guwo cet.: a
relative clause coupled with e¢ partem in vacuam, as so often in Lucr.
and the best writers: comp. 1015 Quod facit, et sequitur; 11 140, and
some of the examples in ἢ. to 1 718, 1041 con. swm.: 326 magnum
conamen sumit eundi.

1042—1064: but if brass come between the magnet and the iron,

25—2

388 BOOK VI NOTES II

then the iron is repelled, not attracted, because the stream of particles
from the brass first fills the pores of the iron; those from the magnet
follow, and tinding the iron already occupied, beat on it and repel it:
other things are not thus repelled like iron for various reasons; gold is
too heavy, wood too porous, iron is the due mean. 1044 Samothracia
seem to be mentioned by Pliny ΧΧΧΠῚ 23, a most obscure passage:
Isidore orig. x1x 32 5 says that the Samothracian ring is awreus quidem,
sed capitulo ferveo: whether this is meant by Lucr. I cannot say.
1048 Aere interp. cet.: Lucr. is here completely mistaken from too hasty
an induction: neither the attractive nor the repulsive power of a magnet
is sensibly affected by the interposition of any body which is not sensibly
magnetical, be it metal glass wood paper or whatever else: nay the mag-
net works equally in a vacuum, the absence or presence of air making
no difference: this by the way overthrows the poet’s argument 1022—
1041, where he brings in his favourite air to assist in explaining the
attraction between the loadstone and iron. But if Luer. has failed in
solving the mystery, no one seems to have succeeded. 1060 Praecepnit:
803 nist aquam praecepimus ante. 1053 fluctu is the same as the
westus of 1051 1056 and 1059, and the flumine of 1064. 1054 respurt
and 1055 vesorbet appear to be used in designed contrast. 1056—1064
I have joined with what precedes, as manifestly belonging to the same
argument, the repulsive power of the magnet through aes, and have
ended the paragraph with 1064: comp. 1063 Aeris ubi cet.: this is
shewn too by 1057 impellere, 1060 inpellier, which imply driving from,
not drawing to: the purpose of these lines is plainly this: he has shewn
above why iron is attracted and not other inetals; if now it is repelled
in the way stated, it might be thought that other substances which can-
not be attracted, would a fortiori be repelled where iron is repelled: this
inference he attempts to obviate in these vss. by asserting that gold is
too heavy, wood too porous. 1057 impellere to push on and so repel.
1058 stant: Lach. p. 85 compares Π 181 and v 199 tanta stat praedita
culpa, where stat =est ; but here stant seems to have its proper force of
standing still, the opposite of ampellz. 1059 cwm: seen. to 1759.
1063 Aeris cet. refers back of course to 1044 foll. and 1048 Aere anter-
posito cet.: Lachmann’s arrangement of the paragraphs quite obscures
this connexion, which some I see have absurdly misapprehended, corrupt-
ing the text by unmeaning changes. 1064 flumne, as 1053 fluctu.
1065—1089 : the fact that only iron is attracted by the loadstone
need not excite wonder: many things can be joined together only by
some one substance, stones and woods and various metals ; then some
liquids will mix, others will not: in all cases of mixture and adhesion
the cavities of one substance inust mutually come in contact with and
tit the solid parts of the other; sometimes too the union is like that of
hooks and eyes, as indeed scems to be the case with this stone and iron.

BOOK VI NOTES IIL 389

1065 haec, such cases of attraction; referring not to the exceptional case
which immediately precedes, but to 998—1041. 1067 singlariter :
though no other instance is known of this contraction, it must be
genuine; and does not seem harsher than 1088 coplata, which appears
only in Luer., or than perviglanda striglibus frigdaria and the like:
(comp. too lex colon. Genetivae c. 65 (ephem. epigraph. vol. 3 p. 95)
‘figlinas teglarias maiores tegularum ccc tegulariumve.’| Lucr. three
times has agiia, a form probably peculiar to him and found too only in
this book. It is clear that a word of the precise meaning of singulariter
or singillatim is called for by the context; not sem! wneter apta or the
like. 1068 colescere: see ἢ. to V 342. 1069 ¢awrino: Pliny xxv11I
236 glutinum praestantissumuim fit ex auribus taurorum et genitalibus.
1072 Vit. lat.: v 14 lquoris Vitagent laticem. aqgtiai: see 552.
audent=non dubitant: 1191 succedere frigus Non dubitabat: or else
=volunt: see ἢ. to IV 508 azsis. 1078 res una, hence called chryso-
colla or gold-solder. 1080 cam quam multa: 1104 quam multe tibr
tam fingere possunt Soma. 1081 comp. 919: the one seems almost
to be written with reference to the other. (1083 comp. Eurip. frag.
364 v. 5 (Nauck) Βραχεῖ δὲ μύθῳ πολλὰ συλλαβὼν épo.| 1084 Quorum,
1086 tunctura haec: strict syntax would require horuim, as Lamb. has
written: perhaps the turn of expression has been caused by 1085 U¢ cava
cet.: Prop. 11 1 55 Una meos quoniam praedata est femina sensus, Ka:
hac ducentur funera nostra domo; Cic. ad Att. vir 14 1 qua expectatione ;
Caesar ib. 1x 16 3 hane gratiam=huius rei gratiam; de fin. 11 66 hic
dolor: see Madvig there: Ov. met. 1v 431 cognata exempla, harshly for
cognatarum exempla; [Caes, b. civ. 111 60 3 quo pudore, where see Kraner
(Hofmann): see too Herzberg Prop. vol. 111 Ὁ. 241 and 513. ] 1085
haec cet. i.e. haec cava illius plenis illaque cava huius plenis: for the
position of gue see ἢ. to 1 1050. 1087 plicata: the particip. seems
to be very rare: Sen. epist. 95 2 mss. have historiam...artissume plicatant.
1088 coplata: see n. to 1067 singlariter. 1089 after dwelling at
inordinate length on the early parts of this question, 919 Lt nimi
longis ambagibus est adeundum, he hurries on at the end, 1081 Nec ¢tibi
tam longis opus est ambagibus, and finishes abruptly, as if he felt, what
is indeed the truth, that he had after all quite failed in clearing up the
mystery.

1090—1137: now to explain the cause of diseases: many particles,
both salutary and noxious, are ever flying about; sometimes the latter
are able to corrupt the air; then comes pestilence, either in clouds and
vapours, or out of the corrupted earth: it is seen what effects change of
climate has on men, and how much climates differ, and how particular
diseases infest particular countries; thus a strange atmosphere can conie
to us in mists and vapours and corrupt our air, and fall on the water we
drink or the food we and other creatures eat, or make us inhale infec-

390 BOOK VI NOTES II

tion: thus it comes to the same thing whether the bad atmosphere travels
to us or we travel to it.—Isid. de nat. rer. 39 2 imitates this paragraph.
1094 supra, 771 foll. 1095 quae sint morbo mortique: 771 Multa,
cibo quae sunt; seen. there. 1098, 1125 and 1132 pestzlitas 1s another
Lucretian word, pestilentia not suiting the metre. 1099 extrinsecus
cet.: 956 Morbida visque simul cum extrinsecus trsinuatur ; see n. there.
1101 ube putorem cet.: 872 putorem cum sibi nacta est Intempestivis
ex imbribus umida tellus; 928 terram Intempestivos guom putor cepit ob
imbris: here he adds solibus, so powerful in producing such epidemics.
1103 comp. Ov. trist. τι 3 7 Nee caelum patior nec aquis adsuevimus
istis: but Pliny paneg. 15 diversam aquarum caelique temperiem ut
patrios fontes patriumque sudus ferre consuesti. 1104 Zemptari, a
technical word for the attack of disease: comp. 1116 temptantur, 1137
temptare. 1105 disc. res: τι 1018 verum positura discrepitant res:
the little word ves is made to perform a legion of functions. 1106
quid putamus: for the indic. comp. Juv. Iv 28 Quales tunc epulas ipsum
gluttisse putamus Induperatoren:? and Mayor there, and ib, 130, where
he cites Pliny epist. 1v 22 6, and Madvig opuse. 11 p. 39 foll.: comp. too
111 950 Quid respondemus?; Pliny epist. Iv 25 3 quid hune putamus
domi facere, qui cet.; [Petron. 56 quid putamus difficullimum esse
artificium? ego puto medicum et nummaularium; Mart. vit 47 2 unum
quis putat esse caput?:] similar in principle is the use of quad putas? quid
eredis? and the like. Brittunni: Lrittannis has no sense; for caelum
would then be quite indefinite, and quod in Aegypto est must refer to
Brittannis: the length of the first syll. appears unexampled; whereas
that is the usual quantity of Brito. 1107 claudicat seems to mean, is
depressed, lies low, and so leans over like a limping man: comp. Virg.
geor. 1240 Mundus, ut ad Scythiam hiphaeasque arduus arces Consurgit,
premitur Libyae devexus in austros. Upper Egypt and Britain seem
almost proverbial in this matter: Cleomedes 1 p. 42 παρὰ μὲν Sunvitats
καὶ Αἰθίοψιν ἐλάχιστον φαίνεται τὸ τοῦ πόλου ὕψος, μέγιστον δὲ ἐν Bpetavvois:
claudicat may have the same force as tv 436 clawda; see ἢ, there.

1108 οἐ (i.e. id quod est) Gadibus. 1109 comp. 722 Luter nigra virwm
percocto saecla colore. 1111 Quwat. a ventis: Virg. geor. Iv 298 Quat-

tuor a ventis; the usual force of a ventis is, on the side exposed to the
wind; as v 754 @ terris, on the side towards the earth: here ὦ ventis,
partibus are rather used as a fronte, a tergo: Livy xxvu 48 15 ta ex
omnibus partibus, ab fronte, ab latere, ab teryo trucidantur; 1b means
therefore in the regions where these winds and quarters of heaven are.

1114 Seren. Samon. 133, quoted by Marullus in marg. Victor., sé
elephas morbus trista quoque nomine dirus. elephus or elephantiasis, for
both names are used by Galen, is described by him in various places and
fully by Celsus 111 25 and others; its name is derived from the condition
to which it reduces the skin: Kraus medicin. Lex. says that Lucretius’

BOOK VI NOTES II 391

limitation of its range is true of real elephantiasis at the present day.
1116 Atthide is used for Attaca more than once by Mela. GVessus : 18
this gout, or the τὰν τοῖσιν ἀντικνημίοις ἑλκύδρια of Aristophanes? the
expression would seem to point to gout; but Virg. geor. 11 94 Tempta-
tura pedes and Sen. epist. 83 at end temptantur pedes are said of the
reeling of drunkenness. 1119 guod—Commovet must apparently be
taken together, as es¢ cannot well be understood in Luer.; and then
caelum, as well as aer, is nom. to coepit: the sentence would of course

be simpler, if es¢ could be understood, or if we read alienwmst. 1121
comp. 1099. 1122 emmutare, neut.: see ἢ. to 11 502. coactat ;
1161 coactans: a Lucretian word. 1126 zpsas seems only to distin-

guish fruges from aquas; at all events aguas and fruges seem to be
exactly coordinate, and the one to have no preeminence over the other:
comp. 658 arripit acer Saepe dolor dentes, oculos invadit in ipsos.
1127 hom. pastus pec. cibatus: pecudum pastus hominumque cibatus
would be more usual. 1128 aere v1 tpso, 1.6. intus in aere: see ἢ, to
Iv 736, 1132 pigris I take to be a mere poetical epithet; not to
apply to the languor produced by disease: Sen. Oed. 133 clearly refers
toit: Prima vis tardas tetigrt bidentes. δαΐ,: see ἢ. to 11 369 Balantum
pecucles. 1134 amictum is a bold, but most expressive metaphor, as
the atmosphere wraps us round like a garment: caelz tegmen, as we have
seen, 1s much more comnion. 1135 céruptum is defended by Lucilius’
ore corupto, ‘dempsit enim unam litteram per metaplasmum 7 Consen-
tius p. 400 K.; for whether Lucilius so writes seriously or satirically,
the οὔ must have been in use; and Isid. |. 1. evidently read corruptum
in Lucr.: ‘ita etiam aer corruptus ex aliis caeli partibus veniens cet.’
1138—1251: a plague thus engendered once devastated Athens: a
large portion of the people were attacked by it; many of them after
every form of bodily and mental suffering died in a few days; others
later from the subsequent effects; others escaped, often with the loss
of some member; medicine was of no avail; even friends and relatives
frightened by the infection often deserted the sick.—The poet wishing to
illustrate what he has laid down as the cause of disease, concludes his
poem with this description which is an imitation, in many parts a close
translation, of Thucydides τὶ 47-54. One would infer from the words
of Lucr. that he had no practical or scientific knowledge of any such like
form of disease: he is content to take on trust whatever the historian
says and, as we shall see, more than once misapprehends or misinterprets
his words. I have looked into many professional accounts of this famous
plague: the writers almost without exception praise Thucydides’ accuracy
and precision, and yet differ most strangely in the conclusions they draw
from his words: physicians, English French or German, after examining
the symptoms have decided that it was each of the following maladies,
typhus scarlet putrid yellow camp hospital jail fever, scarlatina maligna,

392 BOOK VI NOTES II

the black death, erysipelas, smallpox, the oriental plague, some wholly
extinct form of disease: each succeeding writer at least throws doubts
on his predecessors’ diagnosis. Lucretius’ copy must manifestly be even
more vague and inconclusive. The truth is that having laid down his
general principles of disease and vindicated his philosophy, he seeks now
to satisfy his poetical feeling by a powerful and pathetical description
which he has plainly left in an unfinished state. He has been imitated
in turn by Virgil geor. 111 478—566, closely by Ovid met. vir 523—613,
by Seneca Oed. 110—201, by Livy more than once, and by others.
1138 mortifer aestus has no reference I think to //aec: Haec ratio is
the law of diseases just mentioned, which at this time caused a mortifer
aestus; so that Lachmann’s objection ‘quis enim has res diversissimas
conlungat, haec ratio et mortifer aestus morborum’ has no force: in fact
the v. isa paraphrase of 1098 ea vis omnis morborum pestilitasque ; comp.
too 1090 ratio quae sit morbis cet.: and for the expression 830 vis haec
atque aestus Averni. The first words of Vireil’s description “7160 guondam
morbo are evidently suggested by Lucr. and it is not unlikely that the
uestu of 479, used ina different sense, 15 a reminiscence of our aestes; and
it is nearly certain that Ovid 1. 1. 529 et cgnavos incluset nubibus aestus
comes from Lucr. when we recollect the mode in which he makes pesti-
lence approach, 1099 wé nwbhes nebulaeque, 1121 Ut nebula ae nubes. aestus
has essentially the same force as in 1049, 1051, 1056, and elsewhere,
i.e. a copious emanation of particles: dirae 23 J/utent pestiferos aestus.
1139 fun. red. i.e. funestavit, morte polluit: Virgil |. 1. 481 Corrupitque
lucus, infecit pubula tabo, the rhythm is evidently modelled on Lucr. as
Conington has pointed out; comp. ἢ. to v 202: Livy 101 32 2 vastati agri
sunt, urbs assiduis exhausta funeribus. Vast. vias: 11, E 642 χήρωσε δ᾽
dyvias. exh. civ. ur.: Aen. vit 571 tam multis viduasset civibus urben ;
Stat. sil. 111 5 73 quoted by Wak. has the very words of Lucr. 1141
—1143 Lucr. adapts his description to his general theory; comp. es-
pecially 1119 wbz se cueluwm quod nobis forte alienum Commovet cet.: the
strange atmosphere of Egypt put itself in motion, travelled gradually
over niuch sea and air and at last arrived at Athens: Thuc. says no such
thing: with his usual caution he tells us that it began, ws λέγεται, in
Aethiopia, and descended to Egypt and Persia; and suddenly broke out
in Athens beginning with the Piraeus; so that it is possible a ship
carried it direct from Egypt. 1141 venicns, ortus, permensus: see
notes 1 and 2 to v 692 693; and 998 confirmata atque locata...praeposta
parata: Lach. plays sad havoc with the participles of Lucr. 1143
Incubuit: Hor. od. 13 30 nova febrium Terris tncubuit cohors; Thue. 1. 1.
48 2 has ἐνέπεσε, Ovid 1. 1. 524 Lrctdrt. 1144 cat. dub.: Virgil 1. 1.
556 Iumque catervatim dat stragem. 1145 Princiro cet.: Thuc, 49
2 πρῶτον μὲν τῆς κεφαλῆς θέρμαι ἰσχυραί x.7.r.: θέρμαι and fervore appear
to have nothing special in them, as Arnold seems to imply of the former,

BOOK VI NOTES II 393

but to denote heat generally. gerebant simply in the sense of having is
common in the best writers: seen. to 1111049: and is often used of the
parts of the body: Ov. met. 11585 neque ram palmas nec pectora nuda
gerebam; V 161 Putaque terga gerens. 1146 suf. dwce expresses the
φλόγωσις of Thue. and means I presume the glare of inflammation: Sen.
Here. Oet. 1405 igne suffiso genae. 1149 an. tnt.: Hor. ars 111 Post
effert aninu motus interprete lingua. 1151 Jnde ubi cet.: it cannot
fairly be questioned that in these vss. Lucr. misrepresents Thuc. who
says that the disease first attacked the head, then the throat and tongue,
then 1. 1. ἐν οὐ πολλῴ χρόνῳ κατέβαινεν és τὰ στήθη ὁ πόνος, and then
always descending, ὁπότε ἐς τὴν καρδίαν στηρίξαι, ἀνέστρεφέ τε αὐτὴν καὶ
ἀποκαθάρσεις χολῆς πᾶσαι ὅσαι ὑπὸ ἰατρῶν ὠνομασμέναι εἰσὶν ἐπήεσαν, i.e.
as all the commentators of Thuc. explain it, when it got below the breast
and reached the stomach, discharges of bile of every sort took place ; it
being expressly stated on good authority that by καρδία the ancients,
particularly Hippocrates and Thuc., denoted τὸ στόμα τῆς γαστρός. But
Luer. has evidently taken καρδία in its usual sense: such a mistake was
not unlikely to occur; but it has caused him sadly to misrepresent the
case: he makes the disease not merely descend into the breast, but
wholly fill the breast, and stream together into the sad heart, and thus
at the very commencement of its course force all the fastnesses of life,
though the patients afterwards go through many stages of suffering and
live at least eight or nine days: Thuc. says some sentences later διεξηει
yap διὰ παντὸς τοῦ σώματος ἄνωθεν ἀρξάμενον TO ἐν TH κεφαλῇ πρῶτον ἱδρυ-
θὲν κακόν. This error of Lucr. was pointed out by Victorius three cen-
turies ago in his variae lectiones xxvi11 17 and more fully in a letter to
Hieronymus Mercurialis published by Passow in 1832: Lamb. in vain
asserts that Lucr. here uses cor for stomachus after the Greeks; his wide
departure from Thuc. and the whole turn of his language prove that cor
here, as elsewhere, means the seat of life; nor is there the least authority
for supposing that cor could have any other meaning. 1153 vit. cl. :
1415 vitar claustra resolvat; seen. to1 7]. 1155 perolent seems not
to occur elsewhere. 1157 leti lim.: 1208 metuentes mina lett; 11960
let, iam limine ab ἐρ80.

1158 1159: Thue. adds to the words last quoted καὶ αὗται μετὰ ταλαι-
πωρίας μεγάλης, referring to the great distress caused by the violent
vomitings: Lucr., having as we saw quite misrepresented the rest of the
sentence, would not understand these last words: he has therefore given
quite a different turn to the words of Thue. in these two vss.; he
certainly does not refer to the sentence here quoted by Wak.: his trans-
lation of it comes later, as we shall see. 1158 anxiws angor occurred
above 111 993. 1160 Singultus frequens represents Thucydides’ λὺγέ
κενή, Which is commonly explained to be an empty retching, where
nothing is brought up. 1161 Corripere ‘to draw together in spasm’ :

394 BOOK VI NOTES II

comp. Vv 1223 Corripiunt membra; and τν 83. coactans, as 1122: coac-

tans eos corrip., dissoluebat et fatigabat eos, vel ante defessos, 1163
and 1170 posses: see ἢ. to 1 327 possis; and comp. the use of erederes
and the like. 1167 wt est cet.: ‘ut est sacer ignis, dum per membra
diditur’ Lach. sacer ignis: seen. to 660: comp. Virg. geor. 111 566 and
Sen. Oed. 187. 1172 partim =nonnulli; see ἢ. to v 1143: 1211
partim = 1210 nonnullr. 1175 ipso means straight with mouth, with

mouth rather than or before any other part: comp. Livy xx1 58 3 vento
miatus imber cum ferretur in ipsa ora; xxit 46 9 pulvere in ipsa ora
volvendo; comp. too Lucr. himself Iv 651 1 ore ipsoque palato; 1044
and vi 1207 partis genitalis corporis ipsas. 1176 Insedabiliter appears
not to be found elsewhere: adverbs of this form seem to have been com-
mon in popular language: the scribblings on the walls of Pompei shew
not only amabiliter, but also fratrabiliter incurabiliter wrrumabiliter
festinabiliter and one in n. 2138. sitis, mersans: a bold but expres-
sive metaphor: thirst so drenches the body, that no after drenching of
water can overcome it: comp. Stat. Achill. 1 303 totisque novum bibit os-
sibus ignem. As A and Niccoli have mersans and the Vienna fragment
has messais, the anerrans of B is plainly a mere clerical error, and will

not do to build conjectures upon. 1177 ἐν τῷ ὁμοίῳ καθειστήκει TO TE
πλέον καὶ ἔλασσον πότον. 1179 mussabat: another fine metaphor,

muttering under breath, as not knowing what to prescribe and therefore
not daring to speak out; see Conington geor. 111 550: Pliny epist. vir 1
d, being ill of fever, says ‘cum mussantes medicos repente vidissem’;
from which use Lucr. may have taken his metaphor: see Nonius and
Donatus cited by Wagner aulul. 131. 1180 patentia, ardentia,
expertia: see notes 1 and 2 to v 692 693. ardentia morbis Lumina,
1186 Creber spiritus cet., 1203 Corruptus sanguts cet.: Virg. 1. 1. 504
Sin in processu coepit crudescere morbus, Tum vero ardentes ocult atque
attractus ab alto Spiritus...it naribus ater Sanguis: this would serve to
defend ardentia, if it needs defence: morbis seems to mean each with his
own disease: but with 1180 1181 comp, Ovid met. νι 246 simul suprema
racentes Lumina versarunt, animam simul exhalarunt; ναὶ 579 Lassaque
versantes supremo lununa motu; and v 134 Singultantem animam et
versantcm lumina vidit: which might seem in favour of Lachmann’s
subtle and possibly true emendation: the peculiar rolling of the eyes
before death is a very marked symptom. This symptom and most of
those which follow down to 1195 are not found in Thuc.: they appear,
most of them at all events, to be derived from the writings of Hippo-
crates which Lucr. must have been well acquainted with; and not to
have any special reference to this plague: Lucr. indeed seems to forget
for the time that he is describing the gradual progress of a disease in
which some died and others recovered as is told farther on; and to think
only of drawing a moving picture of the signs of coming death,

BOOK VI NOTES II 395

1183 Perturbata cet. : παραφροσύνη in various forms is mentioned by
Hippocrates as θανάσιμον. animt mens: see ἢ, to ur 615. 1184
Triste sup. cet.: Hippocr. prorrhet. 1 49 mentions the προσώπου τὸ λίην
σκυθρωπόν as a very bad symptom. 1185 so Hippoer. praenot. Coac.
193 βόμβος ἐν ὀξέσι καὶ ἦχος ἐν ὠσὶ θανάσιμον. 1186 Hippocr. progn.
ὃ μέγα δὲ ἀναπνεόμενον πνεῦμα καὶ dia πολλοῦ χρόνου παραφροσύνην
δηλοῖ. 1187 Sudoris...per collum: Hippocr. progn. 9 nentions sweats
on the head and neck only as very bad, and adds οἱ δὲ κεγχροειδέες καὶ
μοῦνον περὶ Tov τράχηλον γινόμενοι πονηροί: the latest editor Ermerins
omits these words because Galen says some mss, want them; Lucr. was

less critical. 1188 croce cet.; Hippocr. 1. 1. 24 τό τε yap ξανθὸν
πτύελον ἄκρητον ἐὸν κινδυνῶδες, and elsewhere speaks of saltness of
spittle as a dangerous symptom. 1190 Si manibus cet.: Hippoer. 1.1.

7 mentions at length nervous twitchings of the hands, κροκίδας ἀπὸ τῶν
ἱματίων ἀποτιλλούσας, and the like, as deadly symptoms; but this ‘fum-
bling with the sheets and playing with flowers’ and the like have ever
been noted as sure signs of death. trahere: seen. to 595 movere:
Lach. says the trahere for traha is admissible, when the act is involun-
tary and there is no external and apparent cause for the contraction.
tremere artus: this shivering Hippocr. mentions as a bad sign in fever.
1191 ‘they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so
upward, and all was cold as any stone’, 1192 Non dub.: 1v 188 Non
dubitant transire; vi 1072 aquar fontibus audent Misceri. item ud
supremum cet.: these signs of approaching death seem almost translated
from Hippocr. progn. 2 ῥὶς ὀξεῖα, ὀφθαλμοὶ κοῖλοι, κρόταφοι ξυμπεπτω-
κότες... καὶ τὸ δέρμα τὸ περὶ τὸ μέτωπον σκληρόν τε καὶ περιτεταμένον καὶ
καρφαλέον ἐόν : these words recur little changed in the praenot. Coac.:
Celsus 11 6 translates him thus ‘ad ultima vero tam ventum esse testantur
nares acutae, collapsa tempora, ocult concari,...cutis circa frontem dura et
intenta. 1193 nast acumen: ‘his nose was as sharp as a pen’:
Afranius has primoribus narebus, Lucilius primoribw partibw naris and
primores unguis (Mueller p. 221). 1105 in ore trucet rictwm, another
well-marked symptom: 2 Hen. VI 3 3 24 See how the pangs of death do
make him grin; par. lost 11845 and death Grinnd horrible a gastly smile;
[Sen. Here. Oet. 1172 non truce rictu gigans.] 1196 Nec nimio post :
see ἢ, tov 988 Nec nemo plus. rigidt mor. 1ac.: YOU can say vir
racet mertta morte 1.6. cecidit or occisus est mer. morte; thus Odyss. a 46
Kai λίην κεῖνός ye ἐοικότι κεῖται ὀλέθρῳ, which Ovid fasti ται 707 translates
Morte riacent merita; but scarcely artus iacent rigida morte: this a
Lambinus and Lachmann felt instinctively, a Waketield never could
feel; and yet Iv 454 21 summa corpus iacet omne quiete might be thought
to mediate between the two expressions.

1197 Octavo cet.: he now returns to Thue. who says 49 8 ὥστε ἢ
διεφθείροντο οἱ πλείους ἐναταῖοι καὶ ἑβδομαῖοι x.7.X. Meaning of course that

396 BOOK VI NOTES II

the seventh and the ninth were the two critical days: the sad necessity
of the metre I fear has caused Lucr. thus seriously to vary the state-
ment. 1198 lampade: see ἢ. to v 402 lampada. 1199 fun. lete:
111 42 Tartara leti. 1200 nigra proluvie alvi is the διαρροίας ἀκράτου
of Thuc.; Galen quoted there by Arnold explains one kind of axpyros
ὑποχώρησις to be the τὸν τῆς μελαίνης χολῆς χύμον unmixed with any
watery matter. 1202—1204 there is nothing in Thue. correspond-
ing to these vss., but just before Lucr. has, as we saw, been copying him:
thus 1201 expresses Thue. 1. 1. οἱ πολλοὶ ὕστερον δι᾿ αὐτὴν ἀσθενείᾳ ἀπεφ-
θείροντο: 1205 foll. he again takes him up, καὶ εἴ τις ἐκ τῶν μεγίστων περιγέ-
voto K.7.A.: What comes between the words just quoted is as follows,
διεξήει γὰρ διὰ παντὸς τοῦ σώματος ἄνωθεν ἀρξάμενον τὸ ἐν TH κεφαλῇ πρῶ-
τον ἱδρυθὲν κακόν, the disease took its course through the whole body
beginning in the head: is it not then probable that the poet, having a
corrupt copy or an imperfect recollection of his author, has misappre-
hended his meaning, confounding τὸ ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ κακόν with capitis
dolor, and making the whole substance of the body run into the head
instead of letting the disease pass from the head through the whole
body ? 1203 sangiuis: see Iv 1050. 1204 uc, ‘in alvum aut
nares’ Lach.: I believe it refers only to nares: besides Thuc. says
nothing at all here of the »ares, nor is it easy to see why Luer. should
do so except from misapprehending Thue. in the way suggested above.
1205 Profl. exterat, 1217 exewret odorem: see ἢ. to v 1330 exrbant
adactus. 1209 ferro priv.: the words of Thuc. which Lucer. represents
in 1206—1211 are these, τῶν ye ἀκρωτηρίων ἀντίληψις αὐτοῦ ἐπεσήμαινε:
κατέσκηπτε γὰρ ἐς αἰδοῖα Kal és ἄκρας χεῖρας καὶ πόδας, καὶ πολλοὶ στερισκό-
μένοι τούτων διέφευγον, εἰσὶ δ᾽ οἱ καὶ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν: the disease passed
through the body from the head downwards ἐς τὴν κοιλίαν, and if a man
was not killed by the terrible ulceration and diarrhoea, it fastened on
the extremities, the toes fingers genitals; and some escaped with the
loss of these, στερισκόμενοι τούτων, or of the eyes: Lucr. however has
understood στερισκόμενοι to mean ferro privat, and this has given an
awkward turn to his whole sentence: this misapprehension was pointed
out centuries ago by Victorius var. lect. xxxv 8, and in the letter above
referred to, and seems to have brought upon him no simall obloquy, from
Lamb. and his correspondent Mercurialis among others: in those days,
while everybody had ostentatiously to protest against the religion of
Lucr., it seems to have been deemed an impertinence to question his
knowledge of Greck or his clinical and surgical skill. 1211 tamen,
quamivis sine manibus cet. 1212 Usque adeo mortis cet.: he takes
advantage of his own error to point his favourite moral. — amcesserat 18
from tecedo, not incesso: [comp. Caes. Ὁ, civ. 11 29 1 magnus omniwm
incessit timor awribus: see Kraner (Hofmann) here: see also Draeger
hist. synt, 1 p. 384 ‘Sall. Cat. 31 ὃ. guibus bella tumor insolitus incesserat ;

BOOK VI NOTES ΤΙ 397

Livy tv 57 10 gravior cura patribus incessit ; wogegen Livius sonst den
accus. setzt.”"]| 1218 1214 are a very literal translation of Thue. τοὺς δὲ
καὶ λήθη ἐλάμβανε παραυτίκα ἀναστάντας τῶν πάντων ὁμοίως Kal ἠγνόησαν
σφᾶς τε αὐτοὺς καὶ τοὺς ἐπιτηδείους, with the omission however οὗ παραυ-
τίκα ἀναστάντας, Which seems of importance in the account; see the
commentators of Thuc. 1214 neque=non: seen. to 11 23: Livy x1
20 6 ut neque seribi sibi vellet, resembles Lucr.: [comp. too Aen. x11 903
neque ..se cognoscit; Lucil. 112 nec sx Carneaden ipsum Orew’ remittat. |

1215 supra goes with zacerent, as the prepos. only governs an accus.
1219 foll. comp. Livy xii 21 7 cadavera intacta a canibus ac volturibus
tubes absumebat, satesque constabat nee illo nec priore anno in tanta
strage boum hominumque volturium usqguam visum. 1219 solibus :
soles for dies occurs in Virgil and others. 1222 fida canum vis: see
n. to 1v 681 promessa canwm vis. 1225 see notes to 1247—1251.
rasta must have its first sense of vacua, deserta, therefore almost the
same as Incomitata. 1227 ali: see n. to Iv 637. 1228 Volvere
has much the same force as in Virg. geor. 111 85 volvit sub naribus ignem,
quoted by Wak. Jicere is used as an accus. subst.; see ἢ, to 1 418: but
here it has a second infin. depending on it, Volvere and tueri: dederat ut
liceret volvere. cae. tem. tu.: Aen. IV 451 taedet caelt convexa tueri.
1229 comp. Virgil geor. 111 511 A/ow erat hoc ipsum exrtio. 1230 foll.
in all this part he is closely following Thuc.: I do not commence a new
paragraph, as the corresponding sentence in Thue. could not well begin
one. 1232 morbo is prob. the abl., the usual case after amplicites in
Cicero Caesar and Livy; but it may be the dat. as in Livy xii 21 5
longingwo, maxtme quartanae, implicabantur morbo; who xxii 34 11
has a third constr., non tam in periculosum quam longum morbum im-
plicttum ; aS Nepos v 3 4 and xvi 8 6 an morbum implicitus. morte
damn.: a rare constr.: damnari in metallum, in opus publicum, ad
bestias are legal terms, for the last of which Apul. met. x 34 has
bestits esse damnata: Ov. ars 11 387 Nec mea vos unt damnat censura
puellae; Stat. Theb. v1 55 Damnatus flammae torus: ad supplictum, ad
poenam, ad opus damnari occur in Tac. ann. vi 38, Trajan ap. Plin. 32
(41) 2, Suet. Nero 31 respectively: so Tac. ann. xvi 21 ad mortem
damnabatur. {Kuehnast Liv. synt. p. 83 says morti is ablative here ;
see too Draeger hist. synt. Ὁ. 450 at top.| «wt esseé must be for ud
si, quasi, tamquam esset, though it is a very rare use: Lach. quotes
Val. Flaccus v 92 fulsere wrdae, sol magnus ut orbem Tolleret aut
nubem quateret polus: hut Nepos too, x11 3 4, at tle temeraria usus
ratione non cessit maiorum natw auctoritati, et, ut in sua mane esset
fortuna, quo contenderat, pervenit: so mss, rightly I think ; but editors
read velut for et wt: is the omission of δὲ like Catull. 10 32 δον
tam bene quam miht pararim? velut for velut si is more common;
I have noted down from Livy alone fourteen instances. 1234 an.

3

398 BOOK VI NOTES II

am.: auctor. ad Heren. Iv 57 anusit vitam, at non perdidit...amisit
animam, potitus est gloriani ; [Plaut. asin. 604 tidi te vitam esse amissu-
gum; aud see Ussing’s references there. | respectans, as V 975 taciti re-
spectabant. 1235 Queppe etenim cet.: what is the meaning of these con-
junctions? the poet has just been saying that the most piteous thing of all
was to see how those who caught the disease at once lost heart, gave
themselves over, and made no effort for life: he then goes on to say ‘for
they at no time ceased to catch the infection’ and so on. Why this for?
how can the fear of danger of infection add to the grief and despair of those
who are already stricken? both in these vss. and in what precedes and
follows the poet is treading closely on the steps of the historian: now read
the words he is here translating: 51 6 δεινότατον δὲ παντὸς ἣν τοῦ κακοῦ ἡ
τε ἀθυμία (πρὸς yap τὸ ἀνέλπιστον εὐθὺς τραπόμενοι TH γνώμῃ πολλῷ μᾶλλον
προΐεντο σφᾶς αὐτοὺς καὶ οὐκ ἀντεῖχον), καὶ ὅτι ἕτερος ad ἑτέρου θεραπείας
ἀναπιμπλάμενοι, ὥσπερ τὰ πρόβατα, ἔθνησκον" καὶ τὸν πλεῖστον φθόρον τοῦ-
το ἐνεποίει: that is to say, the most fearful feature of the plague was this,
on the one hand the despondency and utter mental prostration of those
who were attacked, on the other hand the great danger of contagion
which scared away or else struck down the healthy, 7 τε ἀθυμία and καὶ
ott both of course being subjects of δεινότατον ἦν: now is it not plain that
Lucr. has carelessly made καὶ ὅτι depend on what immediately precedes,
and has not referred it back to δείνότατον nv? and hence the strange
paralogism involved in his Quzppe etenim. apisci: this seems a not
unnatural, but yet unusual application of the word: Plautus however in
his epitaph has mortem aptus est. 1288 cum. fun. fun.: see ἢ. to 11
71 caedem caede accumulantes. 1239 visere ad: see n. to 11 359 revisit
Ad stabulum. But here too the argument is strange: ‘this above all
heaped death upon death; for those who refused to attend their own
sick, killing neglect soon after would punish for their too great love of
life and fear of death by a foul and evil end, left to themselves without
help’: he then adds naturally enough that they who cid stay, caught
the infection and died. He is here following closely the order of Thue.
who continues εἴτε yap μὴ θέλοιεν δεδιότες ἀλλήλοις προσιέναι, ἀπώλλυντο
ἔρημοι : but instead of making οἱ πάσχοντες nom. οὗ ἀπώλλυντο, he took
οἱ δεδιότες προσιέναι for its subject; and feeling the weakness of the
argument he has tricked it out with these embellishments, and given
three lines to express the two words of Thuc. The educated Romans
of Lucretius’ time had an exquisite knowledge of their own tongue, its
syntax, its grammar, its prosody, all its refineinents and capabilities ;
they were also well acquainted with Greek, such as Greek then was; but
the Attic of Thucydides and Sophocles, of Plato and Demosthenes had
been dead for centuries; and Greek had become the lingua franca of the
civilised world. 1240 mortis timentis: I ind no other instance of this
construction; but Livy xx11 3 4 now modo leqguie aut patrum marestatis,

BOOK VI NOTES II 399

sed ne deorum quidem satis metuens: Horace has metuens alterius vive
and maxarum; Ovid metuentior deorum and metuentius numinis; Horace
timidus procellae, Ovid timidus deorum; Juvenal metwens flagellr and
virgae: cupiens with a gen. is common in Plautus and Tacitus: [comp.
too Virgil’s metuens pericli; Cic. c. sen. gr. egit 4 legumque nretuentes; de
domo sua 70 homines lequm vudicrorwmague metuentes; Caes. Ὁ. civ. 1693
Jugiens laboris; Ter. Ph. 623 fugitans litium: see too Draeger hist.
synt. 1 p. 445. ] 1241 Poenibat: see ἢ. to IV 220 moerorwn. 1242
mactans : 805 plagae mactabrlis. 1243 zbant: see ἢ. to 111 265 176.
1247—1251 appear like 1225 to be out of place and unconnected
with what precedes and follows: they refer also to the same matter as
that verse, to the neglect of the usual rites of burial: Lucr. in all this
part of his poem follows the order of Thuc.: well 1246 concludes the
topics contained in Thuc. 51; 1252 commences the questions with which
Thue. 52 opens: both then dwell in the same order on the crowding of
people from the country into the town and the terrible mortality caused
thereby ; speak of the dead bodies piled up in the streets and by the
fountains; the temples crammed with corpses: Thuc. then goes on to say
νόμοι TE πάντες συνεταράχθησαν, οἷς ἐχρῶντο πρότερον περὶ Tas Tapas, ἔθατ-
tov δὲ ὡς ἕκαστος ἐδύνατο : so too Lucr. 1278, as if like Thuc. he were
entering on a new question, begins Vee mos lle sepulturae cet. and in
four verses paraphrases the words just cited: Thuc. then continues, καὶ
πολλοὶ ἐς ἀναισχύντους θήκας ἐτράποντο σπάνει τῶν ἐπιτηδείων διὰ TO συχ-
νοὺς ἤδη προτεθνάναι σφίσιν : and similarly Lucr. 1282 continues his
paraphrase, J/ultaque res subita cet.: Thuc. then goes on ἐπὶ πυρὰς yap
ἀλλοτρίας, φθάσαντες τοὺς νήσαντας, οἱ μὲν ἐπιθέντες τὸν ἑαυτῶν νεκρὸν
υφῆπτον : these simple words Lucr. expresses with some poetical em-
bellishment in the last four vss. of his poem: Thuc. completes the above
sentence with this clause, of δὲ καιομένον ἄλλον ἄνωθεν ἐπιβαλόντες ὃν
φέροιεν ἀπήεσαν : the meaning of these words is given with similar em-
bellishment in the vss. 1247—-1251 which we are now considering. As
the end of the poem is in an unfinished state, and as these vss, as well
as 1225 are clearly out of place having no connexion either of sense or
grammar with the context, is it not probable that they, like so many
others, are incomplete sketches and marginal additions of the poet’s,
which he intended, but did not live, to embody with the rest of the poem,
and which his editors, not knowing what else to do, put into their present
place, almost 1t may be at hap-hazard? Lachmann’s treatment of these
vss. is highly unsatisfactory: cernebant is a violent change; and the
lacrumis lassi luctuque redibant he refers to the lookers on who had
something else to do in attending on their sick; not to those who had
struggled to bury their dead, though that must be their meaning; nay
it seems to me almost certain that the poet means by these words tu
express the ἀπήεσαν of Thue. 1. 1. 1247 Lnque aliis aliwm has at

400 BOOK VI NOTES II

present nothing to govern it, perhaps never had; for the poet may never
have completed the sentence: Aut etiam bustis 1am ardentibus inicrebant,
or the like would give the sense required. ‘Cic. ad Att. 1x 10 2 nec um-
guam aliud in alio peccare destitit’ N. P. Howard. populum suorum:
besides Ovid met. v1 198 quoted by Lach., comp. ib. x1 633; heroid. 9
51; 14 115; Sen. epist. 74 3; 77 13; [dial. x 2 4 circwmfusus chentium
populus ;] Pliny xxxv 6; Pliny paneg. 23; Arnob. 1v 7; Apul. met. 1
8; 1v 24; v 28; x 32. 1249 bonam purtem, 1259 Nec minimam
partem: seen. to 111 64 Non minimam partem. 1251 ductus for the
sickness or death of friends.

1252—1286: the country-people flocked into the town and increased
the misery ; all public places, even the temples, were crowded with the
dead and dying; religion and all the decencies of burial were neglected.
1253 comp. v 933 Nee robustus erat curvi moderator aratri Quisquam.
1255 ded. mor.: see ἢ. to 11 1043. 1260 languens, convenrens : see
notes 1 and 2 to v 692 693. 1262 aestus: Lachmann’s astu I now
think cannot be right: he has shewn sufliciently from Vitruvius and
Priscian that astu or asty was used by the Romans for any case of ἀστυ;
but its use here would be very abrupt, and Lucr. would I think have
said an astu, as Vitruvius twice does. The heat too was perhaps the
most marked cause of mortality; comp. the words of Thuc. here imitated,
add’ ἐν καλύβαις πνιγηραῖς ὥρᾳ ἔτους διαιτωμένων ὁ φθόρος ἐγίγνετο οὐδενὶ
κόσμῳ: and Livy 111 6 3 ea collurcio mixtorum omnis generis animantium
et odore insolito urbanos et agrestem confertum in arta tecta aestu ac
vigiliis angebal, ministeriaque in vicem ac contagio ipsa vulgabant morbos;
one does not wish to lose Confertos, any more than aestus; else aestu
Confectos would complete the sentence: Plaut. most. 764 is too corrupt
to support aestw in the sense ‘during the heat.’ I therefore think a v.
has been lost. 1264 Thuc. 52 2 καὶ ἐν ταῖς ὁδοῖς ἐκαλινδοῦντο καὶ περὶ
τὰς κρήνας ἁπάσας: so that the silanos aq. are these κρῆναι, and must
have got their name from the water coming out of the mouth or body of
a Silenus; see also Festus and Celsus in Fore., and Herzberg Prop. 111
p. 214. [Stanza were apparently fistulae by which the water spirted
out: comp. corp. inscr. Lat. vir ἢ. 6982 among a number of works
of art ‘silani aerei ἢ. vI’: and before, ‘statuae aereae ἢ. vi et Cupido.
marnioreae ἢ. VI.’| 1266 Jntercl. an.: Livy xxu1 7 3; Tac. ann.
νι 50. dule. ag.: Livy 1v 12 6 per largitionis duleedinem; § 7 dulce-
dine contionum ; [Cic. ad Q. frat. 1 2 7 quaedum dulcedo tracundiae. |
1268 comp. Ov. met. vil 577 Semzanimes errare vits.. Adspiceres.

1269 1270 Cic. Tuse. disp. 1 26 cites from an old poet barba paedore
horrida atque Intonsa infuscat pectus inluvie scabrum, which, if defence
is needed, seems to defend the second v. which Lach. brackets: [comp.
too Sen. Here. Fur. 705 (709) cuncta paedore horrida. | 1270 Pacuv.
20 elluvie corporis. pel. sup. os. un. appears to be proverbial: Plaut.

BOOK VI NOTES II 401

capt. 136 Ossa atque pellis sum miser aegritudine; aulul. 111 6 28 Qui
ossa atque pellis totust: ita cura macet; Virg. ecl. 111 102 wi ossibus
haerent; Hor. epod. 17 22 ossa pelle amicta lurida. [1271 sor. sep.:
Sen. rhet. controv. 1 1 18 obrutus sordibus. | 1274 caelestum: so in-
fantum, parentum, meantum, salutantum, etc. manebant: see n. to 11
843 manere; [and comp. Catull. 76 5 Multa parata manent in longa
aetate | 1275 Gellius x11 10 8 Tvtus autem Lucretius an carmine
suo pro aedituis aedituentes appellat. 1276 foll.: it would not
be easy to say what feeling was uppermost in the mind of Lucr.
when following in the footsteps of Thue. he wrote these vss. 1277
enim see n. to 1 419: Virg. ecl. 1 14 namque comes 6th, Catull. 66
65 5th in the sentence. 1278—1286 are paraphrased by Ovid met.
vil 606—610. 1279 haumari: perhaps N. P. Howard’s hamare is to
be read; but I think Aezmart may well have the reciprocal force you find
in Soph. Phil. 945 Θανὼν παρέξω dah’ ὑφ᾽ dv ἐφερβόμην. 1281 pro re
pr.: Aen. Iv 337 Pro re pauca loquar seems to mean ‘pro causa nostra’,
as Sen. Here. Fur. 401 interprets, pauca pro causa loquar Nostra.

1282 res swb.; Livy 11 8 7; x 26 9; xxv 38 1; xxvi 44 2; xxvii 30
7; Plaut. cure. 302. 1283 rogorum depends on extructa, as 561
quae sunt extructa domorum; Iv 361 saxorum structa: Ovid 1. 1. 610
alienisque ignibus ardent; Sen. Oed. 64 Tum propria flammuis corpora
alienis cremant. Diripitur ignis: nullus est nuseris pudor. 1284 In-
super followed by an accus.; see n. to 192; Luer. uses also the abl.
1286 Rix. pot. qu. ὁ. desererentur: the regular constr. whether a finite
verb or a partic. precede: Livy πὶ 21 6 altorum exemplo peccate potius
quam alii vestro recte faciant; 1x 14 16 omina patienda potius quam pro-
deretur salus; XXX1x 10 2 mort et sibi et illi satius esse quam id faceret;
tr 48 6 non diutius, quam vecens dolor proximae cladis transiret, qures-
centibus: even with adjectives; as Mela πὶ 43 ad frequentiora quam
adire audeant. [Comp. Caes. Ὁ. Gall. vi1 17 7 praestare omnes perferre
acerbitates quam non civibus Romanis... parentarent: and see Weissen-
born Livy 11 15 2.]

M. IL. 26

INDEX

REFERENCES WITHIN ( ) ARE TO NOTES I

a not changed to e in compounds 11 1135

a, ab=pro or cum i 693; non ab nulla
ratione i935; after a subst. ii 51; ab
ict ii 99; ab se ili 271; iv 468; ab
nervis V 1332; ab igni vi οὐδ; a ventis
vi 11113 ἃ terris Υ 754; a tempore 1
554; ab imo summa Vv 163

abhine, of future 111 055

ablatives, two or more together i 183;
with cum=simple abl. i 275; 7553 vi
955 14, 1 730; 0004,0075, 11 tty ly
235; vi66; of particip. ini, v 664; abl.
in e, 1 161; 1013, 11635; in ὃ, i 806;
iii 734; in motu and motu esse i 900;
of quality ii gog, ili 620, iv gos, vi
268; of the condition iv 392

abluo, in metaphors iv 378

abnormal form of condition v 276

aborisci V 733

abrumpere, constr. of, li 214

absistens li 359

absterreo=adimo iv 1064

abstraxe ili 650

abuti=uti v 1033

ac before ὁ g qu 1280; vi 440

academics refuted iv 469 ‘

accédere (11 1025); accido ad auris 1
1024; accid, in iv 215; also gov. acc.
and dat. iv 882; accus. v 609

accumulare caedem ili 71

accus. after fungor, fruor, potior, ete. ili
056; after inpendere, incidere etc. i
326; after comparatives iv 414

active verbs used as neut. i 397; 787; ii |

126; ili 502; iv 11303 V 931
actus subst. 11 192
acute cernere iv 802

ad ‘after’ i185; ad speciem, ad pondus
ili 214; ad aequos flexus iv 323; ad
tornum iv 361; ad nos nil est iii 830; ad
summam vi 613, 679; ad=dat. 1750

adamantina saxa 11 448

adaugmen vi 614

adducor ut v 1341

adeo (adv.) 11 1150

ades=ades animo i 499; adit pacem v
1229

adferet=rationem adferet iil 354

adfingo iv 386

adfligo oscula iv 1081

adjectives in -bilis i τα; in -ws, not -is, i
340; and participles neut. plur. with
genitive 1 315; adjs., etc., referring to
substantives of another gender or num-
ber i 352; 15.034; v1188; est omitted
with neut. adj. ii 1 and 5; adj. for
adverb 11 217; 1080; ii 250

adiectus i 689

adlaudabilis v 158

adolent altaria iv 12347

adolevit aetas ili 449

adopinor iv 816

adque and atque 11 881

adverbs in -tim and -sim i 20; in -iter i
5253 vir176

adulant, of dogs v 1070

adumbratim iv 363

aedituentes vi 1275

Aegium, earthquake at, vi 585

aegrare 111 106

aequor iii 802 ; 866. mundi vi 108

aera, of gates li 450; effect on aes of
magnet vi 1048; 1063

aéribus ii 1007; v 645; aéris mare v 276

INDEX 403

aestuo V 1097

aestns v1 1138

aetatem iii 986; vi 236

aeternus, poetically used, v 4023; 514

aether=aer ii 1115; described vol. 11 p.
309; husband of earth i 250; seat ofrain
i250; vi 291; aetheriusi 250; 111 405

aevom iii 357; masc. ii 561

agere hoc i 41; nunc age i 265; agere
animam 111 493

agitare=agere 1 1067

agmen, of water, V 271

aliae genit. 11 g18

Alidensia iv 1130

alienigenus )( ὁμοιομερής 1 865

aliquid emphatic iv 39

alinnde alicunde v 522

alins with exclusive sense of ἄλλος 1 116;
iii 611; alid i 263; aliae genit. ili οἵ;
ali iv 637; aliis=ceteris iii 1038; in
aliis alinm vi 1247

allido v 1001

alliteration, assonance, antithesis, repcti.
tion of words, ete. vol. 11 p. 15, 163 1
330; 358; 572; 741; 813; 826; 875;
Beaeeoal; 11 1; 28; 103; 1413 215;
310; 635; 669; 749; 841; 887; 955;
962; 1018; 1054; 1139; lil 11; 387;
3993 4493 7463 778; 869; 898; 983;
993; 1046; 1056; 10913; iV 54; δο4;
B75, Sit; 800; 11213 1173; Υ 96;
298; 3923; 590; 950; 903; 13343
13593 Vi 3273 415; 485; 698; 718

alma Venus i 2; alinus cibus iv 633

alsia V 1015

alte ‘from on high’ iv 326

alter =alius iv 688

alteram utram v 589

altior digitum iv 414

altitonans V 745

amaracinum li 847; vl 973

amaror lv 224

ambages V1 gig

amfractibus v 683

amictus caeli vi 1134

amittere vitam vi 1234

Ampsanctus vi 747, 762

an credo Vv 174

anacolutha ili 434; iv 71; 206; 3973 V
383; 853; V1 105; 166; 302

anademata 1V 1129

Anaxagoras i 830 foll.; his homoeomeria
i 834; 844; 848; 867; 875—879;
895 8963; 897—9203 910; 11973990;
976—983; adapted by Luer. ii ggi1—
10223 V 449 ;

ancile, derivation of, iti 660

ancisa 111 660

Ancus 111 1025

androgynum v 839

angle of reflexion iv 323

angnimanus declined like manus il 537

anima ‘air’ i 715; animam amittere vi
1234; liquisse 111 582; a. agere ill 493

animal (iv 740): v 823

anim) fallit 1 136; animi mens 111 615;
ex animo iligr4; iv 1195; animo male
factum, ete. ΠῚ 581; animus and corda
contrasted vi 15

anni solis 1 3r1; 8. magni i 1029

ante ocnlos ‘plain for all to see’ 1 62, 984

anticipo v 659

Antipater of Sidon iv 181

Antonius Marii p. 24

anulus, not annulus i 312

anxius angor 111 993

apisci i 448; v1 1235; aptus v 808

aplustra li 555

appareo, not adpareo vol. I p. 34

apparo li 1110

apta stellis caeli domus vi 357

apti=adepti v 808

aqiiae, aqtiai (vi 552; 868; 1072); Υἱ 552

Aradi fons vi 890

arboris auctus vi 168

arbusta=arbores, metri causa i 187

arbute trees in Peloponnese v 940

ardor lii 251

aridus sonus vi 110

Aristophanes’ clouds imitated ii 8

Aristotle on Empedocles 1 733

Aristoxenus vol. 1 Ὁ. 182

arms, importance of, in ancient dancing
iV 790

arquati iv 333

ΔΙ] v1 526

arteria iv 529

articulo iv 551

artubus preferred to artibus i 260

artus, not arctus i 70

26—2

404

astronomy, how regarded by Epicurus v
533

astu vi 1262

at in transitions iv 414

ἀταραξία of Epicurus vi 26

atoms, names for, in Luer., Cicero, Greek
iss; Newton on, i 5473 5723 5943 ll
445; size of, i 600; parts of, vol. 11 p.
“8—82; ii159; 485; motions of from
below i 1000; ii 85 ; inconstant motion
even in things ii 98; 141; 164; κατὰ
στάθμην 11 843 κατὰ παρέγκλισιν Vol. II
p. 131—136; cause of freewill 11 251,
258, 288, vol. 11 p.134—136; shapes of,
finite ii478—521; atoms of each shape
infinite ii 522—568 ; have no secondary
qualities vol. m p. 155 [0]],

atque, ve or vel (111 551); 111 551; atque
explanatory 111 993; que and atque v
Ἐπ

Atthis = Attica vi 1116

Avancius vol. 1 p. 4; obligations to Ma-
rullus p. 9 foll.; (ii 422; iii 98)

auctior ill 450

auctus with abl.= praeditus 1 631

audet, quo, v 36; audent, of inanimate
things vi 1072 ; ausis=Velis iv 508

Avernian exhalations vi 747

aversa Vial, a grecism 1 1041

avessis 1V 823

augmen a Lucretian word 1 434

Augustus: his way of spelling vol. 1 p.
35 36 373 13135 V 11193 ΥἹ 052

avidus auricnlarum iv 594

aura ‘scent’ 11 851

aurata tecta 11 28

auriculae 1v 594

auro signisque ingentibus apta v 1428

austrum, ostrum ete. 11 829

aut ‘or else’ v 410; aut etiam i 1012

autumnus, not auct. 1 70

auxiliatum V 1040

awnings over the theatres iv 76

Ὁ for p, vi 92; band v confused (v 545;
Vi 1199)

Babylonica iv 1029; 1123

Bacchus=vinum ii 653

balbe v 1022

baubantur v 1071

— ee

INDEX

bellum contrahere ii 574

bene parta patrum iv 1129

Bentley vol. 1 p. 17

Bernays vol. 1 p. 20; 21

Berosus v 727

bidens v 207

blanditur goverus a pres. subj. ii 173
bona pars V 1025

bonum summum vi 26

βουγενῆῇ ἀνδρόπρωρα of Empedocles v 839
brattea, not bractea (iv 727); iv 727
Brittanni vi 1106

bruma v 746

brutus vi 105

buceriae greges li 663

burial, modes of, 111 891, 892, 893
bustum 111 906

ὁ suppressed before t, 1 70

cacumen vol. 11 p. 79—81

cadere ad iii 836: cadat iv 1182

caelum mare terra proverbial 1 2—9;
caelos 11 1097; caeli domus 11 1110

eaerula cael i 1090

Caesar? alluded to 1] 40

caesius iv 1161

caesura, short syll. lengthened by, 1i 27;
vss. apparently without, 11 1059

calx vi 02

campi natantes, natare, v 488; campus=
c. Martius 11 40

cana cadens ili 21

candida calcis vi 92

Candidus, Petrus, vol. 1p. 5

canere=cantu resonare 1 256

capere iras iii 298; 6. quietem ili 939;
6, laborem v 1182

capi 1 941

capite se in vestigia statuere iv 472

capulum, ire ad, 11 1174

caput followed by dat. vi 729

caput quassans ii 1164

carbasus iv 75

carceres ii 264

cardo ii 450

carts ‘precious’ 1 730

case understood from a different one ili
68; 1018

cassia formidine ili g81

cassus lumine iv 368

INDEX

casu seu Vl, Vi 31

Catullus vol. 1 p. 19; imitates Lucretius
iii 57 ; amended i 6; iii 406

cavernae caeli iv 171

caulas 11 951

celer femin. iv 160

centaurium, centaurea 11 401

Cerbereae facies iv 733

certus=quidam 1 521

cervices collumque ii 802

cetera li 859; et cetera 111 399

Chaldaei v 727

Chimaera Υ 008

chrysocolla vi 1078

Cia iv 1130

Cicero: did he or his brother edit the
poem of Lucr.? vol. 11 Ὁ. 2—5; his opi-
nion of Lucr. Ὁ. 17—19; 1 186; seems
to allude to him ii 1092; iii 983; iv
1070; Vi 396; imitated by him v 298;
619; his Aratea studied and often
imitated by Lucr. v 619; ad Att.
amended i 755; Jokes on εἴδωλα iv 782

cimus 1 212

cinefactus iii 906

cinis femin. iv 926

circumcaesura 111 219

circumdatus with acc. and dat. i 39

circumfusus with accus. i 39

citus partic. 1 1001; 11 85; sonitu iv 546

Cins=Ceus (iv 1130); iv 1130; Cia er-
ror for Coa, ib.

clam with ablat. i 476

clam id fore v 1187

clarare ili 36; iv 777

clarigito not Latin v 947

clarus citat v 947

claudico vi 1107

claudus )( rectus iv 436

claustra 1 415; li 450

clementius aequo 111 313

clinamen principiorum ii 216; 292

clueo=audio or sum, i119; 449; iv 52

coactare V1 1122

cock alarming to lion iv 713

coemptio nothing to do with buying i 950

coépi iv 619 ; coepi Vi 432; coepisse creari
ii 613

coerceo neut. vi 954

cognate accus. 111 569; iv 1274; vi 404

——— ......πἶἶ΄΄΄ἧ͵.--΄͵ -ς͵.ςἘ

cognitus v 7

colare, of atoms, ii 1061

colere aevom V 1150

colescere V 342

comitari passive 1 97

comites Heliconiadum 111 1037

commeditor vi 112

communis sensus 1 422

comparative of participles iv 961

complexion of miners vi 812

complexus, pass. Vv 922

componere leges iv 966

compound words: power of forming them
in Latin became gradually limited vol.
It p. 16 1%

compounds of fieri ii 1004

comptus=compta coma i 950

concelebro 1 43 V 1381

conciliatus ii 936

concinnare= efticere vi 584

conclamatio 111 467

concreto corpore v 466

condicio, not conditio 11 301%

condo v 2; condere saecla ili 1090

conduro vi 968

conexus, conecto, conixus, conivere, co-
nubium all spelt with one n i 633

confercio v1 158

confervefacio vi 353

confio ii 1069; iv 738

confugio with infin. iii 766

confultus 11 98

coni umbrae v 764

coniecta, without hue, (ii 1061)

coniuncta 1 449; 1V 493

conlaxat V1 233

conlectus iv 414

conradere i 401

conridere iv 83

conscius iii 1018; 5101 in re 6. v1 393

consentire= una sentire 11 717

conseque V 679

consequitur leto iii 929

conserit lumine li 211

consors vita ili 332

coustare=esse 1 245

consto, consisto, with simple abl. or pre-
pos. in Lucr.1221; constitit=constat,
stat 1 420; -constitif in, only once in
Lucr. i 420

406

consuesco, act. vi 397: cousuetus iv 998

consuetudo iv 1283

consumpse 1 233

contagé 111 734

contagia 111 345

contaminat, in neutral sense iii 883

contendere causam iv 471

continet formido 1 151

contingo compound of tango 1 934 ;=tan-
80 V 151

contorqueo, of steering iv 904

contractabiliter iv 660

contractions in language of common life
1233, 9915 il 314

contrahor v 1219

contibium 111 77

conveniebat =eixds ἣν ii 720

convertere neut. V 1422

convestire li 148

convinci Vv 1178

coortus vi 671

coperio v 342

coplata vi 1088

copper used in magic rites v 1294

copulae, Lucretius’ irregular use of, 1 715

cornum 11 388

coronae iv 11323; 1178

corpus, corpora for atoms 1 55; corpora
caeca 1 277; corpus ‘an atom,’ 1 600;
ii 484; ‘flesh’ 1 1039; periphrastic v
235; ὃ. aquai vi 854

correpo V 1219

corripio iv 83; Vv 1223; Vl 11613 corri-
puisse mihi v 247

corruo, active, v 368

corruptions from assimilation to adjacent
cases of numbers genders words etc. |
(iv 81; 563)

coruptus ΥἹ 1135

coruscant neut. il 320

coturnix or cocturnix iv 641

crateres ΥἹ 701

creari=nasci ii 613

Creech, vol. 1 p. 17

creperus V 174

crerint=decrerint v 782

Crinitus, Petrus, vol. 1 p. 7—9

cristae of elephants v 1313

crow expelled by Pallas from her acro-
polis vi 754

INDEX

crustas luti vi 626

cudere 1 1044

cuius, monosyll. 1 149

cum with abl.=simple abl. 1 275; 287;
755; 1¥ 1126

eum causal with indic. i 566; ii 29; vi
130; temporal with pres, potential 111
736; cum cumque li 114

cum praesertim iv 786

cumque after ut (vi 350); after cum li
114; corrupt v 313

cun-, quon-, qun-, in terminations of
verbs ili 713

Cupido iv 1058

cupiret i 71

curare corpus 11 31; V 939

Curetes and Corybantes ii 629

curo diffugiant vi 231

curtus falciferi iii 642

cursus Viam V 714

curtus iv 1026

CX 111] τον 4

daedalusi7; with gen. (verborum, rerum)
lV 551; pass., of signa Υ 1451

damnare with gen. and abl. iv 1183;
damnatus morti, vi 1232

dare with infin. iv 878

dare ruinas iv 41; d. fidem v 104

dative=gen. 1 58; vi 729; dativus ethi-
cus 1 797; dat. of agent after passive
not used by Luer. 1 944 ᾿

de, 1 384; de plano )( ex loco superiore 1
411; after a subst.ii 51; =ex, vi 290;
de supero vi 512; de corpore V 154

debeo, use of in Lucy. 1 232

decurro ii 962; iv 1196; decurso lumine Ι
111 1042

decursus aquarum Υ 263

dede manus ii 1043; deditus in 11] 647

dedico = declaro i 367

deducta i 96

degere bellum iv 968

degustaut, of flames 11 192

delibo vi 70

deliciac ii 22

Delphica laurus vi 154

delubra li 352

dementit iii 464

deminuo, diminuo v 323

INDEX

Democritus i 685; vi 535—556; Epicu-
rus and Lucr. differ from, ii 258; vol.
Mp. 130; Ὁ. (453 1 373; V 1028—
1090; on rising of Nile vi 729—734

demoliri atque cremare vi 242

demonstr. pron. in relative clauses 1 720

demum i 143

deniquei17; 278; 111 750: v 858

densebant (v 491); of 2nd conj. in Lucr.
1 392

deorsum dissyl. and trisyl. 11 202

deos securum agere aevom v 82

depascimur dicta 11] 12

deplexae v 1321

deprensa, of ships in a storm vi 429

depressos premunt vi 53

derigo, derectus )( obliquus 1i 198; vi 823

derivare animum li 365

desidiae v 48

despicere and dispicere (iv 418); desp.
il 9

desse 1 43

desurgere ν 703

devinctus, quo, iv 962

deum gens iv 1232

dia otia v 1387; d. voluptas ii 1723 d.
oras 1 22

differitas iv 636

differre fuerit seems not Latin (iii 868;
iv 1259); differre anne 111 £68

difficile est 111 361

diffusilis v 467

digitis duobus iv 126

dignarier, pass. Υ 51

dignus pro Vv 1

diluviare v 387

Diomede of Thrace v 31

discessum dare (iv 41); iv 4

discludere ν 444; Vi 240

discovery of fire v 1015

discrepat potuisse i 582

discutere umbras iv 341

disiectare li 553

dispargo, exspargo, etc. ii 1135

dispessus (11 1126; 111] 988); 1 1126

disposta 1 52; ill 420

dissaepta subst. vi 951

dissentit ‘protests’ iv 766

disserpunt Vi 547

dissicietur 11 951; 111 639

407

dissolvere causam iv 500; dissoliio i 216

dissuluit iv 605

disterminat ii 719

disturbat perf. vi 587

diu abl. of dius iv 211

diversus gov. dat. V 647

divisior iv 961

dius 1 22; v 1387

do=facio (iv 41); 11 119; 187; 1149; 11]
355: 1V 413 8475 ἡ 104, 1340; doleto,
etc. V 1007

docui quoniam iv 752; doctus with infin.
iv 579; docta dicta 11 987

dogs, words imitating cries of, v 1063,
1070, 1071

dolia curta iv 1026

doloris, ete. pl. (11 467); ii 467

domiuantior 111 397

dona ‘sacrificial offerings’ ii 681

donec, donique, constr. in Luer. 1 222; Iv
997; ¥ 997; donique ii 1116

doors of the ancients ii 450

dreams iv 962

duae partes=7a δύο μέρη V 204

dubito, non, of inanimate things vi 1192;
dubitavi perire v 249

ducere sub signis v 999; duc., of tunes
Vv 1406

ductu aequali iv 426

duellicus trisyll. ete., 11 662

dulcedo vi 1266

dum ‘until’ with pres. indic. i 949

dumtaxat, different senses of, ii 123

durateus equus 1 476

duriter v 1402

dux with double meaning i 638

é and & in rarefacio, vace- pate- etc. i
648; ὅ for i in compounds of iacio ii
951; €in 3rd plur. of perf. ind. 1 406

e, ex after a subst. ii 51; e laevo iv 301

ea propter iv 313; ea, qua 1 507

earth, as mother 1 250; ii κοῦ foll.; how
upheld in its place v 538

earthquake at Sidon vi 585

ebrius iil 1051

eclipses v 751

edendi amor iv 869

effigia iv 42

effio 11 1004, eflit ut—ita =ita effit ut, ib.

408

efflare 11 832; v 652

effluo vi 971

effugere se ili 1068

egigni 11 703

Egnatius de rerum natura i 25

611 688

-ei, old termin., corrupted to -et (vi
1105}: -ἰ, 111 97

οἰδοῖξ, etc. ii 951; eicio and elicio con-
fused (iii 58); eicit dissyl. iti 877

elements, the four, maintained by what
philosophers 1 715; 734

elephantiasis v1 1114

elision of a long before a short syll.
i rog1; neglected in monos. 1] 404;
neglected ili 374; of m in quidem,
etc. 111 goz; of an iambus iv 741; at
first syll. of a v. iv 1205; neglected,
but shortening the vowel, vi 716, 743

embalming in honey ili 891

emergo li 13

emissus subst. iv 205

Empedocles 1 733; 7423 748; 7543 7673
782—8o2; 11 43; v 7833 1194;
translated v 102; imitated and refuted
ν 839, 840, 878—924, 908

endo i 82

enim Vv 13; late in sentence 1 419

Ennius invented the Latin hexameter
vol. 11 p. 12 foll.; his theory of the soul i
114—126; 111 677; noster 1 117; in-
troduced Greek metres i 117; his
theology 11 646; quoted 111] 1025

epanalepsis v 1189; 1327

epicurean system suited for poetry vol.
Ἱ Ὁ. 5, 6; where according to it cer-
tainty can or cannot be attained
V 526—533; Vi 7o3—711; Luer.
softens its harsher features v 1020,
1157

epilepsy v1 793

epithets transferred from the whole to its
part 110; 474; with poetical intensity
of meaning 1 1018; Iv 63; Vi 1032;
epith. orn. 1 844; two or more in
same sentence 1 258; 11 8; ΠῚ 21; iv
624; V 13

equidem, mistaken by Cicero, iii 1078

equos (nom.), ecus 1 477

crgo, prepos. V 1246

INDEX

ι eromenion iv 1166

erumpo, etc. active i 724

escendere V 1301

escit 1 619

esse In 60 ut iv 1107

est for licet not Lucretian (v 533); when
it may be omitted with the gerund i
111: 111 796; 866; est ut, erit ut, ete,
i 620; est with partic. for finite verb
11 1089; iii 396; est quare possit v
715; est ratio ut, vi 132; est cum, vi
295; cibo quae sunt, vi771; esse ex, il
969; ubi esse 111 728; esse with advs.
111 862

et for etiam (i 830; iii 234; 290; Vv 610;
vi 749; 818); ui 4123 v1 7; et for ae
in comparisons 1 280; followed by que
li 1070; explanatory 11 615; ill 993;
et nunc in 852; et tamen 1 1050

-6t (V 1049); 11 27

etesiae V 742

etiam ‘once again’ 11 494; etiam quoque,
quoque etiam, item, ete. ili 208; quo-
que et ili 412

Etruscan astrology vi 86; 381

eventa 1 449

Euhius, euhoe v 743

Euripides translated 11 ΟΟΙ

ex ineunte aevo il 748

ex infinito 1 1001; 1025

examina of plants v 1364

excellore 127; V1 13

exesor 1V 220

exiit etc. in Virgil, iii 1042; exire active
V 1330

exim ili 160

existo in, 111 §32

exordia sumet i 149; prima ili 380

€xos lil 721

exossatus iv 1271

expers, with abl. 11 1092

explaudentibus alis iv 710

explere 111 1004

exsolvere ii 381; constr. of, iii 696

extima simulacra iv ror

exto with partic. i1 933

extructa rogorum vi 1283

Faber, Tan. vol. 1 p. 17
facesse ‘be off’ vi 956

INDEX

facesso vi 956

facies V III

facilis iv 693

facio quid i 440; facio ‘assume’ 1 655;
f. ruinas i 740; Vi 573; finem iil 943;
facere=hoc f. iv 11123 facit are, vi
962; facta flamma i904; fera facta v
1340

faecula 11 430

faex V II4I

false antithesis 1 875

falsum subst. i1 1043

falx ahena v 1294

fama deum i 68

famul 111 1035

fasces 111 996

fastigia trahit iv 429

fatigo caelum ii 1172

fauces ‘craters’ vi 639, 702

fauni iv 581

fears of men compared to those of chil-
dren ii 55

ferae pecudes i 14; ferae ‘serpents’ vi
766

fere, ferme i 14

ferre neut. vi 200; 745

ferre patique 11 291

ferro privati vil 1290

ferruginus iv 76

feruntur=sunt 11 845

fervo and ferveo, form and sense, ii 41

fessa fatisci v 308

fetialis, metaph. from his mode of de-
claring war 1 983

fetus=arborei fetus i 209; 11 1159

fictus=fixus 111 4

fidéi i 688; v 102; fidem do=f. facio v
104; fides, cnii 423

figurae, atoms, 11 385; 679; =simulacra
IV 34

filum ‘thickness, size’ 11 34

final causes denied vol. 11 p. 265 266

finem facere iil 943

finis always femin. in Lucr. i 107; fine
=tenus iv 627

firmare=confirmare ili 319

fit uti inde, etc.=inde, ete. fit uti ii
1004; fit uti fiat, ete. 1 6203; vi 415;
727; fit copia v 359; fit qui 111 293

flammescere caelum vi 669

409

flatus ayuilonis et Austri v 689

flectere, of tunes v 1406

flere ‘to be wet’ 1 349

Flora v 739

florentia lumina iv 450 ; florere puppibus
Volate

flos flammai=upds ἄνθος i 900; nardi
11 848; Bacchi ili 221

fluctifragus i 305

fluctus belli v 1290; curarum, ete. iii
298; irarum vi 35; of magnet vi 1053

fluenter iv 22

fluere ‘to waste away’ ii 69; iv 860

fluto iii 189

fividus and flividus 11 452

fluxum vi 20

foedus (adj.) of weather iv 168

folliculi v 803

fons luminis v 281

formamenta 11 819

fortuna gubernans v 77

fossae ‘hollows’ v 482

fragilis, of sounds vi 112

fragor 1 747

fragosus= fragilis 11 860

free-will maintained by Epicurus ii 258

fretus, fretu i 720; metaph. vi 364,
374

fronte=a fronte iv 298

frudi vi 187

frugiferentes 1 3

frugis, vocis, etc. acc. pl. (i 744); fruges
1252

frustramen iv 817

fuat ii 383; iv 637

fucus=color ii 683

fuerit 111 915

fuge with infin. i 1052; fugere and effu-
gere ili 1068

fugio=confugio ii 926

fulcire cibus 11 1140

fulgo and fulgeo vi 160; fulgére vi 213

fulgor=fulgur=dorpary Vi 170

fulmen, fulgur, tonitru = κεραυνός, ἀσ-
τραπή, βροντή Vi 160—172

fundatum perpetuo aevo v 161

fundo, of giving birth v 823

funera Troiae v 326

fungor 1 440

funis fem. il 1154; f. aurea v 793

410

fut. simple for fut. perf. i 1114

Galli lorica vi 954

gannitus, of dogs v 1070

Gassendi vol. 1 p. 16

geli, gelum v 205

geminare neut. Iv 451

genetrix, not genitrix, 11

genibus summissa 1 92

genitabilis i 11

genitive in -ai i 29, rare in adjectives
ii 52; plur. contracted i 162; Vv 727;
vi 1266; with force of an epithet iii
423 ¥ 309; 7645 11933 V1 954

genus, hoc vi 917; omne i 1026; quod
gen. ll 194

gero res I 328, 002; mentem ili 1049;
caput Vl 1145

gerundial dative expressing purpose 1
24; gerund with aceus. i111; abl. of,
referring not to the subject of sentence
i 312; iv 1068; v 1369; gen. sing.
with gen. plur. of subst. v 1225; in
remorando Vi 333

Gifanius, Obertus, vol. 1 p. 9 15 16

Gigantes Vv 117

glans liquescit vi 179

glomeramen li 454

glutinum taurinum, vi 1069

gods of Epicurus ii 646—651; Vv 146—194;
1161— 1240; abodes of, iii 18; Vv 146—
194

Goethe’s opinion of Lucr. vol. u p. ὃ

gout prevalent in Attica vi 1116

Graii not Lucretian (vi 424)

Graiiugenarum (i 465)

gratis ili 935

gravesco iv 1069

gravis lili 1066

Greek words, use of, in Lucr. ii 412

gressus temptantur vi 1116

Grote on Luer. v 405

gubernans V 77; 107

habebis i 758; habetur=intellegitur ili
831; habeant ii 135; habendo i 312; |
male habeo ili 436

habenas habere li 1095

habeto 1] 465

habrotoni iv 125

hac re=hanc ob rem i 172

ee es τ... ὌὌὉῳῷ052Ὅ7ΔὥὦὉὦτττ τἑ -----.

INDEX

haec fem. plur. iii 585; vi 456; haec
omnia V 503

haeresco iv 742

halare exhalare etc. and alare etc. (iii 432)

Hammon, fountain of, vi 848

,᾿ ἅπαξ λεγόμενα and words peculiar to

Lucr. among good writers 1 3; 99;
103; 2753 305; 383; 4353 4373 6533
683; 692; 795; 1027; ii 98; 1655
1693; 2923; 3353 3603 401; 412; 408;
571; 625; 703; 741; 850; 866; 9753
1096; 1106; 11223 1137; ΠῚ
106; 219; 240; 381; 3933 464; 5253
660; 675; 689; 721; 779; 830; 851;
890; 917; 928; 1015; ΟΠ ιν
180; 2043 2203 225; 2713 363; 4653
552; 600; 635; 636; 654; 660; 716;
742; 816; 817; 824; O27 ;0eumGee
1169; V 28; 145; 158; 244; 246; 260;
303; 316; 340; 3873 394; 467; 598;
4761; 864; 10153 10353; 1040; 1142;
1321; Vl 112; 2333 3533 300; 4473
5233 5473 576; 614; 651; 669; 671;
805; 916; 968; 10985 1122; 11553 1176

harbours, dangers of, 1 271

Havercamp vol. 1p. 17—19; takes Lam-
binus’ Latin for Cicero’s iv 779

haurio Υ 1324

haustra v 516

haut facile est iii 361

heaven reflected from water (iv 213); i
1060; IV 213; 419

Heinsius, Nic. ms. notes by, vol. 1 p.
24 25

Helicon, torrents of, iv 547

hellebore food of quails iv 641

hendyadis iv 852; v 726

npaxdela λίθος Vi go8

Heraclitus vol. 1 p. 83 foll.; his fire
i 645; 696; on the senses i 696;
782— 802; on the soul iii 3:9

Hercules compared to Epicurus v 22

hiatus cael iv 417

hilum, affirm. 111 514

Hippocrates iv 1210; 1227; Ὁ τὸ
1183; 11843 1185; 11863; 1187; 1188;
1190; 1192

hisco iv 66

hoc=ergo iii 531; iv 553; with genes
16; hoc caelum iv 132

INDEX

homoeomeria of Anaxagoras 1 834

honey bitter to some iv 671

Honorius of Autun quotes Lucr. vol. 1
pl

honustus 111 113

Horace imitates Lucr. 111] 938; v 82;
1029

horror=quod facit horrorem iii 28; vi
IOI

humani=homines iii 80; 836

humari vi 1279

ὑποκορισμός 1V 1160

ὕστερα πρότερα V 53535 8

hypermetrical v. v 849

hypothetical sentence without si, 111 935

i and | confused (i 349; ii g61; iii 58;
198; 4973 1V 1210; vi 1200)

Taccho, ab, iv 1168

iacens vi 838; lacere morte vi 1196; 180.
praedae lucroque v 875

iacere, iactus, adiectus, of smell (vi 778);
vi 778; iactus animi il 1047

iam i 600; 613; li 314; 426; lamque
adeo ii 1150; iam lam ili 894

ianua letii 1112

ibus ii 88; vi 1012

ico ili 160

ictus vi 220

id quoque ‘again’ i 655

Idaea mater ii 611

idem, eaedem, eodem, eadem, isdem dis-
ΒΥ]. i 306; iv 310; idem gov. dat, iil
1038; IV 1174

igitur in apodosis i 419; in transitions
i g58; late in the sentence ii 678

ignisco Vi 301

ii for i (i 465)

ille emphatic 1 82; ἢ 362; v 416; illaec
Iv 1059

lim iii 88:

illud in his rebus i 80

images, names for,ii 112; iv 30; surfaces
Of, IV 101; 135; Size of, ἵν 175

imago =simulacrum iv 30

imber ‘water’ 1 715

imbibo 111 997

imbuo, of fire vigo4; inbuta with accus.

n 734
immutare ii 02

411

imperfect in -ibam Υ 93.

impetus iv 416; Vv 200; inpetis vi 527

implicitus morbo vi 1232

improbus= ἀναιδής iii 1026

in, with abl. of time 1 93; understood
from another clause iii 623; in aesta-
tem vi 712; in lucem vi 712, 875; in
parte ‘in turn’ v 734; in sensu, odore
111 537; in somnis iii 431; in morte
‘after death’ ili 88ο

in eo est iv 1107

inanis, as substant. 1 363, 517; inane
used loosely 11 116

inbuta colorem ete. 11 734

incautum scelus vi 390

incendo vi 347

incido with accus. 1 326; iv 568

incilet 11 963

incipiam i 55; Vi 432

includor iv 1127

inclutus 1 40; ii 1080

increpo aliquid alicui iil 932

incuimbo v 346; vi 1143

incutere, of love 119; 0924

inde loci v 443

indestructibility of atoms i 486

indicative pres. after quid? iii g50; vi
1106; ind. clauses in orat. obliq. i
1058; v 630

indicia vi 381

indigitamenta vi 381

indignarier se 11} 870

indigus with abl, v 223

indu 1 82

indulget ‘gives full play to’ i 805

infantia V 1031

infants ery at birth with reason v 226

inferna suppeditantur i 1000, 1044

infestum facere v 983; infestus ii 521

infinitive=nomin. of subst. 1 331, v 979,
ΥἹ 380, 415; =accus. i 418, ii 1029, iv
245, V1 69, 1228; of indignation ii 16;
understood from another clause iv 779,
802, Υ 36, 263; in -ier 1 710; perf.
after volo ete. 111 69; inf. after verbs of
motion 111 895

infinity 1622; Newton on, i 62:

infitiandum, not infic. iii 796

infra 111 274

infringi linguam iti 155

412

infula 1 87

ingenuci fontes 1 230

ingratis iii 935; animi ingratis vi 13

ingravesco iv 1250

iniectus animi 11 740

initus=initium 1 383

inlidere dentes iv 1080

innumero numero 11 1054

inops amor lv 1142

inpendeo with accus. i 326; inpensus 1]
3635 vi 491

inrigo, of sleep iv 907; V 282

inritat perf. 170

inritata Vv 1063

inscript. Lat. i 1453 explained 1 885

insedabiliter vi 1176

insigne diei v 700; capitis Vv 1138

insila Vv 1353

insinuo, constr. of, i 116

insistere with accus. 1 406

instituo Vv 14

insuescat te iv 1282

insuper with abl. and acc. vi 191; 1284

intactilis 1 437

integri fontes 1 927

intellégit perf. vi 17

intempesta nocte v 986

intendere litem iii 950

inter pretantur iv 832; inter se, one word
in metre (vi 370); =mutuo se 1 787;
vi 456; inter nos V 349

inter- in composition iv 716

interdatur iv 227

interemo, not interimo i 216

intermundia 111 18; v 147

interpolator of the péem (i 44—49;3 11]
806—-818 ; Vv 1341—1346); i 50; 1085

interstingui v 761

intervomo vi 894

interutrasque adv. ii 518

intro vi 23

intus iii 171; vi 23; with abl. iv 1091

inversa verba i 642

inversions in Luer. 1 15

ipse, use of, 11656; V 1010; Vi 1175; in
ipso =intus in, 111 483, 575, ἵν 736

iram non capere 11] 298

ire ct abire ii 962; ire iil 526

irregular use of copulae 1 715

-is in nom. plur. i 808; ii 467

IND

es

DAS

isdem (ii 693)

ἰσονομία li 578; Vi 542

iter viai, viarum ii 626; itere v653; itiner
Vi 339

iterum ‘anew’ 1 724

iubar iv 404

iura V 1144

just and unjust killed alike by thunder-

bolts vi 392
iuvencus equus V 1074
Ixion,? mentioned in lost vss. 11 1011

Kapdia=76 στόμα τῆς γαστρός Vi 1181

1 and i confused (i 349; ii 961; ΠΙ 58;
198; iv 1210; Vi 1200); 1 for ll before
11.1.51}

labeosus iv 1169

labi, of the stars 1 2

labitur res iv 1123

labore 11 1163

Lachmann vol. 1 p. 20 21

lacuna 1 1153 V1 438

lacus iv 1026; coupled with luci v 75

laetitiae, etc. plur. 111 142

laetus 1 14

Lambinus vol. 1 p. 14—16

lammina ili 1017

lampas, of sun v 402

lanigerus v 866

lapis v 1199; lapidi abl. 1 885

largifluus v <98

latebrae lunae v 751

lateramina Vi 233

latitare in diff. senses 1875; 877

latrare 11 17

lavabra vi 799

laurus Phoebi i 738

leges iv 966; iuraque Vv 1144

Lessing denies Lucr. is a poet vol. 11 p. 6

leti sub dentibus i 852; letiianuai 1112;
leti limen ii 960; leti vada v 1232

leto=in leto 111 920

lévia carmina v 1380

levisomna canum corda v 864

libella iv 515

licet quamvis vi 601

lido v 1001

limen leti, ete. 11 960

INDEX

linctus vi 971

linquere animum, linqui 111 582

liquidus, liquidus, liquor 11 452; iv 1259;
liquidus ignis vi 205

longe ‘from far’ 1 230

longo tempore ‘for long’ v 161

longus=longinquus iv 393

loquacula iv 1165

loquella, not loquela i 39

loquor with infin. iv 581

lorica Galli vi 954

Incae boves v 1302

luci abl. iv 234

Lucretius, manuscripts of, vol. 1 p. r—3;
22—30; editions p. 3—22; date of his
birth and death vol. 1 p. 1; his name
and family p. 2; story of his madness
pP- 13; 4; 1132; his first editor p.2—5;
design of his poem p. 4 foll.; sum-
mary of his poem Ὁ. 5 foll.; Greek
and Latin authors whom he admired
p- 8 9; his purity of style p. 9 10;
had he a right to complain of the
poverty of Latin? p. το 11; differ-
ence between his hexameter and that
of Virgil and others p. 12—15; his
fondness for alliteration assonance an-
tithesis p. 15 16; date when he was
writing i 41—43; 11 40; his motive in
invoking Venus p. 31—-33; imitates
Euripidesi2; iror; v 805; translates
him vol. 1 p. 166; illustrates abstruse
things from what is visible i 197; con-
cludes a long reasoning by a short argu-
ment appealing to sense i 7o1, 759, 018:
984, etc.; seems to imitate Aristophanes
11 8 ; translates Homer 11 24, 324, 111 21,
1000, 1025, V 905 906, Vi 971; imitated
by Catullus iii 57; by Ovid ii 355-250;
Υ 1012; imitates Hesiod v 1289; trans-
lates Antipater iv 181; his satirical
irony iv τος foll.; his allegorising
Vv 405; misrepresents Thucydides vi
T14I—11433; 1151; 1158; 11593 11973
1202—J204; 1209; 12353 1239; leaves
him for Hippoerates vi 1180—1195

lucuna 111 10313 vi 538

ludi iv 1131

luella iii rors

lumina solis i 5; luminis oris i 22; lu-

413

mina linquere v 989; lumen vitae iii
1042

lunae latebrae v 751

luridns, luror iv 332

lustris perire iv 1136

lustrum condere ili 1092

lychini=)vyxvoe (Υ 295); Υ 295

machina mundi v 96

mactabilis vi 805

mactatu i 99

mactus partic. of macére Υ 1339

madeo iv 792

maeror = dolor iii 908

magis = potius 1 612

Magneta vi 908; Magnetum vi goo

maguus 111 962; Magnum mare 11] 1029;
Vi 615; Magnos annos i 1029; V 6443
magna mater li 598; magnis motibus
iv 101!

male habere iii 826

mali moles ili 1056

mammosa ab Iaecho iv 1168

mancipio=xrjcec )( usu=xpyoet ill g7:

mandare malis ii 637

maneo=sum 11 843, ΥἹ 1274

Manilius 1 163; amended v 487

manner of Roman worship v 1198 1199;
Vi 381

manni 111 1063

mansuesco act. v 1368

manu ducere ii 869; conferre iv 843;
manuum labores ii 1163; manibus i
209; manus dedére 11 1043

manuscripts of Luer. vol. 1p. 1-3; 22—
30; ms. of Modius p. 24; of Victorius p.
25; lost archetype of all existing mss.
p. 26-—28; mutilations in it (i 1094—
1101; Vi 840); pages in it inverted (iv
299—347)

mare abl. i 161; mare avidum i 1031;
mare magnum 111

Marullus vol.1 Ὁ. 6—14; and Avancius Ὁ.
9—13; (il 422); and Pontanus p. 6,
11—13; and Gifanius (i 806; iig; 125;
593 and 6073; ili 994)

materies 1 55

meatus 1 128; v 76; 193

μέγας μεγαλωστί of Hom. imitated i 741

medius with gen. v 689

414

Meliboea ii sco

melichrus iv 1160

melting of leaden missiles in their course
vi 178; 306

membra domus vi 804; membris 111 127 ;
117

meminere fugai iv 713

meminisse = memoria iv 765

Memmiadae 1 26

Memmius vol. 11 p. 30 31 32; Lucr. seems
to distrust him i 103 ; ad:lresses him in
the tone of a master ii 66

mens animi iii 615; mente animoque 1
71 ἶ

merso V 1008; V1 117

metae solis v 689

metaphor, military, vi 32; 571

metuo: etmetuunt !=et dubitant ! vi 565;
metntus V 1140

milia, not millia 1 313

minantur se colligere i 722

minimum τε ἐλάχιστον of Epicurus vol. 11
Ῥ. 78—83; 1 602; 11 244

ministras manus iv 830

minuant mirarier il 1029

mirando iv 419

mirrors, reflexion from concave, iv 317

misceo, gov. dat. 11] 234

γ 5616 aegreque est ili 862

miseret personal iii 881

misero misere ili 898; miserl=dvcépwres
iv 1076

mitrae iv 1129

mitto=omitto iv 471

mobilis, mobilitas, ete. ii 65

moderanter ii 1096

modo of pres. or fut. time 11 1135; modG,
ib.

moenera 1 29

moenia mundi 1 73

moerorum i 29; IV 220

moles v 436; moles mali iii 1036

Moliére imitates Lucr. iv 1160

mohmen iv 902

molirt arva V 934

mollia bracchia iv 790; molles undae ii
375

momen = ῥοπή 1 4353 il 220

monimenta virum vi 242

mora V1 453

a pg Pe π΄“... ὁ -ὦὃὦ'ἪἝἪἝ. ..-΄ὋὃὮἝὋἝ“ἽἝ“Ἕ“ὦὋἝ;!Ἕ."Ἕ;..--ΦΣ.0.----᾿ὁ.,.. ἑτἘ - - ὠΝ τ - « Τ-ς-----ς-.--ς---ς--ςς-----.-.-ς-ς-.--ς-ςς.ςς-

INDEX

morari aliquem in promissis v 91; vi 245

morbus dentium iii 689

moribundus 111 129

mortalia saecla v 805

morte, in, 111 880

morte obita i 135

morti damnatus vi 1232

mortifer aestus vi 1138

motus moventur iii 569

movere, nent. v1 595

mulceo iv 138

multangulus iv 654

multesimus vi 651

multigena ii 335

multimodis adv.=multis modis i 683

multiplex -- πολλαπλάσιος ii 163

multis partibus i 735

mundus, 3 divisions of, i 2 foll., iii 842,
Υ 08

munire ab iii 820

munita viai=munita via ili 498

muralis corona ii 606

musaea li 412

musso Vi 1179

mutare=dyelBew iv 459; mutor i 1024;
mutare inter se 1 787; m. neut. v 588

mutua (adverb) 1i 76

muitus Vv 1088

n marking a lengthened vowel vi 810

Naevius’ epitaph for himself vol. 1 p. 32

nam, enim, namque in consecutive sen-
tences i 217

nardi flos ii 848

nasi acumen Vi 1193

natura rerum 1 25; natura aquae =aqua
i251; natura, redundant 1 7103; οὔτ;
ii 646; natura gubernans v 77; na-
tura i118; natura )( divinitus ii 1058

Naugerius vol. 1 p. 14

naviter 1 525

ne followed by nec or neque v 8go; nee,
neqne=non in old Latin ii 23

nec prorsuim=omuino non i 748

necessum ii 289; necessust, etc. ii 710;
necessis genit. vi 815

necne in direct interr. iii 713

neglego, not negligo 1 216

nemo and other negatives, affirmative
understood out of, ii 1038

INDEX 415

nemora iv 41

Neptunus ii 652

neque, nec uter iv 1217; Vv 839; neque,
HeG—NON ii 23; V1 1214; nequeesse Vv
801; neque, nec autem iv 152; neque
opinantis v 777

nequiquam quoniam iv 1133

neut. plur. referring to 2 subst. of diff.
gender (iii 66); iii 136; 558; iv 1199

nexilis vestis Vv 1350

ni, nive=ne, neve ii 734

Niccoli, Nicolo, vol. 1 p. 2 3

nictantia fulgura vi 182

nidor 11 683; iv 684

nigrare ‘to be black’ ii 733

nigras mactant pecudes iii 52

nil always monosyl. in Luer. i 150; ex
nilo nil ib.

nil ad nos ii 830

nimio plus v 988

nimirum, derivation and usage in Lucr.
1277

ningunt, of flowers 11 627

nisi, tamen=si non, t. i 1012; V1 501

niti, of birds on the wing vi 836

nitidae fruges i 252

nitor=color il 777

nixor iii 1000; vi 836

noctis signa severa v 1190

noctivagus V 1191

nodus anni v 687; nodus, of ice vi 878

noenu iil 199

nomen amoris iv 1058

nominative plur. in -is, vol. 1 p. 35;
1 808; vi 221; nominative in dependent
clause instead of another case iii 456;
out of the constr. 1 455 456; in -el
il 97

nominitare vi 374

non-wedium, non-sensu, etc. 1 1075

non modo,...quoque iv 507

non quo, sed quia ii 336

non tam, sed magis ili 613

non temere ulla v 117

notantes V 121

notho lumine v 578

notities=mpddr\yn ys V 1823 V 1047

nulla =nullae res i 242

nullum foreti 427; nullus=omnino non

1377

hnumeu = nutus (ii 632); ii 632: comp. iii
144

numero esse Υ δι; Numerum, in and
extra, 11 631, V Igor; numerus ‘a
quantity’ i 436

nunc, at nung, etc. i 169

nuntia, plur. iv 704

nurui V 1010

nympharum silvestria templa v 948

obducta sentibus v 207

obiectum parmai iv 847

obit, perf. before a consonant (iii 1042);
111 1042

obrutesco 111 545

obscurus=6 σκοτεινός, of Heraclitus 1 639

obsignatum li 581

obstruere Υ 754

obversari ad iv 1062

obversus ii 807

occurrent praeripere iii 895

oculos tollere 1 66

offensu, est in 111 g41

officior, ii 156

olim, ut, ubi vi 148

ollis iv 719

omission of antecedent i 883

omne, omne quod est, vol. 11 p. 105 τοῦ;
1958

omne genus i τού; omnibus rebus ii 175

omnimodis adv.=omnibus modis i 683

omniparens terra ii 706; V 259

omnis=omnino i 377; ii 53

opacus iv 575

opella i 1114

opinatus animi iv 465

oportet (1 778); 1778

oportunus 111 545

oppilo vi 725

optineat iugera 111 989

opus ad li 20

opus sunt iv 1268

ora, vague use of, iii 913; ‘craters’
vi 702

orae luminis 1 22: orae iv 166

oratio recta for obliqua i 1059

orbis signifer v 691

ordia prima iv 28

ore foras Vv go6

origin of speech v 1028

416

driundi trisyl. ii ΟΟΙ

ornatus omnibus rebus 1 27

orthography, vol. 1 p. 30 —37 ; (14653 7443
111 ili 432; ἵν 727; 1130); 1312;
4773 11141; 3013 402; 430; 467; 829;
Bel; 113531111135 160; 545; 5905 711:
162l; 1044; 1¥220; 727; 1126; 1100;
τι 12503 V 591: 6835 711: aie.
νἱ 92; (97

osculum ‘mouth’ iv 1081

Ovid imitates Lucr. 11 355—359; V 1012

pabula viva v 99!

Pacuvius paraphrased v 318—323; a-
mended 1 882

paedore horrida vi 1270

palam est ii 568; palam dedit 11] 355

παλιγγενεσία 111 847

Palladium iv 1161

pallores iv 336

panaces plur. of panax iv 124

pandere palmas v 1200; p. agros v 1248

panegyrics of Athens vi 1

pangere 1 25

pangs of guilt iii 1018

paragraphs imperfectly connected with
what precedes and follows 1] 165—183;
1V 129—142; 706—721; 777—817; 823
—857; 858—877; V 110-234; 509—
533; 10gI—I1160; Vi 1225; 1247—
12513 not finished iv 37; 218; v 82—
go; 187—191 ; 419—4313; Vi 58—66

parentheses in Lucr. iii 7903; vi 1022

pars=dimidia pars i617; 11 200; parte,
ex parte (1 843),1843; partibus egregie
multis, ete. i 735; plus parte ii 200;
non minimam partem, etc. ili 64; in
parte v 7343; divisis caeli partibus vi
86; quadam de parte vi 604; partim,
parti i ri11; vi 88; partim, adv. =ali-
qui V 11433 Vl 1172

participle, more than one, in same sen-
tence (Υ 692 693), V 692, vi 908, 1141,
1180; partic. pass. from neut. verbs ii
156, 363, 111 772, V1 491; partic., com-
parative of, ili 397; iv 961; abl. of, in
-i v 664; part. act. pres. used as neut,
Υ 931

participor with abl. 111 688

partim accus. 1 1111

INDEX

partim adv. v 1143

partitive gen. after quod iv 372

partus, of the Trojan horse i 476

parvissimus i 615

parum multa ii 336

parvola simulacra iv 193

pasco visus, oculos i 36; ii 419; pasco, of
stars 1 1090

pascua adj. v 1248

patres in the theatre iv 79

pausa i 747

pax divom v 1229; paces V 1230; pax Vl
13

pects 14135-7341; va

pecudes alias, a grecism i 1163 ef. ili
ότι

pede, of water, v 272

pedetemptim v 533

pelage v 35

pellacia 11 559

pello, of the sun, vi 237

penes li 1010

penetralis = penetrabilis 1 494; ‘inner-
most’ 1 1105

penetratus iv 1246; penetrabat eos v
1262; penitus penetrare vi 698

pennatus v 738

penuria 1110

per se i 41g; per se sibi 1 506

pereiplo iv 729

perculsus i 13

percurro, absol. vi 324

pereutit animum ii 886

perdelirus 1 692

perdulcis iv 635

peremo 1 216

perfect in -at for -avit, 1 70; ili 1042;
contracted forms of perf. inf. and plup.
subj. 1. 233; it, obit, ete. before con-
sonant ili 1042; € in penult. of 3rd
pers. plur. 1 406

perfica = perfectrix ii 1116

perforare v 1268

perfunctus praemia iii 956

perhilum vi 576

permananter vi 916

permanare diff. from penetrare iv 198

permaneo, of body and soul i 122

permitialis 1 451

permities distinct from pernicies 1 451

INDEX

permitti iv 688

pernice 11 635

pernicie, sine, 11 412

perolere vi 1155

perpetuum, in, iv 427; perpetuo aevo Vv
161

perplexus, etc. of atoms 11 102; of pores
(iv 621)

persectari li 165

persentis iv 25

personal pass. of verbs governing dat. in
active 11 156

pertundere v 1268

pertusum vas iii 936

pervadere ad i 555

pervigili causa vi 754

pessuli 11 450

pestilitas vi 1098

petesso 11 648

petis ac vis iv 1152

Phaethon v 400

Phrygian worship of Cybele ii 611

pigrare i 410

pigris balantibus vi 1132

pingue, subst. 1 257

pio nequaquam bello v 381

pius and prius confused (vi 1279)

Pius vol. 1 p. 4 5

pix iii 1017

placatus ig

plagae, of atoms ii 1112

plague of Athens vi 1138

plenus vitae ili 938

plerumque omnes iv 1049

plicari iv 828; plicatus vi 1087

Pliny quotes Lucr. i 139

pluit in terris vi 630

plus parte ii 200

poena, not paena, (iii 1014)

poenarum solvendi v 1225

poeniceus i 29; ii 829

Poggio vol. 1 Ὁ. 2 3

poisoning relations v 1010

poisonous exhalations from trees and
flowers vi 781

Politian vol. 1p. 8; and Junt. ed. p. 8;
(i 15; ii 1166)

pondus ‘equilibrium’ (vi 574); vi 574;
ponderibus propriis ii 218

Pontus v 507

M. II.

417

| populus suorum vi 1247; populi, gentes,

reges V 1222

| pos=post (iv 1252); iv 1186

poscaenia iv 1186

posset possent etc. for possit possint
(i 207; 356; 593 and 597); possum
i 400; possint, queant, etc. =indic.
i 808; ii 922

possido i 386

post inde, deinde, hinc iii 529; vi 763

postes 111 369

postus, dispostus, etc. vi 965; posto cor-
pore iii 892

pote ii 1 and 5

potential ii 992; 2nd pers. sing. =indic.
1. 227; 1 4; 30; 411, 85) ιν τ:
1061; 111 948

potesse etc. 1 665

potestas rationis, nostra, etc. li 53; in
periphr. v 1242; potestatis accus. yl.
Pp. 35

potestur 1 1045

potior with accus. ii 659; 111 956; iv 760;
of an evil iv 766; potiri rerum, rerum
potentes ii 13

potissimus iii 780

potissit 1 665

potius, sive adeo, sive etiam, atque etiam
i 1019; potius quam gov. the subj. vi
1286

praecipere vi 1050

praeclusit 1 3213; Vv 373

praemetuenter iv 824

praemetuo with dat. 111 1019

praenuntius pennatus Veneris v 737

praepandere 1 144

praescribta vi 92

praeter eat ii 342

predic. dat.i 759; iv 1019; Υ 875; ΥἹ 771

prepositions, two in same clause, i 412;
vi 1022; separated from verb i 452;
follow their cases i841; gov. by subst.
ii 51; after case and before gen. 11]
140

pres. subj. in protasis, answered by an
imperf. v 276

presteres Vi 423

prima vivorum 1 86; prima ii 313; pri-
mis in animalibus=primum in a. ii
1080

Zi

418

primigenus ii 1106

primordia i 55

primoris nasi v1 1193

primus quisque, primum quicquid i 389;
primum without deinde, etc. i 161;
prima potissimaque 111 780

principialis v 246

principium in sing. (i 834); principio 1]
937; principiorum iii 262

privatus=expers 11 649

privus=singulus 11] 372

probeo, for prohibeo i 977

procella and tempestas differ vi 259; and
turbo Vi 447

proclive and proclivi li 455

procudo li 1115

procul est ut iv 856

procumbere v 1200; of the wind i 291;
vi 558

procurro i 969

proditus ii 933; vi 563

proelia pugnas without copula ii 118;
p. obire iv 967

profudit iv 757; profusus vi 744

profundus i 957; profundi, subst.1 1602

proiectus ‘castaway’ Υ 222

prolapsus, vi 574

prolatare i 983

promissa iv 681

pronoun poss. and adjective together i
413,1V 394; relative omitted or changed
to demonstr. 1 718, v 898, Vi 52, 1040;
has a genit. anteced. understood 1883;
dat. by attraction 1 944; agrees with
subst. in same clause 111 94; quorum
with iunctura haec for antec. vi 1084;
quod eius iv 372; quoi and qui iv 50

propago v 1027; catulorum iv 998

prope vi 403

prépello iv 194; vi 1027

Propertius amended ii 635; iv 39

proporro Vv 313

proprie esse 1 781

propritim ii 975

proprium iii 357; proprio amore iv 1141

proquam ii 1137

prospectus vi 450

prosum, introsum, rusum 111 45

protelo ii 531

protollo v 309

ce peer

INDEX

protraxe V 1150

proveho v 1434

proverbs ii 1; 886; ili 842; 10463 1048;
1085; iv 126; 11433 Υἱ 1270

provomo Vi 447

prudens iii 762

pugno id v 729

pulli v 1364

puncto tempore 11 263

purgatum pectus Υ 43; comp. vi 24

puri iv 1026

putare indigna vi 69

putesco and putresco confused (iii 871)

putor ii 872

pyropus 11 803

pythagoreans alluded to iii 677

qua re ii g60

quaedam omitted iv 518

quaerere ‘to be at a loss’ i 332

quaesit V 1229

quam, exclamatory 11 1038; quam quoque
magis 111 700; vi 460; quam ante,
prius, 111 358; 973; iv 884

quamde=quam i 640

quamvis, indic. after, ili 403

quando = quandoquidem i 188

quantity, variation of, in the same words
i 360; ii 452; 111 504; 1v 1259; Vv 856;
é in penult. of perf. ind. i 406

quantus quantus v 584

qua re il ούο

quare=ut ob eam rem v 873

quare in direct questions v 221

quasi si iv 1014; quasi=ut, vi 877

quatenus = quandoquidem ii 927

que annexed to -ὅ 1666; for a disjunctive
part. 11 823; iv 518; ¥ 083: 11} 5
114; in 3rd place ii 1050; following et
ii 1070; followed by atque v 31

queatur 1 1045

quem = quemcumque i 966

querella, not querela 1 39

qui=quibus v 233; =ullus v 362; =quo
i 700

quicquam quicque quicquid withe,i 22 23

quicquid = quicque i 289

quicumque ii 21; quode. hoc aevi li 16

quid respondemus? iii 950; vi 1106

quidquid, quicquid (v 1252); i 22

INDEX

quietes ‘restingplaces ’ i 405

quietus v 168

quin with indic. i 588; quin constituas 1
798; quin ipso=quinetiam ii 799

quinque sexve iv 303

quique ablat. ii 373

quisquam, as adject. i 1077; of inanimate
things iv 689

quisque (i 578); primus quisque 1 389;
qnodque cacumen=cuiusque i 599;
quaequei 578; corpore quoque iv 1032 ;
quique suo genere ii 372; nec quae-
que=nec altera iii 333; quaeque plur.
with a gen. iv 1005

quod contra, quoniam, si, nisi, ni, nunc
quia, circa, etc. i 82; quod nunc i
221; quod genusii 194; =quoad ii 248;
quod dicunt, dico, aiunt, ete. i 1053;
iii 7543 quod superest i 50; quod conj.
iv 750; denotes effect, not cause iv 885;
vi 740; in illustrations iii 208; vi 250;
335

quodvis ii 371

quom interea iv 1205

quoniam, quare etc. out of place iv 752

quone ?= quante iv 206

quoque etiam iii 208

quoque out of place iv 532; V 192; Vi
4745 5775 905

rabies genit. iv 1083

radii ‘shuttles’ v 1353

rapax, of rivers 1 17

rareque facit vi 233

ratio 151; 148

rebus relictis iii 1071

reccido 1 228

recello vi 573

reconfiarl iv 927

rectum =recte li 217; recta regione li 249

reddi=ratio reddi i 566; redditus ii 96;
reddere=dare ii 228; redditur v 258;
reddita referring to 2 masculines 11 681

redduco i 228

redhalo vi 523

redigor, ut cet. i 553

refert victor 1 75

réfert conveniant seems not Latin (iii
868; iv 1259); réfert personal iv 984

reflexit etc. neut. ili 502

419

regere imperio res V 1130

regione, e, iv 374; Vi 344; recta reg. ii
249

rei, quantity of, 1 688

reicit or reiécit, not relicit, 1 34; ii 951

relicuus always 4 syll. in Lucr. i 560

religio, not relligio, 1 63; religiones, its
meaning, 1 109

relinquere ‘to concede’ 1 515; V 1239;
with infin. ili 40

rellatus and relatus ii 1001

rellictus iv 761

remensus pass. li 416

remig’ oblitae vi 743

remigium pennarum vi 743

remissa membra v 852

remordeo iii 827

renuto iv 600

reparare ‘to produce anew’ i 547

reparco = parco i 667

repenti v 400

repetam followed by infin. i 418; vi 936

repetentia nostri 111 851

repetere used absolutely 1 782

repetition of 25 vss. iv I

repetunt =iterant iv 701

repraehendere iii 583; 859; vi 569

reptare, of sheep feeding ii 318

repugno iv 1088

res i125; rerum natura i 25; de rer. nat.
ib.; rerum primordia, corpora, semina
i 55; res=imagines i 132, iv 167; hac
re i172; res gero i 328; res in an un-
usual sense i 419, ii 1018; repeated i
813—816; rei, quantity of, i 688, iii
918; rerum summa i 1008; rebus re-
lictis 111 1071; res redibat v 1141; res
subita vi 1282; pro re vi 1281; inter-
changes with neuters i 57; ii 897; iii
184

reseratus, of a winditrt

residere ii 1010

resolvo v 773; ressolui (vi 46); vi 46

respecto V 975

respiro vi 568

respuere ictus v 352

restare =resistere i 110

restat with infin. i 1005

restincxit 111 1044

restrictus v 1064

420

retentant=retinent ii 729

retroabditaiv 607; retro volventem vi381

reverto=revertor iil 1061

revictus Vv 409

revisere ad ii 359; v 636

revocare ad ν 255

rhyming vss. Iv 978—981

rhythm or sound answering sense 111 527;
iyest; 7 ¥ 508; Vl 119

rictum v 1064; vi 1195

rideo, of the sea, 1 8

rigidae umbrae v 764

rigo metaphorical 11 262; iv 203

rigor auri1 492

robur ‘dungeon’ ili 1017; robora saxi1i
882; robora ferri 11 449

Romans, knowledge of Greek among, vi
1239

Romans prayed with covered, Greeks with
uncovered head v 1198

ros i 496; ros salis iv 438

rota solis v 432

ruit ‘whelms’ i 272; ‘heaps up’ vi 726

rumpere pectora ill 297

s dropped in verse 1 186

saccatus umor iv 1028

sacer ignis v1 660

saecla 120; 202

saepe V 1231; Vi 714

sagax 150; 402

sal merum iv 1162

salso, in, v 1080

saltus v 41

Samothracia ferrea vi 1044

sancitus 1 587

sanguis (i 853); iv 1050; sanguine sudo
V 1131; sanguen i 837

sanies=ixwp i 866

sapientia ‘ philosophy’ v 10

satiare vi 858

satias subst. 11 1038

satis causa 1 241

86, sp, st, etc. preceded by a short vowel
lv 772

Scaptensula vi 81o

scatére v 40; With gen. ib. and vi 891

scilicet with constr. of scire licet i 210

Scipiadas iii 1034; why called fulmen
belli, ib.

INDEX

SCrupOSUS lV 523

scrupus vi §50

Seylla 11 704; comp. v 893

scymni v 1036

se, alium, iii 885

seasons, description of, v 737

secretus with gen. ii 843; with abl.i 194

sed magis= potius i 612

sed omitted iv 505

sedatum ii 462

seminium leonum= leones iii 741

semper florens i 124; s. with substan-
tives, ib.

senators’ seats in theatres iv 79

Seneca alludes to Luer. ili 977; 1068;
criticises him 11 55 56

senectus, partic. ili 772

senses, certainty of, iv 46g—5321

sensibile tempus iv 775

sensiferus 111 240

sententia, periphrastic use of, iii 371

sentisco ili 393

seorsum with abl. ili 564; sedrsum, seor-
sum, sorsum, etc. 11] 631

sequax 111 315

sequi= ζητεῖν 1156; ‘to press an argu-
ment’ i 980, 1i 983; 111930; with infiu.
V 529

séra li 450

serebant vulnera v 1290

serta lv 1132; 1178

seu, SIVe 1955, 1019, V1 1003; sive adeo
potius, etiam potius 1 1019

severus iv 460; V 1190

shapes in clouds iv 138

si abruptly beginning a sentence ii 80; si
credis 1 1057; iv 366; si forte, paren-
thet. v 720; si iam, in assumptions
for the sake of argument i 968; sinon,
ellipt., i176; si with simplefut.ir114;
si, si, si=sive, sive, sive iv 783

sibi per se i 506

sic=talis 11 gor; =sicut erant v 970

Sicyonia iv 1125

Sidon, earthquake at, vi 585

signifer orbis v 691

silani vi 1264

silena iv 1169

silices ‘paving stones’ 1 571; ii 449

silvae V 41

silvestris musa iv 589
silvifragus 1 275 |
similare = similis esse 1 687
simile est ut cum, quasi cum, 11 272; |
similis with gen. and dat. iv 1211
simplice, rare form of abl. 1 1013
simulacra belli ‘a sham fight’ ii 41; si-
mulacra = εἴδωλα iv 30
simulatus=similis i 687
sincerum sonere ili 873; sincerus ‘un-
tainted’ 111 717 |
singlariter (vi 1067); vi 1067
SiS =suis 11] 1025
size of moon V 575
solacia somni Υ 1405
soles vi 1219; Solis anni i 311
solidus )( rarus 1 346
solis rota v 432
solium vi 800
sollicitus epithet of motus i 343; Υ 1214
solstitialis v 617
solvendi poenarum Υ 1225
solvo, of union of atoms 1 1108
somnis, in, lii 431
sonere iii 156
‘sonitus, of thunder ii 1100
sonora pelage v 35
sopitus, of war 1 30
sortes, method of divination iv 1239
species i 148; 321; ad speciem ill 214;
iv 236; V 707
spirans bellum v 392
spissescere vi 176
sponte sua li 1092
spurcitia Vv 47
squamigeri i 162; 372
st often transposed in our mss. (ii 275;
01 674; 680; iv 783; Υ 227;
1198)
stacta 11 847
statues, custom of kissing, i 316
stellas et sidera 11 209
sterilus 1 340; 11 845
stilicidium, not stillic. 1 313
stillavit gutta iv 1060
stinguere i 486
stipari=ouumircta bat 1 329
sto=sum ii 181; vi 1058
stoics pointed at by Lucr. 1 430—¥480;
459 foll.; 465; vol. 11 p. 83 foll.; i782—

421

802; 1052—1082; 1083—1113; ii 652;
111 307—322; IV 823—S57; v116; 136;
193—199; 793; Called stolidi i 641;
1068; agree with Epic. Υ 470

stringor subst. ili 689

studio devinctus iv 962

suiadent iv 1157

suapte, Vi 735

suavidicus iv 180

sub 111 421; with gemyor aec. iv 545;
783; vi 413; sub signis v 999

subare iv 1 ™99

subiectus pedibus i 78

subitam = quae subiit ii 363

subiunctis suppositisque vi 543

sublimus i 340

suboles virum iv 1232

suboriri Vv 303

subortus Vv 303

subruo iv 866

substantive in appos. with sentence vi
392

subtexo v 466

sttbus, not suibus, in Luer. (Υ 970)

succipio iv 1250

succisus ‘hamstrung’ v 1332

succurro =succedo v 765

sudor salsus v 487

suésco suémus suétus etc. or suesco etc.
i 60; suesco and compounds active iv
1282

suffire ii 1098

suffugit, aorist force of, v 150

suffulcio iv 867

suicide condemned by Epicurus iii 81

ocuuBeBnkdra=ovuTrwpara i 449

summa 11 305; summa rerum 1 1008;
summa omnis, loci, etc. ib.; summa-
rum summa Vv 261

Summania templa v 521

summatus V 1142

summissus 192; 1033; summittuntur iv
953

summum bonum vi 26

suo monosyll, 1 1022; Υ 420

super =insuper 1 65; 649

superantior v 394

superare = superesse i 579

superat perf. v 396

superne li 1153

422

suppedito, constr. of, i 230; vix arvis sup-
peditati ii 1162

suppus=supinus i ro6r

surpere ll 314

suspensus iii 196; v 1069

συστάσεις 1V 129—1423 736

5115, not referring to subject of sentence
V 404; 5.86 sedes ‘equilibrium’ vi 574;
ΘΟ MONOS., 515, 1 1022; sua sponte 11
1092

swans of Helicon iv 547

-t for -d, 1672

tabé i 806

tabificus vi 737

taciturna silentia iv 583

tacitus=tecum Vv 1091

tactu dat. 11 408; tactus uterque=tactus
utriusque 11 433

tactus=tinctus 11 501

taeter 1936; ili 596

tama (iv 953)

tamen, et tamen, i 1050; Υ 1177; cum
t.1 566; ii 29; 859; iv 106; tamen ii
859; 111 553; ἵν 052; Vi 680; non ta-
men ii 371

tandem, in peculiar sense iii 793

Tantalus’ punishment iii g8o

tanto quique magis 111 700

tantum quad ii 220

Tartara leti iii 42

tautologies 1 233; 2753 2933 3433 5573
1 2; 271: 1201; 767; c024e2-.
1060; 111 398; 801; 827; iv 274;
3403 4515 4533 556; 583; 766; V5;
314; 522; ὅσ᾽; 1025; 1073; 1147;
Vi 533 538; 653

tegmen caeli i 992

temere incassum frustra ii 1060

tempestates adsunt 1 178

templa i 120; iv 6243; V 1033; 948; 1188;
templum versatile v 1436

temples struck by thunder 11 1101; Vi
417

tempore puncto 11 263 ; tempora rerum v
1276; tempora caeli ‘seasons’ i 1066

temptare ‘to assail’ (of disease) 1 530;
vi 1104; 1116

tendo oculos iv 325; t. cursum v 631

INDEX

teneo ne i 1009; teneo nent. vi 519;
pocula vi 930 ; teneo=iutellego li 1173;
v1 83

tener, epithet of air 1 207

tenuis iv 63

tenus with gen. 1 940

terebrare, pertundere, perforare v 1268

teres 1 35

terminus i 77; termini worshipped v
1109

terms common to marriage and sacrifice
1 87—101

tero iv 361

terra, use of plur. of, by Lucr.1 3; pluit
in terris vi 630

terriloquus i 103

tetulerunt vi 672

texta partic. vi 351

thalassinus iv 1127

theatra iv 81

Thessalian purple li sor

threefold division of the world v 93

Thucydides misrepresented vi 1141—
11433 1151; 1158, 11593; 1197; 1202—
12043 1209; 12353 1230

tibi, ethical dative i 787

tibia iv 585

time, Stoic view of, i 459

timens mortis vi 1240

titillo=-yapyadl{w, epicurean ili 429

title of the poem i 25 ι

tmesis 1 452

tollo oculos i 66

tonitrum=f8povr7 vi 160; plur. of, vi
164

Tonson, his edition of Lucr. vol.1 p. 17

torch-race, metaphor of, ii 79

tornus iv 361

torvus, of sound, vi 131

totum = prorsus i 377; totus adverbially
used ibid.

tdétus quotus vi 652

tractari 111 889

trahere neut. i 3973 V1 5953 1190

trahit fastigia iv 429

tramite parvo Vi 27

tranquillum ‘a calm’ v 12

transactis rebus iv 1035

transpicere iv 271

transpositions in mss. of Lucr. vol. I p.29

INDEX

30; vol. 1 p. 108; ii 658—660; iv
1225—1228

tremere, of the stars 1 1089

tremibundus spelt with i, i 9

tripectorus v 28

tripod i 739

triquetrus, of Sicily 1 717

tristis= amarus i 944

trocleae iv gos

Troiianis, Troiiugenas (i 465)

tuditantia ii 1146

tum deinde v 1007

tunc before a consonant not Lucretian
i 130

tuor 1 300

turbare neut. 11 126; 438

tutimet or tutemet 1 102

tympana ‘tambourines’ ii 618; ‘tread-
wheels’ iv 905

Tyndall quoted i 150

Tyrrhena carmina vi 381

v in alliteration vol. 11 p. 153 V 993

vaccillans, spelling and derivation of, 11]
504

vacuare Vi 1025

vacnas auris 1 50

vada leti v 1232

vagor (subst.) i1 576

vagus lv 1071

vapor ‘heat’ always in Luer. ii 150

vaporo V 1127

vapos vi 952

variantia (subst.) 1 653

variare neut. 111 373

varius ‘of different kinds’ i 589; v 825

vas, of the body iii 440; vas sincerum vi
17

vasta Charybdis i 722; v. vulnera v
1290

vates, term of contempt 1 102

ve=que i 56; Vi 533

vegeat V 532

velatus v 1198; velo and velamen, of
chaplets, etc. 1 930; IV 587

velis ventoque iv 896

vemens, vementer, not vehem. (ii 1024)

venio with accus. vi 742

Venus distinguished from amor or cupido
Iv 1058

a a -

423

vepres femin. iv 62

verbera, of the sun’s rays v 485

verbo=iussu iv 785

vermina V 997

vero=vere Vi 971

vertere=evertere 1 105; neut. 1V 1130;
vertier ad lapidem v 1199; versa in
obprobrium v 1294

verutum iv 409

vesci=frui v 72

vescus both act. and pass. i 326; 11 460

vestigia pono ili 4

vestis, of puberty v 673

veterinus v 865

vexamen Υ 340

Victorius, vol. 1 p. 11 12

victum vitamque v 804

videlicet with constr. of videre licet i 210

video conloquium iv 598; videor i 224;
270; V1 977; fertur esse videri vi 756;
videri=cerni i 270

viduata manuum v 840

viétus 11 1171

vigiles v 1408

vincere verbis V 735

vincere saecla vivendo i 202; 111 948

violo fidem iv 463

Virgil, does he allude to Luer. in geor.
ii 490? 178; imitates words with dif-
ferent meaning i 253; 111 893; vi 626;
700; imitations of Luer. in znd geor.
111 449; imitates rhythm i 253; Υ 202;
V1 1140

virus ‘brine of the sea’ li 476; ‘pungent
fumes’ 11 853; vi 805

vis, plur., ii 586; periphrastic use of, ili
296; iv 681; vis abdita quaedam v 1233

viscus ‘flesh’ i 837; viscera viva V 993

viso, reviso ad ii 359

vitai claustra i 415; 111 396

vitalia 111 $20

vitigenus V 15

vitrum iv 147

vivesco iv 1068

vivo, vivus, etc. poetically used i 1034;
Υ 476, 538

ultimus proleptic 1 970

umerus, umor, etc. i 307

umor with aquae and other genitives
1 258

424

undique =omnino 11 900
undique vorsum ii 1053

uniter aptus 111 839

unorsum iv 262

unus, plur. of, ii 159; 111 616
vocaret =vacaret 1 520
vociferor 1 732

void, or space, terms for, 1 330
volgivagus iv 1071

volo, with perf. infin. 111 69; vol. se Vv

1120

volucer, of fire i 1102

volvendus v 515; volvunt annos v 644;
auras vi 1228; volventia v 931

voluerunt se claros V 1120

Vossius, Isaac, ms. notes by, vol. 1 p. 25

vota nectere Vv 1202

usus fructus )( mancipium ili 971; quae
and quod foret usus iv 831

usurpare 1 60; ἃ. oculis i 301; ἃ. sensi-
bus iv 975

ut ‘when’ not Lucretian (vi 234); ut
‘where’ vi 550; placed after the verb
it governs 11 547; Vi 496; ut=ut si
vi 1232; uti, concessive li 22; ut,

CAMBRIDGE;

PRINTED BY J. & 6. F, CLAY, AT TILE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

INDEX

ita ut=talis qualis i 442; ii 001;
v 583 |

uteri terram apti v 808

uti mss. wrongly for ut (ii 322; 536)

utgui ἃ 755; ll 17, 4293 eae

utraque iv 86; vi 517; utrumque, ἀμ-
φότερον, iii 658 ; v1 499; uterque tac-
tus=utriusque tactus ii 433

utrimque secus lv 939

vulnus i 34; ii 639; Iv 1049; V 1197;
vulnera vasta Vv 1290

vulta iv 1213

Wakefield vol. 1 p. 19 20

wild beasts in ancient times v 39

words transferred from the leading to a
dependent clause 1 15, 1V 397, V 853;
out of usual order ii 250, iii 196, 261,
843, 1V 193, 905, 1010, V 1414, Vi 158,
176, 549, 615, 790, 1277

wreathing the door of a mistress iv
OG

Xerxes ili 1029

zmaragdi iv 1125

——. — — a

PA Lucretius Carus, Titus

61,82 Lucreti Cari De rerum
A2 matura libpi sex 4th ed.,
1900b rev.

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